Power of Hashtags : 10 years and counting

It must surely be a proud moment for Chris Messina, a social technology expert, who is credited to have come up with the very first Hashtag on Twitter. He first posted the hashtag #barcamp in August 2007.  As of today, it’s been 10 years since the birth of Hashtags. For those who are looking for that tweet with the 1st ever hashtag, here you go: 

“how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?”

Talking about the power of hashtags, right from individuals, brands, companies and governments are leveraging it. Following is an attempt to showcase few examples of how hashtags are being used:

a) Celebrating Employees / FunAtWork :

Amazing way to showcase the culture of the company and create relevant hashtags. This helps both employees and external audience to promote and know about the various celebrations at workplace.

b) Jobs: Enough Said 🙂

c) Corporate Events / Employer Branding:

Companies are using it during events, announcing quarterly  results, product launch etc

d) Blogs :

Hashtags are a great way to find relevant blogs, articles around any topic that you are interested in . Do try it out.

e) Contests :

Yet another interesting way to connect and engage with your audience

Would be interesting to know how you are using hashtags and how is it helping you to connect and engage with your employees, audience etc.

So are you all set to enter the amazing world of Hashtags!! You can also get more tips from my previous blog about Hashtags right here – https://goo.gl/mDjWTr 

Regards

#RamblingRecruiter

 

“Should companies also post anonymous reviews of candidates just like candidates do on Glassdoor?”

I am sure the moment you might have read the title of the blog post, you would have said @#$$#@#$$#@##$@$$#@$!!! Ooops Typo Error : ) It’s not your fault. The moment we hear about “Reviews” all we can think about is negative reviews. But reviews could be either positive or negative.

Last week, I was fortunate to be part of a panel discussion that was conducted by Rezoomex around this topic. At first I too was taken aback by the topic, but then I did settle down and started to do research about this topic. The 1st thing that I did was to ask this question to my hiring community and candidates in my network. The reason was to know their views as it helps you to understand the pulse of the audience.

Candidate reviews can be a very sensitive topic. There could be many reasons why a candidate chooses not to join your company; post accepting your offer. At times candidate joins, but does not come to office post that. But let’s for a minute imagine if companies go ahead and share reviews online, how it will actually happen. Here is one of the ways in which this can be possible: 

Probable Solution:

118 of the IT & BPO companies present in India are already members of NSR. Web registration for IT professional has been completed for over 1.1 Mn IT work forces. Bio metric registration has been completed for over 0.73 Million IT professionals. Total numbers of Employee Background Checking Companies are 17 and NSR today has 126 POS deployed across various IT centric locations

So, can this be done? Can there be an independent agency who can go ahead and start providing “Candidate Rating” just like we have credit rating? Do you think this will help HR and Business? Do you think a central database of defaulters help reduce cost of wrong hiring?

A lot depends on how this framework is designed, on what parameters can this agency decide on candidate ratings! Will candidates get worried about this rating? How much weightage must be given to such rating? Well, this is an endless debate, but do you think this is possible in the near future?

 As promised, following is the results of the survey that was done around this topic.

I will leave it to you to decide if this is possible. PS: At the end of the day, we are all candidates, so think well before you pick sides

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

 

Google Allo : HR’s New Best Friend!!!

“Send a reminder mail to Mr. Jayant, Miss Naina and Mr. Kunjal for sending across their Education and Work Experience Certificates”

“Share the list of last weekend drives final Dot Net and Java Selects. Also attach their Interview Assessment Sheets”

“Do Schedule a meeting with Mr. Kamdar on 5th Oct at 4pm IST for discussion around celebrating #WomanAtWork. Also attach Diversity Hiring Report 2016 with the schedule”

Response: Done 🙂 Happy to help.

So, by now you would have realized that I am dictating this to someone and that someone has done the needful. Any guess who this someone might be? Well, it’s my new friend aka Google Allo. Life has become easy and I am able to focus on other productive work. All I have to do is type these instructions and Google Allo (Assistant) will do the rest. This is really an amazing way to delegate some transactional work and it surely saves lot of your time. You can ask for reports, schedule meeting, set reminders, ask Allo to also attach important files, links, Videos, Pictures and so on.

