I posted my 5000th tweet this week. If you had told me a couple years ago that I’d spend that much time on twitter, I would have laughed, rolled my eyes, and silently declared you a complete wingnut.

I hated twitter.

It’s too fast. The search function sucks. Older tweets are not “temporarily unavailable.” You have to use google to find them.

Conversations are disjointed and difficult to follow. Chats are visual cacophony and often idiotic.

Twitter is mostly just digital flashing: an endless stream of “Hey, look at me!”

Yet, in spite of all the noise and nonsense, the immediacy of twitter is mesmerizing.

Watching something happen on twitter is being there.

I’m not particularly sporty. But I love watching games on twitter. I see the enthusiasm, frustration, and excitement. Sometimes it’s barely coherent. But it is heartfelt, real, and now.

Twitter takes me there.

And there’s the added bonus of not actually having to watch the game itself.

I’ve also been following the googacle trial on twitter. Oracle sued google for trademark and patent infringements over google’s use of java in the android. When the jury had a verdict in the trademark phase, I switched to the profile page of the reporter covering the case on twitter.

She described what was happening. But she also wrote what it was like– how the lawyers seemed, the expression on the judge’s face, the tension in the courtroom. The butterflies flitted in my stomach. I held my breath. I was in every trial I’d ever had at the moment the jury files in with their verdict.  And I was suddenly in that San Jose courtroom.

Twitter is unlike any other media.

Other types of reporting focus on the facts of what happened, not the sense of what’s happening. Even live TV is not the same. Something about the picture makes it clear that I am not there; I’m just an observer.

The only other things that come close are poetry and music.

I still think most of what happens on twitter is just self promotion at best, and stupid at worst. Still, I have developed professional relationships there with some great employment lawyers and HR professionals. I also get access to information and interesting content I wouldn’t read otherwise.

But I’m really looking to mainline the emotion and find myself in another place.

HR Examiner Weekly Edition v 3.20 May 18, 2012

Mobile Recruiting: Prelude A mobile device is not an inferior younger sibling of the Internet. It is a media platform in and of itself. Much as the media types that preceded it, mobile technology transforms everything it touches. Mobile technology reduces friction, shifts time and modifies location. Read Now »

Mobile Stats (2 of 6) While these numbers describe an increasingly mobile planet, they say little about the risks, opportunities and rewards associated with taking recruiting mobile. Evangelists offer heavy breathing and lots of arm waving. But, to date there are no role models or success stories in the world of mobile recruiting. Read Now »

Mobile Recruiting: What's Up? (3 of 6) Heavy investment in Employment Brand is destroyed when a candidate leaves the well designed company website and heads into the ATS ghetto. Attempts to paint the company in a positive light are sabotaged by clumsy search results and ineffective process integration. Read Now »

Building a Mobile Strategy (4 of 6) The degree of fervor you apply to rolling out the change process should take a number of things into account. The right approach for your team and your organization is probably not a cookie cutter version of someone else’s project. Read Now »

Mobile Recruiting: Defining Your Goals (5 of 6) It is inevitable that this new medium will transform your enterprise just like earlier mass media. Deciding to get on board is a question of when, not whether. Read Now »

Mobile Recruiting: Getting Started in 7 Steps (6 of 6) While there is no substitute for having a focused partner who keeps you up to speed, basic sustainability will require that you become a student of mobile recruiting. Read Now »

Mobile devices are an entirely new class of mass media and are evolving at an extremely rapid pace.

7 Action Steps you should take right now

Becoming effective with mobile recruiting is an ongoing process. Mobile devices are an entirely new class of mass media and are evolving at an extremely rapid pace. While there is no substitute for having a focused partner who keeps you up to speed, basic  sustainability will require that you become a student of mobile recruiting.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Start collecting and analyzing your employment website’s traffic. Evaluate it weekly. Look for trends in platforms, mobile traffic as a percentage of overall traffic, geographies.
2. Identify mobile recruiting approaches from competitors and trend setters. Which of them look right for you?
3. Become a student of mobile trends. Watch the people around you and the way that they use their mobile devices. Take notes.
4. Ask candidates, during interviews, what they think about applying with a mobile device. Keep a log of the data and discuss with your team on a routine basis.
5. Set up a Google alert for ‘mobile recruiting’ and monitor it every day.
6. Start thinking about which components of your recruiting process require slow or deliberative decision making and which can be done quickly and conveniently.
7. Identify your worst recruiting hangups (and those of your applicants). Keep a list. Mobile will give you the opportunity and the motive to straighten them out.

