StlRecruiting

Interplay St Louis

The St Louis Blogger's Guild has been hard at work, putting together panels on web technology and social media for their event September 19th and 20th.  Interplay is a mix of music and interactive, and is going to be held in the loop.

Here's a list of some of the panels - which include St Louis Notables like Bill Streeter, Todd Jordan, Matt Homann, and Dana Loesch. 

The conference is here at http://www.playstlfest.com/, but be warned, as every page opens with music.  To cut the music, click on the pause button on the player.

If you are a local blogger, I'd strongly suggest showing up and meeting friends.  One of the best ways to improve your blogging is to take it offline.  And we expect to see a lot of pictures.

Is Social Media Relevant To Recruiting?

I've been writing StlRecruiting.com as a local recruiting blog since 2004, and in that time, the explosion of online recruitment blogs has been a wonder to behold.  It was difficult in the beginning, but as industry conference leaders like ERExpo and Kennedy Expo put us on panels, and with people like John Sumser flogging the ideas, we built a name for blogging in online employment. 

What set that early group of writers apart was our recruiting experience. Jason, Anthony, Animal, Harry, and Dennis were all practicing recruiters who saw a gap in the reporting.  We stepped in, in traditional blogging fashion, and gave our expertise to that niche.

That's the way blogging and social media work.  When an industry fails to accurately provide real-time information to its members, someone steps up and makes a name for themself.  That success led the Recruiting Blogosphere to be an early success story in social media. We were way ahead of corporate America, and ahead of PR, Marketing, Customer Service, while holding our own with IT.

But then something happened.  The community fell apart, as each of us went our separate ways and focused on our own businesses. It was inevitable, but ironically, the success of Recruiting.com led to a devolution in the online recruiting world.  The logical next step was for the national community to splinter off into more local communities, as recruiters focused on hires they could make in their own markets.

That is happening, but it's not getting the attention it deserves.  Rob Neelbauer in D.C., and Paul DeBettignies and gang up in Minneapolis, are doing great things locally.  Jason Davis and his RecruitingBlogs.com lead the way to Recruitfest in Toronto.   The Recruiting Roadshow is a great unconference that takes the message of social networking local.  These are worthy causes, but the majority of the online employment space isn't covering these events.

The purpose of recruiting blogging, which is to hire more people, simply isn't occurring in any meaningful way nationally.  Instead, we have a series of sites competing to be the next Recruiting.com, or ERE.net, or Fordyce Letter.  There's nothing wrong with these sites gaining traction, but they are once again leaving a niche open.  The top blogs and the top websites are now media organs, passing along information about recruiting technology, conferences, and new products. Where are the recruiters?  Where are the people using social media tools to do more HIRING? 

What's the number one complaint of recruiters who aren't in the super secret blogging cabal?

It seems like you guys are just talking to each other. Is anyone doing any real recruiting?

Now I'm not pointing out any motes in your eye.  There's a log in my own the size of, well, it's large, and there's no doubt that I dropped the recruiting mantle for two years to focus on my marketing business.  But since returning, what I see is a lot of people chasing the social media dream, but not a lot of people focused on making social media relevant to the average recruiter.  The ROI of social media should be more hires, better hires, and easier hires.

Nothing else matters to a recruiter.  Friends on Twitter, Facebook profiles, and podcasts should be tools, not destinations.  And so to close the gap, I'm working on a project that will train recruiters on specific social media tools. No fluff. No cool theories.  Just my experience in using social media to recruit.

For all of the us, the task is clear.  If we're going to talk about social media, we need to be involved in helping recruiters hire more people. It's the metric that matters most, more valuable than page views, advertising dollars, and even conference speeches.

What are you doing to help recruiters hire more people?

Extreme Jim Durbin On Recruiting TV

Bill Vick, a true gentleman and a scholar, interviewed me for Extreme Recruiting TV, and the results can be seen here.  I talk about my work in using social media to recruit.

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Just recently, Bill also interviewed Don Breckenridge, President of Sendouts.com, an Applicant Tracking Software System I use which happens to be based out of St Louis.

Engineers Can Sell

Got a nice note and a plug from a blogger looking to build a website for sales engineers.  He wrote some nice things about me after a conversation earlier this year.

And his blog is cool - and targeted.  Engineers Can Sell, by Eric Bono.

When I was pondering starting this blog I talked to as many people as I could. One gentleman that kept coming up as a recommendation was James Durbin of Durbin Media.  I emailed him for a quote on designing and setting up the blog site for me.

We talked on the phone for about an hour and by the end of the conversation James recommended that I take a stab at designing the blog by myself to not only learn the process, but to reduce costs until I was sure that I had a sustainable Web presence - which can take a year to determine. He further offered to have me email him when I had it set up so that he could take a quick peek and offer any suggestions.