One of the major challenges that hiring professionals face during weekend drives is to follow up with candidates, remind them about their schedule, ask them to bring in the required documents and also follow up again on the day of the weekend drive. Allo can help you do it all. All you have to type in the required instructions and that’s it 🙂 Simple right.

And guess what, post the event Allo can send in thank you note to all those who have attended the recruitment drive. To make things more interesting, Allo can also send the list of Final Selects to the Delivery Manager. That’s amazing stuff. All this possible just by typing 😉

Here are a few more examples that might help you to leverage Google Allo:

 

So how many of you actually tried it out!!! Did it work for you? Yes, No!!!  Before you remove me from your friends list, let me confess; this does not work as of now. But this will soon be a reality and HR will benefit a lot from this. Getting Data will not be boring anymore. It will be just a chat away. (Was tempted to use this line “Data is the new OIL”) 

Would be great to know your views, comments and suggestions on any other ways in which Allo or any other  Assistant apps can helps our HR community.

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

 

Future of Recruitment is scary, exciting or boring?

I get an email. It says “Your profile is interesting and we would like to meet you.” I’m sure a system screened my resume and assigned a bot to write me this mail. Soon I realize that the meeting has been scheduled via a Video Call. I sit back and wait for the call.  As soon as I get in the call, I see some questions on the screen and all I had to do was answer those. Some were objective and some were subjective. Soon  After I answer all the questions, the system says “Thank you Kunjal for your time, here are your results” 🙂 [2 minutes silence!!!!] I was hoping that the bot would say “We will get back to you soon with the results” But that was pretty quick (and impressive).

So, moving on. Fortunately I did crack the interview. I soon got another email inviting me for another round. I was hoping it to be in person. Well, it was in person but there was no person in the office!!!! I was surprised to see a bot moving around and soon it entered a conference room. And another bot at the reception announced my name and I walked into the conference room. To my surprise a Beam Robot welcomed me and asked how my day was going. I was speechless as I could see a human actually interacting with me through this Beam Robot. That person was some 500 miles away from this location, but it was able to move around and interact with me.

Okay, so moving on, the interview did go well and I was hopeful to make it through. To make things more interesting, the Beam Robot escorted me to the reception. Out of habit, I put my hand out for a handshake but it struck to me that it was just a robot!!!!  So, after a few days, I received a call (Not sure if it was a bot or a real human) Anyway, I was more keen to know my final result. Fortunately, I did make it through and they offered me a job.

Now the real fun begins 🙂

My first and last day at office!!!!!  Yes, you read it right. Just wait till you realize it. I was there for my Induction and it was all done by a Beam Robot. This time, there were real humans behind the screen and I was able to interact with them. Some were based outside the country, some were 300 miles away from this office. So I wondered, where will I be working from. Soon I realized that I was going to work from home. But, my new bot was going to work from this office! So I don’t get a laptop on my day one (or on the last day at the office), I get a beam robot. 😉

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PS: I had to draw this line to tell you folks to come back to reality 🙂 Trust me, this is going to be a reality soon. In fact, this has already started in some or the other way. This year’s SHRMTECH16 had this on display and it was actually moving around and interacting with participants at the conference.

So, do you think Future of Recruitment is scary, exciting or boring?! Let me know in the comments below!

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

Image Credit : https://suitabletech.com/

Are we (HR) ready for this Digital Change!!!!

2015 : WhatsApp was the most active social platform in India!!!

2016? Any Guesses!!  

