Facebook is changing, unless you want future employers to know your entire history, you need to change your privacy settings ASAP. If you are wondering what to do, here is a quick guide

First let’s see how your profile looks like to the entire world.

1. Log in. Click on your name in the top right corner.
   
2. Click ‘View As..’
   
3. If you have already enabled your Timeline view then this is how it looks to everyone. You can also enter any of your contacts name to see how your Timeline appears to them.

Fix your settings.

1. You can hide individual post from your timeline.
   
2. Always make sure you set the right visibility of your post.
   

We would be interested in hearing your comments, are you concerned by this or do you just accept that in tomorrow’s world there will be no secrets? Is this bad for job seekers or does it have no impact?

With LinkedIn on the other hand, everything that I have read in the past year or two has been overwhelmingly positive and none more so than when talking about social networking and recruitment.

So I was taken aback recently when I asked a head hunter why he didn’t accept my invitation to join my network on LinkedIn. He said “it’s for your protection, everyone knows that I am a head hunter and when you and I connect,  everyone in your network (including your employer) gets an email update telling them we are now connected and everyone will assume that you are either a client or looking for a job”. He added that the other thing he found astounding was that people did not realise that LinkedIn was one of the biggest CV databases around and unlike Monster, Reed or Total Jobs, you don’t even have to buy a license to be able to see the people who are looking for a job; as they simply tick the looking for a new job box or interested in new career opportunities and are then visible to the entire world, including their employer.

I decided to do a bit of research and came across these articles in the Telegraph & Mail discussing the sacking over a LinkedIn profile which highlight to me the exact issue my friend had outlined.

The articles cover the case of John Flexman, 34, who posted his career history on networking site LinkedIn while employed as a graduate and development manager for gas company BG Group in Reading, who alleges he lost his job for saying he was interested in ‘career opportunities’ in an online CV.  As part of his profile, he also ticked a box to say he was interested in career opportunities.

However, after discovering Mr.Flexman’s profile his employer took exception to it, saying Mr Flexman had revealed confidential information and breached company policy.Mr Flexman is understood to have been ordered to remove the profile and was called to a disciplinary hearing for ‘inappropriate use of social media’.He was using the website to advance his career at a cost to the company: “In effect what you were saying was ‘what a terrible place this is but what a great job I’ve done’,” BG Group lawyer Ian Gatt QC, is reported saying :

“Mr Flexman said he should have put more thought into the content of his profile but that he had a right to post his CV publicly “.

“But did I do it to further my career? That’s absolute nonsense.”

On his return to work he was handed a list of disciplinary charges and told he could be sacked, Reading Employment Tribunal heard.The dispute led to Mr Flexman’s resignation in June.

Employment law experts have commented that it was unlawful to treat anybody differently because they were seeking employment and looking for a job is not a sackable offence. However, employers are entitled to expect loyalty from staff and if the employee knowingly published confidential information in his online CV, the dismissal may have been justified.

Most people still believe that LinkedIn is a networking site and that’s why the CV details are required in order to find and connect with like-minded people, but my friend the headhunter says that it is rubbish, it’s a recruitment site, that’s what everyone uses it for and that is probably the major source of income for LinkedIn.

The hearing is continuing,so we will have to wait to see how it all ends, but clearly more consideration needs to be given to what information you are prepared to put online in public “networking” or CV databases and more thought needs to be given to how someone else may interpret whatever you are putting online.

Has anyone come across anything like this? If you are able to share positive or negative experiences, would love to hear your story.

Also any thoughts on LinkedIn: Job boards or social networks?

Misconception 1: “We are a small company and we don’t recruit much!”

A very small company may only recruit 3 or 4 people a year, therefore is there any point in thinking too much about recruitment and its associated costs?

The answer is that perception is key.

