Virtually awesome: How smart companies use video games to recruit, retain
Written by EBO Editor
Saturday, 06 March 2010 08:40
An interesting article in the Career Builder Community by Mary Lorenz details the growing number of companies using interactive software and video games as employee training and development tools.
Mary provides insights into the use of some of these tools being used for candidate attraction, employee engagement and employee retention.
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The End of the “Recruitment Video"
Written by Nick Price
Tuesday, 16 February 2010 15:22
….As we know it.
The recruitment video used to be a wonderful thing. There would be an internal debate as to whose responsibility it is. Marketing would hear the word ‘video production’ and would get onto their contact at the production agency that recently did the TV ad for their latest product launch. They would come back and quote them thousands of pounds, a 40-man TV crew would turn up, Peter Purvis would present the overview to the company and introduce Molly in accounts and at some point down the line the tapes would be ready for distribution. If we were lucky there would have been some view as to who the target audience was – usually it was only graduates worthy of this scale of introduction to the company.
We live in a different world now. Online video has taken over and new channels of distribution have opened up alongside decreasing scale and cost of production. What this means for the future of film in the recruitment world is that we have to stop just talking about recruitment.
Employer branding films are going to thread throughout the employment lifecycle. A one-off ‘recruitment video’ is not really a recruitment video at all – unless it is a call to action. Which means we will see the introduction and increasing use of filmed pieces that are used with a mix of bite-sized chunks, replacing traditional text pages to complement the higher-production employer branding films that position the organisation as an employer.
To illustrate, we recently worked on a campaign where we filmed extensively over a period of weeks. We wanted to work with the client to embrace film throughout the process from initial ‘touch’ through to application, on-boarding, induction and internal engagement. Their suite of films includes those used for recruitment alongside their employer branding films. It also means we have raw footage that can easily be re-edited and tailored for individual campaigns. Another organisation has asked us to look at how they can use film from recruitment to training so that it has the same tone, style and messages as all their employee engagement work and representing a cost-saving in the process.
The filmed recruitment message is something we are also finding an increased appetite for as recruiters are realising that there are comparable costs for a bespoke creative advert produced by their agency to producing a short film about the role – visually showing aspects around the location and what the day-to-day involvement may look like. There’s a balance here – and some debate – as to the level of production that should be allowed for this, but this is probably closest to the true sense of a ‘recruitment video’ in that it is something directly used for recruitment as opposed to a positioning as an employer. It also is going to raise challenges and provide new opportunities across the various job boards as the media mix is shifted to allow more extensive film capacity.
We are also working on ‘MicroFilms’ which are highly transitory and disposable films used to drive traffic to other films and content along the candidate and employee journey. With microblogging and technology that needs to be accessed quickly and easily on-the-move, this is a natural progression to the mix. As with all of these components they need to have the right fit and energy to sit with how the whole employer brand is positioned as a whole to get the desired reaction from the candidate.
I would also add that I’m finding the whole terminology of ‘video’ something rooted in the past. Even with ‘online’ in front of it, it still makes me think of VHS tapes and clunky video machines, and whilst at times I will still refer to it I prefer to think ‘film’ rather than ‘video’. Films tell a story. If you really want interaction and engagement there has to be a story behind it and this requires thinking and understanding of the big picture as well as the immediate objectives. If many different people wrote the scenes to a film in isolation without knowing what the others were up to it wouldn’t be a very good story and no one would want to sit through it. When looking at embracing film, think of the big picture and treat it as a central way of doing things not just as a one-off project. There’s absolutely no reason not to.
The view the original article post by Nick Price please click here>
About the author
Nick has extensive experience in many areas of employer branding, recruitment research, diversity issues and internal communications. Having begun his career in recruitment research with TMP Worldwide in the late nineties, he then moved to communications agency ThirtyThree to take on the role as Head of Research where he was responsible for a number of ground-breaking projects. Nick set up his own business in 2006 specialising in employer branding research and communications.
He has worked with a wide variety of clients in a range of sectors, including the Metropolitan Police, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Oxfam, Central Government and a number of NHS Trusts. He has also worked internationally, travelling to India for a graduate recruitment project with Oxfam and led a team in five countries across Eastern Europe for a graduate research project for a top five accountancy firm.
Having established Nick Price Research in 2006 (www.nickpriceresearch.com), Working Films (www.workingfilms.co.uk) was founded in 2009 to take film and online video to the heart of how organisation's manage and communicate all components within their employer brand. Passionate about work and film, Working Films was a logical progression. Nick also has his own blog called WhatEverYouThink.com.
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Gartner reveals five social software predictions for 2010 and beyond
Written by EBO Editor
Thursday, 11 February 2010 08:39
STAMFORD, Conn., February 2, 2010 — Gartner, Inc. has revealed its key predictions on the use of social software and collaboration in the enterprise. These predictions focus on offerings ranging from team collaboration to dynamic social networking applications that offer rich profiles and activity streams.
