Social Media and the Student

My good friend Deirdre Honner, the HR Maven is giving a speech to 800 MBA students today, focusing on 'Social Media and the Job Search'.  I am sure she will do a fantastic job sharing her insights, strategies, and resources to help equip these students for a better chance of success in their upcoming job searches.

Much has been written about how to leverage social media in the search, some excellent resources are here, here, and here.

So rather than try and improve upon, or at least add to the existing body of information on using social media in the job search, I'd rather try and talk to what I think are some strategies that make sense for the MBA (or really any college or grad student) to leverage social media, more to support their studies and by extension, position themselves for upcoming job searches.

Get Familiar - a key to leveraging social media in your studies and beyond is first understanding the environment in your specific area of interest or expertise. If you are focusing on accounting for example, are there Ning networks, or professional association communities where like-minded practitioners congregate?  Or are there a few key LinkedIn groups that you should join?  Some disciplines like Marketing have a very vibrant Twitter presence.  Or it could be the local organizations that present professional development events and social meetings are the best approach. The key is to start listening and observing to determine the best ways to invest your efforts. Understanding a bit about how your particular interest is represented in social media is a key to understanding the best use of your time.

Collaborate - in school it is certain that much of your time and energy will be spent on group projects. Learning how to effectively collaborate with peers, under time pressures, and at times with limited ability for face to face meetings is a critical skill to master both in school, and in the corporate world. A mastery of working in groups as well as managing group performance will likely be the primary differentiating skill in management in the future. Heck, it probably is that way today. I think the most successful team leaders will have a good understanding of two key aspects of team collaboration, one, the conditions that are necessary to foster effective collaboration, and two, the core social technologies that are available to support these activities.

Claim - It is standard advice for students and job seekers to setup up a LinkedIn account, and possibly a Twitter account to use for networking and connecting with recruiters and other professionals.  That is of course a sound strategy, but if you are really interested in making more of an impact in social media and positioning yourself as a future leader, you really should consider starting your own blog. For me, no one heard of me, took me all that seriously, or sought me ought for advice or opportunities until I had established some credibility in the space via this blog. I do think in many ways having a business focused blog is a key to set you apart from the crowd. It can demonstrate your reasoning ability, your mastery of your subject matter, and of course your writing capability. Being 'public' with your thoughts on a blog forces you to improve.  You absolutely will get smarter by blogging.

Connect - Certainly the prime motivator for students and early career professionals in using social media is to network with other professionals. These can be professionals in your specific area of study or expertise, your geographic region, or some combination. When I need some advice, assistance, or the name of someone in a particular organization in order to solve a problem, or otherwise improve my course content, or my ability to deliver, I turn to my network first. And I have to say in the last year, my network has never let me down.  But I can only leverage that resource because I (try) to consistently give back to my network and to the community at large, (see 'start your own blog' above).  I promise you will get back way more than you give in the long run.

So that is my advice, but really the best advice I can really give is listen to Dee, she has seen it all, and I would pay to hear her speak and you guys are lucky to have her as a presenter.

And in the spirit of connecting and giving, feel free to connect with me, my contact information is on the blog, and I will be happy to help in any way I can.

Recruiting the Brand

In the annals of corporate retail brands the name 'Air Jordan' resonates.  The iconic basketball shoes named after the legendary NBA star Michael Jordan have endured for over 25 years.Air Jordan I

The first pair of Air Jordans debuted in 1985 and immediately became a market sensation, racking up tremendous sales and spawning dozens of updated versions, which Nike continues to release today.

Fast forward to 2009, MJ the legend is out of the game, but his and the Air Jordan brand's influence on the game continues, sometimes in unexpected and not so positive ways.

Jordan's son Marcus, himself also a basketball player was recruited to play college basketball at the University of Central Florida (UCF).  Marcus accepted the scholarship offer from UCF and is set to begin his college basketball career this Fall.

There was one stipulation from Marcus (and the Jordan family), he would be allowed to wear a current version of the NIke Air Jordan brand shoes for practices and games.  Seems like a reasonable request, if your dad is Michael Jordan you probably should wear Air Jordan gear.  You have to promote the family brand, right?

But the folks at UCF have run into a little problem. The school has a $3,000,000 deal with the rival shoe company Adidas that stipulates that all UCF athletes will compete in Adidas clothing and shoes. The company and UCF are in negotiations to resolve these issues, but as of yet have not reached an agreement.

