Jennifer McClure`

Empowering Organizations and People Leaders to thrive in the ever-evolving world of work

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Using Social Media: A Missed Opportunity for HR?

Missed opportunity This morning, I’m facilitating the Miami Valley Human Resources Association‘s monthly HR-Xchange meeting, where I’ll be leading a discussion on “Using Social Media & Social Networks – Are You Missing the Opportunities in HR?”. I hope to come back with some insights to share with you as to why many HR professionals are hesitant to get involved with social media and figure out how to use some of these tools to help them to grow in their careers, promote their Employment Brand and connect with/recruit qualified candidates. But don’t worry, we’re not going to stop with just discussing why people aren’t getting on board, we’ll also be talking about how to overcome some of the concerns and just get started.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent post by Mack Collier on his blog The Viral Garden – Social Media isn’t going away, either get on the bus, or get left behind – that speaks to why it’s important for companies (not just HR) to figure this stuff out:

The future doesn’t belong to companies that think that social media is the best thing since sliced bread. It also doesn’t belong to companies that think that it’s all overblown kool-aid drinking, and that’s determined to ignore it, simply because you hate all the hype that social media is getting.

You guys keep fussing about which tools are best, the rest of us will keep figuring out how these tools can WORK TOGETHER to benefit companies.

Social media isn’t going away, and neither is ‘traditional’ marketing. You can either worry about which tools are best, and who is ‘right’, or you can get to work figuring out which tools are right for your company and clients.

Where will you spend your time?

Still think that your HR/Recruiting team (or company) doesn’t need to bother with using Social Media as part of your business strategy? Then check out the statistics presented in the following video – Social Media Revolution – and ask yourself how much longer you can continue ignore it…

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Social Media for HR Professionals Webinar – Two Perspectives

Yin yang This week, The National Institute of Business Management will be hosting a webinar titled Social Media for HR Professionals featuring myself and employment lawyer Cynthia L. Gibson – a Partner at Katz, Teller, Brant & Hild. There is a fee to attend (that goes to NIBM), but if you’re interested in both how social media/social networks can be used by Human Resources professionals and how to address some of the legal concerns, this may be for you.

The webinar is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m on Thursday, July 23rd EST. If you’re interested, you can register here.

Here’s a summary of what we’ll be discussing straight from the NIBM website:

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have had a major impact on the way people interact and communicate and as an HR professional, it’s up to you to understand and set rules for these social media technologies in the workplace.

Unfortunately, the impact is not always positive. Improper use of social media at work can damage morale… hurt productivity… and even expose your company to a lawsuit and that’s all the more reason you need to be aware of both the opportunities and the pitfalls of social media. That’s why The HR Specialist has teamed a leading HR social media expert with a top employment attorney to give you the full picture on how this communications revolution affects your workplace – and your work.

Introducing Social Media for HR Professionals. HR Tips and Strategies from a “Social Media Addict”

Social Media for HR Professionals will acquaint you with the tools of social media and explain how those tools should (and should NOT) be used in the workplace. You’ll discover how to successfully employ social media while managing the legal risks. Presenter Jennifer McClure combines her 20 years of HR experience with her knowledge of social media – she’s a self-described social-media “addict” – to help you navigate this brave new world. She’ll be joined by attorney Cynthia Gibson – an expert in employment law matters, and a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources.

Whether you’re a Twitter devotee or new to the game… a Facebook aficionado or a beginner… this insightful webinar will help you formulate policies, train your staff, recruit top talent and more. We’ll discuss:

* What Social Media/Web 2.0 is
* How HR can benefit
* The difference between profession-based and “pure” social networks
* Using social media in recruiting, career development and employment branding
* Three internal legal risks of social media
* Three external legal risks of social media
* Analyzing how your employees use social media
* Developing a social media policy for your workplace
* And much more!

Make sure you’re getting everything you should out of social media – while not getting in hot water.  Sign up for Social Media for HR Professionals today!

P.S. FREE Bonus Gift. Register for Social Media for HR Professionals, and we’ll send you How to Draft a Company Social Networking Policy – an exclusive white paper – absolutely free.

P.P.S. Your satisfaction is unconditionally guaranteed. If Social Media for HR Professionals fails to meet your needs, we will refund 100% of your tuition – no questions asked. Your exclusive white paper is yours to keep.

Yin_Yang uploaded by dalehugo

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Look Mom! I’m Going to the 2009 SHRM Annual Conference!

