Guest Posts

‘Guest Content’ contains all the articles written by Karishma Daswani that have been published on other sites.

 

 Oct 6, 2009

                                    How are Human Resource Professionals using Social Media?

 

HR professional are beginning to use social media in various ways, ‘Social Recruitment’ being the most prominent of them. Blogs and social networks have turned into fantastic recruiting mechanisms and organizations that are adept to change (management) have been quick to adopt these tools due to ease of use and low cost. Example: Ernst & Young uses Twitter and Facebook to hold public chats with candidates and Deloitte woos potential recruits through YouTube videos.

Social Recruitment is a two-way process which involves an online dialogue between the company and the candidate. Hence, the first and most important step to develop a successful social recruiting strategy for any organization is to analyze, build and monitor its online employer reputation. Several social media analytics tools like Radian6 allow companies to track conversations about them with ease. It is necessary to know the opinion in the market of an organization and also any issues that exist as these are considered more credible than the information found on the corporate career site. Job Vent, Jiibe, Jobvite and Glassdoor are other popular sites for understanding the expectations of people and how the HR practices of the company are fared in the candidate community.

Companies even cultivate a great employer brand that may be different from the corporate brand and reach a targeted audience of younger applicants. This helps attract the best talent as it establishes a transparency and gives candidates a fair idea of the ideals & culture of the organization. An excellent example of the use of social media in this case is ‘Microspotting’ – a blog for Microsoft which encompasses videos, a Twitter profile and a Flickr photostream.

After online reputation management, the next step for an organization’s HR practitioners is to form a team of Employee Brand Ambassadors. This team consists of people who are not just tech savvy but also ’social savvy’ . They are trained on understanding RSS, content portability and distribution, blog participation, creating and responding to forum threads, encouraging comments, microblogging effectively and understanding user patterns, site analytics and effectiveness .A Candidate Community Manager is responsible for how communication takes place for career opportunities, company culture, promotion of career events & highlighting of awards and news items.

The most basic, low cost and effective way to get to the ideal employee via social media is to have a creative job description on the company’s website and use email and social websites to share it, as nine out of ten times the best candidates are already in the employees’ network. To add a personal touch to this it is apt to implement a Live Chat feature on the careers page so that candidates can contact the hiring manager directly incase of any questions. It’s also possible to do a quick background check before a face-to-face interview, using search engines, Facebook or LinkedIn.

Finally, Social Recruiting also helps promote diversity in hiring practices as a heterogeneous mix of candidates is present online and can be chosen on the basis of their experience, age and other factors.

Clearly, social media has proven to be a boon to HR practitioners making recruitment more convenient, effective and time-saving than ever before.

Published in: http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/guest-post-how-are-human-resource-professionals-using-social-media/

   

 

                                                  

Nov 11, 2009

                                        HR- The Change Agent to popularize Social Media

Human Resources- The Change Agent to popularize Social Media
Less than a decade ago, there was a mindset of ‘Why do I need a mobile phone?’ Then there was a phase of ‘I don’t need the internet and definitely not my own website’ and now is the period when people are wary of social media as the next big thing in changing the way organizations work hinting at a major transformation from traditional to virtual means
Organizations that are adept to change (management) have jumped on the social bandwagon keen to milk on all the positives like ease of use, optimum cost, greater efficiency, speedier communication, global reach etc while others are still taking their time to see how they could manage without it until absolutely mandatory.
Whenever an external change takes place it is necessary to change the mindset of people first. This is because old habits die hard and people need to be more comfortable and receptive to the change mentally before they can physically deal with it.
This is where the role of Human Resource Management comes in.
HR allows for positive transformation in a structured manner through individuals, teams and as a whole organization by continuous reinforcement of new initiatives -by integrating them into daily activities.
This is done by setting up an HR strategy with stages of implementation which may take many months, or even years, to transition organizational mindset from present to future, depending on the complexity of the process to be implemented
Widely- this is how an HR strategy is implemented:
First a comprehensive view is obtained about any possible virtual activities already taking place within the organization which may or may not be related to the business. This is done to gain an understanding of the current level of acceptance regarding social networking tools so as to minimize resistance.
Then a third party change agent or even a senior manager from within the organization is appointed to head social change management. However the lesser the person belongs to IT & more to Human Resources the better it is, as starting the efficient use of social media in an organization is more about a behavioral change than a technological one.
One of the simplest ways in which Companies have come about to increase acceptance to social media as part of daily working is by starting an internal blog. Allowing employees to read, post and comment on what is written by others is a fun process and gives the management the confidence related to ease of use or even a risk to the business (if any)
Other means to provide knowledge about social media, its advantages and methods of use are by a combination with other organizational objectives of learning & development, employee engagement programs, team building activities, small changes in policies, reward for maximum use of social media to handle daily activities etc The change has to be gradual and slow yet sure.
Communication related to the change should be such that social media and its applications ( like an internal blog, facebook page, MySpace activities etc) should not come across as a product but rather about the content and people involvement associated with it.
Hence, to maximize use of social media in an organization it is first necessary to involve the HR department and then apt people management with regard to it.