Small companies do not want to be perceived as small companies, it’s not good for business image, for winning large scale contracts, or indeed for hiring talent. They want to be perceived as professional and cutting edge. A Recruitment Portal would provide the same high spec functionality as that of their bigger competitors. But it doesn’t stop there – small companies would also have the ability to attract talent more economically by utilising MyPeopleBiz buying power with candidate supply channels such as recruitment agents and job boards, rather than trying to negotiate something from a position of weakness. After all, it’s no good trying to sell to an agent the concept of reducing their fees if all they are going to be offered  is a couple of roles to fill a year. With MyPeopleBiz, a small company can benefit from our collective buying power, agree terms of business, set and fix the fee. Then there is the ability to hire direct utilising our platform consisting of thousands of job seekers. If you hire a couple of your new employees direct, you will have almost paid for your Recruitment Portal and from then on, everything is a cost saving.

Misconception 2: “We are an SME, we employ around 100 people and we are not really doing anything!”

It is true that there are companies out there planning to survive by doing nothing but this in practice is not what it seems. In reality the above statement is made because it feels the right thing to say or it feels like nothing is happening; but when you look at what the recruitment plan is, often most companies will say that they are growing by an average of 10% a year (10 new people) to support the growth of the business and in most cases there is also an attrition ration of 10% (another 10 new people). Put simply, “we are not doing anything and not recruiting” may well be what it feels like when you are immersed in the day to day, but there is a need to recruit 20 people and that is expensive and time consuming. Hence you do need a Recruitment Portal.

Misconception 3: “We use a spread sheet for tracking candidates – we DO NOT need an applicant tracking system or any other system!”

Organising recruitment is not rocket science. While using an excel spread sheet is not an ideal situation, it can be maintained and managed by an administrator. You can put up with emails containing CV’s coming in at you from every angle, you can put up with the odd agency dispute caused by duplicate applications and end up paying two agencies fees for the same candidate. Not using an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) might save you money up-front but it will cost you in the long run. Yes, all of the problems of under investment can be justified, even the over worked administrators who have to put up with the day to day issues can be dealt with, BUT what about the business? Are they being served? Are they getting the best support? Are you really saving any money by doing what you have always done and refusing to update? Here is an example that people don’t think about and it’s a typical scenario. A new role arises and a decision to post the role on some job boards at a cost of £1,000 (to get direct response and save money) is taken as well as calling all the agencies on the PSL and asking them to help you fill the role. An agency sends a candidate in, admin checks to see if that candidate is on the spread sheet and finds that indeed an application had been submitted 2 years ago. This is outside of the agency exclusivity arrangement and therefore the agency that has submitted the most recent application is logged and the candidate duly gets interviewed, gets the job and is hired resulting in a fee of £6,000 for the introduction. Including the money spent on the job boards, it has all cost £7,000. That’s all pretty efficient and it has all worked well.

Now consider how the same scenario would work with MyPeopleBiz.

A new role arises and you post the role on your career portal before deciding how you want to recruit it. You press the “Candidate Match” button and a candidate that had applied 2 years ago is a perfect match and had been bookmarked to your talent pool at the time you interviewed them. You press the contact candidate button and automatically attach the job spec requesting that, if they are interested, to send you an updated CV and apply via your career portal for the job. They duly get interviewed and hired for the job, resulting in a fee of a big fat £ZERO. There has been no admin hassle, all communications have taken place through your portal and are stored in one place. A vacancy history has been stored, the business has been well served, money has been saved and recruitment has been moved into another level. Now the focus can be on the quality of hire, time to hire, cost to hire, employer brand.

You now have a professional, cutting edge Recruitment Portal, accessible from your website providing you with the same high spec functionality as that of your bigger competitors.

Misconception 4: “We want a direct only recruitment strategy!”

The CEO of a fast growing company decided about a year ago that they had enough of agencies and that from now on HR would be banned from using them. The resources would be directed to bringing everything in-house and managing a self-sufficient “Direct only” recruitment strategy. The Company recruits an average of 20 people per month throughout the UK. The HR team has had to grow from 2 people to 12 people to be able to manage and resource the strategy; which consists of social media, job boards, CV databases and internal head-hunters. Because of the cost of people employed, there is no budget for an ATS and the whole thing is managed on a spread sheet.

The average hire is on a base of £25k with OTE of around £40k and previously the recruitment agencies were supplying candidates at 10% on a PSL resulting in an average fee of £2,500 per hire. So under the previous agency strategy, recruiting 240 people would have cost £600,000.

