Alastair Cartwright's posterous

 

If you want your online marketing campaign to be successful, you have to be a strong competitor within your industry and be fast and efficient in delivering your advertising strategies. Clients often complain that organic SEO requires too much effort and most importantly too much time to see the right return on investment. SEO requires people to commit to an ongoing investment, which may or may not deliver great results.  The fact that search engine algorithms are constantly being changed and the lack of clear rules for optimisation activities puts clients in a position where they have less control over their online marketing activities and ultimately less control over their ROI. That’s why I advocate PPC! Here are 5 reasons why PPC beats SEO.

 

Reason 1:  Slice and Dice Conversion Data with Greater Precision

Adwords advertising is thoroughly measurable, making it easy to determine whether or not you are meeting your advertising goals. Every click is matched with a particular ad and search query, all of which you can track and improve at any time you like. You can modify any portion of your Adwords campaigns within seconds, which means that you can be more responsive and in control of your advertising message when it comes to improving your ROI. With SEO, just the start of a campaign can involve months of planning and research just to get you ready to roll. Clients have to be extremely patient and wait for the results to show gradually.

Reason 2:  Reach More Customers and Know What They Want

Adwords offers a greater and faster reach than organic listings. With Adwords, you can instantly target users that are actively searching for services, products, websites and information across the entire Google Network. This involves a large group of websites and a range of Google products, such as email programs and blogs, who have partnered with Google to display AdWords ads. You can easily give your products or services a presence during relevant user searches and make sure that you are visible enough in a crucial point in the customer’s buying cycle.

 

An even greater feature of Adwords is Keyword Contextual Targeting. Not only will the system match your keywords and display your ads only on pages containing relevant content, the ad will only be triggered every time a user performed a search using one of your terms. This way you can connect with the right customers more effectively and more often. Gaining a crucial link on a highly relevant authority website is also one of the foundations of SEO, but is time consuming to search through a large number of websites and blogs, with Keyword Contextual Targeting; your ad is placed automatically for you only in the most relevant sites!

Reason 3: Get To The Top Of Rankings In Only 15 Minutes!

Adwords makes it easier for advertisers to get to the top of the rankings than with the natural listings. Adwords is an auction model and it requires each advertiser to set up a bid, which then determines your sponsored placement on Google. The higher your bid – the higher your ad position. As long as you structure your paid search campaigns correctly, obtain an amazing quality score and bid at your industry average level or above, you can give your ads great exposure – all within a much shorter period of time! On the other hand, SEO campaigns can involve months of work before your brand is noticed and starts to rank in the natural listings.

Reason 4: Tailor Your Advertising

Adwords delivers the ability to precisely target ads to users based on their interests, as well as a number of other factors like demographic, location and language. For example, a company selling French wine could run an ad to easily reach a highly targeted audience, e.g. 20-30 year old adults who speak french living in the UK. SEO does not allow this sort of targeted audience and your organic listings are shown to every one who types in the right keyword. Targeting certain demographics with the right ad will mean you have a higher likelihood of getting conversions and sales with Adwords. Research shows that the industry average for Adwords conversion is 2.5 – 5%.

Reason 5: Limited Budget? PPC Can Still Work For You!

With Adwords, you can schedule your advertising and only run your ads during the most beneficial times. If you are running a small business and your advertising budget is limited, this is a great way to make the most of your money. E.g. a business selling pizza can trigger their ad to be visible during lunch time (12 – 2pm) and evenings (5 – 7pm) only to capture users searching for lunch or dinner plans. You can rest assured your money is well spent!

 

Liking this a lot...

 

How Google Works

As a company, Google focuses on three key areas: Search, Ads and Apps. Search is our core technology; ads are our central business proposition; and apps are the umbrella over our web-based software that you can access anywhere, any time. While each of these has a lot of technology under the hood, the basic tenets for Search, Ads and Apps are very simple. We've created some short videos explaining the principles behind our core services. For more information or to share your thoughts, visit our Help Forum.

How Search Works

Watch video

How Search Ads Work

Watch video

How Google Apps Work

Watch video

How Search Works

 

The life span of a Google query is usually less than half a second, yet involves quite a few steps that must be completed before you see the most relevant results.

How Search Ads Work

 

We put our search technology to work to show you only the most relevant ads on the page of results you'll see. If we can't find anything useful that relates to what you're looking for, you won't see any ads. (See also How the Google Ad Auction Works or learn more about Google ads.)

How Google Apps Work

 

"Cloud computing" is the phrase for web-based software for business or personal use which requires no hardware or software. It's easy to collaborate and share your work no matter where you are or which computer you're using.

Learn more about how Google works

• Official Google YouTube Channel - Events, product demos, talks & presentations.
• Google Business Channel - Tools and services for business users.
• Working at Google - Meet Googlers who work around the world.

