Niche Site Creates Positive Outcome for St. John West Shore Hospital.

Banners and radio prove to be effective support options.

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) September 8, 2009 – In urgent need of hiring experienced RNs, St. John West Shore Hospital (SJWS) in Cleveland, Ohio, turned to NAS Recruitment Communications to develop an exciting new branding campaign to launch in coordination with an open house to meet its recruitment needs.

To attract the attention of practiced RNs, NAS created an employment brand for SJWS that used photos of employees in real-life scenarios of the daily work at the hospital. It also utilized a multi-pronged media advertising approach, which utilized online components. A rich-media corner-peel ad - where one corner of the Web page expands to cover the screen upon mouse-over - was created on the homepage of Cleveland.com, the area’s local website. When job seekers clicked on the ad, they were directed to a splash page that displayed pertinent information about the open house and SJWS’ Web address, where potential candidates could apply online if they were unable to attend. A banner was developed to run on a local news website called MomsLikeMe.com, targeting the targeted female demographic. In addition, NAS created a succinct ten-second radio commercial that aired two weeks prior to the open house event.

NAS successfully measured activity from the corner-peel ad on Cleveland.com, based on the number of click-throughs. Results showed that the ad produced high-volume traffic and was a crucial component to the strong campaign. Sixty-five RNs attended the event and 21 interviews were scheduled. SJWS has already hired six RNs from the open house and continue to interview.

According to Jeanne Gregg, Employment Coordinator for SJWS, the event “…was terrific! We had a huge turnout and lots of fun! NAS was a valuable partner in the process.”

NAS can evaluate niche websites for other clients and make recommendations regarding job postings, banner advertisements, videos and other online options that are available. Please contact your NAS Account Manager and allow us to help you fulfill your recruitment and hiring needs.

NAS to reveal metric and SEO secrets

Webinar will teach tools and techniques to guide sourcing decisions

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) August 31, 2009 – NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, will present “Making Your Career Site Work for You: Let Metrics Guide Your Sourcing Strategy,” a special webinar to be hosted Wednesday, September 15th at 2:00 p.m. EST.

Caroline Slomski, Interactive Marketing Strategist, and Kevin Hawkins, National Internet Strategist for NAS, will co-host the hour-long presentation. Those attending the session will learn how many HR organizations are already successfully combining powerful new metric tools—tools that can map candidate activity through to application—with SEO techniques to increase their return on media investment and drive more qualified candidates to apply. All at a fraction of what most companies invest in print ads and online postings.

“Until recently, HR organizations relied heavily on media feedback and candidate self-sourcing tools to guide their sourcing decisions,” said Slomski. “However, most media metrics only report the number of clicks, impressions and other means of measuring initial engagement. And candidate self-sourcing—asking candidates to identify what source drove them to the application on a form within the ATS—offers organizations unreliable information at best. Our metrics can track through to the ATS, giving our clients a far more reliable method of source tracking than media feedback or an aided drop-down box.

“Tools like our Total Source Tracker help clients find out if the media sources they are paying for are converting the highest number of completed applications, or if there are other sources—like job aggregators or search engine traffic—that are giving them better results. If so, knowing how to optimize your site to take advantage of this traffic can help you maximize your ROI.”

To register for the September 15th webinar presentation, or to learn more about NAS’ comprehensive metrics tools, including Total Source Tracker, please contact your Account Rep.

Are Mobile Job Alerts Turning Job Seekers into Pavlov's Poodle?

Still not sold on the need to use twitter, email or mobile job alerts to engage candidates? What if a simple mobile TXT campaign could make a potential candidate get excited, fill them with anticipation and even, pleasure? Would you use it then?

Imagine this: you are Pavlov's Poodle and your Twitter Alert, TXT message notification, incoming wall post notice (along with other social media 'incoming content' cues) are all bells triggering a behavioral response. Triggering, in fact, your brain's pleasure centers and creating a loops which virtually assures continued engagement. In "Seeking. How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous." Emily Yoffe reveals some amazing research shedding light on how the acts of searching and finding trigger pleasure centers in the brain. Remember those studies with lab rats who would ignore food as long as they could press a button to stimulate their brain's pleasure centers? Well -- essentially we're the rats and Google is the button. One of many such 'buttons' like mobile phone TXTs, Tweets, emails, etc.

According to the results from some researchers, it isn't even the act of getting a reward which is the most powerful element in this phenomena. The acts of wanting and seeking or EXPECTING new information can become more addictive and pleasurable than actually getting the information in question. So you sit down to search for one item of information and find yourself still online an hour later performing search-after-search, caught in a loop where the act of seeking is just as important and fulfilling as actually finding what you are looking for. This is called a seeking/wanting system and if you've ever felt a shiver of excitement or anticipation at the incoming tone for a TXT message, tweet or email you have experienced the phenomena first-handed.

NAS' Kevin Hawkins continues to explain why job alerts are a must in todays recruitment landscape here.

Learn more about how your company can leverage job alerts and mobile and social recruiting by contacting your Account Rep.

Considering a Recruitment Video?

If you have been toying with the idea of implementing a recruitment video, check out this great article from ere.net.

Why Recruiting Has to Go Video

We live in a world of pictures, movies, and sound. The printed word is being replaced and expanded by cheap, easy access to video websites like YouTube as well as sites such as Hulu.com and Veoh.com.

According to Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, more than 25 percent of the content that workers view each day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio by 2013.

As of this past February, emarketer.com ranked YouTube as the fifth-most popular website in the United States, eclipsed only by the likes of Google (who owns YouTube), Yahoo, and Microsoft.

Video, combined with the Internet, is a game-changer for recruiting. Used together they create a better candidate experience and raise the likelihood of a better hire. They also enrich recruiters by giving them a much deeper perspective on a candidate, in less time, than has ever been possible.

Video is particularly attractive to Gen Y — those young people between 20 and 29 who total about 70 million people. They are avid users of video and expect to be marketed to, taught, entertained, and recruited by video. Go to an Apple store and watch what young folks are doing: watching videos or movies or looking at pictures using the Internet. I rarely see any of them reading an article or an online newspaper.

They have been raised on television and those in the 25 to 34 age group watch more than 140 hours of it each quarter. The percentage of people watching videos and movies on the Internet has nearly doubled since 2006 and is now over 60% of all Internet users.

Some organizations are already leveraging the Internet and video to give them a competitive edge in reaching the millions of people who regularly use such sites as YouTube and Hulu.

Here is how they are doing it:

To showcase their company
They are creating career sites that are heavy with short videos featuring tours of the company, interviews with executives, candid chats with employees, and day-in-the-life scenarios of what people in particular positions do all day. They may include videos about the local area or videos that have been made by news agencies about the company. Examples of excellent career sites that contain video include those of KPMG, Deloitte, and Whirlpool. These have all won awards for excellence based on the success they have had in recruiting the talent they need using their career site. Companies such as RecruitTV and Thinktalk provide the expertise and service to help you produce these kinds of videos.

An interactive, video-based website is the core requirement for employment branding and may be the single best thing you can do to improve your success in attracting and hiring the people you want.

Read the full article here.

For more information about producing a recruitment video for your company, contact your account rep today.

New Career Site by NAS Helps Helzberg Diamonds Shine

Employment Culture Featured to Attract A-Level Talent.

Kansas City, MO (PRWEB) August 10, 2009 – Maximizing the impact of career site positioning and the intrinsic value it places on an organization as an employer of choice is something that Helzberg Diamonds embraces and endorses. To strategically position themselves apart from their competition, the Human Resources Department at Helzberg Diamonds made the decision to have NAS Recruitment Communications develop a career site that enhances the candidate experience.

“Helzberg wants job candidates to better understand their work culture, benefits and opportunities. With our creation of a new career site and accompanying employment video, they have successfully positioned themselves as a progressive, front-runner in talent acquisition,” said C.T. Trivella, Director, NAS Kansas City. “Helzberg Diamonds takes great pride in the messaging on their career site, and has worked closely with NAS to reinforce and communicate their employment value proposition.”

According to Daphne Means, Director of Recruiting and HR Field Operations for Helzberg Diamonds, “We’ve seen such positive results from our new employment site, thanks to the partnership we have with NAS. Now applicants can truly understand what it’s like to work at Helzberg Diamonds and know what our company stands for...which ultimately leads to a higher-quality applicant pool.”

“Because of the work we’ve done with NAS,” she continued, “more and more job seekers come directly to our website to get information on careers with Helzberg Diamonds. This is an investment that will continue to pay off as we reduce our reliance on other costly advertising methods, such as job boards, to get our employment brand recognized.”

View Helzberg's career site at www.helzberg.jobs.

To find out more about how NAS Insights can create a customized career site for your organization, contact your NAS office.

August PRIDE Ideas

If you are looking for a way to kick off a new campaign, make a lasting impact at upcoming career fairs or inspire pride within your organization, check out some our monthly PRIDE spotlight items below.

