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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Are you giving a fair shake?

Okay, so being a complete Internet nerd it may sound from time to time like I think nothing exists outside of the aether, but I've always maintained that personal contact is the bedrock of establishing a good working relationship, especially in hiring situations.

Central to establishing a good working relationship in a business context is the handshake, often practiced, seldom mastered. I've shaken hands with the sweaty-palmed and dead, cold fish hand alike. It appears that some scientists over in the UK have actually spent some time and money figuring out the twelve parts of what makes up an optimal handshake. Highlights of the twelve points of a perfect handshake appear in this article over at Discovery News.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Hire the Forerunners: Professionals with a Disability

For more than a few years, I have involved myself in the work of nAblement (disclosure: I work for the parent company) as well as the Milwaukee-based Goodwill Services group AbilityConnection in finding work for professionals with disabilities in Information Technology. As someone who has one foot planted firmly in the communications / marketing discipline and the other in the recruiting world, I've struggled mightily with terminology that is both accurate and acceptable to the communities of people who live with various disabilities. "Professionals with disabilities" or "people with disabilities" (PWDs) seem to be the most accepted ways I've learned to refer to these communities but the problem is how unwieldy it is to use in communications. The abbreviation, PWD, is no better since it looks like an abbreviation for "password" and could, according to Google, stand for "Public Works Department" or "Portuguese Water Dog!"

This unwieldy terminology hurts efforts at Search Engine Optimization and, therefore, is an obstacle to raising awareness about this underserved, underutlized workforce. Someone entering PWD in Google, for instance, could end up finding a picture of this cute little puppy as opposed to discussions about people with disability.

Picture of Portuguese Water Dog by andy_kyte_uk posted courtesy of Creative Commons License from Flickr.com

Last night, I attended the premiere of a documentary about hiring professionals with disabilities titled The Forerunners. You can learn all about the movie and get some great resources about employing professionals with disabilities over on my friend Pat Maher's nAblement blog.

In the documentary, one of the individuals interviewed really hit on something when he brought up how his efforts to push boundaries in the workplace and overcome challenges through the use of technology and by pursuing a technology career. He referred to those disabled individuals who right now are paving the way to make life easier for future people with disabilities to enter the workforce as "forerunners" and it unsurprisingly became a very fitting title for the movie.

From now on, when I'm talking about anyone who is a professional with a disability in the workforce, I'll refer to him or her as a forerunner. It fits, it provokes conversation (What is a forerunner you ask? I'll tell you!), and it works as a respectful, optimistinc, and powerful name for the community of PWDs.

The movie is going to be posted soon up on YouTube and is a terrific short watch that speaks volumes about the viability of careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

By the way, I know of some truly great Information Technology-specialized forerunners who are available for internships, part-time and full-time employmet in both the Milwaukee and Chicago areas. Know of some opportunities for them?

Monday, May 10, 2010

Recruiting Innovation: LinkedIn Now Lets You "Follow" Companies

In case you’ve missed it, LinkedIn now supports a really useful new feature that allows you to “follow” any company updates. How do I do it, you ask? Just search for any company profile:

When you get to the company profile, notice that you can just click “Follow company” over on the right:

From here on out, that same section of the site will offer you options for notifications about the following:

Obviously, this is a hugely practical way for recruiters to keep tabs on our key competitors.

I am wondering, however, if LinkedIn will begin to get pressure from companies wanting to turn off the ability for individuals outside off a company to follow, namely because of the competitive intel it provides anyone interested about company direction or if a large number of employees happen to be leaving. Imagine how that might affect stocks?

If you've enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing. Have you started using this new LinkedIn feature? Tell us your thoughts about it in comments!

Posted via email from my meandering stream of consciousness