©2010 Google - Home - Privacy Policy

I am talking to a lot of clients and potential clients about the benefits of search engine marketing in the recruitment process. In most cases the clients are new to Google and don't really understand how it works.

These videos will help, hopefully.

How “Social Recruiting” Has NOT Changed Recruitment

Posted at July 6, 2010

I feel a moral obligation to weigh in on “social recruiting” again.

I’m not trying to be a buzzkill – but with the continuing swell of momentum and hype that social recruiting is building up, someone has to play the devil’s advocate, refuse to become a victim of BSO (Bright Shiny Object) syndrome, and jump off of the bandwagon to be the voice of objective reason amidst the din of social recruiting cheerleading.

From the many blog posts I am seeing on the subject to the webinars I see popping up frequently, it’s clear that many people see social recruiting as a branding and/or money making opportunity for them.

On the flip side of the coin, there are many people who seem ready to view social recruiting as “the next big thing” and are eager to absorb (and pay for) the message that if you’re not performing “social recruiting” you’re behind the curve, you’ll be left behind, your competitors will laugh at your antiquated recruiting methods, and you’ll never make another hire.

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little dramatic with the last part(s).

But you get the point.

While social media/networking has undeniably added a new dimension to recruiting, it’s important to know that the emergence and evolution of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other sites have not changed many fundamental aspects of recruiting.

First, You Should Know That…

I use social media – I blog, use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, and I’ve made and facilitated hires using them. I train recruiters on how to successfully recruit using every tool and resource available to them – including social media. I work with many recruiters who regularly use LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to identify, engage, and recruit candidates – and yes…get results. One recruiter recently made 3 placements in a month using Facebook. 

So I am no stranger to “social recruiting.” I just don’t like to call it that.

What Social Networks HAVE Changed In Recruiting

Access and Engagement

It’s never been easier in the history of recruiting to find and communicate with potential candidates and we’ve never had such easy access to them. The “Big 3″ social networks afford recruiters with unfettered access to 10’s to 100’s of millions of people that they can find, communicate with, engage, and build relationships with. 

For free. That’s a BIG deal.

Listening

Social media allows recruiters the unprecedented ability to listen to/observe their target talent pool prior to making contact or engaging them.

Marketing

While social networks give companies fantastic new opportunities and mediums for employer branding – that’s social media marketing - NOT social recruiting, as far as I am concerned. Although marketing and recruiting often go hand in hand, they are two very separate and distinct concepts.

Talent Communities

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other online social networks can easily and effectively be used to create and/or tap into talent communities of like-skilled/minded professionals.

However, one could easily argue that this isn’t a new concept at all (let’s not forget about BBS’s) – but social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and others definitely put a sexier spin on it along with more functionality. 

What Social Networks Have NOT Changed In Recruiting

Job Posting

Yes – you have many options for posting jobs today aside from the job boards (which are supposed to be dying or dead, just as job boards were supposed to have killed recruiting agencies and executive search 10 years ago).

You can post jobs on Facebook (manually, through services, and apps), on LinkedIn (paid or free in groups and status updates), and Twitter (manually, automatically through feeds, and through services).

So who cares?

Yes – you should be posting your jobs wherever they can be potentially seen by your target talent population.

However, posting jobs is posting jobs, regardless of where or how they are posted.

As I have written before, posting jobs is a passive and reactive talent acquisition strategy, affords no control over candidate qualifications, attracts active and casual job seekers only (the minority of all people), and is ineffective at snagging passive and non-job seekers.

Plus, posting jobs to social networks via social media is not ”social recruiting,” it’s social job posting.

Would you even say that job posting is really “recruiting” anyway?

Engagement

While social media and social networks do give recruiters a new medium through which they can engage and interact with potential candidates, communicating electronically/digitally is not revolutionary and is definitely not limited to social networks. 

Is an InMail, Twitter DM, or Facebook message any more “social” and engaging than an email? And where do most of those social media messages end up? In the person’s email inbox.

Which would you say is more engaging – a Twitter conversation, or a phone conversation?

You Still Have to Talk to People

Social media gives recruiters and employers one more medium through which they can interact with potential candidates. However, social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are neither replacements nor prerequisites for telephonic or in-person communication.

Just because you can, is it really necessary to use a social network to message or interact with a potential candidate before speaking with them over the phone?

Social

Recruiting has always been social – social networks did NOT put the “social” into recruiting.

Which is more “social” – having an exchange via Facebook/LinkedIn group or Twitter chat, or talking to someone on the phone or in person?

Talent Identification

While LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking/media sites afford sourcers, recruiters and employers with unprecedented access to millions of potential candidates, some sites aren’t very searchable and most social profiles are very shallow sources of professional information.

Facebook is well-nigh unsearchable, for all practical intents and purposes (at least for anything more specific than a keyword or phrase), and very few people list employers, titles, and other information that would give you any sense of what a person does, how much experience they have, and what they are capable of doing.