Liveblogging Next week I’ll be in New Orleans attending the SHRM Annual Conference June 28 through July 1st – and you’ll be glad to know that I’ve already stocked up on anti-frizz products in an effort to control my hair’s natural tendency to poof to unflattering proportions in the more tropical climes…

If you’ve read my Bio or LinkedIn Profile, you know that I spent most of my career as an HR Pro before making a change in 2006 to become an Executive Recruiter/Coach & Consultant. When I worked in HR, every year I would receive the Conference brochures and devour them wishing that I could attend to learn about what was new and happening in HR, as well as to meet some of my peers. But every year, the money either wasn’t in the budget, or the few times that it was budgeted, something always came up that prevented me from attending. So I’m super excited about this opportunity to finally make the pilgrimage to the land of 10,000+ HR Pros and also to participate as a Press Blogger!

I’ll be tweeting, blogging and vlogging while at the Conference and sharing my learnings and experiences in several places. Kris Dunn, Jessica Lee and myself will be covering the Conference for Fistful of Talent and I’ll also be playing the role of “Roving Reporter” for RecruitingBlogs.com and a new website RecruitingConferences.com. I’ll link to any shenanigans I post on those sites here on Cincy Recruiter’s World, but if you’re not already subscribing to these resources – you should be!

At the Conference, there will be a ton of opportunities to learn about all of the areas of “People Strategy” that I’m consistently curious about, including Recruiting, Executive Coaching, Human Resources, Company Culture and Employment Branding and I’ve tried to select sessions to get my fill in as many of those areas as possible. Here’s my tentative schedule so far:

Sunday, June 28th
2:30 pm     Opening General Session with Jack Welch (we’re like BFF now that I follow Jack on Twitter)
5:00 pm     Press Briefing

Monday, June 29th
7:00 am     Retention Before Hiring, After Hiring and Long-Term Retention Strategies
10:45 am   Creating a Great Place to Work: Lessons from the 2009 ’50 Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America’
12:00 pm   Lunch with Kris Dunn & Jessica Lee
2:00 pm     How Your Web Site Can Be Your #1 Recruiting Tool
4:00 pm     Creating Executive Presence: Thinking on Your Feet
6:00 pm     Yahoo! HotJobs VIP Party

Tuesday, June 30th
7:00 am     Strategic Interviewing Practices
10:45 am   How to Give a Butt-Kicking Presentation
2:15 pm     Employment Branding: Branding Your Organization To Attract & Retain A-Level Talent
6:00 pm     Tweetup at Ruth Chris Steak House

Wednesday, July 1st
10:00 am   Become a Talent Magnet: How to Entice, Endear & Engage Top Talent
11:30 am   HR Blogger Panel: Kris Dunn, Jessica Lee, Laurie Ruettimann & Lance Haun

You should also check out some of the other bloggers who will be attending the Conference. I’ve linked to their Twitter profiles below, as well as their most recent posts about their Conference plans:

Lance Haun – Your HR Guy: Updated SHRM 2009 Schedule

Sharlyn Lauby – HR Bartender: The Big Easy

Jessica Lee – Jessica Lee Writes: New Orleans…Here I Come!

Michael Long – The Red Recruiter: SHRMing Out With Twitter

Laurie Ruettimann – Punk Rock HR: Social Media, Human Resources & SHRM

Mary Ellen Slayter – SmartBlog on Workforce: My SHRM Schedule

Mark Stelzner – Inflexion Advisors: HR Gone Wild – SHRM 2009

UPDATE: Thanks to Brett Farmiloe of Jobing.com for making me aware of his post 5 Ways To Participate in SHRM 2009 From the Office on ERE.net. Good tips for those who must stay home!

You can catch me tweeting as @CincyRecruiter and follow all “real time” Conference tweets via Twitter Search here with the hashtag #SHRM09. (You don’t even have to sign up for Twitter to do so!)

If you’ll be attending the Conference, I’d love to meet you there! You
can get my contact information by texting JENNIFERM to 50500 (via
Contxt).