August PRIDE Items

Healthcare PRIDE Items

To place an order or a custom request, please contact your agency rep today.

NAS Puts Geographical Intelligence on the Map

Visualization Adds a New Twist on Market Analysis.

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) July 30, 2009 – Imagine seeing, in one glance, a regional profile of areas that have the highest concentration of the talent you seek. Using its new mapping capabilities, NAS Insights, the centralized research operation of NAS Recruitment Communications, can help clients visualize exactly where their recruitment efforts should be targeted.

For a recruiting media plan to be successful, employers need to have many “where” questions answered. Where are potential candidates located? Where are major competitors located? Where do large concentrations of diverse populations exist? NAS Insights is equipped to bring visual clarity to these questions with unrivaled mapping expertise.

NAS Insights mapping solutions can help determine key locations for print media and radio advertising. Maps can also pinpoint heavily traveled highways and roads to support a billboard campaign, or target highly populated cities to support the use of direct mail. They can even be used to calculate the most favorable local recruiting areas based on miles or drive time.

“Maps take market strategy to the next level by providing a visual component to support and fine tune recruitment efforts,” said Kathleen Anne Gaiser, Research Analyst and NAS mapping expert. “Understanding a company’s market is paramount in making informed decisions and making sure recruitment dollars are optimized.”

NAS Insights can create customized maps to assist businesses in any industry with recruiting and workforce planning. For more information, contact your account rep.

NAS Talent Strategist Provides Vital Market Analysis for Healthcare Clients

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) July 27, 2009 – Kristine Rhodes, Dallas-based Talent Strategist for NAS Recruitment Communications, announced today that recently added metrics tools are helping HR healthcare clients attract the best from a select talent pool.

“NAS Insights’ new online healthcare metrics tool,” Rhodes said, “gives us an additional set of critical data that pinpoints a specific audience. These customized reports are the foundation of a successful recruitment and retention program.”

According to Rhodes, developing a strategic workforce planning initiative requires many building blocks.

“We create healthcare hotsheets for our clients,” Rhodes said. “These monthly reports provide the market analysis that gives them an edge over their competition and helps them make informed decisions. A demographic profile with information about the area’s population, median age, education levels, and unemployment rate can determine the probability of persuading a candidate to relocate and, consequently, whether or not a segment of the budget should be earmarked for national advertising. A report such as the Texas RN Workforce profile provides specifics about the area’s current workforce, including the fact that, by 2020, the demand for RNs in Texas is expected to grow 86%, while the supply will grow only 53%.”

To find out more about how NAS Insights can create a customized market profile for your healthcare organization, contact us today.

Recession has HR Organizations Playing “Catch-up” with Candidates

Polls Show Job Seekers Adopting Alternative Search Methods Quicker than HR.

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) July 20, 2009 –While HR organizations have dramatically scaled back their recruiting in the economic downturn, many have learned they must embrace new recruiting habits now if they want to attract top candidates before the inevitable turnaround, according to NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications.

At a recent learning event for HR professionals co-hosted by NAS and job aggregator SimplyHired, attendees were polled about their current hiring practices. Over 80% still relied primarily on the major job boards for posting job openings.

However, the habits of job seekers have dramatically changed. Studies by digital measurement giant comScore has found that 60% of all job searches today are being conducted through search engines and job aggregators, versus a total of 40% on the big three boards—CareerBuilder, Monster and Yahoo!—combined.

“Most HR professionals recognize how quickly the digital landscape is changing, and that they need to continually put new practices into play to attract top talent,” said Caroline Slomski, NAS Interactive Marketing Strategist. “It’s why our Social Networking Boot Camps and interactive media webinars prove so popular. But we don’t want clients to just follow the trends. We encourage our clients to put the kind of analytics in place that will help them understand what is working and what is not. Where are your candidates coming from today, versus six months ago? Which channels—both paid and unpaid—are bringing in the most completed applications? And how can you adjust your strategy so you can maximize your ROI?”

“There are so many opinions out there on what’s working and what’s not,” said NAS Vice President of Development Stephan Kruger. “That’s why every organization needs real data that tracks what media their candidates are attracted to, and how they respond with the employment message. It lets you react to changes in the landscape as they occur, so you’re always in the driver’s seat.”

NAS Interactives analytics tools, such as Total Source Tracker, can help organizations track candidates from all media - from initial click to completed application - so they can measure media efficiency and reduce overall advertising spend.

To find out more about NAS’ comprehensive array of Digital Recruitment Solutions, please contact your Account Manager today.

NAS Believes in the Recruitment Power of Video

NAS Recruitment Communications has recently announced the release of an innovative streaming video, spotlighting the corporate office and career opportunities at Helzberg Diamonds.

The video engages candidates in a day-of-the-life experience for a Helzberg employee. The upbeat monologue and fast paced clips of employees working together, sprinkled with scenes from Kansas City’s booming downtown provides the candidate with a unique insight into Helzberg’s culture, history and benefits.

This is an experience that the candidate can’t find in a job description or static benefits page. The power of video allows candidates the opportunity to determine if this is an organization that they can see themselves working for in five, 10, even 15 years down the road.

You can view the video here.

Another endorsement to support the importance of using video comes from Jan Zlotowicz, Vice President of Human Resources at the Motion Picture & Television Fund. “It is wonderful to have a recruitment video that so beautifully expresses the warmth and compassion that is a large part of the MPTF organization."

“In this era of YouTube, digital video is an essential part of any effective Web 2.0 strategy,” said Greg Rousseau, NAS Vice President/Southwestern Region.

To discover how NAS can help you capture todays A-level talent through effective use of emerging media, please contact your account rep today.

Strong Brands Thrive in Spite of the Economy

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) June 29, 2009 –NAS Recruitment Communications announced today the launch of Children’s Hospital Boston’s Case Study Microsite, spotlighting the power and success of a breakthrough Employment Brand.

Since its inception two years ago, the award-winning “Do Big Things” Employment Brand has showcased Children’s worldwide position in the healthcare industry. Viewers to the NAS interactive microsite will experience for themselves how building a distinctive Employment Brand can capture not only candidates’ attention, but also become a key differentiator for the entire organization.

“We are proud of what we have accomplished for our partners at Children’s,” said Emily Hargrave, NAS Senior Account Manager. “The multimedia campaign has achieved its goals because the brand ensures consistency of message. Even when our budgets are challenging, having a powerful brand helps create tremendous efficiencies and the best possible ROI.”

“Employment Brand equity built today is equity here to stay,” stated Charles Davis, Senior Creative Strategist and leader of the Children’s brand development team. “Deploying robust Employment Brands gives our clients a long-term position in the marketplace.”

You can visit the NAS Children’s Hospital Boston Microsite at http://nasrecruitment.com/CaseStudies/MicroSites/ChildrensHospitalBoston/default.asp.

Connect with your NAS Rep for an Employment Brand that can do big things for you.

NAS and SimplyHired to Offer Tips for Maximizing Draw from Job Aggregators

Webinar will teach strategies that help you compete for talent on today’s hot job sites.

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) June 22, 2009 –NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, announced that it will team up with SimplyHired to present “Maximize Your Candidate Engagement through Job Aggregators,” a special webinar to be hosted Tuesday, July 7th at 2:00 p.m. EST.

Caroline Slomski, National Internet Strategist for NAS, and Felicia Jamin, Manager of Agency Relations for SimplyHired, will co-host the hour-long presentation. Attendees will learn how HR organizations can maximize the power of job-centric search engines and the strategies that can put their jobs in front of candidates more efficiently and economically.

“Online activity trends among job seekers are rapidly changing. More and more, they’re turning to job aggregators like SimplyHired because of its ability to streamline the job search process,” said Slomski. “Knowing how to position your jobs to be seen on these sites through strategies like pay-per-click is imperative for organizations today.”

Aggregators collect job postings from databases across the Web, including employer websites, traditional job boards like Monster and CareerBuilder, and others. For candidates, aggregators offer seekers the chance to see positions from multiple organizations and sources served up at a single site. NAS has found that job aggregators provide significant traffic to client career sites and can be an essential component to companies’ recruitment marketing strategy. Webinar participants will learn strategies that can help them improve their rankings and provide cost-effective results.

“Organizations are searching for innovative advertising options that are measurable and extremely cost-effective,” Slomski remarked, “and they’ll find it in search engine strategies like the ones we will present. These are strategies that will be recruitment staples in years to come, and organizations that want to be competitive when the economy rebounds need to get on board now.”

To register for the July 7th webinar presentation, please visit http://nasinteractive.com/survey/nas/SimplyHired.aspx

Article: 3 Good Things About Hiring via Social Media

What’s so great about hiring someone you’ve connected with through social media? Certainly nothing greater than if they were hired from an employment agency, a job board, or a career fair, if they turn out to perform well. But with a hat tip to Sacha Chua, some of the advantages of social media are:

The company’s more prepared, and can conduct better interviews and be better at selection. If every interviewer, from recruiter to manager to senior management (if they’re involved), has read the candidate’s blog, viewed his/her videos, or perused their Tweets, they’re better prepared going in.