Twitter has 160 character bios where some people will give away clues as to what they do professionally, but many don’t. Also, a great many people simply don’t tweet about what they do for a living. 

Categorized as the most “professional” social network, while some LinkedIn profiles are fleshed out nearly as well as a typical resume, most contain employers and titles and little-to-nothing else. While that level of information can certainly be used for some degree of talent identification, it’s not as effective, efficient, nor as accurate as using deeper sources of data such as resumes (like the ones in your ATS/CRM – you know, the ones from people who at some point expressed interest in your company?).

While social networks have given recruiters unprecedented access to more people than ever in the history of recruitment – simply having access does not grant the ability to find and identify the right (and best!) people easily, quickly, or at all. If anything, having more access to more potential candidates only stresses the importance of good search skills.

Point to ponder – just because a recruiter uses a social network to find a potential candidate, does that mean they are performing “social recruiting?” For example, if you search LinkedIn, find a potential candidate, join a group they are in and send them a message – is that any more “social recruiting” than searching your ATS/CRM or an online resume database and emailing the candidate? 

What if you find someone on LinkedIn and you research the main number for the company listed as their current employer and give them a call – is that any more “social recruiting” than searching your ATS/CRM or an online resume database and calling a candidate?

Is one of those methods more effective than the other?

Final Thoughts

Social media and social networks that enable and facilitate social interaction have unquestionably given recruiters unprecedented access to and the ability communicate with large populations of potential candidates where they live online, but social media is no more “social” than attending a user group/networking event or simply picking up the phone and speaking with a potential candidate.

The “human element” of recruiting – effectively communicating and building relationships with candidates, understanding candidate motivators, consultative selling, etc. – none of these have been changed or altered by the emergence of social media.

I fear that “Social Recruiting” has become it’s own box that recruiters and employers need to think outside of.

Hasn’t recruiting always been social?

Do you really need to use Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn to be a “social recruiter?”

I say that recruiting is recruiting – by any means available, applicable, and necessary, no matter how it is accomplished (ethically, professionally, and respectably – of course) or through which tool/medium. I don’t see how anything is gained by slapping another label on it.

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Social Recruiting

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Comments

5 Responses to “How “Social Recruiting” Has NOT Changed Recruitment”

• Sam Cranwell says:

  at

  Hey Glen

  Great article and I agree in whole with what you are saying, apart from I love the term Social Recruiting.

  The reason I like so much is that it reminds recruiters of just what you were saying – recruitment is social. All this technology and these online social networks have expanded our world for sure and given us new avenues to explore and take advantage of, but they have also given us a term that reinforces that what we do is about being social.

  Recruiters are probably some of the more social people out there but all this tech has enabled them to be even more so.

  So yeah, it give us another thing to market and sell! That’s great news. I was getting tired of avoiding the word recruitment in our marketing. But add the word social in front of it and it all becomes more acceptable.

  So even if Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn fade away I would like the term Social Recruitment to stay.

• Paul Jacobs says:

  at

  Glenn, well presented! I find it refreshing when someone who is knowledgable about “social recruiting” questions “social recruiting”.

  I have ’social recruiting” and ’socialrecruiting’ as columns in Tweetdeck and I’m considering deleting them – I’m getting overwhelmed with the hype. I find it somewhat amusing how some of the people espousing the merits of social recruiting, and blindly quoting all matter of statistics and survey results, were only 3-6 months ago telling me that they thought social recruiting was a load of crap. In that 3-6 month period, they’ve signed up to Twitter, started a Facebook page and become social recruiting experts, consultants and commentators.

  I don’t care if 90% of employers are using social recruiting, what matters to me is whether they have a genuine interest (followed by actions) in using the social web to build a closer understanding with jobseekers – and ultimately deriving value from their participation. Vomiting job listings on twitter etc to me is not social recruiting. Social recruiting to me is about being “social”, and engaging in honest and authentic conversations – and using the technologies / social networking platforms in such a way to facilitate this aim. It could be argued that many HR people and corporate and third-party recruiters don’t really want to be social and don’t really give two hoots about understanding and getting closer to their “audience”. If they did then they would be actively engaging on the social web – and potentially doing amazing things.

  When I attended the Social Recruiting Summit in May I picked up that there does NOT seem to be a consensus on what ’social recruiting’ actually is. I’ve moved on from the argument that recruiting has always been social.

  I would prefer the conversation to be around the value and relevancy of the recruitment and employment branding professions in 2010 and beyond, rather than the value of social recruiting per se. I’m not sure if some recruiters and HR professionals are in the right roles to really add value and tap into the opportunities, technologies, and potential new jobseeker audiences that are out there.