One suggestion, Eric - where's your name on the blog?  It's important to let people know who you are.  For more advice on candidate niche blogs, go read Good Product Manager.

Missouri Hotels Job Blog

I like to poke around with Indeed to see what jobs pop up in blogs and social media, and it led me to this delightful niche recruiting site, Don't you need me in your network?.  Sourcing 4 the Hotel is the url for a recruiter for Hewitt Associates who places people at hotels like Marriott and Residence Inn, and one of those metro areas is St Louis.

That's awesome.  The site has been active since October 2007, and I can only hope that the recruiter is making huge bucks off of it.

It's simple, but it's all you need.  Sometimes, simple is enough

More Webinars Coming Up

I've just set up Online Recruiting Webinars for May, July and August.  These will be hands-on examples of how to 1) use Facebook to recruit, 2) how to use MySpace to Recruit, and 3) how to recruit in a specific geographic area using Social Media (I'll cover, blogs, PPC, Twitter, and several other social media softwares).

We're working out prices but these will be 90 minute webinars.  Keep an eye out for them - no theory in these classes. You'll walk away with specific takeaways on how to use these sites to place more candidates.

May 22,July 21, and August 20th are the three dates, I believe.

And if you're looking for a social media recruiter, check out SocialMediaHeadhunter.com

Four Truths About Hiring Social Media Types

Over at SocialMediaHeadhunter, my new recruiting site for hiring social media types, I write about four truths I've picked up if you're looking to hire someone who knows Facebook, Twitter, Bebu, Sphere, etc.

My favorite Truth is #2, and I imagine it will warm the heart of Michael Kelemen, who probably will be the only one to get the joke. It's full of truthiness.

Truth #2:  Most Social Media Types Are Communists

Okay, communists isn't the right term (although it's eye-catching), but if you're looking for someone with social media experience to help you make money, make sure you ask the social media candidate what experience they have in making money with social media.  They may or may not have dollar figures, but if they have never thought about using social media as a tool to make money, they're probably not a good fit.

This isn't to say that there's anything wrong with using social media for fun or to build  up your brand.  It's great for consultants and small businesses who want to improve their online profile. Corporations usually want more, and vague goals like "communicating with your customers" are usually a sign that the candidate is an excellent social networker, but maybe not someone you want running your department. 

You're paying for results.  The right candidate will be able to tell you how to achieve results with social media.

If you're looking for someone to do your Social Media Recruiting, ask the recruiter who knows social media (that's me.)

A Chance To Buy StlRecruiter.com

This site is called StlRecruiting.com.  It's focus is the overall employment and staffing marketplace in St Louis.  What's been interesting is the number of people over the last three years that call this the StlRecruitER blog.  Time and again, people verbally called it stlrecruiter, and then I found out that people were linking stlrecruitER, so I did the obvious.  I went out and bought the domain name.

So now I own StlRecruiting.com and StlRecruiter, and recruiter forwards to recruiting.

I'm going to continue using this blog to help headhunters, staffing firms, and corporations learn how to use social media to hire, but StlRecruiter should be used by someone actively recruiting in St Louis.  If you're interested in purchasing the domain name, or in purchasing it and learning how to make money with it, contact me at jdurbin@durbinmedia.com.

This offer is only open to active recruiters, staffing firms, and company careers sites.  I don't want to sell the site to someone who will put up ads on it or make it a job board.

Screening Your Staffing Agencies

Hiring a staffing agency is easy.  Simply let the market know you have open positions, and account managers from staffing firms will call you to tell you they can fill you jobs with the best people.

Like most corporate decisions, the time-crunched decision maker is forced to rely on salespeople to decide who is the best fit for the company.  That process isn't going to change, but one that might is the questions that staffing firms are asked before they are given open positions.

Rob Neelbauer of Job Matchbox writes on the subject of questioning your staffing firm before giving them open reqs, and as a former recruiter and current hiring manager/owner, he has a unique perspective.

For example, in my recent interviews of recruiters I spoke with recruiters who represented that they knew all about different things in the tech world.  So I asked them questions that were telling.  I asked them if they used Facebook.  If they said no then I asked them if they knew what Web 2.0.  You would not believe what kinds of answers I got back.  My personal favorite has been the recruiter that doesn’t use Facebook but knows how to recruit Facebook developers.  The bottom line here if you don’t ask then you will not receive.