Does this mean anything for us as HR folks!!! Let’s look at some interesting insights related to India from the latest Digital Report via We Are Social.

a) Facebook is the top most active social platform in India:

Good news for Companies and Recruiters !! There is no doubt that Facebook is an amazing place for companies to showcase their culture, employer branding activities and so on. Recruiters too get an opportunity to connect with prospective candidates (Candidates who may not respond to so called InMails, do respond to FB Messages) Surprised? Do try it 🙂 

b) India with population of 1319 million has 1012 million mobile Connections:

Mobile is the future!!! We have been hearing this since long, right!! Well, it’s time for us to make the most of this. Companies which have invested in making their Careers Sites Mobile friendly, will have early advantage. This is also a great opportunity for HR folks to also work closely with IT teams to develop Mobile Apps for Internal and External folks.

c) On an average we spend 4 hours 22 mins on Internet via PC / Tablet and 3 hours 7 mins via Mobile:

Companies will have to analyze this and work on policies that will help employees to make the most of Social Media Channels at work. Some companies have already taken the lead and have provided Social Media access to their employees. Employees are your brand ambassadors and we must encourage them to share relevant company news and events.

d) 66% folks view web pages via Mobile and 33% via laptops and desktops:

Interesting insights for companies to work on their Digital Marketing Strategy. This will also help them to work on content that is relevant to the specific Digital Channels. Companies need to keep a balance between various channels that will help the audience to consume relevant information.

Would be happy to know your views on these insights. In case you want to check the complete Digital Report, you can explore it right here :

Digital in 2016 by @eskimon : http://goo.gl/kj4Ahh

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

Social Media + Banks = Amazing Combination

Banking!!! There was a time when people used to visit banks (We still do) But the frequency has reduced drastically. Thanks to Technology. We are all digitally connected with our Banks. To make things even more interesting, there have been some amazing Social Media Campaigns via Banks and have got us engaged. Example : Hashtag Banking, Transfer your funds via Twitter and so on.

The following blog is a small effort to showcase the Social Channels that these banks are leveraging to help us get the best customer experience and also to tap the talent for their hiring needs. Based on the previous post “Big Big Opportunity for Pharma Companies!!! Social Media Presence!!! ” it was a similar amazing learning experience and gained insights while conducting research of these Banks Social Media Presence. Example : Some banks have a Pinterest and Instagram Account. Isn’t that interesting!!! 

So enough of Talking, let’s look at the DATA!!!! (We are all so obsessed with Data)

So, hope via this Data you might have been able to get amazing insights around leveraging Social Media. It’s not a rocket Science, all we need to understand our Target Audience / Customers / Candidates and then work on a Social Media Strategy.  

Looking forward to your views, inputs and suggestions on this data.

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

Big Big Opportunity for Pharma Companies!!! Social Media Presence!!!

Data!! Well, that’s want everyone wants before you even speak 🙂

So here we go. This is a small exercise to showcase “Social Media” presence of Pharma Companies.

 

PS: Before you jump to any conclusion, let’s take a pause and understand that the Objective is to showcase the HUGE OPPORTUNITY that Pharma companies have in the space of “Social Media”

One thing is clear that they do have good presence on various social channels, and have Likes and Followers. But still something is missing. There is a lot of talk of millennials joining the workforce, their expectations, their aspirations etc. They are even more social (Online) that the management, the leaders and managers. Hence it’s a big opportunity for Pharma companies to have a Social Strategy which is focused on engaging, connecting and tapping the future talent.

Companies must ideally have a dedicate team which only focuses on these Corporate Social Channels. Some do outsource such activities, which is still fine. As long as it does help companies remain active on Social Channels and remain connected with their followers. Here is one small example of where to get it started : https://goo.gl/qx99eU

So, hope this data did help 🙂 (We are so so obsessed with data, that nothing moves without it, not even basic things)

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and get it going. Social Media is an amazing place to leverage your Social Strategies. Go ahead, create some amazing content and campaigns to attract your potential talent.

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

Sourcing + Passion = SourceCon!!!!

It was time for yet another action packed SourceCon event. For those who might be new to this event, let me make it easy for you 🙂 SourceCon is the SourcingAdda of US. I still remember my first post for SourceCon way back in 2011 “Sourcer OR Recruiter: A Classic Title Dilemma In India” For those who started Sourcing way back, might relate to the post. But Sourcing as function has got lot of respect in the recent years in India. Companies are finally realizing the power of setting up Sourcing Teams. They are zapped by the cost that can be saved by investing in a Sourcing Function.