The candidate’s more prepared. If the candidate has read about a company on Glassdoor.com, connected with current employees on LinkedIn, looked at what company employees are saying on Facebook, kept up with a company blog, and so on, they know more than they would by looking at company marketing-speak. They can decide themselves that they do or don’t fit.

Onboarding. No more nervously asking random people, “tell me where the bathroom is again?” Life’s easier on the new employee because they know a lot of people on Day 1 — or at least recognize them from their Twitter photos.

Read full article here.

Allow NAS to help you sort through the confusion that surrounds Social Media and take ownership of your employment brand by contacting your NAS Rep today.

Recognize your Employees with PRIDE

NAS PRIDE (Premium Recognition Incentive Division for Employees) specializes in providing quality custom gifts, awards, and promotional merchandise to support your organization’s corporate identity, recruitment efforts, and employee incentive/retention/communication programs.

View June's NAS Pride Select Products here: http://nasrecruitment.com/pride/NAS_PRIDE_June_2009.pdf

To receive a custom quote or place an order, please contact your NAS Account Rep today.

NAS takes Search Engine Optimization and Marketing for Recruitment Mobile

Job Search on mobile devices increasing

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) June 1, 2009 – Your next job applicant may find your employment opportunity by phone, say the Search Engine Marketing Specialists at NAS Interactive. Studies show an increase in the number of searches from job seekers using their mobile devices. Out of all cell phone users, on an average day, 58% of adults use their devices, including PDAs, for at least one non-voice data application, such as text, email, photos, maps or directions, or completing a job application.

“The demographics for iPhone users are very compelling,” said Kevin Hawkins, NAS Interactive Strategist. “We see a marked increase in traffic from mobile devices in industries such as Banking, Technology and Healthcare, where nearly 22.4 million U.S. mobile users are using their devices to go on the Web.

Today, despite the global economic downturn, the demand for mobile broadband is on the rise. Mobile experts indicate that there will be more than 1 billion mobile broadband users by 2013 and our clients need to be ‘mobile ready.’”

Hawkins and members of NAS Smart Clicks Center, the firm’s Search Engine Marketing team, are already preparing for the next recruitment trend, studying and developing optimized mobile-ready websites and targeted campaigns designed to extend the reach of text and image campaigns to mobile devices with full HTML Internet browsers, such as the T-Mobile G1 and Apple iPhone.

“This new option will allow our clients to display their Web pages and search engine ads specifically on these devices; deliver mobile-specific calls to action and reach their audience when they're on the go; and get separate performance reporting so they can more effectively reach target audiences with the right message at the right time, ” said Hawkins.

When combined with a comprehensive measurement tool like Total Source Tracker, NAS can identify page traffic and search engine campaigns that successfully target mobile users by measuring how many individuals apply for jobs while using a mobile device.

To learn more NAS digital recruitment solutions, please contact your NAS rep today.

Article: Why Tweeting Has Become an Ad Agency’s Main Job-Posting Strategy; Plus Six Tips for Using Twitter as a Recruiting Tool

If it seems like every word in the dictionary now begins with “Tw,” it’s not just your imagination.

In February, Twitter had nearly 7.1 million users, with a growth rate of 1,382 percent from the year before, according to Nielsen NetView. As mainstream America braces for the Twitter storm, talent acquisition professionals are just beginning to uncover all the social network has to offer.

Little more than nine months ago, at digital advertising agency Organic, we began to incorporate Twitter into our social media recruiting strategy. We held a “Twitter Twaining” with our recruiters, introducing them to capabilities of the network, along with helpful accompanying apps and instruction on how to search for key talent.

They ran with it, and in a short time, Twitter has become the anchor of Organic’s job posting strategy. In fact, today more than three-quarters of our jobs are placed solely on social media sites such as Twitter (along with LinkedIn, Facebook and, of course, the company Web site). Only a quarter of our postings are posted on traditional job boards such as Coroflot, Mediabistro, Monster and TalentZoo.

Why are we weaning ourselves from traditional job boards?

Simple: We get results from social networking tools with no expense. Every day we discover new and innovative ways to use social media for our recruiting efforts.

Read the entire article plus Six Tips for Using Twitter as a Recruiting Tool here.

For consultation on developing your social media recruitment strategy, please contact your NAS Account Manager.

Source: Workforce Management, by Tracy Cote and Traci Armstrong

Article: Mass Staff Cuts Don’t Slam the Brakes on New Hires

Companies that bring on new workers while laying off others increase the risk of a discrimination lawsuit. By Fay Hansen

CEO Steve Ballmer rocked the high-tech world with his January 22 e-mail to Microsoft employees announcing that the company would eliminate 5,000 jobs in the next 18 months, including 1,400 immediately.

The layoffs and other cost-saving measures will help Microsoft save $600 million in the first quarter of 2009 and $1.5 billion for the full fiscal year ending June 30.

Ballmer noted, however, that net employment would contract by only 2,000 to 3,000 jobs. He explained the company would simultaneously "open new positions to support key investment areas during this same period of time."

Microsoft’s decision to hire new employees in the middle of a mass layoff reflects a broader trend now under way. Nearly two-thirds of employers plan to lay off workers in 2009, but many will not freeze hiring, according to the latest surveys.

Instead, companies will continue to hire new employees for their still profitable units, upgrade their talent and replace higher-cost employees with lower-cost new hires. Hiring during layoffs, however, increases the likelihood of a discrimination lawsuit.

"We suggest to our clients that there is opportunity in the recession to hire talent if a company is able to do so," says Michael Rosen, partner and employment law specialist at law firm Foley Hoag in Boston. "There is some inherent risk, but it can be minimized as long as the company is sensitive to it."

Read the rest of the Workforce Management article here.

Article: Job Losses Moderate. Is This An "Inflection Point?"

The job loss numbers released this morning, as deep as they are, nevertheless support the growing sense among economists and the public that the economy may be in the early stages of a recovery.

“This looks very much like an inflection point,” says Stephen Stanley, chief economist for RBS Securities, who was quoted by Marketwatch this morning. “And the corroborating evidence … all suggest that the pace of layoffs is finally beginning to abate.”

Nevertheless, the 539,000 jobs lost during April pushed the unemployment rate nationally to 8.9 percent. It could have been even higher, but for government hiring in anticipation of the 2010 census.

“It is a sobering toll,” said President Barack Obama, cautioning that, “We should expect further job losses in the months to come.” Still, “The gears of our economic engine do appear to be slowly turning once again,” the President said. “Step by step, we’re beginning to make progress.”

The American people apparently sensed that too. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence Index for April took its biggest jump up in more than year, rising from 26.9 to 39.2. The 5,000 households that were surveyed also showed more optimism about improving business conditions. Those expecting that jobs will continue to decline over the next several months decreased from 41.6 percent to 33.6 percent, while those expecting more jobs increased to 13.9 percent from 7.3 percent.

That confidence was supported by a slight rise in the Monster Index. Though the change is still far below where it was a year ago and not even as high as in February, the Index found that eight of the nine regions in the U.S. had increases. Leisure and hospitality and some increases in banking and finance were the primary drivers to the Monster Index improvement, suggesting that seasonal hiring is probably playing a role in moderating the job losses.

Source: ere.net, by John Zappe; May 8, 2009, 1:30 pm ET

NAS Launches Social Network Training Initiative

Webinar helps organizations position themselves to reach broader audiences

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) May 11, 2009 –NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, announced today the launch of a new training offering for recruitment professionals: Recruiter’s Social Networking Boot Camp. The announcement came on the heels of a successful webinar NAS Interactive co-hosted with popular social network LinkedIn, “Using Social Media as Part of your Talent Sourcing Strategy.”

“Even before the presentation ended, we had received dozens of requests from participants for training on how to get a viable social networking strategy up and running,” said Kevin Hawkins, National Internet Strategist for NAS. “We recognize it can be daunting to determine where to begin engaging for recruitment. Our training will help organizations supercharge their online recruitment team with a comprehensive knowledge base of social media, access to the top time-saving tools and the blueprint for a comprehensive social media campaign—from launch through measurement.”

Recruiter’s Social Networking Boot Camp will guide organizations and recruiting staff through the maze of social media sites and develop a strategy for brand extension, outreach and engagement. And, as conversations that affect your brand as an employer are happening every day—in environments you may not know about— Recruiter’s Social Networking Boot Camp will include tools and techniques for online Brand Reputation Management. That means not only will you be able to identify where conversations about your brand are taking place online, but you’ll also be able to quickly respond to and engage in those conversations.