Now to be fair, salespeople don't have to be on Facebook to recruit Facebook developers.  They have recruiters to do that, and the ability to code Facebook Apps can be found by recruiters with no knowledge of the site.  It is possible, but is it likely?  Robert as a business owner has to make a decision whether to use a recruiter. His cost is his time.  Should he give his time away to a salesperson who doesn't even have  a passing acquaintance with the industry Robert works in?

A good recruiter can find anyone, and I don't buy into the idea that you have to know how to code Java to be a good Java recruiter.  But you do have to know something about software development to be able to screen people effectively.  So Robert passed on those recruiters.

The real question is what is the best method for screening recruiters?  What are the criteria for establishing a good relationship with a firm.  My hunch is that our "hunches" about what makes a good recruiter are dead wrong.  I wonder if anyone has done benchmarking on the actual effectiveness of staffing firms.  What make a strong recruiting fit?

Update:  Rob has further thoughts on Q&A for your Staffing firm.

Using Blogs To Hire Wireless Employees

If I told you to imagine a site called Wirelessjobs.com, you'd probably think it was a job board for the Cell Phone industry.

You'd almost be right.  It's actually the blog of Dennis Smith, the favorite of many recruiting bloggers, who writes on the issues of the wireless industry, and by the way posts jobs and hires people from that.

Dennis has a telling interview with Jason Davis where he says he gets several resumes a week off the blog, and has hired two people for his firm since November.

I joined WorldLink in November, and have made two hires from resumes that came to me directly from WirelessJobs.com.

JD:  Are you kidding?

Me:  No.

JD: Geez, that's excellent!  You need to blog about that!

Me:  Yeah, I know...I've been so busy I haven't been able to dedicate much time to the blog.

JD: Wow.  Do you get resumes every day from the site?

Me: Oh yeah. In fact, so many, that lately it's been difficult to connect with all of them as quickly as usual. But I'm not complaining. My primary goal, when I started blogging, was to use the blog as a tool to connect with the people that are important to me - people that are interested in the wireless industry (whether involved in active job search or not).

You can't argue with progress, my friends.

RehabCare Starts Text Messaging Program With Blast Companies

Rehabcare Group has been running a successful college sourcing blog since August of last year.  Under the leadership of Barbara Wallace, the Campus Relations division of Rehabcare posts content relevant to students in school for occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy.

In addition to thousands of unique visitors, the blog also ranks well for terms like tuition reimbursement, the names of therapy exams, and information relating to Rehabcare.  But it isn't enough for this group.  The Campus Relations division does a lot of traveling to college campuses, where they get involved in career fairs and meet students who could become Rehabcare employees. In today's college environment, just about every student has a cellphone, and many of them aren't using e-mail on a regular basis.

Cellphone use is ubiquitous, and college-aged folks are no exception.  6 in 10 out of all college students have a cellphone (versus 8 in 10 in the general population), and they're used to getting text messages.

So Rehabcare teamed with Blast Companies, a local mobile marketing company that manages lists of customers by their phones, e-mails and mobile numbers.  Blast Companies set up an SMS marketing campaign to use with students that Rehabcare Campus Relations team has met in person.  The goal is continued contact with the students, helping manage the Rehabcare employment message in a medium the students are comfortable with.

Sound crazy?  That's because we're old fogies.  College Recruiters have had to adjust, sometimes working directly with texting to set up interviews, share offers, and even accept offers.  The world is changing, and Rehabcare is adjusting to that change with the help of Blast Companies.

And me?  I'm helping both companies in the social media space, so in the realm of disclosure, it's important you know they are both my clients.  Which is why it's so satisfying to see them working together.  Congratulations Chris and Barbara. 

Ever Wonder What I Sound Like?

Karen Mattonen interviewed me for her radio show at Recruiter Life.

It's a full 47 minutes long, but it's a pretty good background on what blogs are, where they came from, and how they can be used.

Sounds like I'm on a treadmill, though.  I need to work on my breath control in audio interviews.

Kevin Wheeler On Candidate-Focused Recruiting Blogs

Kevin Wheeler, who will be returning to St Louis in December, has a column up about the use of blogs to recruit candidates.  He correctly notes that most recruiting and staffing blogs are aimed at other recruiters and HR folks, and not candidates.

I think this is a big blind spot in the industry, but understand it.  Recruiting is almost always local.  If you want a candidate blog, you need a local blog, and the local line recruiter is swamped with too many job orders.  The time and effort to create a local recruiting blog, while I believe it will pay off in terms of placements or hires, is not yet regarded as the best use of time.

That will change, and events like the Recruiting Roadshow as well as blogs like the one you are reading will make a difference, but for the moment, the problem is one of education.