Now with HR team salaries averaging £30k for 12 people £360,000 plus NI £46,800 plus factoring in desks, laptops and all other employment associated costs, which is difficult to guess but we will use the service office model and allocate a cost per desk of £300 per employee per month costing £43,200. There are 12 job boards used ranging from Reed, Monster, to specialist sales & marketing boards plus LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and a number of CV databases that are subscribed to annually in order to acquire candidate names, identities and contact details at a cost of £90,000. Total cost of the direct strategy is £540,00 A saving of £60,000, but a huge increase in risk.

We suggested a Recruitment Portal with a multichannel recruitment strategy.

The portal including the career site, ATS, communications suite, interview management system,  2 user licenses , all jobs being “socialised” to the social networks by MyPeopleBiz, all jobs appearing on job board aggregators at a cost £14,690.  We would purchase job board credits at our reduced rates amounting to £72,000

Results show that:

• 50 % of the recruits (120) will be “no-fee” candidates generated by people coming directly to the company’s Recruitment Portal, social networks and job boards.
• Referrals will account for another 20% of recruits and utilising our unique referral schemes, these will cost £147,000.
• Finally, the use of recruitment agencies for the remaining most difficult to fill jobs (72) will result in £180,000.

The total cost of a professional system and multichannel approach cost £383,690 representing a saving of £216,310.

Even if you take the view that the office space doesn’t cost you and the laptops are free, etc; you may be able to lose £43,200 of costs, bringing the direct strategy down to £496,800. You could take the view that you may need two extra administrators to the Recruitment Portal approach with an additional cost of £60,000, meaning that you increase the MyPeopleBiz costs to £425,690, but compared to going completely “direct strategy” route,  it’s still a saving £53,110 in year one.

Has the business been served? Are they getting the right or best support? Are you really saving any money by not having an applicant tracking system? The Holy Grail of direct only is not always what it may seem.

Misconception 5: “We do not have time for all of this, besides we like our agencies and want to continue to use them!”

I am never too sure what this statement means, but I guess it is saying that the team is far too busy to look at the recruitment service it provides to the business and whether that service is providing value and the quality required. I assume that it is also saying that managing a spread sheet or paper application process is time consuming and mind numbingly boring, which I understand. I guess it’s also saying that we don’t have either the time or the inclination to go outside of the agency candidate supply channel because it “fills me with dread”, which again I understand. Finally, having built up valuable relationships with certain agents, I completely understand why you would wish to maintain those relationships.

So let’s deal with some of these myths starting in reverse order.

Implementing a Recruitment Portal does not change your relationship with a recruiter. It simply means when they submit an application, it automatically goes into your tracking system rather than to your administrator to input into a spread sheet. You can use the same PSL if you so wish, you can continue to pay the same fee levels if you wish, although using our buying power you can also reduce those fee levels, fix them and agree your terms online. But you can continue to talk to your agents in exactly the same way as you always have.

Being far too busy to provide the right service to the business is an issue and we can help you to change that by providing you with a professional, cutting edge Recruitment Portal. This can be accessed from your web site, providing the same high spec functionality as that of your bigger competitors with a complete ATS, communications  suite and interview management.

You will have the ability to attract talent more economically without the hassle of having to do it yourself, by utilising our platform which consists of thousands of job seekers from social networks and job boards. If you hire a couple of your new employees direct, you will have almost paid for your Portal. From then on, everything is a cost saving and you will have more time to support the business in other ways such as development, appraisals etc.

Contact us for further information info@mypeoplebiz.com.

Hosking’s feature has a slightly different angle, more to do with the frustration of people trying to find a job:

But there is one modest, virtually costless, way that employers could soften the misery and frustration of unemployment. They could trouble to reply to all job applicants

I could not agree more, what’s the point of spending all that effort on nurturing an employer brand and then not bothering to communicate with jobseekers?

We all know the answer and so does Hosking:

Over the past few years it seems to have become acceptable for employers to solicit for potential employees but then not bother replying to them if they don’t like the look of their cv’s…

This practice seems to have become the norm. The CBI acknowledges the problem but excuses it on the grounds of the sheer volume of applications.

