#SHRM12 Session Preview: Is Social Recruiting Really Working?

Dispatch #2 from the SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, where the coffee, bus, and bathroom lines remain long, the temperatures remain hot, and a drop-in to Atlanta from President Obama threatens to muck up travel plans for many a conference-goer.

Today's effort is a bit of shameless self-promotion for 'Is Social Recruiting Really Working?', the panel discussion I will be moderating at the big show, tomorrow, Wednesday June 27 at 11:30.

The session features a stellar panel consisting of Glassdoor.com CEO, Robert Hohman, industry analyst and legend John Sumser, and Jeremy Langhans, who leads Global Brand and Talent Attraction for Expedia.

In the session, the panel will walk through some basic, fundamental issues and questions surrounding social media and social recruiting and challenge the audience to think a little past the hype, buzzwords, and confusion to try and get to the reality of what social recruiting is today, whether or not it is truly being effective for recruiting in the real world, and what the future might hold for social media in recruiting.

The slides with the questions we plan to ask and discuss are included below, but certainly the slides themselves don't offer much in the way of answers, you'll have to come and see us on Wednesday, June 27 at 11:30.

Is Social Recruiting Really Working?

View more PowerPoint from steveboese

Many thanks to the entire team at Glassdoor.com for all the fantastic work helping to organize this session and for asking me to participate.

See you at the session!

This post has nothing to do with #SHRM12 (kind of)

Dispatch #1 from the Super Bowl of HR, also known as the SHRM 2012 Annual Conference and Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia. If you have not been to Atlanta before you really only need to know two things about the city - one, it is really hot; and two, every other street is named 'Peachtree' or some variation. A typical set of driving instructions in Atlanta goes something like this:

1. Head south on Peachtree

2. When you get to the third intersection take a left on Peachtree

3. Bear right at the traffic circle to get on Peachtree

4. It will be on the right, if you hit Peachtree, then you've gone too far

But enough about Atlanta.

As for SHRM12, well, so far it is exactly as you'd expect for the most part. Big. Really a giant and complex logistical enterprise. And the attendees? 15,000 or so HR professionals from all over the world mostly standing in lines - for the shuttle buses from the area hotels, for the restrooms, for Starbucks. Massive expo hall that when taken all at once is a little bit of a sensory overload.

What's new this time? Well an extremely large space called The Hive to help promote SHRM's social media outreach and efforts, an expanded and interesting blogger's lounge, and the general feeling that SHRM, (and its associated minions), are going to jam social media and Twitter down the throat of every HR professional from Topeka, Kansas whether they care to participate or not.

I think it will be a good conference though, but I worry that overall the event itself, and the flood of coverage from the blogger brigade that SHRM has assembled will result in a fair bit of the 'same-old same-old'. I have already seen some Tweets about Monday keynoter Malcolm Galdwell's talk that it didn't seem very new or fresh, and it could have been delivered in 2010. I am not sure that is fair, but if even there is some truth to it, it might not bode well for the rest of the event. 

So here's hoping for a great, interesting, and different kind of event. Let's be mindful that there is a lot more to creating a great experience by simply making it bigger. Let's try to actually add something meaningful to the conversation and the industry.

I've written, (including this one), about 1,209 forgettable blog posts. And maybe 15 really good ones.

Let's hope I (and the rest of us), can do better with #SHRM12.

The secret of not wishing to be anywhere else

Whether it's during a long meeting at work, standing on the sidelines of a U-7 soccer match in the cold rain when you know you have about 4,120 other things to do, or making small talk in a big room at an event or trade show, most of us at least once in a while, battle with the sometimes intense desire to be somewhere else, or to be doing something else.

Part of this, I think, stems from a kind of achievement at all costs, stay one step ahead of the next guy, keep Tweeting and Tumbr'ing and Instgramming, while simultaneously talking, texting, and making sure your SEO and SEM and mobile optimization strategies are all in place and whirring. There's always something else to do, something else that could be done, something that the next guy is doing that maybe threatens or angers or makes you envious. Whatever. Work, building a business, angling for some better opportunities, trying to raise your profile to get on an internet list or get comped to an event - it can be a pretty exhausting grind.ATL

Of course there is lots to do, maybe more to do than ever before. Certainly the explosion in platforms and applications that require care and feeding are one reason, and I suppose the degradation (for many folks), in the employee-employer contract or said more plainly, the notion that the next day at any job might be your last, as the spectre of one bad quarter or a decision from a large company to jump in to your market conspiring to make any job in any company seem more temporary and fragile than in recent memory.