I like recruiting blogs because they helped me think about how I performed in my business.  When I was a recruiter, writing a blog was my way of analyzing what I did and how I did it.  It made me a better recruiter (and salesperson) because I was forced to come up with content regularly, and so I wrote what I knew.  Many companies talk about this, but few actually have the focus to make it happen.  Locally, we can point to EliteItServices and Mike Tiffany of Chameleon IS.  Rehabcare just launched their Campus Relations Blog for occupational and physical therapists.  This blog's sponsor over the last month, COMSYS, is consciously looking to improve their ability to speak to candidates as well.

In the end, it comes down to money.  If you start a blog, will it make you more money or save you more time than your current business practices.  Considering a placement averages $10-$20,000, either in fees for the third party firm or in  savings for an employer, it shouldn't be too difficult to make a case in terms of ROI.

RehabCare College Recruiting Blog

It's not an official launch yet, but I'm bursting with pride with our latest client blog launch, the Rehabcare Campus Relations blog. 

The Campus Relations team at Rehabcare is a sourcing division for Rehabcare, a provider of physical rehabilitation services that hires occupational therapists, speech therapists, and physical therapists nationwide.  It's a tough job - healthcare shortages affect every company, and the lack of graduates often means intense competition for the 19,000 therapy graduates each year.

So when I met Barb Wallace at the Koppen Group back in June, it made sense to talk about how a student relations blog could help them maintain contact with prospective employees.  They are still in the infancy - the beta stage if you will, but I think of you head over there, you'll be more than surprised to see just how well they took to this blogging, Web 2.0 thing.

So be kind - and leave comments, if you would.  And of course link them, especially if you are in the college recruiting, medical, or sourcing space (they do reciprocal links, but only within reason), and  if you want to interview them, or e-mail them, or try something new - they're ready to say hello to the blogopshere.

http://college.rehabcare.com  And yes, it's a Typepad site. All of my sites are, these days.  If you're curious how social marketing media is done -  pop on over to http://durbinmedia.com.

Comsys St Louis Sponsors StlRecruiting.com

Comsys is one of the largest staffing firms in the country.  Their St Louis office, located in Chesterfield, has agreed to become the sponsor for StlRecruiting for the next three months.

What this means is they'll be headlining the advertising there to the left, and they'll have a landing page at http://comsys.stlrecruiting.com, and you'll see some of their jobs posted as in-text ads over the course of their sponsorship.

The objectivity of StlRecruiting will of course remain the same, namely my thoughts and opinions - but if you like the site, and you're looking for an IT position as a contractor or a permanent employee, you should consider clicking on the logo to the left and giving them a call.  They're smart enough to read and advertise on blogs - certainly that shows a better understanding of your world then the recruiter living off the internet job boards.

We'll do some posts, interview of the Comsys recruiters, and on their landing page, they'll post technical expertise from their contractors.  It's a brave new world.    

Don't Manage Your Account, Sell It

Mike Tiffany has a sweet post on the difference between being given an account and actually selling an account. The difference between a manager and a seller is a different battle than the difference between a hunter and a farmer (hunter cold-calls, farmer just sits on accounts), but Mike does the industry a favor in explaining how to get the most out of your accounts, even if you're not the one to break them.

Some essentials:

Managing:
) Am I on a preferred vendor list that my company was on before I was assigned the account?

2) Do I take the job orders and respond with resume from a VMS or email?

Selling:

1) Do I actively influence clients to accept my candidates or projects when they were leaning the other way?

2) Do I push back to get higher rates every time I can?

The issue seems cut and dry, but the truth is that in places like St Louis, where vendor lists are the rage and specific rules prevent you from actually speaking to managers, there are times when even the sharpest salesmen have to learn to accept defeat.

Of course, the way to improve your standing is to have a good mix of accounts.  If your accounts all want you to be managers, consider opening some accounts that allow you to be sellers.

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New Recruiting Blog: PRP Partners

It's always nice to see new faces on the recruiting block, and today my referrer logs sent me over to Peak Performance, the new blog for Paramount Recruiting Partners.

The writing is crisp, the blog well-designed, and they had the good sense to link StlRecruiting.  Moreover, Paramount is a third party firm, which means they are using their blog to make money.

Hello ROI!

Glancing through their site, I also see an interesting proposition.  The fees they charge are based on the time it takes a company to make a decision.

In addition, we offer a fee structure that is unique to the industry. We listened to the complaints from both the employer and the candidate. Our innovative pricing model is our answer to those specific challenges.

In 2006, national rates ranged from 25% - 40%. Our approach is simple. The quicker you make a decision, the lower the rate we charge. You can pay as little as 10% for a successful hire, but no more than 30%.

By encouraging a timely response from the employer (our response to the challenges faced by candidates), we reward them with a lower rate for making a hiring decision sooner rather than later (our response to the challenges faced by employers).