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Social Media for HR Professionals Beyond LinkedIn

Last week, I spoke to a local Human Resources Group (the Northern Kentucky SHRM Chapter) about using Social Media as an HR professional along with David Cohen, a Senior Account Executive from LinkedIn. David did a great job of covering how LinkedIn can be utilized by HR and Recruiting professionals – including some of the cool features available with their corporate solutions. My job was to talk about some other tools to consider beyond LinkedIn — in about 15 minutes. Fueled by probably one too many Diet Cokes in advance, it's entirely possible that I completed my presentation in record time. Click on the link below to view a copy of the slide deck:

Cincy Recruiter's Social Media for HR Professionals Beyond LinkedIn 4 16 2009 on Slideshare

Here's a brief summary of my recommendations in the presentation including links for you to check them out:

Read/subscribe to Blogs, News Feeds, etc. to stay current.

There's a ton of great, leading edge content out on the world wide web to make us better as HR/Recruiting/Talent pros. The best way to access it is via RSS using some type of Reader. The second best way – via email subscription. For an HR starter pack, I recommend:

  • Fistful of Talent – a multi-contributor blog where you'll get a variety of viewpoints in HR, Recruiting & Talent Management. (Added bonus – my ramblings appear of FOT every now and then too.)
  • Benefits Buzz – Kris Dunn (the brains behind The HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent) recently launched a second multi-contributor blog covering all things Benefits. While it's tough to make Benefits exciting and interesting, these folks are doing a nice job of bringing a little sexy back to this corner of the HR world.
  • Compensation Cafe – Ann Bares' blog Compensation Force is where I go to get the latest news and thought provoking ideas about the world of compensation. Ann recently launched Compensation Cafe – where she and several other compensation pros will drop some knowledge on all things comp. 
  • ERE.net – The Columns and Articles on ERE are a fantastic resource for HR pros with Recruiting responsibilities. 
  • Alltop – For those who want to add more to their starter pack – find additional blogs of interest at Alltop, where feeds have been categorized and made available in a "magazine rack" format. You can browse several categories and check out what you like. A variety of HR and Recruiting blogs (including Cincy Recruiter's World) can be found in the Careers category.

Join Profession-Based Social Networks for HR.

Unfortunately, I see too many HR professionals who have isolated themselves from their peers and the outside world. Building effective professional relationships is critical for career development and some of the on-line professional networking options can be very helpful in that regard. These resources allow HR peeps to connect with each other, ask/answer questions, find resources, etc. Some recommendations:

  • The HR Net – a global on-line resource for HR professionals to ask/answer questions that is facilitated by Steve Browne – Executive Director of Human Resources at LaRosa's, Inc. Steve is a super-connected HR pro and sought after speaker whose goal is to put the "fun" back in HR. He shares an original HR themed song each week in an email summarizing recent activity on the Net. (Connect to the HR Net by emailing Steve here.)
  • HRMToday.com – Find blogs, groups, forums and other HR pros to connect with and become a part of the community. Recently started by HR bloggers Lance Haun, Laurie Ruettimann and Jenn Barnes, it's growing fast and becoming a great resource. 
  • RecruitingBlogs.com – Similar to HRMToday, RBC is the place where Recruiters of all types are connecting. With over 16,000 members, it's a great place to connect with the recruiting community. 
  • ERE.net – In addition to the content mentioned above that is produced by the writers at ERE, there are many different Discussion Groups to ask and answer questions on a variety of topics.
  • SHRM Connect – coming soon from SHRM – a new "social-network" for HR pros! I'm excited to see how this one turns out so stay tuned. 

Facebook and Twitter – HR Can Use Them Too!

We also talked briefly about using Facebook and Twitter as HR pros – mostly to wake people up after their food comas had set in. Of the 100 or so attendees, maybe 10% were on Facebook, and it looked like about 5 were on Twitter. There are huge possibilities for both tools in HR – and most definitely for Recruiting and Employment Branding. Hopefully, a few of the attendees were inspired to at least begin to try them out.

If you're interested in more of my thoughts on social media resources for HR and Recruiting pros – check out my recent posts on Fistful of Talent – 5 Must Use Social Media Tools for HR & Recruiting Professionals in 2009 and 5 (More) Must Use Social media Tools for HR & Recruiting Professionals in 2009.

What are your thoughts about how HR pros can effectively use some of the social media tools beyond LinkedIn? What did I miss? What are your concerns? I'd love to hear from you in the Comments!

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Spanning the World – Links You Can Use or Peruse – April 17th Edition

Blogging Each day, there’s an enormous amount of great content produced by people all over the world and put out on the world wide web. Sometimes it’s from a high-profile journalist or weblebrity, and sometimes it’s from a little known blogger who took the time to share their thoughts with the few souls who follow them that have taken the time to subscribe to their blog. (Ahem… you can subscribe to this little known blogger’s blog via email here or RSS here.)