So the natural, and I think for the most part correct, response to all this uncertainty, (and also, paradoxically, opportunity), is for professionals to be much more on the hustle, even those with so-called 'real jobs'. There is a lot of chasing going on no doubt, and while the rewards can be really nice for the ones that do it well, and work at the the hardest, certainly all this chasing and hustling and posturing and angling comes with some downside.

First, the nagging feeling that no matter how much one works, there is someone else out there doing just a little bit more. And that's annoying. Second, it is really, really, easy to forget to say 'No' sometimes, and to remember that less is usually more, (and more interesting). And last, it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling no matter where you are and what you're doing, that you've made the wrong, or at least not the best, most bang for your time, SEO-optimized decision and that somewhere else, something fantastic is going on and you're missing it.

The truth is there probably is something better going on. And you are missing it. And there, wherever there is, is one of your peers/friends/competitors thinking the exact same thing. 

Have a Great Weekend!

Looking for Innovation in Recruiting Technology

Tomorrow and Friday I will be attending the Recruiting Innovation Summit, an ERE Media event, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. I will also have the great pleasure and honor to serve as one of the members of the judging panel for the event's startup competition, where six companies, selected from almost 50 initial submissions, will vie for a $10K grand prize, and get the chance to demonstrate their innovative solutions to a gathering of industry experts and leaders.

Innovation in any market often comes from the startup space, where experimentation is encouraged, barriers to change are less, and ideas often have more of a chance to find their way to the market. Having a chance to demonsrate their solutions, and to network and engage with so many industry experts in one setting makes for what should be a really fantastic experience. 

In addition to the startup compentition, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will have presentations led by lumiaries like Steve Cadigan from LinkedIn, Lars Schmidt from NPR, Mike Junge from Google, and more.

Additionally, the Recruiting Innovation Summit will stream live over the next two days, you can sign up to be notified when the stream commences where to watch from here.

It should be a fantastic event and I hope to see and meet up with anyone in attendance, and if you can't make it out to Mountain View then be sure to check out the live stream, it will definitely be worth your time.

EVENT: The Social Media Strategies for HR Seminar

In two weeks I will be attending and participating in the Conference Board's 'Social Media Strategies for HR' seminar, along with many other fantastic Human Resources practitioners and leaders. If you are thinking that the 'Social Media in HR' angle is getting really played out and overdone, then you might be right, but you also might be in the tiny minority of HR professionals and leaders that actually have been working with social media, social networks, and proactively using these platforms to support their business and talent strategy.  I think, generally, that the opportunities and challenges that social media present to the typical HR organization are just beginning to be explored. Remember, unlike many of us in the social media bubble almost no real HR leaders spend their year attending seventeen conferences, fourteen tweet-ups, or diving into one of the myriad new HR-themed Twitter chats. Mostly they are too busy in their day jobs, and when they have time, they are trying to figure out how to better their function and their performance, and using social media can be one of those ways - if they could ever find some spare time to try and sort it out.

That is why a dedicated event like the Social Media Strategies Seminar for HR is so compelling to me.  In the early days of social media in the workplace, there were hours of trial-and-error while learning because there were no classes or conferences or case studies where you could learn how to use these platforms more effectively.  The benefit for today’s professionals getting into the space or for those who are using the platforms but want to take that use to the next level is that there are events where you can go and learn more in a day than many of us did in a month or a year.

If you or someone in your organization is wants to learn more about using social media platforms for HR and recruiting, you need to mark your calendars now for The Conference Board’s Social Media Strategies for HR Seminar.  Join me in New York City on April 17- 18, 2012 as we discuss and learn how to:

• Leverage social networks to benefit the entire organization
• Implement and manage social networks to spur innovation and knowledge sharing
• Use social media to increase employee engagement and bolster employer branding
• Manage the legal implications of social media in the workplace

I’ll be co-leading a session on how you can use social media to strengthen your employer brand and bolster employee engagement.  My co-presenter will be Trish McFarlane, Director of Human Resources for Perficient and co-founder of the HRevolution.

Use discount code SB1 to get $250 off the registration cost!  You can register for one day or both.  I hope you’ll join us, you won’t be disappointed.