To learn more about NAS’ digital recruitment solutions, please contact your dedicated NAS rep today.

May's PRIDE Incentives

Looking for something to raise interest in your company and create a lasting positive impression?

NAS PRIDE (Premium Recognition Incentive Division for Employees) specializes in providing quality custom gifts, awards, and promotional merchandise to support your organization’s corporate identity, recruitment efforts, and employee incentive/retention/communication programs.

Check out this month’s NAS Pride Select Products here.

Contact one of our dedicated Account Managers to learn more or place your PRIDE order today.

NAS, LinkedIn to share Social Networking secrets

Webinar will help organizations position themselves to reach broader audiences

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 27, 2009 – NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, announced that it will team up with LinkedIn to present “Using Social Networking as Part of Your Talent Sourcing Strategy,” a special webinar to be hosted May 5th at 2:00 p.m. EST.

Kevin Hawkins, National Internet Strategist for NAS, and Brandon Salom, Partner Relationship Sales Manager for LinkedIn, will co-host the hour-long presentation. Those attending the session will learn how many HR organizations are already successfully using these powerful Web 2.0 environments to reach candidates, as well as how to use LinkedIn’s platforms and solutions.

This webinar will also explore how proactive organizations use Social Networks to coordinate recruiter activities in order to find and engage quality talent. Participants will learn how job listings are virally promoted to reach “perfect fit” candidates; why personalized, network-driven connections increase quality lead generation; and how Social Networks allow candidates to learn about you as an employer without feeling like they’re being marketed to.

“Social networking is a necessary component for today’s employee recruitment strategies,” said Kevin Hawkins, “particularly when you need to reach out to people with highly specialized skills. Professional and social communities like LinkedIn are where HR goes to look for top talent. NAS Interactive helps clients to build their own niche community and extend their brand presence in unique ways within the SNS space.”

In fact, social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Tagged, have become a cultural phenomenon that transcends age or computer proficiency. Today, college students, working parents, seniors, executives, professionals...57% of all active online users—over 130 million people—are members of at least one social network. And that makes these sites fertile ground for recruiters.

To learn how NAS and LinkedIn can help you develop a social network strategy and engage talent in a uniquely effective manner, or to register for the May 5th webinar presentation, please email lgarten@nasrecruitment.com.

Article: How to Fight Back

Warren Buffett declared it: this “is an economic war.” He likened our current situation to WWII. If you work in human resources as a recruiter, trainer, and/or diversity expert, that puts you squarely on the front lines. After several happy years of growth — including a marked increase in upper management’s appreciation for the “employer of choice” and employee engagement concepts — the battle of retrenchment is engaged.

Not only are companies reducing the size of their workforce, they are cutting back on everything related to HR: recruiting, training, and development; recognition efforts; and any other kind of employee engagement program. A recent Vault survey of corporate recruitment professionals showed that more than a third of human resource departments are experiencing layoffs. Sixteen percent of respondents said the cuts affected more than 25 percent of the HR staff.

The last thing the HR community needed was last month’s cruise missile launched by Rutgers professor Richard Beatty. The academic blasted the human resources profession for working without useful analytics, and contributing so little that “typical human resources activities have no relevance to an organization’s success.” The article’s title was a blow by itself: “Memo to CFO’s: Don’t Trust HR.”

One veteran HR colleague acknowledged that there are plenty of inadequate HR people out there, just as there are weak CFOs and accounting folks. At the same time, she reminded me that there have been plenty of studies linking employee engagement to higher productivity and revenue growth (though she acknowledged that proving a causal effect is more difficult than merely linking the two). At this point, it shouldn’t be necessary to prove that engagement has value all the way to the bottom line. Unfortunately, it still has not sunk in for many executives.

Full disclosure: I am a CEO who was skeptical of HR as a young manager, but became absolutely convinced of its importance as the engine of a big organization’s hiring, appraisal, and development processes. HR can be at its worst when managing the mundane, bureaucratic necessities of a company’s workforce but when HR is seen as business partner and change agent, the role becomes critical — as important as running a finance division. Yes, I do put the HR leader at the same level as the CFO in a large organization.

If you are an HR decision-maker whose company leadership doesn’t share my perspective, here’s how to fight back. Click here to find out how.

Search Engine Marketing Offers HR Best Value in Tough Economy

Companies turning to NAS to improve Long- and Short-term ROI

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 13, 2009 – NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, has seen an increase in the number of companies adopting search engine marketing strategies to maximize their recruitment investment in today’s tight economy.
“Restrictions on recruitment budgets place an emphasis on performance,” said Caroline Slomski, Interactive Strategist for NAS. “As a result, we’re seeing more organizations, in industries from healthcare and energy to food service, implement search engine marketing strategies as a means to maximize their recruitment budget.”

Search engine marketing strategies, like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, are among the most measurable forms of marketing. They not only keep opportunities visible, but are also a great branding vehicle, driving top-of-mind awareness and helping position organizations as employers of choice in their industry.

“These early adopters in the recruitment space understand that the right search strategy can provide both short-term ROI, and ensure the investment they have made in building their brand and reputation among candidates will still be strong when the economy rebounds,” said Patty Van Leer, SVP of NAS Interactive.

NAS manages Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter search engine marketing campaigns. Its dedicated SmartClicks Center for search engine marketing is manned by certified specialists who handle all aspects of the campaign. This allows NAS SmartClicks to provide the highest possible quality scores at the lowest cost-per-click.

“The beauty of search engine marketing is that you pay only for traffic,” says Slomski. “Our campaigns provide candidate exposure and increase traffic for very little cost-per-visitor. It’s why the right strategy can be extremely effective and economical.”

When combined with Total Source Tracker, these campaigns can draw and track candidates from initial click to completed application.

To learn more about NAS’ digital recruitment solutions, please contact one of our Account Managers today.

People Power: Internships Speak to the Future

A well-organized internship program can benefit both the intern and the company.

By C.T. Trivella, Director and KC Branch Manager, NAS Recruitment Communications

Internships are not the cumbersome programs some employers believe them to be. In actuality, they are beneficial both to the student longing for some workplace experience, and to the employer seeking a fresh perspective from an outside source.

Well-managed internship programs should: be an accepted part of an organization’s culture, have a regular presence (consistency), be planned with an objective in mind for what is expected from the student, as well as from the managers responsible for overseeing the intern’s workload, and, above all, be taken seriously by the company bringing interns into the program.

Company leaders need to have a clear thought process for why an internship program would benefit the organization. They also need to think about what the organization has to offer a student. Will there be an equitable benefit to both parties? Does the organization have meaningful work to offer someone eager to develop the needed skills to be competitive in an increasingly tough job market? If the answer is “yes” to both of these questions, an internship program may be the right choice.

Keep in mind that a physical presence will provide campus recruiters with an opportunity for building relationships with students. Also consider that well-defined internship program information posted on your Web site, that outlines expectations and clearly explains the application process will encourage applications.

Internship programs can be large or small. Understand what your organization can manage well, rather than making the internship program more robust than is manageable for the person overseeing the program. Internships can run either in conjunction with a college semester or during the summer break. A well-organized program will have a defined start and finish date. There is no hard and fast rule on length of time; this is purely subjective by the employer, as is the choice to offer a paid or unpaid internship. Are unpaid internships legal? It depends on the net gain to the company. The decision is governed by the Fair Labor Standards Act. It’s recommended that employers consult an attorney to decide if an intern should be paid.

Click here to read the entire article along with day one, touchpoints and last day internship program tips.

NAS Introduces New Whitepaper: Web 2.0 Recruiting

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 10, 2009 – NAS Insights, the centralized research operation at NAS Recruitment Communications, is proud to announce the newest installment to their collection of whitepapers: Web 2.0 Recruiting.

The latest addition to the NAS whitepaper library discusses the basics of Web 2.0 in an easy-to-read format, with in-depth explanations and up-to-date demographic information for the major Web 2.0 technologies. Included are summaries and charts for blogs, online networks, online videos and podcasts. Web 2.0 Recruiting provides a deeper understanding of recruitment and branding implications, as well as best practices for integrating Web 2.0 technologies into a company’s online recruiting strategy.

“This whitepaper is meant to introduce the fundamentals of Web 2.0 while showing how these emerging technologies can help a recruitment and branding strategy soar,” said Kelly White, Research Analyst and whitepaper author. “Web 2.0 is here and has captured the mainstream audience. This paper is a quick guide on how and why employers should put these technologies into place to attract top talent.”

Check out Web 2.0 Recruiting and NAS Insights’ other standard and specialized reports at: http://www.nasrecruitment.com/talenttips/nasInsights.html.

To find out more about how NAS Insights can assist you with customized research for your talent acquisition needs, please contact one of our Account Managers today.