Unlike social media, which are discrete communications channels, mobile is a new mass media form.

Defining Your Goals

Running off and launching a mobile recruiting process without a framework of goals and objectives is career suicide.  Unlike social media, which are discrete communications channels, mobile is a new mass media form. It is inevitable that this new medium will transform your enterprise just like earlier mass media. Deciding to get on board is a question of when, not whether.

Here are the questions you should consider when establishing the goals for your mobile recruiting program:

1. What percentage of applicants do you expect will apply on mobile devices?
2. Which mobile platforms will you support?
3. Optimized mobile career site, native app or a combination of the two?
4. Where does the jobs data come from?
5. How can you keep job searching simple?
6. How quickly do you need to get your program in place?
7. Can you experiment or do you need to see best practices?
8. What is your budget? What can you reasonably accomplish with the funds?
9. Will you accept LinkedIn profiles and other resume alternatives?
10. Which of your jobs are suitable for mobile recruiting?
11. Will you pilot in a single area, roll out to the entire enterprise or a combination of the two?
12. Will your mobile project be part of a larger rethinking of Recruiting workflow?
13. How will you maintain and strengthen relationships with candidates once they have submitted their credentials?
14. Do you want to offer job alerts and other content to your mobile audience?
15. What kinds of content will you provide?

When the VP of HR slot is filled from within the ranks of the department, people with Recruiting backgrounds have the advantage.

Building a Mobile Strategy: 4 Key things to consider

The best time to start developing your mobile strategy is right now. The degree of fervor you apply to rolling out the change process should take a number of things into account. The right approach for your team and your organization is probably not a cookie cutter version of someone else’s project. Cautious timing reduces both risk and benefit.

• Are you trying to recruit from the dominant mobile demographics?
  Just as you’d expect, the demographics of heavy mobile users skews towards a younger crowd. Sophisticated mobile usage is correlated with age.  It’s more important to deploy mobile tools if that’s how your audience wants to communicate. 
• How critical is your Recruiting need?
  If your current approach to Recruiting is providing acceptable levels of quality and quantity, you may want to consider waiting. The over riding principle here is the expense or benefit to your Employment Brand. Adoption is necessary of you want to avoid being pigeonholed as stodgy. 
• How comfortable is your organization with risk?
  Technology adoption simultaneously rewards and punishes early adopters. When you are among the first organizations to deploy new tools and they work, the result is significant competitive differentiation. However, lots of false starts and public mistakes are often the price of being first.
• What does your current mobile traffic look like and how fast is it growing?
  To the extent that you already have mobile visitors to yourt employment site, you are suffering brand erosion. Get a hold of the web logs and come to grips with the realities of your exposure.

Mobile technology is spreading faster than kudzu in America’s cropland

No Compelling Mobile Recruiting From The Usual Suspects

If you scan the web for information about mobile recruiting, what you find is a rehashing of these basic statistics. Indeed, software is eating the world and mobile technology is spreading faster than  kudzu in America’s cropland. Still, no real model for the deployment of mobile technology in talent acquisition has emerged. While enthusiasts engage in cheerleading, sensible use cases seem to be a form of science fiction

Like early early experiments on the world wide web, most mobile recruiting experiments are attempts to mold existing business structures to the new media.  The first job boards were long lists of job openings. Search, the single largest characteristic of web technology, did not make its appearance for many years.

As a mass media in its own right, mobile technology is most suited for handling  quick, simple and repeatable tasks like scrolling through and checking off lists, setting appointments, publishing and consuming short email and other forms of message, indicating pleasure and displeasure, finding and connecting with local services, documenting and logging expenses, getting and following directions and  progress monitoring.