Clearly the CBI have never heard of applicant tracking systems, recruitment portals that can at a low cost, solve the problem of volume, where every applicant will receive a response to their application. It’s quite staggering that employers are happy to spend money driving the applications but are then prepared to throw them away, if they do not at that stage meet the exact requirement. Hosking goes on to say that:

Today’s CV toting teenager is tomorrow’s customer, supplier or shareholder

He could have added that the CV toting candidate could also be someone that with 2 years more experience, could turn into a star candidate who will no doubt recall their earlier treatment or that the CV toting candidate could be best friends with a star candidate who may be appalled at the treatment that his/her friend suffered at the hands of the “lazy approach” to dealing with applications.

For larger employers, if cost is not an excuse, then perhaps ease of use of the systems that they employ could be a factor and that is why we focus on the simplicity of our recruitment portal because if it’s easy to use, administrators will get more value and get through more volume in less time. For smaller employers where cost is an issue, our aim is to provide a scalable and affordable platform for them to ensure that as they grow, their employer brand grows with them and does not suffer from its treatment of applicants.

In HR circles there is much talk about best practice, but talking doesn’t get things done.

A great deal of harm is being done by the approach and its quite scary that excuses are being allowed to kill off the employer brand or reputation which in some cases has been nurtured carefully over many years and destroyed at a furious pace.

Less ford thinking CEO’s, simply don’t care or don’t understand this issue. The average stay of a CEO is under 3 years and this can lead to there being more interest in maintaining the status quo rather than changing anything, too much focus on improving the margin by 0.01% before the next job comes along, gets in the way of making real change. The sad thing is that this kind of “lazy” approach is stopping any real innovation, any real improvement in the people aspects of the business. Snap decisions such as to “go direct” to save costs or cut PSL’s or whatever else is flavour of the month are harming the employer brand as well as making it difficult in many cases for the internal recruiters or HR to actually deal with the applications issue properly.

Hosking’s assertion that “there is one modest, virtually costless, way that employers could soften the misery and frustration of unemployment – They could trouble to reply to all job applicants”, would be a good start in saving your employer brand from ruin.

MyPeopleBiz create Recruitment Portals, yes I am biased……

A leading recruitment commentator said that 2010 was going to be the year of the referrer, so we recently conducted a round up of the various research available in the market place with regard to referrals schemes, networking and the impact that this is making on the recruitment market:

1. 88% of employers rated referrals above all other sources for generated quality of new hires

2. 78% of companies are now using social networking and social media to find and attract candidates.

3. 50% of companies were spending more on business networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and employee-referral programs and less on print and traditional job boards.

4. 50% plus of companies surveyed by the CIPD admitted that so far they had not utilised an employee referral scheme at all.

Clearly the figures suggest that whilst employers who are utilising referral schemes are seeing an increasing percentage of hires initiated through their employees’ social networks, there is still a long way to go if more than 50% of employers surveyed have not utilised a referral scheme at all.

If your company already has an employee referral program, or is at the initial stages of putting this in place its worth looking at how and why they can work so well and also, how expanding them into open referral networks through sites like mypeoplebiz.com can take your recruitment to the next level with significant savings and a great calibre candidate otherwise difficult to find.

Traditionally employee referral programs act as internal recruitment method, encouraging staff to source new hires for your organisation from their social and professional networks through a monetary incentive. This allows for an efficient recruitment process reducing cost and time to hire thanks to improved relevance of referred candidates and the trustworthy relationship between the referrer, candidate and the organisation itself.

· A recent study showed that 88% of employers rated referrals above all other sources for generated quality of new hires

Referrals generate a higher quality candidate as they are likely know the job and candidate far better and are not prepared to waste their or their contacts time on something they don’t think is right. This cuts down recruitment time for you as candidates have essentially already been well sourced and screened for you. Furthermore, referrals build on themselves, not only are you likely to be building a better talent pool, hired referrals are likely to encourage further referrals and are more likely to refer new talent themselves, expanding your ‘talent network’.

By setting worthy rewards for successful hires you’re also creating ‘brand campaigners’ for your company as they promote your organisation to the friends and contacts in their networks. What’s more, 78% of your staff are spending up to half an hour of the working day on social networking sites, creating a even larger range of connections to source candidates from, capitalise on this rather than thinking of it as wasted time.