Marcus, naturally insists one wearing the Air Jordans, and while it is likely that the worst outcome is that UCF will have to pay for all the apparel and shoes for its teams for one year (the current contract with Adidas is set to expire in 2010), there could be more significant repercussions, as Nike has not shown interest in taking over the school's contract which could leave UCF left out of the lucrative 'shoe sponsorship' game for some time.

Whether it is a college recruiting an athlete or a company recruiting a new employee, everyone entering the organization brings with them their experiences, their skills, and more and more their 'personal brand'.  While in the corporate recruiting world, you are not likely to have a candidate demanding to were a particular shoe, it is increasingly likely that a candidate may have a 'brand' of some kind.  Their brand may be expressed with a blog, website, an event they sponsor or speak at, an online radio show, or even some 'on the side' work they do.

Managing the tension and potential conflict between candidates (and even employees) personal activities and brands and the goals and brands of the organization is likely to become a more important skill for companies and managers.  When you are recruiting a new candidate into the organization be aware of their brand and how that might impact the potential employment relationship. 

If the employee has a personal blog, will you encourage them to continue? Or will you try and absorb the blog and ask the employee to 're-brand' to serve more direct company goals?

If they have a personal Facebook fan page or Twitter accounts with thousands of fans and followers will you try to 'co-opt' this for company benefit?

If the candidate or employee is well-known and speaks at multiple events will you support that, or immediately get caught up in attendance, vacation, and expense policies?

Individuals are forced to be far less reliant on organizations for stable employment that many simply must establish their own personal professional identies.  How well companies manage this tension going forward could be a significant factor in attracting and leveraging top talent.

While you ponder these questions - a look back at a classic Air Jordan promo:

Staff Meetings and Broken Jaws

The head coach of the National Football League's Oakland Raiders team, Tom Cable, was relieved that the prosecutor in California's Napa County declined to pursue charges that Cable allegedly assaulted Assistant Coach Randy Hanson in a meeting this past August.

If you are not familiar with the case the basic events that are not disputed are as follows:

On August 4, 2009 - Cable (the boss effectively), held a meeting with Hanson and three other assistant coaches, John Marshall, Lionel Washington, and Willie Brown.

During the meeting there was some kind of argument and altercation between Cable and Hanson.

The following day Hanson was seen at a hospital and diagnosed with a broken jaw.

What is disputed is the precise nature of the altercation, and whether or not Cable actually assaulted Hanson.  At least according to the prosucutor, there were enough inconsistencies in Hanson's version of events that pursuing criminal charges was not warranted.

But the prosecutors did note that the other coaches in the meeting claimed that Cable became angry and rushed toward Hanson, but Washington stepped between the two. Cable then ran into Washington, who bumped into Hanson and knocked him out of his chair. The witnesses also told authorities that Cable then grabbed Hanson by the shirt but never struck or threatened him.

Ok, so maybe 'rushing' someone, knocking them out of a chair, and grabbing them by the shirt separately or together don't rise to the level of criminal assault, but I am pretty sure they fail any standard of what is appropriate workplace conduct. 

So certainly the Raiders have suspended Cable, perhaps even terminated him, right?  I mean you can't go around 'rushing' and grabbing the shirts of subordinates can you?

Apparently, if you work for the Raiders you can.  No disciplinary action has been taken on Cable by the team or the NFL (although the league has not ruled it out taking some action). He might get fired anyway for performance reasons, as of this writing the Raiders are 2-4 and rank near the bottom of the league in most important statistical categories.

And Hanson?

He was placed on essentially what amounts to paid leave while this gets sorted out.

Five employees go to a staff meeting, one leaves with a broken jaw and he is the only one to suffer any adverse effect in the workplace.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2009 Oakland Raiders!

HRevolution Sponsor Spotlight - Nobscot Corporation

There is significant energy and momentum in the Human Resources Technology marketplace towards integration. Traditional core HRIS and ERP vendors are trying to strengthen their offerings in areas like Talent Management and Business Intelligence.  Established talent management vendors are expanding their application footprints to encompass more and more functionality be it applicant tracking or learning management.

In many ways the trend towards integration can benefit customers, as it typically eliminates (or at least dramatically reduces) the need for complex, and often custom built integrations to pass HR information around the various systems.

But even as the big ERP providers get bigger, and the Talent Management vendors expand, there remain areas of the HR and talent landscape that neither will likely ever consume. Important technology supported functions like background checks, candidate assessments, or complex workforce scheduling.