That's an interesting fix to the dilemma of high fees and no responses.  So welcome them, one and all, and good luck PRP.  Keep track of the business you close from the blog.  We expect to hear from you soon.

Mike Tiffany Profiled At Six Degrees From Dave

Mike Tiffany did an interview with Dave Mendoza, and was kind enough to mention my name. Thanks Mike.

Read his post on Blogging As A Recruiting Tool.

There Will Be No Complaining Today

Rob Hubert of Elite IT Services has been taking part in the Complaint Free World project.  What does that mean? It means he wears a purple band on his wrist and he can't complain for 21 days straight.

Sound easy?  It's not.  Every time you complain, you have to start over.  It's actually part of a church's message in Kansas City.  We signed up a couple of months ago, but the church has been overwhelmed since going on the morning talk shows to tell people about their project.

 Says Rob:

I thought to myself that this would be very easy because I don't complain. In fact, in the IT Leadership White Paper that I wrote, one of the leadership tips is Stop Complaining, Criticizing and Condemning. The tip is in reference to how IT Professionals deal with decisions that are out of their control. I have been wearing this bracelet everyday for four straight months and I am a long way from twenty-one consecutive days of no complaints. I have had streaks of five, five, six, eight and ten days without complaining.

In addition to being a good overall project to lower the level of global whining, it's nice to see someone actively bringing faith-based projects into the workplace. 

AdSaint Looking Out For Your Career

The AdSaint, St. Louis's big, bad, adverblogger, has been searching the job boards looking for the right opportunities in advertising and marketing.

What looks like a spiffy new site has been updated, with a new blogger added, and a swarm of advertising jobs from workstl, craiglist, and various specific agencies.  It's a noble effort, and I wonder where Walt's taking it - well, it seems he adding another writer, Maeve Connor, who has helpfully listed the advertising and marketing networking opportunities for St Louis.

It's a good niche to be in right now, and I'm sure that Walt and Maeve are building up to take job opportunities direct from clients. They haven't told me - but I can tell these things.  If they can keep up the posting, they might have a shot at it. 

Although I'd out a link to Brandstorming, the social media and marketing blog that combines with this one to be the best source of news on blogging in St Louis.

And btw - did I mention that we're looking for entry-level social media marketing types to place with clients?  Low pay, but great training - which leads to higher pay. 

Blogging As A Recruiting Tool

The following is a guest post from Mike Tiffany, who write at the St Louis IT Recruiters Idea Exchange.

Two Points:
1)   Recruiting today has really morphed into multiple positions:  Sourcer, relationship builder and maintainer.  Sourcing and maintenance have been greatly assisted by good Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS).
2)   In recruiting, it’s not who you know but who knows you (or can find you), in order to build a large pipeline of candidates.

I believe, a true recruiter’s strength needs to be as a relationship builder with candidates.  This is the skill that is your biggest asset and will be difficult to ship overseas.  This means a recruiter has to be approachable by candidates, and viewed as a subject matter expert in finding the best job for the job seeker.  Blogging fit this bill for me.  I’ve only been blogging for 3 months but have put real billable dollars to the bottom line for my company, Chameleon Integrated Services  in three ways.  Candidates will look up my blog when I send introduction emails, clients have been referred to me from the blog as someone knowing the industry, and other recruiters have contacted me to exchange best practices and splits.

In discussing my experiences and beliefs in recruiting, I am able to communicate how to treat candidates and be more productive as a recruiter.  I have been able to build credibility and trust before I am even approached by candidates and clients.  Last week, I had lunch with a potential client that later sent me an email and had remembered my name because she had read my blog before.

Friend and mentor Jim Durbin of Durbin Media Group has been a real help in getting me going and suggestions for improvement.  I have a bad habit of typing faster then the mind can keep up and my proofing skills have a lot of room for improvement. 

My suggestion for any recruiter thinking about starting a blog is just to close your eyes and jump. You will goof it up!  Don’t worry about it and learn from your mistakes.  Recruiting is going to change greatly in the next 3-5 years as the new era of Web 2.0 grows and your candidates will be there.  If you don’t, I’d be glad to discuss my jobs with your candidates!

StlRecruiting.com Advertising Possibilities

I've had a few requests, so I thought I'd go ahead and put up a rate sheet for advertising on StlRecruiting.com.  The site is a Google Page Rank 5, averaging about a 100 unique visitors a day, 80% of them from Search Engines.  In the last year, we've had almost 45,000 unique visitors come to the site.  Feedburner Subscriptions are at 134, which mostly represent recruiting bloggers from across the country.

First, thank you to all of my readers, and second - if you do want to advertise on this site, here are your options.