Article: SEO Is The Center Of Performance

Since search engine optimization is my chosen career path, naturally it is impossible for me to understand why anyone would choose not to include SEO processes in every aspect of their Web site's/business's development. That's right. SEO enhances both the site AND the company's strategic goals and business decisions. It's the foundation of everything. Yet, despite my absolute faith, SEO continually takes a back seat to other marketing efforts, both on- and offline. Allow me to make the argument why SEO should be integral to your online strategy in tough times.

SEO brings the consumer to the forefront of all site design and business decisions. There are literally millions of web sites out there and, likely, you directly compete with thousands of them. For millions of search engine users, each one of those thousands of sites is just a click away and no matter what channel you are using to bring customers into your site, SEO fundamentals will improve the visitor experience. Want to rise to the top of the crop? Then take whatever steps necessary to ensure that your site provides some value no other site can. To get there, begin by answering a few questions:

• Why would someone choose to visit my site over another?
• What unique value do visitors get at my site that they can't get anywhere else?
• Why would a visitor want to come back to my site after their first visit?
• What would make visitors want to recommend my site to others?

All four of those questions have to do with enhancing the site's customer experience; and, yes, these questions are at the heart and soul of any good organic optimization strategy. Two of the greatest factors search engines use to rank sites are content and links. Answering the above questions will help address both.

Providing value to the customer typically means creating great, informative and unique content that helps the visitor do whatever they came to your site to do. That enhanced content also helps search engines understand what your site is about and increases your site's relevancy to a range of product or service-related search queries. With everyone's budgets tightening, shoppers want to ensure that the money they spend is spent wisely. To make that decision, they turn to search engines to help them become informed.

Read the rest of the article here.

For more information on how NAS can help you optimize your Career Site to reach top talent, please contact one of our account managers today.

Industry Expert To Speak at National SHRM Staffing

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 2, 2009 – NAS Recruitment Communications announced today that Matthew Adam, Vice President & Chief Talent Strategist, will conduct a seminar on the complexities of interactive recruitment marketing at the National SHRM Staffing Conference on Tuesday, April 28th at 1:15 p.m. in Las Vegas.

With the realization that today’s organizations must go beyond traditional media to reach the right talent, Adam will offer intriguing alternative online solutions in his presentation “Interactive Recruitment Marketing: Navigating the Internet to Attract A-Level Talent.”

“Even in this economic downturn,” Adam said, “smart organizations are keeping an eye on the evolving job-seeker behavior. When the economy rebounds, many organizations will be forced to change the way they communicate with potential candidates. This program is designed to shed some light on where online recruiting has evolved to today and where it is headed in the future.”

Adam is a recruitment strategy consultant with over 14 years of professional experience with both Fortune 500 companies and small start-ups. He is an author and experienced keynote speaker and will continue to offer his insights at regional and national conferences throughout 2009.

Looking for Ways to Encourage and Recognize Employees?

NAS PRIDE (Premium Recognition Incentive Division for Employees) specializes in providing quality custom gifts, awards, and promotional merchandise to support your organization’s corporate identity, recruitment efforts, and employee incentive/retention/communication programs. Here are some ideas to get you thinking.

This Month’s NAS Pride Select Products: www.nasrecruitment.com\PRIDE\NAS_PRIDE_April_2009.pdf

This Month’s NAS Pride Healthcare Select Products: www.nasrecruitment.com\PRIDE\NAS_PRIDE_April_2009_HealthCare.pdf

Is there something specific that you have in mind? Please contact one of our Account Managers today and allow us to help you find that perfect incentive gift.

Article: Happy Workers = Productive Workers

Does it matter if workers are happy?

Only if an organization wants to do well.

One academic study found that managers with average salaries of about $65,000 cost their organizations roughly $75 a week per person in lost productivity if they are “psychologically distressed.”

Multiply that at large businesses, and the financial whammy is big.
Research shows that employee well-being is inextricably tied to higher performance, which is inextricably tied to the bottom line, says Thomas Wright, the Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in business administration at Kansas State University.

Read the entire article here.

To find out how NAS' consulting services can help reduce stress and encourage inclusion within the workplace, contact one of your dedicated reps today.

Wall Street Journal Article: Employer Branding

Companies have long divided consumers into segments. They should do the same with potential -- and current -- workers.

Ask most people about "branding," and they'll usually start talking about products and services. But in recent years, companies have begun branding themselves as employers, too, betting that if they can convey to the world why their workplace is appealing and unique, they will have an easier time attracting good workers.

In fact, for many companies, employer branding has become a critical management tool, as the emergence of China, India and Brazil as economic powers and aging work forces in the U.S., European Union and Japan have increased the competition for skilled workers. More recently, the current economic slowdown -- and the pressure to cut costs and increase productivity -- has made the need to get the best people in the right jobs even more crucial.

But how should a company brand itself as an employer? The key is to align the brand with the company's business plan, meaning the brand is designed to attract and retain the kinds of workers the company needs most -- those who can help it increase sales, profits and market share. And the key to doing that is to borrow a tool from the product-marketing toolbox. Marketers have long divided consumers into groups based on things like their demographics, buying behavior and lifestyle, and then tailored product offerings and advertising messages specifically for them in the belief that it is more profitable to treat certain groups of people differently than to treat them all the same. A movie studio puts out some movies for kids, some for teens, some for women, and so on. Each product has its own marketing and advertising message. This is known as segmentation, and it lies at the heart of brand marketing.

We argue the same principle applies in employer branding -- that it is more profitable to treat certain groups of current and potential employees differently than to treat them all the same. employers who use segmentation to pinpoint who they need to attract and what they need to do to attract them will have an advantage over those who don't.

Read the rest of the article here.

To find out how NAS can help you develop your Employment Brand, contact one of our Account Managers today.

NAS Continues Evolution from Agency to HR Communications Consultancy

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) March 23, 2009 – NAS Recruitment Communications is expanding its industry-leading Total Quality Customer Care and focus as it continues to evolve from a Recruitment Advertising Agency (RAA) to a Human Resources Communications Consulting Practice (HRCCP). By reinvesting in technology and the development of cutting-edge, exciting interactive products and services, NAS has strengthened its portfolio to provide effective and creative HR strategy solutions.

“While print medium services can still be used,” said Len DiSalvatore, Director of NAS’ office in Rochester, New York, “the focus has shifted to meet the strong interactive and strategic demands within today’s hiring challenges.” He went on to say, “Our core competencies are in place to support every aspect of our clients’ recruitment communications and talent acquisition initiatives.”

NAS clients will continue to benefit from its expertise and award-winning creativity in such key areas as employment branding, recruitment marketing planning and media buying, campus recruitment, metrics and reporting, internal communications and employee referral programs. The move to a Human Resources Communications Consulting Practice reinforces NAS’ commitment to clients’ changing needs.

Talent Management Article: Virtual Job Fairs Attract Recruiters and Talent Worldwide

The bright side to today's turbulent economy is that layoffs, acquisitions and buyouts are driving seasoned talent into the labor market. But to capitalize on the availability of top talent, many companies will need to overhaul their recruiting processes and procedures.

Today more than ever, it is essential to explore new techniques to identify and engage with qualified workers, maximize recruitment budgets and bypass the ineffective recruitment tools of yesterday. The question for many talent managers remains: What is the magic ingredient? One answer lies in virtual environments and virtual job fairs.

Virtual environments use 3-D renderings to replicate a convention center that features a main hall, an exhibition floor, a resource center and a job center. During the virtual job fair, recruiters interact with job seekers in real-time and deliver presentations in the conference hall. Following the event, a hiring company can continue attracting candidates and building its brand through the virtual environment.

Virtual job fairs enable job seekers to see and hear company presentations, interact live with company representatives and submit their resumes. Not only is this scenario more cost-effective compared to hosting a physical event, it supports global participation and offers increased productivity to recruiters because they never have to leave their desks.

Companies are attracting higher-quality candidates with virtual job fairs because the job seekers can conveniently access the events online, from anywhere, and without fear of taking time off from a current job — or even worse — being "outed" by a co-worker or boss.

In fact, according to a survey conducted by Unisfair, 64 percent of HR managers believe the hiring cycle could be reduced through virtual job fairs, and as a result, 40 percent of hiring managers are exploring the technology. Respondents, which included more than 100 U.S. human resource managers, sited the most important reasons for hosting a virtual job fair as: ease of use (84 percent), ability to screen applicants (76 percent), reduced costs (75 percent) and access to candidates (72 percent).

To read the rest of the article click here

Allow NAS to help you coordinate a cost-effective Virtual Career Fair to attract A-Level talent to your organization. For more information, please contact your NAS Rep today.

NAS Expands Search Engine Marketing ServicesSmartClicks Center combines SEM, Recruitment expertise

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) March 16, 2009 – NAS Interactive, a division of NAS Recruitment Communications, announces the expansion of its online HR recruitment offering with the opening of the new NAS SmartClicks Center. Staffed by Google-certified specialists, the NAS SmartClicks Center will allow clients to tap into powerful search engine marketing strategies that can maximize the return on their recruitment investment.

