When we last off, UPS said that the candidates who were coming its way via Facebook and Twitter were more likely to convert to actual hires than were any old candidates. But the sample was small: in other words, social media recruiting seemed to pay off in terms of ROI, but not in any large volume. Things are different now. As 2010 progressed, TMP’s Mike Vangel says that UPS wanted to know: “What... (more...)

You may have heard about companies like CloudCrowd and concepts like microwork that involve new ways to staff; now, there are several more companies trying to shake up the field. They’d like to revolutionize the already-strong contingent staffing industry and in some cases the whole staffing field, making it more Internet-based, more cell phone-based, and just more sophisticated. Even 63-year-old... (more...)

This was the seventh year of the ERE Recruiting Excellence Awards, but it was the military talent category, added for the first time, that was mentioned by more judges than any other category, as employers searched for creative ways to attract the many returnees coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq. One judge (Rob Dromgoole) wrote on Facebook: Finished voting for Recruiting Department of 2010 and... (more...)

It’s not a new phenomenon, but watch for the use of the cloud, and also the crowd, to grow in the coming months as more vendors vie for your cloud/crowd-recruiting business. Hajo Engelke is trying it out. Engelke has started up an unusual company in Durham, North Carolina. It’s a website where you build your own cereal, clicking on cranberries, dried apples, pears, pineapples, and so on,... (more...)

Back on July 1, Amybeth Hale posted about a recruiter named Jerry Albright who’d decided he’d had enough of Twitter. I caught up with Albright on the phone to ask him whether his decision to give up on tweeting was a good one. We also discuss: The sky-high expectations of new Twitter users, and social media users in general Whether Twitter is work or personal The convergence of Twitter,... (more...)

Games, case-study quizzes, and simulations online aren’t new: the Army poured millions into a game, and the not-for-profit MITRE built one, too. But what is new is the venue for at least one game aimed at potential employees: not a corporate career site, but Facebook. The UK company Reckitt Benckiser has launched, in beta, a Facebook game called poweRBrands, for students who might be interested... (more...)

“Give me a job, give me security, give me a chance to survive. I’m just a poor soul in the unemployment line. My God I’m hardly alive.” When Styx first sang that 32 years ago, the Netherlands went to the World Cup finals, Iran was killing 122 protesters, Afghanistan was in turmoil, unemployment was spiking in Cleveland, and a fleeing filmmaker was in the news — by the... (more...)

Glassdoor, thus far known as a place for job-seekers to see what salaries people are earning and to read reviews of employers, is launching a service for employers. The profiles start at around $495 for companies with 5,000 employees or less, with discounts for companies that commit to 12 months. Bigger companies usually pay $795/month, but a few with super high traffic will pay more. Fourteen companies,... (more...)

Employee referrals and social recruiting, which already began melding through Jobvite, Cachinko, and other tools, are growing even closer as new vendors enter the field and corporations test how well their jobs spread on Facebook and other sites. Jobster has tried this all before, as did H3. But their mixed success did not mark the end of an era, but rather a foreshadowing of what was to come. A... (more...)

Jordan Greenberg’s average fee collected in 2009 was down 53% from 2008. He had had a good life, home, and education for his kids — but things sure turned awful, he told the Fordyce Forum today. He made sure things wouldn’t stay that way. In short, here’s what he did: He started saying, “no.” Greenberg was “workin’ a lot of crap in 2009,” he says.... (more...)