1) A banner ad in the top right or left ad space runs $75 a month, and we'll create it.  The ad will replace the GoogleAds on that side, so there will be no visual competition.  A maximum of three banner ads will at any given time.  We also build a landing page if you purchase three months.   
2) A Text Link from the site is $250 a year.  We're a PR5 Site with excellent targeted recruiting searches.
3) In–post text ads (also excellent for SEO) run 5 for $75.   
4) A three month sponsor campaign runs $500 and includes a text link, banner ad,  a landing page on your site and 13 in-post text ads wrapped around content and with the right anchor text.

If you are looking just for SEO,  I have three other sites that are PR4, and the in-post text ads can be run on all four platforms.  (SeattleRecruiting.com, Charlotte Recruiting.com, and KCRecruiting.com).

Local Recruiting Blog Stories

Mike Tiffany is running into some problems with LinkedIn.  He uses his e-mail address in his title as a way to grow his network, and they have put his paid account on restriction because of it. 

Wait, what?  How do you put a paying customer on restriction?  Hmmm - I think I'll cancel my own paid subscription to LinkedIn.  It was a good idea, and I have a large network, but I don't seem to be getting much from it.  It seems more like a popularity contest then a business tool these days.

Rob Hubert covers the Psychology of the Job Interview. Are you playing to win, or not to lose?

Restaurant Recruiters Using PPC

I know you're not supposed to click on your own GoogleAds, but I often do for research.  Today, one of the ads was for a restaurant recruiter.

The Company, Vucurevich/Simons Advisory Group (is everyone a Group these days?), had a nice ad that took me directly to their site, and clearly was aimed at candidates and clients in the restaurant business.  i would have added a landing page - in my view, you're leaving a lot of money on the table if you don't have a landing page, but I was impressed to see them taking advantage of new technologies.  I hope they make placements off the campaign.

But I do have to say - if you're looking for a restaurant recruiter, I still have to go with Carl Chapman, the executive restaurant recruiter blogger.  My loyalty lies with those who have the courage and the widsom to blog. 

Colleges Using Blogs To Recruit High Schoolers

A good story in the SE Missourian on the use of student bloggers to give a sense of the flavor of a college.

It's been a while since I had to look for schools, but I do remember how difficult it was to understand a school when you weren't actually there. The first time I saw Washington and Lee was a few weeks before I registered for classes.

The most important part?  The schools are linking to the blogs from their front pages.

Prospective students can easily compare students' thoughts with comments on online networking sites like MySpace or Facebook.com, said Nancy Prater, Ball State's Web coordinator.  "If that doesn't match what they're saying on our blogs, there's a disconnect," Prater said.

Colleges from Colgate University in upstate New York, a small liberal arts campus, to the University of Texas, one of the country's largest universities, now include links to student bloggers on their home pages.

Start A Blog, Change The World, Hire A Web Analytics Manager

We covered the start of the Good Product Manager blog when Jeff Lash first started writing in January.  Jeff is a friend of ours here in St Louis with an affinity for organizing and a promising career as, well, a product manager.  Jeff had experience with blogs, writing his own as well a participating in an internal blog used by his company for cross-department collaboration.

So when he sent me an e-mail saying he had started writing, we of course profiled him in our pages.  And when Jeff had an opening for a Web Analytics Manager here in St Louis, we of course offered to post his job opening at StlRecruiting.com, and I forwarded him the e-mails that responded. 

Today I got an e-mail giving me some feedback on the results of that search, and his blog overall.  They hired a web analytics manager that responded to my posting.  This individual, interesting enough, was one that Jeff had an invitation to connect with through LinkedIn, and she had also read the Monster posting of the job.  Using the blog, however, we had a direct connection, a better job description, and ultimately, the correct fit for his position.

This doesn't mean that she was hired because of this blog, but reading the job posting on the blog inspired her to action, and let her know that Jeff's company was open to bloggers.

A good story - but not as good as the other information Jeff shared with me.  The results of his blogging.

The Top Hyperion Consultant In St Louis

Howard Johnson was a Hyperion candidate of mine back when I was a recruiter.  To be honest, I was lucky that he agreed to work with me, because he was one of those consultants who could spend 365 days on the road from the demand for his services, and I happened to catch him during some free time.  Well, Howard is based here in St Louis, and he has just started a blog to help market his Hyperion services. He has a successful website marketing his Essbase experience, but he's finally agreed that blogging is going to work for him.  If you're looking for a Hyperion consultant,and you're in St Louis, you probably already know him.

Here's his interview, along with his availability.

