If asked anything, whether about a band, shop, company, name or place, what is the first thing you do? Google it. Even your grandma Googles it now. It officially became a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary 4 years ago. It is undeniable that information a Google search brings back can dramatically affect your opinion.

But have you thought about what happens when someone googles you? Most people probably haven’t tried (do it now, see what happens, I’ll wait!). Chances are about 6 people you share your name with pop out of their respective social networking profiles, probably one or two of the results is yours. 123people.co.uk may well be there too, this is a site designed for searching out people and will bring together any profile you have on Facebook, MySpace, etc as well as any mentions of your name in the news (even if it not actually you), indeed that scathing review you left on Amazon 3 years ago, and the wish list you made when you where 15… OK so that’s me but none the less, many people don’t think too much about the reputation trail there leaving online. This rings especially true when I tell you that recent research shows that 79% of surveyed hiring managers and job recruiters review online information about job applicants AND 70% had rejected candidates based on what they had found.

So is privacy dead? Not quite but, whether you’re a Facebook addict, Tweetaholic or both there are a few things you need to keep in mind whilst updating your status or tagging those photos from last night.

Whilst being everywhere on the internet maximizes your chances of being seen (which could help you get a job), you need to think about your Personal Brand, in 2010 your CV is much more than a piece of paper!

A few hints and tips…

Keep it simple – Do you really need to be everywhere on the net, having profiles on just one or two social networking sites will make it far easier to keep track of your image.

In the with the new, out with the old – Still got that MySpace profile that you haven’t used in years? Delete it, You never can be sure what will crop up on somebody’s search for you.

Check your settings – Most social network’s default settings are designed to make you as open as possible, think about what parts of your profile you want to be seen and by who.

Know who’s following you – You need to think about who you’re allowing into your network, how well do you really know that guy you met at the bus stop last week? Are you willing to have your colleagues or boss seeing what you got up to at the weekend? Either let them in and change your activity accordingly or decide to keep them out.

Be consistent – If you’re trying to build a ‘Personal Brand’ it needs to be consistent, changing your picture and what your tweeting about daily will reduce the chances of you being recognized and make you appear scatty and unsure of yourself.

You’re going to have a profile online whether you’ve made it yourself or not, so make sure your in control of it, get it to work for you rather than against you.

KFC has done rather well in recent times, along with its fast-food chain buddies such as Subway and McDonalds; where recession hit eaters have been turning to cheaper options. As result the restaurant is expanding it’s 22,000 strong workforce, bringing about its heralded new online recruitment system. So efficient it has saved them “16.2 years of time”, how this slightly bizarre figure has been worked out is unclear but it is a salient point about how the sphere of online recruitment is evolving.

Since the advent of the internet as a THE tool for job hunting, a number of changes of have taken place both for recruiters and job seekers. Job seekers have easy access to millions of jobs, regardless of location and experience, and recruiters see a massive increase of candidates in their talent pool.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number candidates for roles, which is great for getting the right person for the job but also a dramatic increase in the amount of hours spent sifting through these applications, particularly for competitive sales or media jobs.

KFC’s acclimation of their very own online only recruitment system, has allowed them to use their career site to save time with an inbuilt candidate tracking system. But how many companies really have the money or ability to drive the numbers of applicants wanted to their very own recruitment site. Even big brands like KFC might find it tough to attract a good range of candidates post-recession.

Whilst the internet can bring a huge talent pool of direct applicants to a company, you don’t get the same reach of applicants you get when you bring a range of roles with a range of candidate appeal together, only this way can you be sure you can find the right person to hire.

The future requires a complete recruitment solution, a system that can be implemented for any size of business, bringing together all aspects of recruitment, job-seeker traffic, tools to regulate agencies and the ability track and administer the process easily and efficiently, in a way that doesn’t exclude any sort of company big or small.

How do you feel about directy applying through a companies site?

A Recent presentation on TED.com has created quite a stir, and you can see why. Dan Pink is challenging the base logic that western society has built itself on.  Capitalism, the entire business world, has largely been constructed on a reward and punishment structure; do good and you are rewarded, do badly and you are punished:  this pushes business and society to grow: To quote the logic from famous Daft Punk lyrics “work it harder, make it better, do it faster, makes us stronger”.

Rewards,  financial incentives, performance related pay are a staple to the way business is done in this country. But, are times changing; is this the creative economy now?

Research has shown that in the 20^th century performance rewards or punishments worked well because often tasks where mechanical, and the science shows that the bigger the reward the better the performance. However, new research shows that creative tasks requiring “cognitive skill” are not only not affected by rewards, they were actually hindered.

This is why many of the most successful companies in the 21^st century are doing things in a different way; Google, the biggest successor of recent history has what’s called “20% time” where all employees are told to spend 20% of their time working on anything they want, bringing about some of Google’s most successful products; Google News and Gmail.

These new ideas have got a mixed reception, Bruce on  Paul Kedrosky’s blog wrote “Sorry. This is just wrong. “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”, isolated academic experiments not withstanding. Yes, we occasionally need to take a break and think “outside the box”. Having said that, the elitist assumption that some of us should spend most of our time incentivized is, I believe, a classic prescription for inefficiency and dramatic decline in productivity or even creativity.”