Recently there was an All India Sourcing Contest organised by SourcingAdda know as “SPL“. There were over 160 + Passionate Sourcing Champs participating in a month long contest. Here is the final outcome of the event : “Final Leader Board“. Its an amazing feeling to see Sourcers getting their right place in the hiring industry. It did come a bit late, but was worth the wait 🙂

So let’s come back to SourceCon. They had their premier event in Dallas, TX from Sep 17-18, 2015. No doubt it had Who’s Who from the World of “Sourcing”. You won’t believe, but folks in India do stay awake till the wee hours, just to follow SourceCon and the amazing insights that come out of the event. This year too was special. Let’s take a look at collection of some amazing tweets that can help us all in the Sourcing Community.

They were amazing right!!!! Do share your key takeaways at SourceCon. It will surely help us all who are passionate about Sourcing.

Happy Sourcing

Regards

@kunjal23

Biggest Study – 200 Recruiters LinkedIn Profile

It’s time to test the Recruiters as the previous Blog was a test for 200 CXO’s. I did get some interesting comments on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn after the Blog was published. Some were of the opinion that CXO’s are not expected to have a complete LinkedIn Profile. Why do they need to even put their companies Website on their Profile. Why share companies PDF / Videos etc on their own Profile. And on and on and on. Well, they have a right to share their views and I welcome those. In fact such comments help me to work even harder to showcase the reasons why all this is important. 

To take this study one step ahead, I wanted to look at Recruiters LinkedIn Profiles. We all consider them as Gate Keepers that help to tap and find talent. Recruiters are the first set of people with whom candidates interact. It’s like a make or break point for candidates. Companies can’t grow without Business and to ensure that business runs, they need talent. And this is where recruiters come in to provide the talent.

Okay, enough of praising the recruiters 🙂 But this was needed. As companies have realized (Not all, but some) that recruitment can is not longer a Support function, it’s a strategic function. So moving on with the study of 200 Recruiters LinkedIn Profile, I did wanted to evaluate them on certain parameters such as:

Objective:

No Jargon, No Gyan. Just wanted to find out if Recruiters are Managing or Ignoring Social Branding!!

Study Methodology:

200 Recruiters from diverse companies, spanning in size from startups to Fortune 500 companies were the base for this study. LinkedIn was the preferred channel for this study.

Questions that were studied:

– Do Recruiters have a LinkedIn Premium Profile!!

– Have Recruiters included their companies Website / Careers Website!!

– Have Recruiters synced / shared their Twitter Handle!!!

– Do these Recruiters include their companies Video / PDF on their Profile!!

– Have they shared Jobs / Openings in their Summary / Profile Section on LinkedIn!!

– Do Recruiters Blog!! Have they mentioned their Blog on their LinkedIn Profile!!

Looking for results!!! Well, before that, would like to know your views on the set of questions that were set for this study. Are your Recruiters Ignoring Social Branding!!! Have you covered the following key points that represent your company’s brand on LinkedIn? Is it important for Recruiters to include these points on their LinkedIn Profile!!!

Share your views by using #RecruitersBranding on Twitter. The study results of 200 Recruiters will be soon shared here. So keep watching this space.

Regards

Rambling Recruiter

Importance of Facebook Recruiting!!

Candy Crush!! Photos!!! Like!!

There is more to Facebook than what we all think. Everyone is one Facebook, Yes almost everyone. Let’s take a look at some data:

• Facebook has more profiles than Any Job Portal and LinkedIn too.

• Facebook has around 1.3 + billion accounts. This is where many say “So what’s in it for me”

• Well, 108+ million People in India are on Facebook

• Mumbai has 6+ million / Delhi 8+ million, Pune 3.6 million, Bangalore 4.4 million, Ahmedabad 1.4 million users

So after this data, would like to ask recruiters “Are you searching candidates via Facebook” If yes, great, if no – its never too late…start it 🙂

Following is a video that talks about Importance of Facebook Recruiting!! This show is done by Rakshita Dwivedi. Looking forward to your views on how you are using Facebook for Hiring.

Regards

Rambling Recruiter