The impact Personal recommendations via current employees’ social networks can be very valuable in other ways too, as they can efficiently lead to candidates with the right cultural ‘fit’ for a company in addition to saving employers considerable amounts of money, reducing the amount spent on agencies and external advertising.

Why create an open your referral system? Internal referral schemes can work fantastically, but why stop there; all your competitor’s employees also know great people in the industry, and are just as willing to participate in the action. People are more connected than ever before with new technologies, and since 78% of staff are spending up to half an hour of the working day on social networking sites too, recommending a contact for a job is easy – just a simple message is required, and then they can chose to take it forward. Put simply, If your company rewards and encourages this behaviour, your company is going to be rewarded with better talent from the people who know what is needed.

CIPD surveys indicate that 64% of respondents agreed that referral reward incentives for staff have a positive impact – not just on the caliber of job applicants, but on the budget too. A large insurance company which participated in the study’s focus group reported a huge saving of £250,000 in recruitment costs as a result of their ‘refer a friend’ scheme.

Clearly, such schemes can be highly successful.

So what is Company Follow?

Ryan Roslansky, explains on the LinkedIn Blog it “…helps you be among the first to learn about developments at companies… find job openings… or stumble upon business development opportunities… The new feature lets you tap into key goings-on at nearly a million companies that already have their company profiles on LinkedIn and more that are being created every day.” and it’s simple to use. To see how easy it is to use click here for LinkedIn’s explanation (they do it so well).

Company Follow has several advantages for the Jobseeker who can be notified when employees join, are promoted or leave a company and when the company is advertising a job opportunity, though only when advertised on LinkedIn itself. They can have notifications delivered by email, which is the smartest, and can choose the frequency, e.g daily when actively looking for a new role.

So what can a Jobseeker do with this information? They can:

• Be selective of the companies they follow, choosing those that they most want to work for, have the best reputation in the industry and where their skills would be of the greatest asset to the potential employer.
• Follow all of their selected company’s news listening for what they’re not saying and trends that are emerging where hidden jobs may be found
• See who is leaving. Is their role being advertised? Were they recommended by their manager? Who do they know who knows the departing employee or their manager?
• See who has been promoted. A great opportunity to make contact with a message of congratulations and to follow up some time later to see how they’re getting on i.e. a way to ease into a potentially door-opening relationship.
• See what Executives or Senior Managers have joined. Is the company taking a new direction? Have they won a project? Will they need you in their team?

Company Follow is great for companies who want to attract talent and keep tabs on their competitors so if you’ve not even created your company profile, get cracking! If you already have one you may want to give it a once over and ensure that it will attract followers.

So what can a Company do with this information? They can:

• Build their followers and have a potential talent pool ready to be tapped in to and because, unlike groups, there is not a restriction on the number of companies a person can follow, potentially have followers who may not have been able to join their group.
• Be aware what their competitors are doing. Your competitors can follow you and this gives a company a great opportunity to know who is listening and, you never know, you may just decide to poach them yourself!
• Be aware of what is being said. The content on LinkedIn is user-generated and this may concern you but as these conversations are already taking place, it’s better to know than pretend they’re not.
• Follow their competitors and therefore proactively manage your current employees. You’ll know if your competitor is looking for someone who they could find in your team and therefore you have the opportunity to keep your staff happy and content.
• Follow without being blocked and currently, this is a great advantage over, say, Twitter. So go follow your competitors, to protect your talent pool and to find your new employees.

I wonder what LinkedIn will come up with next….

The beauty of what I do is that on any given day I get to turn my attention to many different industry sectors. I could be writing for a social care organisation, a government department, a high street retailer or one of the country’s leading breweries, I just don’t know what’s round the corner writing wise some days. Yes, I am used to donning different hats and facing up to a whole range of challenges, but this sounded like a very different kind of proposition altogether – A 1000 word script that had to contain elements of humour yet be professional AND informative – and all captured on camera for a niche audience who really look up to this ‘dude’.

I bit the bullet and decided to take the brief. It resulted in a trip up to sunny North London. Then, during the course of the meeting, the client, the owner of www.oggs.com, a gaming review site, just happened to mention in passing that he had negotiated a few golden tickets to enter some online contest and that he might invite me to be in the team.

