More than anything else at the moment, that cunning devil Social Media is splitting our community right down the middle. According to a recent Manpower survey of HR nationwide, about half of respondents grumpily believe that social networking can’t help their organisations in any way whatsoever.

Others see in social media a glittering future for recruitment and stakeholder communications. 11% perceive it as useful to brand building and 7% admit to using it for sneakily checking up on candidates. Manpower themselves warn of the dangers of launching into the social networking world without first establishing clear objectives. But which helpful soul’s going to help you to work those out?

Read the rest of this article »

Here’s a great little article by a US online head-hunter explaining just what he’s looking for when he’s examining a potential candidate’s social media footprint.

Software engineer chaser Boris Epstein from BINC breaks down each key platform (LinkedIn, Blog, Facebook, Twitter and Google) and explains exactly what he’s looking for when he’s looking for a good hire.

Read the rest of this article »

Boys and girls in blue at North Yorkshire Police had a problem last month when a recruitment campaign went awry after they received such a deluge of calls that their phone lines collapsed under the pressure.

The Heartbeat-style peelers advertised 60 vacancies and opened their application hot-line for three hours a day - when over 200,000 callers jammed the switchboard, crashing it and forcing them to call in BT to install a replacement post haste.

Read the rest of this article »

Remember that glorious night back in 2006 when the HR community gazed in awe upon the sight of Sathnam Sanghera being named HR Journalist of the Year?

No, us neither. But it seems Mr Sanghera is no longer as close to HR as he once was, given the spate of hateful articles he’s been publishing about the profession.

Read the rest of this article »

An interesting ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority, as reported on Recruiter, slamming an advertiser claiming to be filling ‘Bar, Leisure and Hospitality roles’ when in reality they were looking for escort girls.

Think it’s OK to ask for ‘reliable’ people in your job ads? Not any longer, according to the Job Centre Plus in Thetford, who rejected such an ad on the grounds that it could ‘discriminate against the unreliable’.

Finally, afficionados of both TV phenomenon Glee and recruitment videos will enjoy this effort from Yale University. Whilst a bit on the long side, it’s happy campness should do much towards damping down Yale’s slightly stuffy Ivy League image.