These 'edge' products and the processes that they support are often vitally important to the success of an organization and can go a long way towards making the day-to-day lives of HR professionals much easier.

HRevolution sponsor Nobscot Corporation thrives on the edge. Their flagship product WebExit, that supports the process of Exit Interviews was created to address a gap and fulfill a need that the traditional HR Technology companies could not support.  Efficient capture, and subsequent analysis of exit interview data is to many organizations a key source of strategic information that can directly impact ongoing operations, planning, and overall profitability of the enterprise. If you really believe as an organization that human capital is the source of your competitive advantage, then understanding the flow of this capital from beginning (recruiting) to end (exit interview) is vital to your long term survival.

In addition to its market leading product for exit interviews, Nobscot also offers Mentor Scout, the only real enterprise solution for managing internal mentoring programs. Mentor Scout helps to manage all aspects of a corporate mentoring initiative, from matching mentors with mentees, to providing a secure environment for communication, to tracking the progress and success of the program.  For many employees in the organization making connections with experienced and respected colleagues is a necessary and even critical activity. Mentoring programs have been shown to be a powerful driver of increased engagement and forge important bonds in the make up of the company.

Being on the "edge," allows companies like Nobscot to respond quickly to HR's needs.  For example, based on feedback from clients Nobscot expanded its WebExit platform to handle new hire surveys and quality of hire metrics. The resulting program, called FirstDays helps organizations accurately measure the success of recruiting, onboarding, orientation and new hire socialization initiatives.  On the Mentor Scout side of the house, Nobscot expanded Mentor Scout with their Talent Networking Edition which adds peer-to-peer corporate social networking components to solve some common HR challenges such as knowledge sharing, breakdown of silos, recognition, and managing remote employees. 

 
I encourage you to check out Nobscot Corporation, they are a company committed to the long-term success of their customers, and passionate about improving organizational effectiveness and advancing the discipline of Human Resources.

Thanks very much to Nobscot, especially CEO Beth N. Carvin for their generous support of the HRevolution.

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Note : This post is part of the HRevolution Sponsor Spotlight series, the event organiizer's way of saying thanks to the fantastic sponsors of HRevolution, without their generous support the event would not be possible.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Buyers of enterprise software have typically have had very few, and mostly unpalatable options available to them to remedy a systems implementation project gone awry.

Let's say the company is seven months in to the project, the software is either not functioning properly, the project team is either understaffed, incapable, or dysfunctional, or funding has been withdrawn.

What are the options?

1. Cut bait - Scrap the project, send away the consultants, don't renew the software and maintenance licenses, and perhaps write-off the project costs to date, (and possibly look for a new job). The project was important but not important enough to cripple the organization.

2. Vendor wrestling - Needed when the primary cause of the problems are software bugs. Hopefully you have enough juice to lean hard on the vendor to get some action on outstanding issues, and while you are at it maybe you can wring some free training credits or a couple of passes to the next user conference out of them.

3. Clean the decks - Sack the consultants you are working with, install a new project manager, form a new 'core team', and re-launch the project.  Toss in a (second) big kick-off meeting and make a few stirring speeches about lessons learned, and a need to change processes, etc.  This might work. Maybe.

4. Re-open the vendor evaluation - This is the old 'it's not me it's you scenario'.  Maybe the organization did not take enough time in the vendor selection process and a 'fit' between the client's needs and the solutions capabilities did not materialize.  Starting all over again with a new solution might work.  Or it might not.

5. Sue - Who can the organization sue?  The software vendor, the consulting partners, maybe both.  There are some celebrated and high-profile cases of organizations suing for damages over failed enterprise software implementations.

6. Get a refund - What? Refund?  There are no refunds in enterprise software are there? Typically not.  But this week Halogen Software, a leading provider of Talent Managment software announced a new 'money-back guarantee'. According to the company:

After using one of our assisted implementation programs to bring any one of our products into your organization, if you’re not happy with it, we will refund in full your unused subscription fees – as long as you let us know within 6 months of your purchase date

Halogen is the only vendor in this class that offers such a program, and I think it's uniqueness is a testament to Halogen's faith and track record of excellent customer support. 

But it is also telling that in projects that can be incredibly complex, expensive, lengthy, and risky that having a guarantee of any kind is extremely unusual. Full marks to Halogen for having the courage to offer such a guarantee, we will see if any other vendors follow suit.

Does anyone have any knowledge of other enterprise software vendors that offer a comparable guarantee?

While you contemplate the question, have a look at my favorite 'refund' scene, from 'Breaking Away'