Bob A said: “A few years ago, I had a boss who asked what motivated me. When I couldn’t answer either Money, Power, or Title, she seemed to be quite perplexed; looked at me like I had 3 heads… But this little talk really gets to the heart of it. I’m not “motivated” to do a great job because of the promise of future wealth, nor the ability to gain more direct reports or influence over C-level executives… What it comes down to is that I want to have a sense of pride in what I do and believe that my efforts are advancing my organization. And in terms of judging the quality of my work, nobody is a harsher critic than I am. I found this talk fascinating and want to share it with colleagues, and HR, but wouldn’t be surprised if they looked at it and decided I was totally whacked…”

A linked in conversation on what motivates you in your work? Further displays the variance in opinion over this matter:

Marc Edwards Network Analyst at Washoe County School District commented on been asked what motivates you at work?

<——($$$$$$$$$Money$$$$$$$$$$$ …and the opportunity to find creative solutions to complex problems.

Did I mention money?

Whereas,

Dave Kuhl Owner at Kuhl Lifestyle said:

“Personal enjoyment and fulfillment. What good is money if you don’t have the time or the inclination to enjoy it?”

 What do you think? What motivates you in your job?  In life? Would a different attitude to rewards at a company entice you to apply there? Would you really work any better or harder?

Despite only a slight increase (from 50 – 58%) in the implementation of a more formalized resourcing strategy in HR departments,  the report highlights how this figure was expected to be higher, as surveys show that 76% of employers ranked “attracting and recruiting key staff to the organization” as one of their top three resourcing objectives.

Such a small number of companies formalizing their HR strategies could be due in part to the current economic uncertainty. Widespread recruitment freezes are making implementation of a formal resourcing strategy much less of a priority. Without large amounts of recruitment HR departments have a little room to ‘wing-it’ case by case, or do not want to introduce a system which may not be right when the economy picks up again.

However, other reports show that despite the woes of the credit crunch there are other signs that recruiters are looking for new ways to implement formal strategies.

In a recent article on workforce.com Ed Frauenheim said that “despite the downturn, investments are being made in HR software vendors that could lead to new capabilities when the economy eventually recovers.” Recruitment software is selling well, comparative to how the market is affecting sales of just about anything else. “Spending in the first quarter of this year was up 10 to 15 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008” said Josh Bersin, head of research firm Bersin & Associates. HR departments definitely seem to think this a good way to bring their recruitment up scratch, 21^st century style.

These programs are far from cheap, and the truth is that economic recovery will be slow, and companies are looking to reduce costs as things begin to pick up.

HR columnist Gillian Hibberd brings us a cheaper suggestion for moving things into the 21^st century, social networking sites. Feared by many companies as the ultimate time-waster for their employees Hibbered warns that organizations are going to fall “out of touch” and she champions some of the “opportunities that social networking provides”. Nowadays, “what we have to grasp is a matter of urgency … we have a new generation of workers who are web 2.0- and now expect these technologies to be part of their everyday lives  – work included”. The social networking beacon is flashing; research shows 8 in 10 HR professionals belong to these sites, and certainly for a bit more than catching up with old friends. Many said they were using it to make recommendations for suppliers and partners and to share guidance and advice from peers.

Resourcing through social networking sites seem like the obvious answer, referred to by some as the “holy grail” of recruitment. However, despite the buzz about social networks many bosses are skeptical. Maybe rightly so. How many HR consultants can say they would really know how to do this properly? is this really a strategy that can be formalized?

Perhaps this why some organisations are failing to boost the attraction and retention of key talent through the benefits of Web 2.0, according to the CIPD 2008 Recruitment, Retention and Turnover survey only 20% had adopted web 2.0 technologies to attract or recruit employers, Yet, of the 100 CIPD respondent members, over half (56%) believe that social networking sites are useful for engaging potential job seekers and welcome its ability to shed light on how they are perceived in the marketplace (52%). The majority (62%) are concerned, however, that damaging comments about their organization might be posted.

I leave with these quotes;

“We surely have to find ways of harnessing the benefits that these technologies bring while also mitigating there risks” – Gillian Hibberd

And as Frank at MPB often says as things move in the world of web 2.0

“In the end it’s all about balance”; whether the candidates are from the ever growing social networks or the more traditional angles: “It’s all about … getting the best from both worlds”

Since June 2009 to date, over 220 agencies have registered and are supplying candidates on a flat fee basis to employers, forming a diverse range of industries such as form Nestle, Sony, Camelot, Sab Miller, Next, Gerson Lehman Group, Jessops, McArthur Glen, Aspect, DSG International, Selfridges, Inter Resolve, Universal, Britvic, Royal London Insurance, OC&C, HMV, Premier Farnell, etc. We currently receive an approximate average of 50% candidate flow from Agencies. The remaining 50% are made up of 20% direct applicants and 30% are coming from our referral network.

The mypeoplebiz referral network is made up of 2000 users actively recommending friends and contacts to vacancies on the site and earning substantial rewards. What’s great is that our research shows this is likely to keep on growing!