As a result, the initial impact of mobile integration will be to start to cleave recruiting workflow into two major pieces: the quick and convenient and the thoughtful and deliberative. Expanded workflow flexibility will come from process redesign rather than the current strategy of overlaying mobile functionality on existing workflow.

Much of Recruiting workflow is broken. Employment website integration with the Applicant Tracking System creates a disjointed and badly designed experience for the company and the candidate. Heavy investment in Employment Brand is destroyed when a candidate leaves the well designed company website and heads into the ATS ghetto.  Attempts  to paint the company in a positive light are sabotaged by clumsy search results and ineffective process integration. The situation is so extreme that third party organizations devoted to championing the candidate’s right to a respectful process are gaining rapid traction.

Mobile is not the future, it’s the present.

Mobile Stats (2 of 5)

Mobile is not the future, it’s the present. Take a walk through these statistics:

• Every economically viable human being on the planet owns a mobile device. (TomiAhonen)
• 73% of Americans use their mobile devices to text and take pictures, 44% to access the internet, and 38% to send/receive email. (Pew Internet & American Life Project)
• Half of all American adults use a smartphone (Pew)
• U.S. citizens will use the mobile networks to access the Internet more than wireline networks by 2015 (IDC’s Worldwide New Media Market Model)
• By the end of this year, there could be more smartphones on the planet than humans, and by 2016 there could be 10 billion smartphones. That’s 1.4 mobile devices per capita.(Mashable)
• 40% of cell owners said they found themselves in an emergency situation in which having their phone with them helped.(Pew)
• 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7. Mobile devices replace wristwatches and alarm clocks. (Fiddlefly)
• It takes 1.5 hours for the average person to respond to an email. It takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. (CTIA.org)
• Half of all adult cell owners (51%) had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away. (Pew)
• The growth of the iPhone is 10 times faster than the growth of America Online. (Nielsen)
• In the 25-34 age range smartphone ownership is 62%. In Q3, 2011, smartphone sales reached 59% of handsets. (NPD Group)
• In many countries, including the US, mobile market penetration exceeds 100%. Significant numbers of people carry multiple devices. (Mobile Marketing Association, CTIA.org)
• 73% of American cell phone users send and receive text messages. The typical user sends and receives 10 messages. (Pew)
• 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. (Mobile Marketer)
• It takes 26 hours for the average person to report a lost wallet. It takes 68 minutes for them to report a lost phone. (Wired)
• 30% of all American households are wireless only. They no longer use land lines. (CTIA.org)
• 50% of all cell phone owners have an app on their phone. (Pew)

While these numbers describe an increasingly mobile planet, they say little about the risks, opportunities and rewards associated with taking recruiting mobile. Evangelists offer heavy breathing and lots of arm waving. But, to date there are no role models or success stories in the world of mobile recruiting.

The explosive growth of mobile technology is changing everything it touches.

A mobile device is not an inferior younger sibling of the Internet. It is a media platform in and of itself. Much as the media types that preceded it, mobile technology transforms everything it touches. Mobile technology reduces friction, shifts time and modifies location.

As Marc Andreesson, founder of Netscape and noted investor, says,

“Software is eating the world. More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. …

Why is this happening now?

Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale.

Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. …I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual .. instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day.”

Wall Street Journal

The explosive growth of mobile technology is changing everything it touches. Increasingly the vanguard of the software revolution revolves around mobile devices. As they bring the broadband internet into every nook and cranny of human experience, they transform and disrupt.

Shackled with legacy tools, techniques and world views, Recruiting departments struggle to apply the lessons of the internet (reduced friction, decentralization, democratic communications, personalization, transparency and search). Meanwhile, the workforce is immersed in these factors in the rest of their lives. The combination of technology and workforce expectations will drive the coming changes.