“Today, more job seekers begin their job search on search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN than on the big job boards combined,” said Patty Van Leer, Senior Vice President of NAS’ Interactive Division. “And since recent studies indicate that few searches go beyond the first page of organic search results, strategies that engage candidates early in their search takes on even more importance.”

“Search engine marketing strategies like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns keep your opportunities visible, especially if your ranking in organic keyword searches is less than desirable,” said Dave Goebel, Sr. Interactive Marketing Analyst. “In addition, NAS SmartClicks Search Engine Marketing campaigns are optimized to bring the right candidate to your career website.”

The SmartClicks Center’s certified specialists handle all aspects of the campaign, from keyword research and bid monitoring, to developing appropriate landing pages or optimizing an existing site to maximize the campaign’s effectiveness. This allows NAS SmartClicks to provide the highest-possible-quality scores at the lowest cost-per-click.

NAS SmartClicks Center manages Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter Search Engine Marketing Campaigns. When combined with Total Source Tracker, these campaigns are powerful ways to both draw and track candidates from initial click to completed application and to reduce your overall advertising spend.

To find out more about SmartClicks, and NAS’ comprehensive array of Digital Recruitment Solutions, please contact your Account Representative.

NAS Recruitment Communications, part of McCann Worldgroup, delivers best-of-class HR strategy solutions for online and offline candidate engagement and specialized expertise in career websites, onboarding, employee communication and HR metrics. Creating Demand. Delivering Talent. Changing Lives.

4 Ways to Look at the Strength of Your [Employment] Brand

Even in a recession, employment branding is still counts. During times of instability where employee trust and loyalty are eroded through short-term cost cutting and job shedding, employee engagement plummets.

Many employers in return can count on employees’ feeling less connected to the organization, and being less productive. But even in a crisis where 2.6 million jobs were lost last year, there are organizations that will seize the opportunity and achieve a significant competitive advantage by continuing to build and sustain employer brand strength.

In an outstanding webinar delivered for ERE this week, Frank Lane, author of Killer Brands, offered this definition:

A Killer Brand exists when an entity derives a disproportionate amount of success in its category because of a compelling and differentiated expectation that comes to be associated with its name.

A quality employment brand strategy proactively and appropriately manages expectations, reputation, and image, all toward what you’re trying to do — attract and engage a skilled and productive workforce, which is the most critical driver of business success. Even in today’s environment, “A” players will exercise careful choices about where they come to work and what they want out of the employment relationship. Many will also be preparing for change as that market recovery presents new opportunities. Every category-leading “brand” is focused on two primary channels to grow share:

• The attraction of new customers
• The continued loyalty of existing customers

While attraction/recruiting needs have certainly lessened (although in some sectors critical skills are still in high demand) the brand loyalty of existing employees will certainly be an issue into the foreseeable future. And while many people may be thankful or merely satisfied to have a job today, that level of brand equity will not necessarily translate into productivity, engagement, and retention tomorrow. That’s why forward-thinking organizations will use this down cycle to prepare and deploy a strategy to grow and sustain a true talent advantage.

And it represents an opportunity to consider what “disproportionate amount of success” your organization derives because of the desire among A-level talent to apply their skills to your business?

In evaluating your organization’s employment brand strength, consider these four primary objectives:

Authenticity
Employment branding is an inside-out strategy, and an ultimate reflection of the day-to-day work experience inside the organization. The job experience needs to be consistent with the expectations, or you’ll have an immediate disconnect. More organizations are working to shore this up, particularly in the assimilation of new talent into the organization, by building highly interactive, high-touch, high-engagement, onboarding experiences over the critical first 12 months of employment.

Some organizations continue to exceed employees’ expectations not just when employees start the job, but over and over again. The ultimate litmus test of brand strength exists inside your organization, among your existing workforce — especially the stars. If they champion the cause internally and extol the virtues of working for your organization externally, home run!

Differentiation
To successfully attract the highest quality, critical skills in a market space and sustain high employee engagement, it has to be clear what gives your organization a competitive advantage. Without very specific differentiation, you will compete to win and keep talent primarily on the basis of compensation. Be very focused about what makes working for your organization different and better.

Compelling
The differentiation must be compelling enough to command attention, motivate change, and drive loyalty. Achieving high levels of authentic, compelling differentiation requires you to carefully analyze the culture, leadership, work experience, and engagement levels in the organization. You’ll also need to understand existing external perceptions — what candidates and potential candidates think of you.

Consistency
To deliver a consistent, quality brand experience, you’ve got to test out different things and measure how they’re working. And you’ve got to find people who’ll spread the word. Smart organizations are proactively building advocacy through employer-brand-ambassador training programs to ensure stakeholder buy-in and broaden awareness across the organization. And organizations are incorporating new tools, technology, and better resources to extend the brand externally, create improved experiences, and validate outcomes through intelligent reporting and data.

Employment branding 2.0 will be increasingly more experience- and relationship-driven as better networked candidates are exposed to more opportunities faster, across an ever-evolving platform of constant communication. Social media will mean employees know a lot more about your company a lot more quickly. Employer branding will need to become more authentic and be driven inside-out from current ambassadors (employees/stakeholders) whose influence impacts talent management across the organization.

Those organizations that are preparing now can widen the gap and yield a significant gain advantage.

Source: ERE.net, 4 Ways to Look at the Strength of Your Brand by Ryan Estis, Feb 10, 2009, 5:44 am ET

Web Users Shifting to Social Media

According to a new report from Netpop Research, "Media Shifts to Social," the percent of time people spend communicating online has increased 18% since 2006, while time spent on entertainment has declined 29%. The Executive Summary says that Online entertainment is shifting to a small, powerful proportion of social media contributors fueling Web activity through blogs micro-blogs, social media, video and photo sharing.

Key Findings from the study include data such as:

• 105 million Americans contribute to social media
• Social networking has grown 93% since 2006
• 7 million Americans are "heavy" social media contributors (6+ activities) who connect with 248 people on a ‘one to many' basis in a typical week
• 54% of micro-bloggers post or "tweet" daily
• 72% of micro-bloggers under age 18 post or "tweet" daily

The report concludes that market trends and customer opinion are being shaped by end users more rapidly and with greater impact on business than ever before as an entirely new form of leisure develops around talking and sharing, providing opinions and perspectives... and suggests that Websites need to connect directly with users or the users will create their own venues that are harder for companies to track and participate with effectively.

To learn how to leverage social media and Web 2.0 to attract A-Level Talent contact your NAS Rep today.

Source: Research Brief: Web Users Shaping Consumer Opinion, March 09, 2009

You're Invited to Attend a Free Webinar

Campus Recruiting online is one of the most cost effective ways to recruit. . . students today don’t just use electronic tools; they’re practically attached to them 24/7! But don’t look like an out-of-touch company because you are not using social networks and text messaging to deliver the message. Join us for this complimentary session and see how NAS can help you tap this primary talent market

Campus Recruiting: Employing Web 2.0 Strategies to Attract A-Level Talent

Tuesday, March 10, 10:00am CST

Reserve your seat today by emailing Lauren Garten at lgarten@nasrecruitment.

Jurassic Web

The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today.

It's 1996, and you're bored. What do you do? If you're one of the lucky people with an AOL account, you probably do the same thing you'd do in 2009: Go online. Crank up your modem, wait 20 seconds as you log in, and there you are—"Welcome." You check your mail, then spend a few minutes chatting with your AOL buddies about which of you has the funniest screen name (you win, pimpodayear94).

Then you load up Internet Explorer, AOL's default Web browser. Now what? There's no YouTube, Digg, Huffington Post, or Gawker. There's no Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. A few newspapers and magazines have begun to put their articles online—you can visit the New York Times or Time—and there are a handful of new Web-only publications, including Feed, HotWired, Salon, Suck, Urban Desires, Word, and, launched in June, Slate. But these sites aren't very big, and they don't hold your interest for long. People still refer to the new medium by its full name—the World Wide Web—and although you sometimes find interesting stuff here, you're constantly struck by how little there is to do. You rarely linger on the Web; your computer takes about 30 seconds to load each page, and, hey, you're paying for the Internet by the hour. Plus, you're tying up the phone line. Ten minutes after you log in, you shut down your modem. You've got other things to do—after all, a new episode of Seinfeld is on.

On June 25, 1996, Michael Kinsley introduced Slate in an inaugural column. Two months later, David Plotz wondered who pays for the Internet. In 1997, Carol M. Beach pondered the possibility of taxing the Web. In 1999, Timothy Noah credited the Democratic Party with the Internet's invention. In 2003, Kevin Werbach heralded the return of the 1995 Internet. In 2006, Paul Boutin examined the highly imprecise science of measuring traffic, and in 2008 Chris Wilson complained that the Internet was still infuriatingly slow.