Ofcom’s research into social networking show that 4 in 10 adults in the UK use social networking sites at an average of 5.3 hours per week. Bebo states the average time spent per visit is estimated at lengthy 40minutes. Ofcom further reports that UK adults are spending more time on social networking than our EU neighbors.

The other interesting statistic shows that one of the biggest group on the social networks is 35-49 year olds who constituted 25% of users in 2008, and according to the latest facebook stats on iStartegyLab the 35-54 year olds age group are the fastest growing age group of the site, growing by 276.4% in only 6 months. This is the category that we expect to use mypeoplebiz, either to look for a job or refer a friend for a cash bonus, reflecting that this is usually the age-group where people are most economically productive. This suggests that the number of applicants we get through the social networks is only going to grow bearing in mind the huge expansion of sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin over the past few years.

The findings reflect the opinion that a recruitment portal at this stage of the market’s development/sophistication has to offer a “rounded” service to clients and cannot simply offer clients a “direct only” solution for their recruitment. Some recruitment industry commentators have even gone so far as to say that the social networks are the key to achieving the Holy Grail of recruitment and delivering “direct only” candidates in the future.  However, Frank Verala mypeoplebiz CEO commented, “Recruitment is often more complicated than people realize: Referral schemes and direct applications through the social networks are our specialty, and we are doing as much as anyone else to utilize social networks, but, companies have to get the bigger picture and that is about achieving a balance in your approach and benefiting dramatically from reduced administration as well as having a complete view of all recruitment activities.”

“In the end it’s all about balance”; whether the candidates are from the ever growing social networks or the more traditional angles: “It’s all about providing a system that works for employers in helping them to recruit through getting the best from both worlds”.

Earlier in the year London recruitment looked bleak as the Centre for Economics and Business (CEBR) reported the capital would fare particularly badly due to its reliance on financial and business services.

However, a report out this week suggests after 16 months of consecutive decline “the number of people placed in permanent jobs has risen for the second consecutive month” according to Bernard Brown, head of business services at KPMG in the Wall Street Journal.

The monthly Report on Jobs, produced by Markit Economics for KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) provides an index system which measures recruitment of permanent staff placements in the UK. A score of below 50 describes a decline, whereas August and September of 2009 have seen a rating over 50 showing an increase with measurements of 50.6 and 51.3 respectively.

It appears as though London recruitment as well as the UK as a whole has seen the base of the economic lows and things may be starting to pick up.

It has been recently reported that jobs centric to recruitment in London such as financial staff were rising for the first time in 18 months and demand for executives and professionals were also rising for the first time in 15 months.

The KPMG/REC survey of 400 recruitment consultants also showed the availability of permanent candidates rose further in September, suggesting that demand for staff is stabilizing.

Yet, London recruitment firms have reported that the labor market is still “very fragile”. Brown of KPMG suggested there are areas of optimism, but warned of a “twin-track economy” in which we see a recovery in the private sector but “large scale job losses in the public sector become ever more likely as the government finally tackles the huge budget deficit.”

Psychological Consultancy Ltd conducting the research reported 85% of UK leaders exhibited toxic characteristics, breaking through at both times of stress or times of success.

Using the ‘Hogan Development Survey’ psychometric test, 11 leadership ‘derailers’ were tested with a name scale system, for example Confident – Arrogant, Charming – Manipulative.

A quarter of leaders were found to be charming and persuasive to the extent that they are seen to be manipulative, dishonest or two-faced. Others were seen as so obedient and appeasing that they were unable to speak the truth to power.

Most people who took the survey were found to have at least 1 or more of the derailing or toxic traits, with 26% having over 3.

Geoff Trickey, Managing Director of PCL said “This report shows that dark side characteristics are highly visible in the UK workforce, showing where and how they are likely to be putting individual careers at risk as well as having a negative impact on colleagues and organisations.”

A takeover is therefore looking less and less likely as co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone remain stalwart and confident that Twitter can compete with its bigger rivals. Twitter has already rejected takeover bids from both Facebook and Yahoo, which illustrates the site’s commitment to being a major player in the social networking market. Twitter is surely also leading the race in terms of column inches, as the public continue to be charmed by this completely new form of communication.

It is testament to Twitter’s popularity amongst it’s hardcore that it is expected to perform so well. It could be viewed as a slightly risky proposition. A significant number of Twitter users must simply be dead accounts which have been opened and never used. Twitter is defensive about statistics so this is difficult to verify, but I suspect that if we could delve into this information we would see that that Twitter is less addictive than its older cousin. Inactive accounts will also be a factor with Facebook, but that site definitely seems to have a deeper purpose and more ubiquitous appeal; it is harder to imagine the world without Facebook now considering its almost complete entrenchment into our daily lives in both the personal and business spheres.

What today’s news does however support is that quickfire communication over the internet is becoming big business, mainly because Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and their counterparts are such effective tools for their respective demographics. Twitter’s microblogging approach has clearly captured the zeitgeist in a hugely effective way, and it is good to see serious business people taking such methodologies seriously.

It seems that the smart money continues to be on social networking online, and this seems unlikely to change any time soon. It will be interesting for us all to see what developments come next.