• Boolean Black Belt says:

  at

  @Sam – thank you for your comment! Perhaps my biggest issue with the term “Social Recruiting” is that most people use it to describe mostly just posting jobs via social channels, and I would argue that’s not really recruiting, but marketing and branding. Granted, employer branding is a part of recruiting, but the operative word is “part.” I don’t think anyone would argue that if all a recruiter did was post jobs and process ad responses that they are really recruiting, but I guess that depends on the organization.

  @Paul – I too have ’social recruiting” and ’socialrecruiting’ columns in Tweetdeck – I know exactly how you feel. I personally love capitalism, but I don’t like to see well-intentioned people get duped by others looking to make a buck.

  As I said above in response to Sam, posting jobs via social channels is great and a no-brainer, but it isn’t revolutionary and posting jobs isn’t “social.” I totally agree with you regarding your thoughts on understanding and building relationships with individuals and talent communities.

  I hope I wasn’t the only person who noticed Accenture’s specific language when they recently announced that they were planning on doubling their hiring this year and that they would heavily utilize social media. They did not use the term “social recruiting.” Instead, they said “Accenture uses social strategies in its recruitment efforts,” and that they use “social media as a recruiting tool.” It’s clear to me that they “get it.”

• Lance Haun says:

  at

  I love it. I really do.

  The only thing that is close to revolutionary is the access piece. I don’t know if it is truly revolutionary but it is a big deal like you said.

  Once you get past that access piece, you still have to recruit. That means building relationships. That means utilizing both active and passive candidates. And ultimately, people have to accept and start those jobs successfully.

  It’s a piece of the pie. I don’t necessarily begrudge people who want to make some money to help companies tap into the access piece with better ease or efficiency. What I do have a problem with is over-complicating a process because you have skin in the game. That seems to happen more and more.

• Michael Hennessy says:

  at

  In concept, I agree with your points. However, I think you stated it well when you said

  “Social media and social networks that enable and facilitate social interaction have unquestionably given recruiters unprecedented access to and the ability communicate with large populations of potential candidates where they live online.” Period.

  What that means is that social networks are a game-changer, and ARE directly impacting how recruiting is being done today. That’s BIG stuff…which didn’t exist 2 – 3 years ago.

  So, although i understand your backlash to all the hype that comes from game changing technology, it’s still game changing. ACCESS IS a BIG DEAL…just as the Telephone doesn’t change recruiting…but you know what, it’s still a big deal for recruiters.

  I agree with the rest of the comments that once you get access, you still need to recruit, which hasn’t changed, but we’re in a major transition period in the recruiting industry…and this ride isn’t over yet. More hype will come, but don’t underestimate the real changes that are happening and will continue to happen in recruiting.

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This is a post from Glen at www.booleanblackbelt.com - pretty much sums up my opinion on the hype that is social recruiting.

Adidas Group is bringing its recruitment in-house in a bid to save up to €6m (£4.9m) a year in headhunter and advertising costs.

The sports group is moving away from its reliance on headhunters to cut the cost of recruitment, boost internal promotions and create a standardised hiring system.

Steve Bonomo, global head of group recruiting at Adidas, told Personnel Today recruitment will be brought in-house across the company by the end of this year, saving up to €6m a year from 2013.

Bonomo said: "In the past we relied heavily on headhunters to find and acquire talent, which led to a considerable amount of our recruitment budget being spent on headhunter fees. With this in mind, we made the decision to bring our recruitment back in-house with the aim of reducing out annual recruitment spend and improving our process as a whole.

"There's a mystery when it comes to companies such as ours, where we have 100 locations and different brands, about what people are hiring for in different parts of the world. One of the main reasons for doing this is based on engagement feedback, which showed there was an opportunity to improve the visibility of our jobs around the world."

He added: "When you are in an industry like ours, where there's not much talent out there in the marketplace, we have a 40,000-strong talent pool in the organisation and we need to leverage that to fill our mid- and senior-level roles."

But Bonomo did not rule out the continued use of headhunters for some positions where it might not be possible to recruit internally.

"Relying on headhunters just won't be automatic and we will be using everything we can from our own resources before investing in external talent," he said.

The process to move recruitment in-house across the Adidas Group started in April 2007, when the business deployed the Jobpartners' ActiveRecruiter HR software across its offices in China, Germany and the US. In October that year, the scheme was then extended to cover the rest of Europe.

Bonomo said Germany, which is home to the Adidas headquarters, used to have a "pretty strong reliance on headhunters" but since 2009 they not been used due to the new recruitment scheme.

The new system is now in place in 50 countries in 10 different languages, but the scheme will be extended further so the remaining offices in Latin America, south-east Asia, Japan and Russia will be brought in by the end of 2010.

Recruitment leaders have been set up in each location who will take ownership of the recruitment scheme and train local teams in how to use it and why the firm is using it.

Wow, Adidas estimate they will save 6m Euros by doing recruitment themselves. Sounds like the future to me.