UK HR - Employers 'lifting recruitment freeze' - CareerStructure News

According to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation confidence in the economy is growing and more employers are dropping their hiring freeze. It will take time to recover but the employment opportunities will grow larger in the coming months.

Check out the article at CareerStructure.com:
http://news.careerstructure.com/article/view/national/19485394/employers-lifting-recruitment-freeze-/

We Hope You Had A Wonderful Thanksgiving!

INTERNSHIPS - Fighting tooth and nail for a flack internship

AdFreak posted an article about Eisen Marketing Group which will be running reality webisodes about trying to hire one person for a paid PR internship. They will begin in January. What are your thoughts on how the potential candidates would feel after running through something like this?
Check out the link below and let us know what you think:
http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2009/11/fighting-tooth-and-nail-for-a-flack-internship.html

HR - ERE.net - Understanding the Available Social Media Recruiting Strategies — Leveraging Your Employees’ Time

Dr. John Sullivan posted two interesting articles about how to use your HR department when it comes to social media and what they should be involved with and what they should steer away from. It is important to understand it is much easier to manage when you are able to stretch the responsibilites over several people and also involve people outside of HR when it comes to recruiting. Before diving into social media it is also important to create a strategy and not rush into the various sites available.

Check out the articles and let us know what you think:

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/16/understanding-the-available-social-media-recruiting-strategies-leveraging-your-employees%e2%80%99-time-part-1-of-2/

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/23/understanding-the-available-social-media-recruiting-strategies-%e2%80%93-leveraging-your-employees-time-part-2-of-2/

NONTRADITIONAL - Government intelligence organisation targets recruits with Xbox Live ads

The British Government Agency known as GCHQ will now be running ads on XBOX Live to assist in recruiting people of ages 18-34 into their ranks. In addition to recruitment, their aim is also to get the word out about their agency and what they do because most people don't have much knowledge of the GCHQ.

Check out the links below for more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/20/xbox-gchq-adverts
http://kotaku.com/5408880/british-government-agency-to-run-xbox-live-recruitment-ads

Back on October of 2007 the GCHQ also ran ads online through Microsoft games:
'Become a spy' ads target gamers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/18/digitalmedia.advertising

RECRUITMENT AD - Dallas Restaurant & Bar

Great ad for the Dallas Restaurant & Bar via adsoftheworld.com:

NONTRADITIONAL - Gaming works magic for u.s. army

Brandflakes for Breakfast and Game Politics posted articles about the Army's use of their video game, America's Army, and how is has been used as a recruitment tool and how effective it has been in relation to other areas of advertising. Game Politics also makes a note at the impact the video game has had on recruits as far as how they react in battle and their how they receive and understand what is happening in battle as well.

Below are the links for the articles as well as the gaming site. Check them out and tell us what you think!

http://www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com/2009/11/gaming-works-magic-for-us-army.html

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/11/17/america%E2%80%99s-army-extremely-effective-recruitment-tool

http://www.americasarmy.com/

Social Networking - Twittering and Job Fair Alerts

How are you alerting your candidates that you have job fairs approaching?
A newspaper placement is great and so is radio but what about something that is on their own time and under their own control? This is where Twitter can play a major role.
Check out Kroger's Twitter page where they include information on upcoming job fairs, local articles written about stores to be opened and other events that are going on with Kroger.
http://twitter.com/KrogerWorks

They also use their Twitter page to integrate their text campaign along with their recruitment page krogerworks.com.

What are your thoughts about using Twitter for recruitment?

HR - Employee Retention – 7 Tactics to Retain Your Most Valuable Asset

Jim Stroud has a nice article about retaining your valuable employees once you have them. If companies aren't making a big push to hire then this down time is allowing people to assess the workers and find the true contributors and also figure out who is not helping the company. Take a look through the article and let us know your thoughts. http://www.therecruiterslounge.com/2009/11/03/employee-retention-7-tactics-to-retain-your-most-valuable-asset/

Social Networking - Socialnomics

Thought I would pass this video along. Fun song, fun facts! Happy Friday the 13th!

BRANDING - IBMers

IBM's "Smarter" campaign creates an empowered point of view for those aspiring to be part of something greater, to do something more, and to possibly apply to IBM. They might not be hiring at full speed right now but this is a great way to reach out and really create a name for their brand among potential candidates as well as the communities they are part of. Take a look at a few of the videos but know that there are many more on YouTube.com. What are your thoughts on their direction?

Social Networking - ERE.NET: The Many Benefits of Social Network Recruiting: Making a Compelling Business Case

Times are tight and your budget's even tighter.

One of your challenges: What is a way that you can help build your brand and bolster the word about your brand among your audience and potential candidates? Social media. That's one answer.

Now here's another challenge: How do you convince your higher-ups that it is a reasonable investment of time and money when the return could be so valuable but it is still considered somewhat "new" media?

ERE.net posted a great article a few days back that offers up some great points that you might want to bring up the next time you have to defend working social media into your marketing mix for your recruitment campaigns. These range from the ROI to candidate quality to cost per hire.

Even if you are already sold on using social networking for recruitment some of these points might make you stop and rethink how you are using your resources. It is a quick and great read for those new and experienced in social networking. Check it out!

From ERE.net:

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/02/the-many-benefits-of-social-network-recruiting-making-a-compelling-business-case/