1. What do you do?

I'm an independent consultant that specializes in the following: Hyperion system 9 upgrade, Hyperion Essbase, Hyperion Planning, Reports and Analyzer.  While recruiters attempt to label you as either a technical or functional consultant, I appear to be both.  I can handle many tasks including: requirements gathering, interviewing end users, front end development, overall architecture design, back end development (essbase calc scripts, etc.) infrastructure, and even server installs   After going head to head with a few of the platinum partners for project work, I've discovered that while their project plans dictate 5-6 resources, I've been able to complete these projects with myself being the only resource.   

Finding Candidates Through Blogging

Bloggers are some of the smartest, hardest working, best looking and cheapest candidates you can find.  Well, not all of those, but they certainly are worth looking into as a source of candidates.  Bloggers tend to have access to a wider range of cutting edge tools, assimilate information quickly, are cutting-edge technology users, and often know more about social marketing than your marketing agency.  So how do you find them and how do you filter them?   

1) Finding them:  Hello Mr. Search Engine. Blogs rank highly in search results because they give relevant information on the topics you search for.  If you want to find a blog on java developers in St Louis, search "java developers St Louis blog".  To  improve your results - go 10 or 20 pages into the search results, and ch change your searches to say "java programmer", "Java missouri", and the names of local companies you often source from. 

2) Go where they are. Some bloggers don't want to identify where they currently work, so the place to look for them is in local user groups that cover the technology you want to hire for.  Bloggers leave comments with their url attachede, which means if you are reading about a coding problem, and the user says they are from St Louis, click on their name, and it will often take you to their url.

3) Make friends with bloggers and ask them for referrals.  Bloggers know other bloggers, and if you have a good reputation, they might be willing to go to bat for you when you are looking.  Offering referral rewards is a positive.

 

EliteIT Services Is In The PD

EliteITServices was in the Post-Dispatch. They're bloggers.  The article.

Occasional dry spells in finding candidates have forced the company to become more creative in locating employees. It finds "passive candidates" — people who are not even looking for work — through websites such as linkedin.com, an online network that links professionals around the world.

Word of mouth also attracts many prospective candidates, with 72 percent coming from referrals, Hubert said. She noted that a blog on the company's website also attracts potential contractors.

Rob and Sandy are forward thinking. In addition to the blog, they have several other projects that are focused on building expertise and connecting with IT candidates.  Check out their website at EliteITServices.com

Sound The Alarm Bell: It's Time To Start Blogging

I've been a bit recalcitrant about saying that local staffing firms "need" to start blogging, because until today, I was of the opinion that local staffing firms "should" be blogging because they could really make a name for themselves and get the advantages of early adoption.

While writing up a proposal this morning, a thought struck me, and that thought has stayed with me, and I thought I should share it with you, because it has entirely changed my view about the urgency of reading recruiting blogs and starting one right now.

The thought was this:  The post-Facebook/MySpace generation is graduating college, and has been out for about a year now.  This is a group of young people who in very large numbers, grew up used to social networking and consider it a right for them to interface online.  They are going to continue to use their social networking sites, and their mobile phones, and ebay, and iTunes, and a host of other services at the office, because it is part of their lifestyle.

Bull Doza Live on the Recruiting Animal

The Canadian Headhunter (aka the Recruiting Animal) is hosting Dave Mendoza for his podcast show this week. 

Details are here, and with it, the best write-up for a guest I've ever seen.  CH writes:

December 2006: A rookie blogger wins the popular vote for best recruiting blog of the year by reaching out to non readers of the recruitosphere. Not fair says the establishment. Hey, says, Bull Doza, who's bringing new people into the sphere? The old hands who stick to their little clique or a carnival barker like me who goes out into the street and hauls the strangers in by their collars?

If we were giving out awards for best line of the year, I'd have to give it to "The old hands who stick to their little clique or a carnival barker like me who goes out into the street and hauls the strangers in by their collars."

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Canadian Headhunter is the best pure blogger in the Recruitosphere.  He reminds me of the old days before bloggers got all their fame.  He's old school blogging at its finest, all because he can correctly use words like "carnival barker" into a blogpost.

Mendoza for Recruiting.com head?  An interesting idea.  I'll have to download the show and see what he says.

So Easy, MNHeadhunter Can Do It

I couldn't help but think of the Geico Cavemen commercials when Paul caught a story in the TwinCity Journals alluding to the imminent demise of the search firm.

Paul, took offense, and the first thing to pop into my mind was "well, historically, you guys have struggled to adapt."

My favorite:

Everywhere I go - there's always something to remind me, of another place and time.

I'm with you, Paul.  If it were so easy to get rid of search firms, they would have disappeared long ago.  But when it comes to extinction, you're in more danger from other kinds of technology - say timewasters like the Caveman's Crib.

