While the article was applying the alarming comparison (yes, I think it is alarming to have our attention span compared to that of a fish with a brain the size of a shrivelled pea) to Web surfing habits, I think that we need to apply it as a rule to the way resumes get reviewed. We used to say that you have 30 seconds to get a reviewer's attention. From personal experience, I think nine seconds is more accurate. I tend to scan the sections and look for criteria that either qualify or disqualify a candidate. It's simply a matter of screening out the noise.
Nine seconds.
It it sad? Unfair? Maybe so. However, it's a good enough reason to get better at marketing basics like writing good copy and following some basic rules of layout and design--even if you are not a marketer by profession.
In the realm of professional career management, where personal brand is each person's responsibility, we are all marketers.
What do you think? I'd like to hear about how you write your resume in order to get attention. If you're a recruiter, tell me how you go about scanning a resumes that land on your desk.
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This morning's roundtable discussion for Human Resources in Technology at the Illinois Technology Association could not have been a better match for the kinds of topics I cover in this blog. I got to meet a terrific group of participants and enjoyed a variety of perspectives about how social media impacts the business of hiring.
The discussion was led by Tom Hazlett and Chuck Smith of NewHire and covered an array of topics regarding the use of Social Media and your Web site to drive hiring.
How Does Social Media Impact Your Talent Pipeline?
David O'Brien of Infogix facilitated the HR roundtable today and brought up the first topic of discussion, apparently something that has been a hot topic for a while... namely, the question of whether you as a recruiter maintain a talent pipeline. A talent pipeline, as defined by the ensuing discussion, is a group of qualified, interested candidates you regularly have calls with and who are available to join your company on short notice.
For my part, I draw a distinction between a candidate inventory, which is names, phone numbers and resumes, versus a group of contacts with whom you have active and regular contact. It isn't easy to keep such a pipeline. Despite the downtrodden job market, the top IT talent has continued to stay in pretty strong demand. Nobody in the space I hire for stays on the market for very long. A good recruiter gets a personal meeting and even if that potential hire leaves the market stays in touch every so often.
There are some candidates I keep in touch with every six months, some I keep in touch with ever six weeks, and others every six days or so. How often I keep in touch with them depends on how good they are at keeping up networking contacts, how likely it is that I am going to have a viable position for them, and how often I have those viable positions. Others are simply high priority networking contacts because they refer lots of other talented people my way.
The question of the day was whether social media can have an impact on such a talent pipeline. I think that the foregone conclusion was a resounding "of course!" However, just how to do that is, I think, something that a future roundtable could address more specifically.
Twitter Topics from the HR Roundtable
Here are just a few other topics I hastily jotted into a Twitter stream during the event:
When you say how much a job pays in a job description, it increases response rates across all sources. - Chuck Smith, pres. of NewHIre
7 Reasons to work at Netflix http://bit.ly/2rjpSn Can you articulate your Employee Value Proposition?
Can you express the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) for working at your company? #recruiting #ITA #hrroundtable
How do you define your talent pipeline and how does social media impact how you manage it? #hrroundtable #ita #recruiting
The best people aren't looking. Best way to get attention of a new hire? Via a trusted friend. @technexus HR roundtable
Social Media trend: It's going to be that much easier to find me, but that much harder to get my attention. @technexus HR roundtable
Lively discussion about recruiting C-level talent from the Social Web. @technexus hr roundtable
Is anybody using pay-per-click advertising in @LinkedIn? Results?
Listening to some criticism of how cluttered @LinkedIn jobs is at @technexus HR Roundtable on social media
Did you know? Monster and CareerBuildrer are paying Indeed and SimplyHired to post jobs. @technexus at HR Roundtable talk on social media.
@technexus "Do you monitor your company reputation online?" Chuck Smith, pres. of NewHire
Is your applicaiton process onerous? Do you hate your candidates? Clean it up. #itatechnexus
The Social Web and Recruiting CXO's Toward the end of the event, we had a particularly interesting conversation about whether the Social Web (or the Web itself for that matter) was a good place from which to recruit C-level talent. M. Zak from The Consulting Consortium took the position, from some experiences he has had with clients, that Web-based hires are not nearly as effective as interviewing members of the current executive team and pursuing their referrals thereby ensuring a continuance of the company culture.
Chuck Smith from NewHire argued that the Web is going to reveal more candidates than an internal referral system. I also argued the point briefly that while hiring based solely upon referrals may ensure a fit with the company culture, it also enforces a homogeniety in the company that could ultimately lead to stagnation. Zak's contention was the he had to work with a company that did its hiring via the Web and that's why they had to replace certain members of the executive team.
