It’s no secret that Australians love social media, but little data exists on the extent of its adoption in finding jobs or enhancing career opportunities. In this year’s Executive Monitor study we further expanded on our earlier investigation on the subject of job seekers’ adoption of social media to find jobs.  Read more...

We are embarking on a project to better understand the adoption of social media by the HR and recruitment community. Our approach is two-fold:

1) Social Talent Report: A study to monitor the behaviour, perception and intention of social media users in the context of attraction and recruitment of staff. This is a national survey open to the general public, especially recruiters and HR practitioners. Click here to take the Social Talent survey.

To say Australians love social media is an understatement of the highest order; we lead the world in social media usage.

There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that job seekers are using social media to look for employment opportunities and in some instances actually land a new job. In fact, a growing number of career advisors are encouraging the use of social media. In addition, the idea of using social media to promote one’s ‘personal brand’ is increasingly becoming popular. But, are Australians using social media to find jobs? If so, how widespread is the practice?  Read more...

SEEK Limited revenue grew by 35%, registering a net profit of $89.5 million, a 62% increase from FY 2009. 

SEEK Employment’s (the job board business)  revenue grew by 1% from 170.9 in FY09 to  172.8 million in FY10, which is a small percentage, but it’s an impressive performance considering it is generated in the midst of the GFC. Revenue from SEEK Training grew significantly. SEEK Learning, in particular, performed very well with revenue increasing by 45%. Again the GFC has probably a hand in this, with many choosing to retrain and invest in education during the downturn. Overseas investment are also starting to pay dividends too.  Read more...

If social media is going to be part of your recruitment game plan, it’s worth noting that it’s currently the least trusted source of information amongst 14 measured by Edelman in Australia (refer chart).

Q. Please tell me how credible you believe each one of them is as a source of information about a company  Read more...

• Friendship at work: A fascinating look at Zappos’ work culture. Here’s an excerpt:

“ we’ve begun tracking employee relationships. When employees log in to their computers, we ask them to look at a picture of a random employee and then ask them how well they know that person — the options include “say hi in the halls,” “hang out outside of work,” and “we’re going to be long time friends.” We’re starting to keep track of the number and strength of cross-departmental relationships — and we’re planning a class on the topic. My hope is that we can have more employees who plan to be close friends”.  Read more...

Starting in 1989, Ross Clennett, APRCSA, worked for 15 years as a recruiter in London, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. He has been a regular writer about recruitment and the Australian recruitment scene since 2001. He runs Australia’s only online training and professional development membership site for recruitment company owners and managers.

1) Believing the claims that technology vendors make and undertaking few, if any, background checks of these claims with other recruiters who are actively using the vendor’s product  Read more...

A year ago we briefly explored the uptake of social media to source talent. Overall, we found, organisations were slow to adopt social media; only a minority (35%) used it in some form or another to recruit new staff.  Read more...

At Recruittech I argued that the balance of power has shifted to job seekers. I highlighted three trends which I think made this scenario possible:

1) Information asset increased: Barriers to corporate information and employment opportunities are broken. We are in an environment where job seekers know more about an employer then vice versa.  Read more...

With so much said about social media and the value it offers, the issue of ROI in monetary terms is bound to be a major issue. Yes, your company may have hundreds of friends on Facebook and hundreds more followers on Twitter, but how does all that translate to revenue?

Olivier Blanchard at BrandBuilder  took a fascinating look at how ROI on social media can be measured and achieved. He chalked a clear distinction between non-financial and financial benefits that social media can offer, and how they can combine to bring about ROI.  Read more...

When I started blogging a year or so ago I was aware of only a handful of blogs in the HR/Recruitment space. Today, there are a lot more blogs around. Thomas Shaw alone maintains 27 different feeds. I’ve also come across several recruitment firms who are dabbling with blogging. Without doubt more companies and individuals are blogging.  Read more...

Some of the most successful recruiters that I’ve encountered have very little to do with social media.  Read more...

If you are a CEO, no one really trust you. Any day consumers prefer the opinion of their friends or peers.

In his groundbreaking study, Frederick Reichheld, argues that a company’s growth is strongly tied to the voluntary marketing efforts of loyal customers; fans recommending and selling on behalf of a company. In other words, positive word-of-mouth.  Read more...

Monitoring social media
What are job seekers saying about your employment brand? What are your customers or suppliers talking about? Monitoring the social media landscape is becoming an essential activity. Here’s a useful primer on how to make sense of the ever growing social media landscape.  Read more...

One cannot talk about the Australian social media landscape and miss the name of Stephen Collins, founder of Acidlabs, a Canberra based consulting firm. A thought leader on everything social media, Stephen is a sought-after speaker, business strategist and writer. An ardent proponent of ‘openness’ and the ‘need to humanise business’, Stephen’s views are refreshing, and at times confronting. I caught up with Stephen to find out more about his latest project JobCAMP, and also discussed employee engagement and recruitment in the bold new world of social media.  Read more...