St Louis Recruiter Interviews

If you are a St Louis recruiter, and are interested in promoting your company and your name, either as an account manager or as a recruiter, you should send me a note and we'll do an interview.

I'll be forwarding his site to my 400+ recruiting contacts in the next week, so readership of the blog is expected to jump, and soon we will start running local ads for recruiting firms and corporate recruiting departments.

We also will be looking at teaming with or offering recruiter placement services off a StlRecruiting job board.  That decision is up in the air, as I won't actually be a recruiter, and worry about a loss of objectivity if I start placing recruiters at local firms.

But if you're curious about a local St Louis expert in online employment, say if you have an HR group or if you want to do some training for your recruiters, well- my e-mail contact is just up there on the right.

The Best Job Posting in St Louis

If you're a recruiter in St Louis, you ought to take a look at this, a job posting written by Sandra Hubert of Elite IT Services.

Durbin Media helped Elite IT set up their blog, and when they mentioned they were looking for a recruiter, I suggested they rewrite their job description to match what made their company special, and worth interviewing with.

Sandra came through with a job posting that is exciting, full of passion, and is definitely better than any other drab and recycled list.  Check out these calls to action.

When was the last time you felt like a champion? When was the last time you were proud of who you worked for? When was the last time your company believed in you?

We will believe in you and build your spirit up and give you meaning in your work and business relationships

Raw, emotional and honest.  The way job postings were meant to be.  And though I would have preferred a upfront salary range, I do like the use of attractive salary instead of competitive.  People who write competitive salary in their job postings are always the cheapest.

More on writing a good recruiter job posting at my sister blog, KCRecruiting.

Mike Tiffany in the BlogSwap

Mike Tiffany of NetEffects has officially joined the BlogSwap revolution. The BlogSwap is a joint venture between Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com (it's actually BlogSwap II, Bigger, Better, and more something or other).

Mike contributed this article, which was published by Susan Strayer.

To learn more about BlogSwap, check here.

St Louis Recruiter Blog: Mike Tiffany

Mike Tiffany of Net Effects has joined the blogging revolution.  Mike, a forward-thinking recruiter who was interviewed on this blog about his attendance at the OnRec conference, has started a new blog for exchanging ideas on best practices for recruiters.

His blog is St Louis IT Recruiters Idea Exchange.  In addition to being one of the first St Louis recruiter blogs, Mike is also the first person I know on squarespace, a blogging platform favored by designers.

Mike is the Recruiting Manager for Net Effects.  Expect to see good things from him.

The Why of Local Recruiting

The goal of my local recruiting initiatives is to help build strong communities of local recruiters who understand the online world and use it for their own profit.

That's right, I said profit.  For me, recruiters should only blog if it will bring them more money than getting on the phone and calling prospects.  I believe this is the case, and I also think a strong online community helps recruiters connect with like-minded people.

Many people in our industry are only in it for themselves, and they burrow down into little holes, hiding information from each other in the hopes of gaining advantage.  Over time, I think that leads to a decay of both the mind and the soul, and I'd like to prove that keeping your head up and helping others is the best way to improve your company and your pocketbook.  Think about joining us, will you?

We'll be Back November 1st.

St Louis Recruiting Blogs

They're coming and they're fantastic.

I don't want to jump the gun here, but we're going to start seeing St Louis recruiters using blogs in ways that will help them hire candidates - something I've been pushing for some time.  But recruiters are only part of the story.  A vibrant community takes all types - and in this case, I'll be contacting and looking to promote candidate bloggers also.

If you are a St Louis area blogger, and you blog about technical issues, please contact me at jdurbin@durbinmedia.com.  For an example of how candidates use blogs to promote their careers, check out this blog case study on Chris Hammond, a DotNetNuke expert.
 

The more of us there are, the louder our voice.

Google Validation

Sometime in the future a study will be done by some government agency on the effects of Google validation in shaping self-esteem.

My best guess it the study will cost about $12 million, but that's probably accounting for inflation.

Why do I bring it up?  Why because I self-googled and felt validated. 

A Google Search for Local Recruiting Blogs.  Yep, that's me in all but two places. 

Now for those keeping score at him, domination on a phrase indicates one of two things.  You either created the phrase and talk about it often (making you a bit of a prophet), or you obsessed with a trend that no one else found relevant.  I'm hoping it's that first thing. 

Also, I'm very busy today with Durbin Media Group, and won't be doing much blogging, so this is a filler post.  In case you couldn't tell.  That's right - this is the blather that many people complain blogs always focus on - the unimportant thoughts of just some guy.  Go get some work done today.  Come read tomorrow.