It was a thought-provoking discussion and it underscored for me the reminder that the Web is not the be-all and end-all for business. I know, I know it is anathema to say that. The social technologies that the Web enables are helpful and expand our capabilities for working in certain ways, but it's not the only set of tools we have. As much as I have to disagree politely with the sentiment that C-level hires should come primarily from a strong referral process (sure, they could and should be one source of many), it's good to keep in mind that the tail does not wag the dog, the tool should not dictate our interactions and certainly not to the exclusion of other ways of working. Social media's great, but a larger-than-usual segment of the predominantly male and 45+ population from which the executive suite are drawn are still Internet holdouts when it comes to joining and participating on networks.
That "good old boys" club mentality sucks and it's wrong and it should change and it's a situation the Web should help change (along with the inexorable march of time). But I get it. Human Resources Roundtable at Illinois Technology Association
In all, I thought that the event was enjoyable and useful on a number of fronts. It's a free event and the ITA facilities are a pleasant professional environment. The noise from the ventilation systems was sometimes a little distracting but it tends to fade into white noise the longer you are in the room. The rooms themselves have fast wi-fi access but you need a password to log in, something I had to ask for. Some better signage would help. The group itself is extremely friendly and open, the networking opportunities were very good, and the presentation content interesting (the tidbit I took away from it was some interesting new information about Pay Per Click advertising on LinkedIn and Indeed).
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This week, I heard about the launch of a new social network for The Brazen Careerist. Penelope Trunks started the Brazen Careerist as a blog and it has quickly grown into its own destination for Gen Y job seekers and others who are looking for career management advice and a place to network.
The new site is a great place to build your "social resume" (more on that to come) and hook up to various networks (think LInkedIn Groups or Facebook Pages) to discuss issues of relevance to work. The network has a steep climb ahead of it if its ever to compete with LinkedIn or Facebook, but I don't think that's its goal to be honest. They did make it dead simple to sign up for (it uses Facebook Connect) and I was up and using it in about ten minutes.
After having a few days to think about it, however, it made me realize that its real value is the direct, live conversations resulting precisely because it is a new, small, yet growing community. The site has been built in a friendly enough way that it attracts the Facebook crowd and uses a similar information architecture. Usability is definitely something they thought about. The site is a touch on the slow side, but I expect that's something that they will fix soon. But the navigation and interaction is promoted by its design.
Not another social network please!
Yes, I know what you're thinking. You already have too many social networks and keeping up with another tiny one hardly seems to be worth the effort.
As a job seeker, what can a new, relatively small network like this do for you? Well, think about the demographic. They have managed to attract a crowd of users who are for the most part savvy about social networks, career-minded, and early adopters. They haven't yet been swamped by hordes of users. They are currently sitting at somewhere around 45,000 unique monthly visitors according to Compete.com. If you look at that in comparison to about 15 million monthly unique visitors to LinkedIn.com and you can see that this is a much smaller pool.
Want to stand out and get noticed faster? Looking to promote your blog? Seeking advice from a group of dedicated peers and employers who adopt new technologies early? Sites like Brazen Careerist are a good bet for managing your own personal brand and being seen. Plus, from an image perspective, Brazen Careerist oozes a younger, more design-conscious demographic. Whether you are a Gen Y / millennial or not, you want to be here if you care about visibility. LinkedIn will remain the de facto spot where you create your virtual resume, but it's a stuffy older brother by comparison to Brazen Careerist.
It's worth checking out.
I'd love to hear your experiences about using Brazen Careerist or other new social networks. Like them? Hate them? Sound off! Also, if you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to my feed and becoming a regular reader.
Social networks a challenge to cable news: CNN US president
(AFP) – 1 day ago
NEW YORK — The biggest challenge to Cable News Network is not other 24-hour television news stations but social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the president of CNN US said Wednesday.
"The competition I'm really afraid of are social networking sites," Jon Klein said at the Bloomberg BusinessWeek 2010 Media Summit here. "That's an alternative that threatens to pull people away from us.
"The people you're friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information," Klein said. "You click on links they send to you and you trust them.
"Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news," he said. "We don't want the 1,000 people you follow in Twitter to be the most trusted sources for you.
"That's a challenge and we have to rise to that challenge," Klein said.
"So I'm far more worried about the 500 million people on Facebook than I am about two million people watching Fox," the News Corp-owned station which is CNN's major competitor in the cable news arena, Klein said.
The CNN executive said his network's "mission" is to drive social network and other Web users to "link back to something on CNN."
Besides expanding its footprint on the Internet with news and video, CNN is looking at mobile devices, Klein said.
