Getting your HR friends on Twitter? Start Here

The hardest part of getting started on Twitter is figuring out who to follow.  If you are an HR professional, HR student, or job seeker, you will only get so far following Oprah or Ashton or Shaquille.

Not very far actually.

Ashton can't help you with the latest developments in E-Verify.

Shaq is not going to offer to critique your cover letter.

No to get any value at all from Twitter you need to find and follow 'real' HR professionals, recruiters, companies, bloggers, the kind of people you can learn from, engage with, and share your expertise with.

So how do you go about that? Well, a new service called TweepML has made the process of sharing lists of Twitter users to follow much easier. 

Sign up for TweepML, create or upload a list of Twitter names that you want to put on a 'recommended follow' list, then share the list via a link, email, or an embeddable button or widget.

I even did the hard work for you, I created two TweepML lists (since the service limits lists to 100 Tweeps) of HR and Recruiting Twitter folk that I personally follow and recommend.

Click on the links below and you will be taken to the TweepML site where you can easily follow all the names on the list (or just the ones you are interested in) by supplying your Twitter name and password.

HR and Recruiting Peeps - Part 1

HR and Recruiting Peeps - Part 2

Totally easy right? Just think about when you first signed up for Twitter. What if you were given a list of 200 awesome and relevant accounts to follow from Day 1?

Let me know what you think of TweepML, and of the lists themselves.  I can always start list number three with your suggestions.

Enjoy!

Update on Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 9:51PM by Steve

The problem with making these kinds of lists, whether great blogs, Twitter users, or anything else is that no matter how long the list, some great people get left out, either through oversight, error, or system limitations.  I want to mention some folks here that absolutely should have been included on the above lists, and I apologize for that.

JennyDeVaughn - A must follow in the recruiting and social media space

sexythinker - Amanda Hite, the founder and CEO of Talent Revolution, and someone that HR and Recruiting pros have to follow, I think

A Great Big Blog Bundle

I am an absolute slacker in keeping up the blogroll on this site.

But, I am constantly finding and adding blogs to my subscriptions in Google Reader.  So while the 'links' on this site may list 10 or so blogs, I probably subscribe to 100 HR and Recruiting related blogs in Reader.

Thankfully, Google Reader now has an easy way to package feeds into a 'bundle' that can be easily shared in Reader, as well as emailed, or embedded in a blog or website.

This is also a great way to get co-workers, friends, or students started on reading blogs by creating for them an easy way to subscribe to a large number of blogs all at once.

The process is incredibly easy. 

1. In Google Reader, simply click on the link in the left sidebar titled 'Browse for Stuff'

2. Over on the right side of the screen click the 'Create a Bundle' button

3. Add a Title and Description for the Bundle

4. Then drag and drop feeds from your subscription pane over into the Bundle box, you can select individual feeds, or entire folders

5. When finished check 'Add to my Shared Items' to share this bundle inside Google Reader, then click 'Save'

6. Once saved, you can now share the bundle outside of Reader via e-mail, embedding, sharing the link directly, or via an OPML file.

7. To embed the file in your own blog, click the 'Create a Bundle Clip' link, then grab the embed code to copy/paste to your blog or website

Here is a Blog Bundle I set up from the Guests and Callers of the HR Happy Hour Show - Episode 10:

Anyone can now click on the 'Subscribe' link in the clip to be taken to Google Reader to subscribe to the bundle.

I have also set up a 'Great Big HR Blog Bundle' of all the HR Blogs in my Reader that can be found by clicking the 'Blogroll' link on the top of this site.  Now any time I add a new feed to the bundle in Reader, this site will also be automatically updated.

Feed Bundles are a great little feature in Reader and I hope you found this little tutorial helpful.

HR Happy Hour - The Job Seeker's Show

I have been trying to keep all the HR Happy Hour show content over on the new HR Happy Hour site - www.hrhappyhour.net, but since this week's show is pretty important to me, I thought I would post about the show on both sites.