I thought no more about it until a few days later when, script (click on link below to see youtube video) and press releases duly cracked and submitted, I got an email confirming that I had indeed been invited to join ‘Team Oggs’ – a seven strong team brought together to try and win a million euros in the Grand Final of Microgaming’s Million Euro Slots Tournament at the end of last month.

Hey, even Ridley Scott had to start somewhere!

I accepted the invitation but quickly came across a stumbling block. . The online gaming industry may be very technically advanced, but their software doesn’t like Apple Macs – and I use….an Apple Mac!

Fortunately that particular dilemma was solved when an agency where I take desk space a couple of days a week kindly offered to let me chance my arm at winning the million from the comfort of their offices in London in a tournament where1500 finalists from around the world played a selection of some of the best online slots games in the business in the hope they would walk away with the big prize.

There was, however, a twist where my participation was concerned. (my life is never ordinary) Each player in ‘Team Oggs’ had to sign a contract in advance stating that if they won, they would take no more than 5% of the winnings, with the rest of the money going to charity. It was an unusual collaboration to say the least, but there really was nothing to lose and a lot to gain. So I signed up.

What’s more, the client was so pleased with the video and releases that he paid me double, yes that’s right, DOUBLE, what I originally quoted. Another first for me! And, it all only came about because I stepped out of my comfort zone.

Did I win? Er, I’m still here aren’t I? No, I didn’t, but hey, I didn’t even expect to be competing. The point is, stepping outside of your comfort zone needn’t always be a scary experience. It can reap rewards and lead to the unexpected. Getting paid double was good enough for me, although the 50,000 euro cut of the prize would have been nice. Oh well, onwards and upwards!

(incidentally the dude in the video, one J Todd, normally wears t shirt and jeans. Yes, I even got him to stand in the middle of a field wearing a suit!)

- Alasdair Murray, Freelance Copy Writer, alasdairdmurraycopywriter.co.uk

Not so long ago, even at the beginning of the new millennium, letters where still kings of communication, and we were perfectly prepared to wait the week required for a response. At the start of 2010 the world of communication is a very different place. Clients can contact me 24/7 by email, mobile phone or instant messenger, I  can receive information regarding what my favorite celebrity is eating for breakfast as they are eating for breakfast as they are eating it, direct to my mobile phone. Equally I can find out what someone I’ve not met more than once got up to on New Years.

This prevalance of Social Networking and communication is becoming increasingly important for recruiters, and clients increasingly want to make the best use of referral schemes over the traditional methods of recruitment/ 83% of adults regularly use social networks, which now takes up 93% more time than in 2006 according to bizreport making the need for individuals to capitalize on this increasingly apparent.

This can often be a bit bewildering, tricky and time consuming, so we have put together a few tips and ideas to help you get thinking about how the new world of communication is important for your job hunt.

Finding jobs online has long been the norm, but in the forever evolving realm of the internet the world of online recruitment is too changing. Searching through an online jobs-board is useful, but not always fruitful. According to an article on Mashable.com the amount of jobs posted on job boards has been decreasing at over 13% in recent times, making this an ever more prevalent issue. This is a quick guide to get you thinking about how web 2.0 could help you with your career, getting you ahead of the game in these tough times.

For some this may seem a little confusing or scary: Social networking, online referrals and self branding may sound a bit scary for some. However, all it’s really about is building your network and getting yourself ‘out there’ online.

The traditional way to find jobs online was to apply for roles, not really knowing if you where actually going to enjoy the role. Whilst it would be naive to say these days are over, Web 2.0 has bought for many the opportunity to build a personal brand that attracts employers to them.

This does not mean you need to be an online guru, but it’s important to make yourself aware of these technologies and how recruitment fits into them.

Web 2.0 is not a technical term like it sounds, more a buzz word that refers to an idea or attitude. This being that the internet has moved on from its roots towards a wealth of rich interactive content composed and shared through a system of participation and community.