I started thinking about the Web of yesteryear after I got an e-mail from an idly curious Slate colleague: What did people do online back when Slate launched, he wondered? After plunging into the Internet Archive and talking to several people who were watching the Web closely back then, I've got an answer: not very much.

We all know that the Internet has changed radically since the '90s, but there's something dizzying about going back to look at how people spent their time 13 years ago. Sifting through old Web pages today is a bit like playing video games from the 1970s; the fun is in considering how awesome people thought they were, despite all that was missing. In 1996, just 20 million American adults had access to the Internet, about as many as subscribe to satellite radio today. The dot-com boom had already begun on Wall Street—Netscape went public in 1995—but what's striking about the old Web is how unsure everyone seemed to be about what the new medium was for. Small innovations drove us wild: Look at those animated dancing cats! Hey, you can get the weather right from your computer! In an article ranking the best sites of '96, Time gushed that Amazon.com let you search for books "by author, subject or title" and "read reviews written by other Amazon readers and even write your own." Whoopee. The very fact that Time had to publish a list of top sites suggests lots of people were mystified by the Web. What was this place? What should you do here? Time recommended that in addition to buying books from Amazon, "cybernauts" should read Salon, search for recipes on Epicurious, visit the Library of Congress, and play the Kevin Bacon game.

Source: By Farhad Manjoo, Posted to Slate.com Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009, at 5:33 PM ET

Recruiting Lessons from ‘Fast Company’

The March 2009 issue of Fast Company lists its take on the 50 most innovative companies in the world.

As I read their analysis, it seemed evident that the lessons learned about what makes a company innovative could be directly applied to the recruiting industry. With this perspective in mind, here’s how I’d translate business and product innovation into recruiting ideas.

Some of them are wild and crazy, but then again, they might just work.

Innovative Recruiting Lessons Loosely Interpreted from Fast Company

The order shown below is my ranking of the ideas themselves. The Fast Company ranking is also shown.

Amazon #9 on the Fast Company list. Innovative idea: developing the Kindle ebook based on the idea that you should focus first on your customers’ needs when delivering products and services, not some preconceived idea of the way it should be. Application to recruiting: if you want to hire top people, first figure out how they find career opportunities, why they engage with a company to evaluate a specific opportunity, and why they select one job over another. This seems so obvious, yet when I look at how most companies write ads, screen candidates, keep them interested, and make offers, it’s great advice. Maybe you should be reading this on a Kindle.

Intel #6. Innovative idea: created teensy chips for targeted market applications. Application to recruiting: stop posting big, boring job ads on career sites. Instead, use Twitter and micro blogs targeted to narrower audiences, or push your jobs using aggregators to specific functional sites.
Team Obama #1. Innovative idea: empower your customers to participate more actively using the latest online technology. Application to recruiting: create talent communities. This is a search engine optimized talent hub grouped by job class that’s easier to find than an individual posting, and certainly more inviting. This micro site funnels candidates to a prospect pool to be nurtured using some CRM tool. To capture their attention, prospects can interact with recruiters and hiring managers without applying, just to get more information. What an idea! Imagine allowing customers just to look around and easily compare products before buying one? Now that’s a recruiting idea worthy of consideration.

Google #2. Innovative idea: continuous innovation. Application to recruiting: always improve what you’re doing, use consumer marketing concepts to reach people before the competition to establish a competitive advantage, and try stuff out even if it doesn’t work. Application to recruiting: just about everything you do now should be reconsidered. It fact, maybe have the recruiting and sourcing department report to marketing or be run by someone who is customer-focused?

Hulu #4. This is the TV-on-the-Internet company. Innovative idea: make a site that’s easy to use and fun, and easy to create by getting rivals to work together. In this case, Fox and NBC Universal. Application to recruiting: make it easy as possible to have prospects find your site and get engaged. As part of this, maybe recruiting should have its own dedicated IT staff. There are just too many rivals for the corporate IT department’s attention, so this way you could try more new things faster.

Apple #5. Innovative idea: offer great design, charge premium prices, don’t stop innovating, and be green. Application to recruiting: Make your jobs different than the competition; offer something unique; sell on career growth, not compensation; and be green.
Hewlett-Packard #12. Innovative idea: partner with non-related companies in order to offer your customers a unique and custom product experience. Application for recruiting: Partner with non-traditional organizations outside your company to attract a different type of prospect. For example, you could partner with Trump Casinos and invite recent MBA grads to a poker championship (it’s been done by Harrah’s) or develop some type of online competitive interactive game for your sales reps.

Cisco #5. Innovative idea: continue to act like a start-up. Application to recruiting: don’t be bureaucratic. This means HR, comp, legal, and the OFCCP shouldn’t be driving the design of your hiring processes. This doesn’t mean you’ll be out of compliance, it just means you won’t be boring.

Pure Digital Technologies #7. This is the company that makes the Flip video recorder. Innovative idea: make the product easy to use and offer customers a chance to interact with it by customizing it. Application to recruiting: rather than have prospects find a specific job, drive them to a talent hub of all comparable jobs. At this warm-up page let them interact with recruiters, find related jobs or have them design an “ideal job” by describing the work they enjoy the most and are great at. Then let your ATS bring forth what “best fits” for them. At the extreme, maybe let candidate’s create their “ideal job” and then repackage the jobs you have open to fit this.

Ideo #10. This is the top design company on the planet. Innovative idea: the company has grown from just designing products to transforming systems to designing for behavioral change. This means adapting the product or service to incorporate a benefit, like saving the planet or at least getting better gas mileage. Application for recruiting: stop thinking about just hiring people to fill jobs, instead, think about offering careers. You’ll need to understand the behavior criteria your prospects use when looking and comparing positions to start this process. To implement it, you’ll need to apply every one of the ideas mentioned above.

As I review the other innovative ideas on the Fast Company list, there seems to be a number of common themes or principles that stand out as guidance. For one thing, all of these ideas are innovative. As obvious as that sounds, being innovative is hard, because you’re fighting the status quo.

So if you want to be innovative, expect lots of naysayers, a bit of ridicule, and some grief.
Start small. Being innovative doesn’t mean copying someone, it means being first, but copying can help to prove your point and establish your bona fides. Trying out lots of different ideas until one sticks also seems to be part of being innovative.

Continuous change and constant renewal seems to be another aspect of this.

What’s also interesting is that these companies have always been innovative; it’s part of their corporate DNA. So it’s not a surprise to see any of them on the list. This becomes a chicken-or-the-egg problem for recruiting, then. Can a corporate recruiting department housed in HR ever become risk-taking and innovative?

Perhaps not, but since all of these companies are doing fairly well from a competitive standpoint, being innovative certainly has a significant ROI that can be demonstrated. Maybe it will take some gutsy person to make an innovative pitch to the CEO to get the process started. This alone is pretty innovative, so show some guts and get going.

Source: ere.net by Lou Adler, Feb 20, 2009, 7:00 am ET

Success Strategies for Tough Times: How to Stand Up When the Chips are Down

There's just no getting around it. Times are tough. The economy is in crisis, businesses are struggling, previously secure workers are now fearful of losing their jobs. The emotional impact can be great, leading to feelings of anxiety and depression - and a concomitant loss of focus and creativity. The potential effects on work performance consist of reduced productivity, innovation, and overall employee morale. Yet there is opportunity for growth in the midst of these economic hard times. While it might go against intuition, success in difficult times calls for holding true to basic tenets of effective behavior. With the proper attitude and approach, you can indeed thrive in uncertain times. In the interest of full disclosure - and to give credit where credit is due - I have to thank my 5-year old son for the inspiration for today's tips. For it was during a delightful Sunday afternoon together - filled with game-playing, puzzle-assembling, artwork and general enjoyment - that my attention was drawn to the power of the basics. Here are a few tips I'd like to share with you:

Work as a team. Whether you're putting together a Spiderman jigsaw puzzle (as we were) or advancing a new product to market, there's nothing like the power of collaboration. Working together allows for faster progress and more creative solutions.

Be accountable. If you've made a commitment, stick to it. And while you're at it, hold those around you accountable, too. My son didn't waste a moment taking me to task when I tried to divert him from his much-loved game of Candyland. "But Mom, you promised!" And so I did.
Be supportive. When your coworker or report does something well, give him a well-deserved pat on the back. If he's uncertain and needs a little encouragement, offer it up. I can't tell you how lovely it was to hear my little guy comment on my drawing by saying, "Mommy, I love your work."

Share resources. Lean times can mean limited access to valued resources. The temptation might be to get what you can for yourself and your team, even if that means leaving others empty-handed. Yet sharing resources (in my case, taking turns with the yellow crayon) with others means they're far more likely to do the same for you.

Refresh yourself. Stressful times can take a profound toll on your physical and emotional well-being. Don't forget to take some time to refresh and reenergize yourself at regular intervals. Your approach to refreshment may differ from my 5-year old's (snacking on Cheerios and chocolate milk), so find what works for you. Then do it.