"Online is a big growth area for us, mobile has enormous growth potential and domestic US cable is actually a growth area," he said. "There's a lot of room to grow.
"We're in a lot of places and I think that's the model that can be very successful for us," Klein said. "Everyone in the media business is actively loooking for multiple revenue streams, that's no secret."
Klein, a longtime producer at broadcast network CBS who took over as head of CNN's US operations in 2004, also said that with the explosion of news outlets and the Internet just being at the scene of a news event was no longer enough.
"Simply getting there used to be a big achievement," he said. "Nowadays, you've got to provide more than just being there.
"Offering the depth and analysis is harder," he said. "It takes more brainpower, it takes more work, it takes more thought, it takes more creativity.
"People are pretty up to speed on what happened today," he said. "You've got to give them more insight about what's going on. That is where we are going to try to continue to make a difference."
Okay, so CNN is afraid of social networks and the potentially damaging impact upon their business, but job boards are clearly not. Who are the dumb guys here?
It's free, it lets you embed multimedia, and you don't have to be a Web developer to set it up and use it. Squidoo, the brainchild of Seth Godin, allows you to create multimedia pages called "Lenses" that can be about nearly any topic you can think of.
I've known about the site for some time, but a few weeks ago I got inspired by the idea of creating a better online job advertisement. In past blog entries I've made it clear that I'm not enthusiastic about the vast majority of online job ads. Generally speaking, they extinguish interest rather than create it. Instead of recruiting interested people, they spout incomprehensible Human Resources department jargon at you. Instead of talking about the benefits of working for a company in a great city, they bludgeon you with laundry lists of requirements.
For a while, I thought that perhaps the antidote is to write intriguing, short job adverts in status updates like Twitter or Facebook with a link to an application or more complete descriptions. The 140 character limit for Twitter is perfect for forcing you to distill the essence of a job opportunity for a reader.
Squidoo lenses are something entirely different. Imagine being able to put together videos, pictures, copy, PDF's, PowerPoints--in short the best rich media experiences the Web can offer--quickly and simply at no cost. You can create something far more compelling and interesting than just text (that will cost you hundreds of dollars on a job board) and leave the reader with a call to action.
I put together a sample Lens here about some positions I'm sourcing for at a client in Springfield, Illinois. The big challenge of recruiting for Springfield is that it's not a big metropolitan market and has a pretty limited pool of technology professionals, so it needs to be appealing enough to draw in people from other parts of the country. I took a stab at showing some of the great things about living there like the beautiful buildings, information about cost of living, and even some video to show that it's not as small of a city as you might initially think.
I put about an hour of work into the site and I’m definitely not holding it up as a paragon of what could be done but as an example of what’s possible.
Do you have an experience using Squidoo as an employment branding tool? Have you used other similar tools on the Web? Tell others about your idea or experience in the Comments section!
I'm proud of a lot of things about the Milwaukee JobCamps and one of them that I am extremely proud of is the charity component. For the price of a non-perishable food item, about 2,000 campers got a day full of career advice, hands-on practice with social media, resume and interview feedback and so much more.
Feeding America of Eastern Wisconsin collected almost 1,000 pounds of food for hungry families due to this event. And that's not even including the online and cash donations, which were also significant.
The people of Milwaukee can be incredibly cool and generous. Look no further for proof.
Looking for an eye-candyish way to decide whether to take that job offer or not? ProConLists is a fun way to get all of those pro's and con's down and weighted.
Yves Lermusi makes a closely reasoned argument about how to verify candidate achievements via references that check on past behaviors and achievements. I was interested that he asserts how there is a low correlation between past "experience" and future performance but didn't cite any research to back it up. I'm sure that it exists, but would like to know from whence the fact is drawn.
I received this invitation to Chicago’s Staffing Management Association of Greater Chicago event coming up in May. Sounds like it may be an interesting day.
I wanted to pass along a great group to consider joining/networking with in Chicago. The SMAGC has been considered a leadership group the talent acquisition/staffing space for a number of years. Please note the upcoming Staffing Symposium in May. This event is a real value in learning cutting edge information...exchanging ideas ...and ample time to social network as well. Feel free to share this information with your friends in the Milwaukee and surrounding area.
I direct a recruiting business based in Chicago focused on finding and placing IT executives and senior technologists.
This blog presents my personal opinions and does not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
On this morning's Twitter feed, I saw a posting from CD Van (@thatwoman_soho) about a blog article on how our attention spans have suffered:
It's free, it lets you embed multimedia, and you don't have to be a Web developer to set it up and use it. 
For a while, I thought that perhaps the antidote is to write intriguing, 
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