This starts with your CV, make sure your CV is clear, this may sound obvious and nothing to do with new technology, more common sense, but the majority of sites, including MPB allow employers to search CVs to find candidates there interested in. Make sure all the terminology in your CV is your industries most used. – take a look at some job descriptions in your field; does the text in your CV correspond well to requirements?  For example, rather than putting experienced with Microsoft Office put Experienced in using Microsoft Word, Excell and Acesss as an employer may be looking for someone with particular knowledge of one application. Mypeoplebiz also allows you to write an anonymous personal profile which is searchable by employers, and you can find a guide to getting this right here. 

 To really participate in web 2.0 You need to be a “prosumer”, a content producer, not just a consumer of online content. This doesn’t have to be difficult and you can spend as little or as much time as you have depending on what you want to do.

Whether you want to go all out and create a blog, or maybe your one for a YouTube video or a flickr photo album or all of the above. It is up to you and what you feel up to doing. If your currently unemployed this a good project to undertake as a way of building your IT skills whist doing something that may help you get that much craved job.

Blogs

If writing is something you like, start a blog about your professional expertise and experience, this works particularly well for media and marketing jobs and has become almost essential requirement for some roles. You can include photos, music and video in this too, bringing together all your online work.

Creating a blog will prove your passion and understanding for the subject matter. Mentioning this in your CV or Profile will highlight your passion; recruiters are likely to check it out. If they like what they see they will want to hire you, not just on your apparent professional ability but it is a great way to make you personable, make your blog get them like you.

-Making a blog doesn’t have to be difficult, give it a try with blogger.com or wordpress.com, both free.

Video

A new trend is the talking CV or video resume, this can be a great way to stand out from the crowd and get noticed, but only do this your feel your are confident enough, otherwise it may do more harm than good. In the New Year Mypeoplebiz will enable you to attach your talking CV to a job application and employers also will have the ability to create clips explain the role to you and introducing the work environment.

Photography

One of the simplest things you could do is create an album on flickr.  Flickr is a photo sharing site where you can upload your photography to discuss, share and interact with other photographers. If you have a digital camera or a mobile phone camera, get snapping!

This will be great for personal interests or hobbies section of your CV, even better say your applying for a role in a electrical retailer, you can prove your interest and understanding of the technology, cameras, computers and the internet just by creating photo album online.

Going social and Building your network

So you’ve got Facebook and reconnected with some old school friends and laughed at some embarrassing photos of yourself, but how can social networking sites help get you a job?

Firstly, it’s an excellent way to bring everything together and publicize anything you may of created online as outlined above, also make sure all your profiles are linked together, e,g there is a link to your twitter on your facebook profile etc. You may also want to think about how employer friendly you profile is, and remove content or change security settings to fit as it’s reported that many employers search social networking profiles of prospective employers to gain a greater insight.

Secondly, if you haven’t already done it, join the professional social networks. Primarily this is LinkedIn, but there others, namely xing.com that could also prove useful. Perhaps not as fun as the other social networks but definitely a useful tool for building your professional reputation and finding jobs. Start by adding all your contacts from outlook, Gmail etc you can build up from this point on. There are simple functions to do this on LinkedIn as well as an Outlook LinkedIn Application. The more people you are connected to the easier this is because you’re only able to reach other people in your network (1^st 2^nd and 3^rd degree connections).

Recruiters are starting to use LinkedIn (as well as others social networks) as a serious source for candidates, and is a great place to find jobs online, so complete as much as your profile as possible. The mypeoplebiz LinkedIn page publishes all the jobs on the site, including referral bonuses, you can refer anyone or people can refer you.

Further to this there are thousands of jobs advertised on linked in, look through groups, almost all of them have a jobs tab. More important advertise yourself, get involved join groups and conversations this way you can make connections and get noticed, Avoid sounding like a sales pitch, people will tune out. Stick to the rules of the group – it will be tempting to post in more popular sections of groups to get more attention to your message but these groups are often well policed and is likely to get you kicked out of the group if you do it more than once.

Evaluate regularly, how much time are you contributing to this compared to the delivery, are there any additional bonuses that you have discovered.

However, be patient this will not change your circumstances overnight, try to have fun with it and make it something you enjoy.

 Let us know of your web 2.0 activities and any experiences you have!

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”.