“A lot has happened in a year within the social software and collaboration space. The growing use of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook by business users has resulted in serious enterprise dialogue about procuring social software platforms for the business,” said Mark R. Gilbert, research vice president at Gartner and co-chair of the Portals, Content and Collaboration (PCC) Summit. “Success in social software and collaboration will be characterized by a concerted and collaborative effort between IT and the business.”
Gartner offers five key predictions for social software:
By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.
Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20 percent of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.
“The rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities,” said Matt Cain, research vice president at Gartner. “While e-mail is already almost fully penetrated in the corporate space, we expect to see steep growth rates for sales of premises- and cloud-based social networking services. “
Gartner recommends that organizations develop a long-term strategy for provisioning and consuming a rich set of collaboration and social software services, and develop policies governing the use of consumer services for business purposes. Companies should also solicit input from the business community on what collaboration tools would be most helpful.
By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration.
The huge popularity of the consumer-microblogging service Twitter, has led many organizations to look for an "enterprise Twitter," that provides microblogging functionality with more control and security features to support internal use between employees. Enterprise users want to use microblogging for many of the same reasons that consumers do to share quick insights, to keep up with what colleagues are doing, to get quick answers to questions and so on.
“However, it will be very difficult for microblogging as a stand-alone function to achieve widespread adoption within the enterprise. Twitter's scale is one of the reasons for its popularity,” said Jeffrey Mann, research vice president for Gartner. “When limited to a single enterprise, that same scale is unachievable, reducing the number of users who will find it valuable. Mainstream enterprises are unlikely to adopt standalone, single-purpose microblogging products.
Through 2012, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail.
When it comes to collaboration, IT organizations are accustomed to providing a technology platform (such as, e-mail, IM, Web conferencing) rather than delivering a social solution that targets specific business value. Through 2013, IT organizations will struggle with shifting from providing a platform to delivering a solution. This will result in over a 70 percent failure rate in IT-driven social media initiatives. Fifty percent of business-led social media initiatives will succeed, versus 20 percent of IT-driven initiatives.
Enterprises will need to develop entirely new skill sets around designing and delivering social media solutions. Until this happens, failure rates will remain high. A dearth of methods, technologies and tools will impede the design and delivery of social media solutions in the near term. But long term, enterprises will realize that social media is not a "hit or miss" activity naturally prone to high failure rates, and that a calculated approach to social media solution delivery must be an IT competency. At that point, post 2012, the social software market growth will accelerate as will the overall impact of social media on business and society.
Within five years, 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications.
As we move toward three billion phones in the world serving the main purpose of providing communications and collaboration anytime anywhere, Gartner expects more end users to spend significant time experiencing the collaborative tools on these devices. For some of the world, these will be the first or the only applications they use. The experience with these tools for all who use them will enable the user to handle far more conversations within a given amount of time than their PCs simply because they are easier to use. Just as the iPhone impacted user interface design on the desktop, the lessons in the mobile phone collaboration space will dramatically affect PC applications, many of which are derivatives of decades-old platforms based on the PBX or other older collaboration paradigm.
“IT organizations should continue to procure leading-edge smartphones for testing and to accumulate knowledge on how the collaboration applications on such devices accomplish business tasks,” said Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “As more organizations consider replacing deskphones with cell phones, they may wish to anchor their collaboration tools also on the cell phone.”
Through 2015, only 25 percent of enterprises will routinely utilize social network analysis to improve performance and productivity.
Social network analysis is a useful methodology for examining the interaction patterns and information flows that occur among the people and groups in an organization, as well as among business partners and customers. However, when surveys are used for data collection, users may be reluctant to provide accurate responses. When automated tools perform the analysis, users may resent knowing that software is analyzing their behavior. For these reasons, social network analysis will remain an untapped source of insight in most organizations.
Before undertaking a social network analysis, Gartner recommends that the organization ensure that it has the trust and buy-in of the people it hopes to include in the analysis in advance. Issues of privacy and confidentiality must be addressed and a determination needs to be made regarding how the information will be used and communicated. Establishing the ground rules upfront will encourage more open and honest participation and reduce the resistance to ongoing relationship monitoring.
More information can be found in the report “Predicts 2010: Social Software Is an Enterprise Reality” which is available on Gartner’s Web click here>
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Job boards are so over. TalentSeekr targets and recruits through ads instead.
Written by EBO Editor
Saturday, 12 September 2009 07:57
Interesting article by Erick Schonfeld on TechCrunch about TalentSeekr, which is essentially an ad network for jobs. Companies fill out what jobs they are trying to fill in what locations, then TalentSeekr creates and tests multiple ads across the Web—social networks, blogs, forums, search engines, you name it.
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New sites help develop and differentiate candidates
Written by EBO Editor
Saturday, 15 August 2009 10:50
In an ERE article by John Zappe he reviews the raft of new find-a-job and career sites that are springing up lately offering to help develop and differentiate candidates.
Nick has extensive experience in many areas of employer branding, recruitment research, diversity issues and internal communications. Having begun his career in recruitment research with TMP Worldwide in the late nineties, he then moved to communications agency ThirtyThree to take on the role as Head of Research where he was responsible for a number of ground-breaking projects. Nick set up his own business in 2006 specialising in employer branding research and communications.
