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.

Anyone thinking of doing their best Alan Rickman impression and telling employees to ‘call off Christmas‘ should heed the advice of the British Association of Communicators in Business. According to a report on Recruiter.co.uk, reducing celebrations might easily result in demotivated employees. So, mulled wine and Secret Santa all round, then?

Those lists of best employers continue to spread. Here’s a link to Hewitt’s guide to Best Employers in Asia. Interestingly, the list for China includes SAS, McDonalds, Wal-Mart and Johnson & Johnson within the Top Five.

On the subject of awards, want to see the finest recruitment in Australia? Then Blackbird ushers you in the direction of the 2009 Fairfax Employment Marketing Awards. (FEMAs, for short.)

The submariner recruitment pages have to be seen to be believed - although it might take a while to get your head around the complicated gameplay…

Marketing guru Seth Godin takes time out to consider the death of the resume. It makes some sense – but how would HR and ATSs cope?

The future of the workplace - from a design point of view. That’s the discussion to be found here, courtesy of Monocle magazine’s Editor-In-Chief Tyler Brule and a load of other arty types interested in what offices might become post-recession.

Finally, Pizza Hut in the US has launched a ‘Twinternship’. That’s a role in the marketing function for someone capable of helping them exploit social marketing channels. Blackbird is wondering whether the UK recruitment market has its equivalent yet: someone solely employed to attract via Facebook and the like?

Our regular parade of the bits you might have missed

As mentioned above, Google is no longer top dog in the American employment market. Which seems as apt a reason as any to bring attention to this blog, which explores reasons why ex-Google employees left the company. Top of the heap seems to be that Google doesn’t pay as much as others - particularly Microsoft - but interestingly there are some voices expressing disquiet with the culture. (’As soon as I got inside, I had the feeling of being swallowed by a giant borg.’)

Who do you choose to allow into your online social network? How can you avoid causing offence? Try this advice from a blogger calling herself ‘The Sourceress’. (Although she does also call herself a ‘Digital Footprint Guru’, which is one of the dodgiest job titles Blackbird has heard this year.)

Finally, according to the CIPD, HR isn’t getting to grips with Web 2.0 quickly enough. Apparently HR is too quick to focus on the negatives rather than the positives. Bad HR! Back in your box!

On the subject of social networking, here’s what Forbes has to say about Twitter as a corporate comms tool. Perhaps your CEO could ‘tweet’ to your candidate pool, as a means of keeping potential candidates engaged whilst actual vacancies are hard to come by?

Does your organisation need to re-invent its social schedule? Then consider www.daremycompany.com, which brings together potential rivals to compete in whatever activity you care to suggest. Current challenges include inter-company football and table tennis matches, but Blackbird particularly likes the idea of playing some company in New York at an online shoot-em-up.

Finally, ever had a letter of complaint about your recruitment process? Chances are it wasn’t as funny as this effort reported by Times Online which Richard Branson received from an unhappy Virgin flier. ‘It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing’ is, in our opinion, the quotation of the year thus far.