Published in:  http://socialmediopolis.com/discussion/topic/show/258569

 

 

 

Dec 5th, 2009

                                                              Using Twitter for Job Search

I welcome myself to the Twitjobs community with this first post J 

Social Media is hot now-a-days & its here to stay!

At this stage when Facebook & Twitter have emerged as 2 of the fastest growing social media platforms for both employers & job seekers, Twitjobs couldn’t have come at a better time.

I have been recently involved with quite a bit of social recruiting myself and find certain inhibitions associated with the usage of Twitter especially for seeking jobs- both with freshers & seasoned professionals.

The reason being micro blogging has a limited number of characters- how could one possibly explain all about oneself via this medium to a prospective employer. How on earth could all the experience & achievements be highlighted? And how would an employer know or even find out about any candidate through twitter. How could a twitter-oriented jobsite ever be successful ?

Well for starters, create your profile on twitter with a neat background which can be chosen from among the choices available. Backgrounds can even be bought but I don’t see the need for expense when it is not linked in anyway to benefit a job seeker with the actual purpose of getting a job!

Upload a neat professional photo of yourself as it lends a personal touch to anyone checking out your profile as they can then visualize how you look rather than being a complete stranger.

Use the one-liner introduction provided by Twitter very smartly to highlight yourself as a serious professional or apt resource for an recruiter. Provide a link to your CV/Resume or a website that gives out more information about yourself, your achievements and/or experience.

After making a good profile for yourself search all the possible companies that you intend to apply to for jobs on twitter and since some or many might be using twitter on their corporate website you could find out about the openings whenever they tweet. But then what about the companies that aren’t using this microblogging platform? After all social media is just catching up..most of the organizations are not yet ‘twitter-savvy’ or rather even ‘social savvy’ ! 

That’s where Twitjobs.co.uk comes in. Follow this twitter oriented job site & you would come to know all the openings there are across numerous organizations in various domains.  Twitjobs.co.uk is not just limited to job openings in the UK but also recently launched itself in the US & would be soon in India as well.

Follow like minded individuals or lists that deal with your area of work. A credible way to find out how successful or reliable the person/ website/ group you’re following is by checking the follower Vs Following ratio. The more the merrier!

By following experts you would come to know what conferences they attend, which events could be useful to you & what really is in their mind.

Re-tweet & pass along useful information from which people in related fields could benefit.

Give & spread the knowledge..thats how you will also get & attain the knowledge

Happy Tweeting  J 

Published in:  http://twitjobsuk.blogspot.com/2009/12/using-twitter-for-jobsearch.html

 

 

 

Dec 18th, 2009

                                          People Centric approach to getting Internships

You’ve all been reading and hearing about how to create the perfect resume, contacting the right companies, attending conferences to network, asking seniors who’ve done internships to help you get through etc. And all this helps !
However there’s also a different approach to the same goal which could prove to be more fruitful in terms of not only getting the right internship but making professional contacts for the future. This is the people centric approach.

 

Conduct a people search …..

 

Few years back when I was in college and was looking for internship in IT …any internship really (there was not the option of getting the ‘right’ one), the only way to go was through a chain of contacts. I got in touch with a school friend of my sister who contacted a good friend, who in turn contacted another good friend who contacted a college classmate working in a leading software company who got in touch with the HR of that company. Phew! So I had a lot of people to be grateful to & these people in turn too owed something to each other for getting ‘work done’ – all for an unpaid internship!

The same people approach can be followed now also but completely personally on one’s own without having to go through a chain of ‘grateful-ness’ …..all thanks to Social Media

Even today in many organizations like jobs, internships are also not advertised. It works quite a lot on referrals. Which is why you might want to conduct a people search instead of an Internship search.

Now what is that supposed to mean??

Capitalize on LinkedIn!

Really!! Its that simple! I’m already on Linked In now where’s my offer letter?!

LinkedIn is an excellent means of getting to know the various professionals working in different organizations at any level in the hierarchy. Through it you can find out the names of relevant people in the HR community and these names can be put into online people search engines like ‘pipl’, ‘peekyou’ & ‘wink’ which provide information on other social communities where the same people are most active and can be joined in or followed accordingly.

One can also join various forums and groups on LinkedIn and join in the discussions that are taking place wherein you meet like minded people while putting forth your view and listening to what others have to say .Ideally a discussion can be started from your side too which could involve possible enquiries for internships, sharing of useful information with other interns, tips & leads and what not.

Direct messages can be sent to the relevant people but remember to put yourself across in a short and crisp manner and not pester a person continuously by repeatedly sending requests for employment or befriending.
Complete your profile 100% as it acts like a brief CV and its very useful to have recommendations (as the option is provided) from your professors or peers.

Along this people centric approach you would meet a lot of people who if cannot help you directly with any form of employment would have relevant contacts in their connection list and can be added by you accordingly. So you end up knowing a lot of people- useful, like minded, same area of expertise, different views, helpful experience…or simply as an online friend !

So if you get your offer letter by using this approach do let me know!

Published in: http://www.hellointern.com/info/people-centric-approach-to-getting-internships/