Be flexible. Challenging times call for flexibility and a willingness to do things differently. You may have to take on new responsibilities, modify your schedule, or work with a different set of people. Letting go of disappointment (for my son, that meant not finding his favorite program on TV) and being open to new opportunities will help you gain credibility as a resilient and cooperative team player.

Finally, at the risk of sounding rather Pollyannaish,

Be positive. Even the worst of storms passes with time. Remaining optimistic, grounded, and focused on the future will help you weather the hard times and move bravely ahead. I was so proud of my son, who had been feeling somewhat under the weather, when he declared, "I'm sick but I'm happy." Now there's an attitude that will serve him well in both good times and bad.

Source: JobDig.com by Liz Bywater

Studies show that Marketing Execs Struggle to Show ROI- How about You?

Marketing executives are under increasing pressure from CEOs to show a return on investment for their programs, but many are struggling with complex processes, technological difficulties and internal resistance to measurement systems, according to a report from The Conference Board.

Because measuring marketing return on investment (MROI) is still relatively new, many executives say they lack the technological and institutional tools necessary to measure their programs, the study found.

Lack of resources, lack of connection with performance objectives and inadequate focus are some of the primary sources of frustration. Major barriers to implementing MROI programs - largely related to issues of business infrastructure - include problems with data availability or integrity (47%), technology/infrastructure (41%), resource dedication (39%), and methodology/know how (22%).

This holds true for recruitment advertising initiatives as well. Are you eating through your budget with no solid results to report back to your boss? Are you purchasing online job board contracts blindly and just hoping that you make the hires needed to justify your spend at the end of the year?

Allow us to help. NAS can work with you and your account reps to collect all of the (back-end) job board data and develop analytic metric reports delivered to you each month for your review and consideration. The information from the analytics will allow us to see which jobs/boards are providing you the greatest ROI for specific jobs/locations, as well as any red flags that need immediate attention. This information will provide essential information for planning where to most effectively place current job openings, as well as providing you insight for renewals in 2010. Then when your boss asks to see the ROI, you no longer have to shrug your shoulders in defeat.

Contact your NAS representative for more information.

Source: “Marketing Execs Struggle to Show ROI”, marketingcharts.com, Jan. 22, 2009

Are You a Web 2.0 Wannabe?

If you don’t invest in finding tomorrow’s candidates today, you’ll become history.

This article is one component of a Web 2.0 and rich media demonstration. It consists of a variety of simple broad-reach tools including webinars, surveys, discussion walls, Twitters, and videos. The purpose of presenting the article this way is to demonstrate how an individual recruiter could expand his or her visibility using similar low-cost technology. As you read the article, click through to the links and take the action suggested. Then imagine how you could apply similar approaches to your job postings to expand both its visibility and interest.

As a example, start by texting the word “sourcing” to 96625 and take the instant survey. Then create your own survey like this and Tweet me at LouA with your quick take. Then create a similar process for hiring by asking your employees if they know a great person for a new hot job, or pinging your resume database asking prospects if they’d be interested in exploring a potential career move.

Now back to the article. It describes some of the latest Web 2.0 recruiting and sourcing tools and likely future trends.

You can rank yourself to figure out if you’re still a Neanderthal or a new ager. On this scale, if your still posting boring job descriptions on the major job boards you’d be considered a Web 1.0 stone-ager.

Those in the current Web 2.0 era are now successfully using search-engine-optimized talent hubs, and pushing jobs using teasers ads to targeted blogs and social sites. Integrating and automating all this stuff based on robust workforce planning and process control metrics is Web 3.0. Here’s an online survey you’ll want to take to more accurately benchmark your company on this sourcing evolutionary scale. You’ll also be able to see the instant results and figure out what you need to do to move up to a higher order of species. (We’re creating a survey like this to figure out the decision factors candidates use when selecting one job over another. Email me if you’d to participate. Also, comment on my recruiter’s blog.)

To start this benchmarking, consider how many of the following tools, techniques, and processes you’re now successfully using to source top performers. As you read the six categories, rank yourself on a 1 to 5 scale. Give yourself a 5 if you are training others or you’re now being interviewed by the mainstream media. Rank yourself a 4 if you’re a recognized leader in the recruiting industry. Give yourself 1 point if you’re thinking about doing these things. Assign yourself a big zero if you say it wouldn’t work at your company.

When you’re done, total your score. Less than 10 points qualifies you as a true Neanderthal. If you score more than 20 points you’ll probably get some type of award at ERE’s next Spring Expo. Regardless, whatever you score, figure out what you’d need to do in the next 12 months to get an additional 10 more points. Then focus on this to rebuild your recruiting department. It will be worth it.

Six Important Web 2.0 Plus Trends and Tools

An integrated social media engine: Facebook pages, LinkedIn networks, and pushing ads to appropriate blogs is fine, but not too automatic. A social media engine links all of your networks sites onto a common platform pushing teaser ads to sites most appropriate to your target candidate audience. For example, it makes sense to send compelling two-lines ads to power-engineering blogs rather than MySpace if you’re looking for people with heavy industry experience. MySpace and Facebook might be more appropriate if you’re looking for part-timers for your retail store or young adults just graduating. While many progressive companies are already doing these things, the automation piece is where the short-term action will be. Jobs2Web is the leading player here, so watch closely what these guys are doing.

Use of talent hubs and the phaseout of traditional job descriptions for advertising copy. I’ve made this prediction for years, and it’s finally coming true — the idea of posting individual job requisitions is archaic. The likelihood of the right person finding it is problematic, and even if they do, they’re so boring only the desperate will apply. Talent hubs represent the new thinking here. View a talent hub as a portal or micro-site for a group of jobs that’s marketed using the latest consumer advertising concepts and optimized to be easily found outside of the traditional career sites and job boards. The messaging needs to be compelling and access needs to be open, inviting, and warm, usually with some type of IM feature. While talent hubs are comparable to an integrated social media engine, they’re less robust and less costly to build and maintain.

Developing a proprietary prospect database with automated CRM. On the surface this is a technology solution, but down deep it really has to do with involvement and interactivity. The strategy behind this is to build a personal prospect pool that is constantly nurtured using automated candidate management relationship tools. This is how you maintain the involvement. More advanced tools are on the way that allow you to create events which trigger some type of action, usually an email, but it could be a Tweet or text message. Prospects are notified when opportunities arise, and as long as the messaging is compelling, you’ll have a number of great candidates express interest. This concept is at the core of just-in-time sourcing.

Applying advanced consumer marketing tools for recruitment advertising. If you’re still posting boring ads, subtract 5 points from your total. Boring advertising especially on a job board is a waste of money. So if you want to continue to use job boards at least post ads that will attract someone’s attention. Here’s an ad that SimplyHired posted on their career site to give you a sense of how an ad should be written. Consumer marketing companies are the early adopters of this idea, since this is how they attract their customers. They know that targeted messages pushed to their audience creates interest. Here’s a big thing to think about on this point: don’t use your advertising to sell the job — use it to establish a connection. This is a paradigm shift in terms of where recruitment advertising is heading. Don’t sell your products first; create interest and demand first.

Reduce the time to find you. One of the most important competitive advantages a company or independent recruiter can have is getting the best candidates before everyone else. This is the driver of much of what’s described above involving the concept of “be found first!” When good people enter the job-hunting market they tend to call their close confidantes first. To tap into these early entrants a “call me first” strategy gives you a significant advantage especially if you have a great job available. After a week or so these people will start Googling for jobs or go to an aggregator like SimplyHired.com. To get a sense of where you stand on this early-bird sourcing strategy, start asking your candidates how long they’ve been looking. Give yourself a high ranking if most of them say “less than a week.”

Continuous change and time warping. When you think about what’s happened in the past 10 years, you realize that the rate of change is increasing, not slowing down. So if you have trouble thinking about what solution is best to implement, you need to step it up a notch. Not only do you have to start changing how you source, but also implement flexible technology and business solutions that allow you to adapt and change faster than your competition.

The recruiting industry has gone through a number of inflection points over the past 10 years, and it seems that they’re coming faster than ever before. Web 2.0 has been here for two to three years and many companies are just starting to employ some of its enormous capability for sourcing. Automation, optimization, and integration are the next big waves, which only a brave few have ventured this far.

While all of this technology can help, it still needs involved hiring managers and effective recruiters to make it all work. For a top person, changing jobs is a big decision, and the position selected will largely be dependent on the leadership qualities of the hiring manager combined with the career counseling ability of the recruiter. Fully integrating these high-touch components with the high-tech still seems to be a way off. Regardless, there are plenty of tools available for the individual recruiter to get started trying it all out.

Source: Are You a Web 2.0 Wannabe by Lou Adler, ere.net, Jan 23, 2009, 5:06 am ET