HR Examiner Weekly Edition v 3.19 May 11, 2012

War for Talent Like a Beatles Renaissance, the War For Talent is Back (for Real). The number of job openings is now at pre-recession levels but there’s not enough qualified people to fill them. Read Now »

The Value of Hiring to Deficiency “We have a very high unemployment rate and an abundance of people without the right skills. What do we do? How do we align this mismatch to execute and accomplish business and personal life goals? There is an answer in the way we interview and hire. ”– Hank Stringer Read Now »

Competency Model: Good Luck In Your Future Endeavors Marc helps the world’s largest and most successful companies improve the quality and depth of their talent. His consulting work focuses on creating effective talent strategies and detailed talent management process designs, all using the One Page Talent Management approach – Simplicity, Accountability and Transparency. Read Now »

Talent Communities Rather than making things better, it’s fairly common for vendors to use a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) strategy rather than actually developing something. By screwing around with semantics and turning intelligent conversation into a debate about the meanings of words, they derail innovation and disruption. Read Now »

Hank Stringer | Founding Member, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board

We have an abundance of positions to fill around the country that require specific skills. We have a very high unemployment rate and an abundance of people without the right skills. What do we do? How do we align this mismatch to execute and accomplish business and personal life goals? There is an answer in the way we interview and hire.

I recently had the opportunity to spend time with an old friend. This friend had been a business compatriot of mine in the early DAZE of the Internet boom. I had the opportunity to watch him work as a technology leader, and a workhorse of the first degree. He, like many of you, wore the phrase “whatever it takes” on his chest as a true badge of honor. He made things happen. He got things done.

My friend went on to technology heights in the startup and enterprise software markets becoming an executive leader for the largest software companies in the world. Because of schedules and world travel, we had not sat down to break bread for years. So a recent 2 ½ hour lunch to just talk was such a blessing for me, and I hope, for him.

Good recruiters have a capacity for and a deep joy in asking questions and listening. I asked my friend a number of questions surrounding talent issues. I really got to the meat of his talent experiences when I asked what was his biggest talent obstacle he was most proud of solving. He didn’t miss a beat. He immediately began describing how he sourced and hired Product Management talent.

Good product managers are not easy to come by. They have a tough job straddling the fence between technology scope, client requirements, investment / budget control, technology upkeep, and of course, market competition. Finding talent who knows a specific technology market, has successfully helped bring product to market from soup to nuts can be a very tough and expensive process. And getting any product to market on time and at, or under, budget is very important. The Product Manager is just one cog in the wheel but an essential one.

My friend’s experience at successfully hiring Product Managers could be a gem. I sat back ready for a long description of process and unique sourcing techniques. Then he stunned me.

Please know that he was describing a time when he was managing over 3000 technologists and carried a P&L in the billions. This was no small area of responsibility. Whatever his program, he had to get it right pretty much the first time – not a lot of flexibility here. He needed Product Management talent. So what stunned me?

He answered, “I hired a store manager from Nordstrom’s,”

I almost screamed. “What? You can’t be serious!”

He said, “Sure. They have a lot of responsibility. They understand reporting, management, and like to be held accountable for doing a very important job. And they are more affordable than the few good product managers in the software space. It takes less investment. And I get results faster if I hire good talent and bring them up to speed myself.”

I know there are plenty of you reading this and thinking, “Sure, no big deal. I do the same thing.” But I also know there are plenty reading who are thinking, “There is no way my management or HR function would let me do that – but boy I wish they would!”

My friend hired good talent, knew where they were deficient, discussed this with the person during the hiring process, and brought them on board with a plan and expectation to get them up to speed and adding value. Even if a few of the talent hired did not work out, the majority did and it was a win-win for all involved. Makes sense, right?

The discussion reminded me of a project I took on long ago at Dell Computer. Michael and the executive sales team needed to hire 15 top Account Executives around the country in 60 days, start to finish. Now this was the early 90’s, and Dell was known, but not that well known. Believe it or not, the direct sales model was in the early stages–direct sales was a new and incredible common sense approach to the market. In order to accomplish the goal of 15 top AE’s in 60 days, it was necessary for me to set the ground rules. Luckily, Susan Larson, the Sr VP of Sales at the time, supported me and gave me all the rope I needed to be successful or hang myself.