As a consistently curious consumer of vast quantities of information in the areas of Recruiting, Coaching, HR, Leadership, Career Development, Employment Branding & Social Media, I’d like to share a few links to stuff I found interesting on the Interwebs within the last couple of weeks.

Recruiting

It’s almost counter-intuitive to think that recruiting top candidates would be harder in the current economic times, but Auren Hoffman does a really nice job of explaining why that’s indeed the case in Why Hiring is Paradoxically Harder in a Downturn. And he uses lots of charts, graphs and data to do it. We have ourselves a smarty up in here folks…

My friend Kelly Dingee – a Sourcing Ninja – published the April 2009 AIRS Sourcing Report. If your job involves sourcing candidates using the Internet, then this free monthly resource is for you!

Speaking of Sourcing Ninjas – the Boolean Black Belt (Glen Cathey) makes me dizzy with all of the ways that he can find potential candidates. Strap on your seat belt… Searching Social Media Requires Outside-The-Box-Thinking.

Times – they certainly are a-changin’…Good perspective for both Recruiters and Job Seekers on The Changing Face of Recruiting from Netshare, Inc.

I’m a serious fan of Chris Hoyt – Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T’ – who is probably more widely known (on the web) as the RecruiterGuy. Chris is way out in front in terms of trying and implementing innovative ideas in the recruiting/sourcing space. In 360-Crazy-Sexy-Cool (Recruiting/Sourcing) Part I , he begins a series of posts on a completely mobile and cloud based boxed set of recruiting tools.

Coaching

Jason Seiden always has a way of getting in your face and daring you to take the actions necessary to grow as a leader or in your career – What “Color” Is My Parachute? Sh*t Brown – Thanks for Asking. I like Jason’s coaching style – a lot.

Human Resources

(From RecruitingBlogs.com) Anyone who can quote my favorite movie Jerry Macguire and use the phrase “up at dawn, pride swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about” to describe the (sometimes) life of an HR Director has me at “Hello”.

This week, I spoke at a local SHRM Group on the topic of How HR Can Use Social Media Beyond LinkedIn. Of the 100 or so in attendance, only about 5 were currently using Twitter. Workforce.com shares some of the drawbacks – and opportunities for HR in HR World Not Immune From Twitter Craze.

Leadership

Great leadership advice and summary of Tips from Tom Peters for Leading in Freaked-Out Times on The Practice of Leadership blog.

Career Development

From my perspective, the single biggest issue for many who are searching for a job is not being able to clearly articulate what they are targeting to best utilize their talents and experience. Couldn’t have said this better myself – To Get the Job, Get Specific.

Another famous Jerry Macguire quote is put to good use by Kathy Rapp on Fistful of Talent in Help Me… Help You. How Not to Play the Salary Negotiation Game.

Employment Branding

The writers and contributors at ERE.net produce significantly high quality stuff on a daily basis. This week, one of my favorites was Ryan Estis – Employment Branding 2.0 – The 8 C’s of My Web My Way.

Social Media/Social Networking

From what appears to be a relatively new blog with some very good content – The Social Executive – check out 9 Tips to Get Executives Started on Twitter.

Here’s an awesome post from the LinkedIn Blog about What Recruiters Look For in a LinkedIn Profile: 8 Tips. A similar post appeared on Mashable – with more good tips – Do You Pass the Social Media Recruitment Test? Of course every recruiter is different and these methods may not be applied by all, but it’s a good place to start.

Facebook isn’t just for poking “friends” and throwing sheep anymore… Check out these 20 Facebook Applications to Assist You In Your Job Search.

If you’re looking for some data to convince your CEO why it’s ok to allow employees to use social media at work – here’s your ticket – Facebook, YouTube at Work Make Better Employees: Study. But make sure he or she doesn’t see this – Does Facebook Make You Dumber? Study shows users of social networking site get lower grades. Just a minor detail in the pursuit of happier employees.

Bringing It Home

And finally, a CincyRecruiter shout-out to the social network for HR professionals – HRMToday.com! I was already a fan, but recently winning an iPod Touch for sharing one of my (too many) hiring horror stories has made me love them that much more. If you’re in HR – or work with people – join HRMToday and check out my winning submission on how a male stripper once tried to recruit ME during his interview. And you thought you had all of the fun in Accounting…

Until next time, take it away Len Berman

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