Episode 10 - The Job Seeker's Show - September 18, 2009 8PM EDT

The show is back to our 'regular' time slot this Friday night, September 18, 2009 at 8PM EDT.

Episode 10 - The Job Seeker's Show

Shauna Moerke, the HR Minion, and I will welcome a fantastic panel of guests from the Recruiting and HR world to share insights, give advice, and highlight available resources for the job seeker. We will talk about strategy, use of social media, resumes, and anything else on your mind.

The call in number is 646-378-1086 and Press '1' on your phone to come on the show.

Scheduled to appear this week:

Jennifer McClure - Twitter -CincyRecruiter, and blog Cincy Recruiter's World

Paul DeBettignies - Twitter - MNHeadhunter - and blog MNHeadhunter

Robin Eads - Twitter - imjustagoyle - and blog imjustagoyle

April Dowling - Twitter - adowling - and blog PseudoHR

Deirdre Honner - Twitter - thehrmaven - and blog HR Maven (does everyone on this show have a superhero alias?)

I hope you can tune in and pass along the show information to anyone you know on the job market that could use some great advice. 

Six Million versus Eighteen Thousand

According the the US Small Business Administration in 2006 (the last full year data is available) in the United States:

Number of firms with more than 500 employees: 18,000

Number of firms with less than 500 employees: 6,000,000

Think about it, there over 300 times as many small businesses in the US as large ones.

In the HR Technology space at times the news and commentary tends to be dominated by the vendors that cater the the top end of the market, those 18,000 or so big firms that have the most employees, the biggest budgets, and (typically) the most hierarchical and elaborate structures and decision processes.  I get that, it makes sense for vendors, consultants, analysts, and pundits to chase that market, heck, that is where all the money is. I have spent most of my professional career in that space as well, either working for giant companies, or working for myself and consulting at giant companies.

But I think today the small market is really the place to be.

To me, inside the six million small companies is where the the most exciting innovations are going to happen. Flickr - The Geekery

And the technologies and vendors that are most interesting to me are the ones that are accessible, lightweight, and inexpensive enough to be in the reach of say a 150 person company with one or two HR professionals on staff.

Solutions like Rypple, The Resumator, Socialcast, EffortlessHR, PbWorks, Shareflow, Kindling, and Brainpark to me are incredibly interesting and dynamic. These solutions (and scores of others) can be brought to bear by the average HR professional in the average small organization and can make an almost immediate and important impact.

I care about what is going on with the Oracle, SAP, and Workday.  I'd like to see Oracle Fusion delivered sometime before I retire. When and if the entrenched ERP vendors fully embrace SaaS and produce solutions that are more flexible, easier to manage, and are less reviled by their giant corporate customers are very important issues for the overall HR Technology industry. I get that.

But to me the real fun is watching what the new breed of HR Technology vendors are bringing to the table, and how the small business can exploit these tools to maybe one day rise from the ranks of the six million to the eighteen thousand. Personally, I enjoy connecting with and trying to assist HR pros at these smaller organizations.  Ironically, while there are scores of technology solutions out there that cater to the small organization, there are very few independent sources for unbiased advice and assistance with small business focused HR Technology.

What do you think?

Is it more fun to be one of six million, with a real chance to make an impact, or to be one cog in the wheel at a giant organization, but with at least a chance to be a star on the big stage?

The Carnival of HR is Back

The latest Carnival of HR is up, this time hosted by the fantastic HR Maven. The Maven chose a 'Back to School' theme for the Carnival, which is perfect for this time of year.

As usual the Carnival brings together some of the best work from mine and yours favorite HR bloggers. Flickr - brotherxiiSome of the highlights of this edition of the Carnival are:

Not Everyone loves Putt Putt?  by Jennifer V. Miller

Extreme Makeover: Attitude Addition from HR Gumbo

and Jon Ingham's post on Organisational Mojo.

And even my little offering, 'Majoring in Facebook' made the cut this time.

Thanks Maven for including my post, and for assembling such a great collection.