Hiring to Deficiency

I came up with a program I called “Hiring to Deficiency.”

Here are the key points of that old program.

Created hiring teams of three for each region

Had a specific time line for each step of the process

Met with all interviewers with Susan standing by my side telling her team to do “whatever I said – period”

Trained all interviewers in behavioral interviewing

Forced them to interview in panels of three

Gave them three candidates for each region

I sat in every interview

Trained them to hire to deficiency – hire the talent closest to the needed skill set

Told them they were accountable for discussing these areas with each talent before hiring

And that the panel of three was responsible for getting the talent up to speed

There was more to the program but by working these main points we successfully completed the project. Because we had a program and plan to work with the talent to get them up to speed, we attracted and hired some of the top Account Executives who have worked for Dell. (By the way, I don’t imagine any of them are working now as they made millions of dollars through sales payouts and stock options.)

The program, managed properly with the right expectations, works.

A New Idea? 

Absolutely not. However, the process of seeking and executing a solution may be new, as we approach solution seeking differently. In the past, we dealt with real world real relationship scenarios. We did not immediately consider searching the web, using job boards to build talent flow, or relying on private company web pages or social networks to attract talent.  These are all worthwhile endeavors.

But reviewing successful talent programs from the past is worth remembering, and maybe worth pursuing – again.

For instance, in the early days of IBM’s involvement in computers, programmers en masse didn’t exist. And there was no Internet to source, test and train prospective talent. What did IBM do? Well IBM considered the skills they needed, talent who could easily understand something akin to a binary language, who were creative and could sit at a keyboard for long periods of time.

Guess what? Music majors who had been trained in composition (especially trained pianists) fit the bill. The program worked! Is there a community of Liberal Arts majors ready to do technical work instead of service industry positions today? Is your company willing to find out? How can we assess and train them? Today we have the Internet, and I am sure a number of companies have programs like this in place. Why not all, or at least more?

In the 1980’s Ross Perot, Founder of EDS needed top notch sales account managers. And he didn’t have time to waste weeding out those who could execute successfulagainst those who couldn’t. So he implemented a tough front end filter (today that would be a blue suit, red tie and no tatts), and  created an intense 3 year training program that he valued at $9K. If you were chosen for the training program and failed at any point during the three years, you had to pay the prorated portion of the $9K back to EDS. Not sure that would work today, but with an army of well trained enterprise consultative sales account executives, Ross was able to build a multi Billion dollar company.

Training programs for the masses appear to be long gone. But access to assessment and training for individuals, in areas vital to make them productive, is easily accomplished on the web. Just do a Google search and get started.

Why is it important today?

We have an abundance of positions to fill around the country that require specific skills. We have a very high unemployment rate and abundance of people without the right skills. What do we do? How do we align this mismatch to execute and accomplish business and personal life goals?

If we spend time and dollars working and waiting until we hire the perfect talent, we lose. We may rely on corporate training programs, but can we really?  If we need talent today, we must move quickly – there is simply no time to lose!

So instead of training in groups, why not hire great talent with high Emotional Quotient, with interesting experiences and desires, who understand and appreciate a company spending the time and effort to take them to the next level?

There are all types of positions that need to be filled and all types of people willing to work. If we consider the base attributes we seek, and work to train talent in the areas they need help, we get great talent faster.

One more thing. Do something great for someone, and they may be more loyal next time the recruiter calls attempting to take your best talent. Work to advance their knowledge base and career, and there is a better chance they will stick with you through thick and thin.

The value of attracting and training great talent really pays off as you retain them. Be open, honest, and give people skills to advance their career, and retention will increase. Be prepared however, to continue paying for that value equal to the market. Or else some company will figure out the economics, and will recruit and pay more, a lot more.

This cycle and scenario has happened before and will happen again. At this time, in this talent market, it makes sense to revisit hiring great talent with a clear understanding and program in place to overcome their deficiencies. What else are you going to do?