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Archives for 2013

Careers: Finding a Match

Pearson, a leading International media company, has joined several other large companies in the addition of the new LinkedIn feature, the ‘socialmatcher’ to their corporate website. When clicked through, this feature will suggest various Pearson career opportunities that are appropriate for the user.

By using this simple method to presort employment candidates, Pearson accomplishes three things:

  1. Increase the interest of qualified candidates
  2. Enhance efficiency by decreasing the time and resources necessary to sift through applications, searching for appropriate candidates.
  3. Improve accuracy by reducing or eliminating the number of applicants who do not qualify for certain positions.

This innovative website practice allows Pearson to seamlessly continue their expansion, and improve their ability to provide world-leading educational services.

Recruiting Veterans

I invited Thomas Jones to write a guest post for us today about veterans and recruitment. Have you considered targeting this group with a dedicated recruitment website? Let us know, in the comments…

Over to you, Thomas!

military man to businessmanThe global financial crisis has hit the world hard. Economies have been left in tatters and governments are having to cut budgets to weather the current economic downturn. Military defence budgets have been greatly affected with many countries around the world reducing the amount of money being spent on their military programs. The UK, USA, Germany and more have already reduced their defence budgets, with more countries planning to follow suit shortly. These budgetary reductions have seen thousands of jobs being cut and thousands of veterans being honourably discharged from the armed forces. A number of businesses have seen opportunity here and have started to roll out special websites and programs targeted to attract veterans looking for work.

This article will explain how, and why, companies are targeting these veterans using special veteran recruitment websites, recruitment policies and rehabilitation projects.

Why veterans?

Veterans are highly skilled and highly motivated individuals.

When serving in their country’s armed forces, they learn the value of discipline, teamwork and hard work.

Veterans have been trained to work hard and work well: they are model employees.

Methods used by companies to reach job seeking veterans

Many companies are instituting veteran recruitment programs that will see hundreds of thousands of veterans being employed around the world. These companies use a number of different methods to attract unemployed veterans.

#1 – Veteran recruitment websites

Many companies are building special websites tailored specifically to target veterans. These websites focus on the unique skills that veterans possess while explaining how the company will be able to make use of them.

These websites normally contain information about the numbers of veterans already working in the company as well as statistics about their career progression.

Many of these websites contain testimonials from employed veterans, too, either in video, audio or text form. These testimonials normally focus on how their military skills have been useful when working in the company while explaining why the company is a good place for veterans to work.

#2 – Charitable donations to military support charities

Veterans share a bond. They look after each other and watch each other’s backs.

Companies that donate to military support charities are looked upon favourably by veterans. These donations show that the company is committed to improving the lives of veterans around the world, regardless of whether they’re employed by the company or not.

However, it’s important for the company not to brag about these charitable contributions. These donations need to be seen as an act of goodwill – they should not be construed as a ploy to attract attention from veterans.

#3 – Rehabilitation projects to ease the transition back to civilian life

Life in the military is very different to civilian life. It is difficult, demanding and disciplined. Every day is highly regimented and planned out in advance.

Many veterans find the transition back to civilian life difficult. It can take time before they are able to feel comfortable living a civilian lifestyle.

Many companies have instituted veteran rehabilitation programs to help ease the process. These programs usually see veterans being assigned a mentor or advisor who will provide advice and help to ensure that the veterans under their tutelage are able to successfully transition back to civilian life.

Specialised schemes targeted to veterans that were injured in action have also been instituted by a number of companies. These schemes can help provide medical and psycho-social assistance to help deal with the injury as well as vocational support to ensure that the injury does not affect performance in the workplace.

Conclusion

Veterans make excellent employees. They are highly motivated, highly skilled and dedicated to their work. The three methods listed above are proven methods companies around the world are using to help attract veterans to join their workforce. Make sure to use them when instituting a veteran recruitment program for your business.

Thanks Thomas!

Thomas Jones is a business consultant that has a particular interest in specialised corporate business practices and how you work and develop over time. He also writes business guides and articles at BestPracticeHub.com

The Significance of Facebook Card for Brands

facebook cardJanuary 31, 2013 marked an important milestone in Facebook history when Facebook Card was launched to Facebook members in the United States. Suddenly, brands have a new way to marry Facebook marketing, ecommerce, and brick-and-mortar sales into one little piece of plastic.

According to the announcement of Facebook Card, Facebook members can give Facebook friends monetary gifts to shop at specific retailers (online or offline) via a plastic card that they’ll receive in the mail a few days after it is purchased. They’ll also receive a notification that the card is on its way to them at the time it is purchased.

When the card is used, a notification is sent to the cardholder letting them know that the balance has changed. They can also look up this information in the account settings of their Facebook Profile.

People who get a Facebook Card need to hang onto it though, because if another person sends them a Facebook Card gift, that money will be added to the existing card. The money associated with each retailer is tracked separately on the card, so a cardholder could have balances with several retailers at the same time on a single card.

According to AdWeek, Facebook has no plans to offer digital Facebook Cards, so the plastic is here to stay. Also, there are no current plans to link Facebook Offers with Facebook Card. In other words, retailers won’t be able to promote Offers to users with cards that have balances for their stores.

It’s probably safe to assume that such integrations will come in the future if Facebook Cards gains some traction among Facebook members. For example, if retailers had the ability to target cardholders with balances for their stores and serve ads to specific segments, they should be able to get the right offers in front of more of the right members of the one billion Facebook community and increase Facebook marketing ROI significantly. That’s just one reason why it’s so important for Facebook to find a solution that successfully marries Facebook marketing spending, ecommerce, and offline sales.

The question at this point is how Facebook members will react to physical gift cards, something that the younger demographic calls “retro” (check out the comments in this Mashable article to see for yourself). Of course, this is just Phase 1 of Facebook Card, and enhancements and changes are likely to come quickly and frequently. Again, Facebook needs this to work. Brands hope it will work. But do consumers care? Only time will tell.

What do you think about Facebook Card?

Image: Facebook Newsroom

Breaking Down the Data Behind Big Data for Brand Marketing

big data spreadsheetBig data has been a hot topic for a couple of years, and brands are finally finding ways to tap into big data and leverage it to drive revenue. We’re still a long way from getting everything out of big data that it has to offer, but with companies creating positions like Data Architect and Chief Data Officer, the importance of collecting and using big data should continue to grow well into the future.

As Gian Fulgoni of comScore reports, big data is one of the “top ten burning issues in digital,” and when you take a closer look at the data behind big data, you can see why this statement is so accurate. Gian shared the following statistics on the comScore blog that put things into perspective (you can follow the preceding link to read all of the details from Gian):

  • The smartphones we use today would have been the most powerful computers in the world in 1985.
  • 120 million people in the United States own smartphones, which is up by 30 million in the past year alone.
  • For just $600 you can buy a disk that can store all of the music in the world.
  • 30+ billion pieces of data are added to Facebook every month.
  • 72 hours of video are added to YouTube every minute.
  • ComScore was capturing 1.4 trillion digital interactions per month at the end of 2012.
  • 92% of the world’s data was created in only the past two years.

While I always caution against falling victim to data paralysis, which happens when you have access to so much data that you can’t make a decision or move forward. Too much data without a clear reason for collecting it, analyzing it, and using it, amounts to noise and clutter. Always use data with purpose and avoid the ease of massaging data to fit agendas.

The power of big data comes from the trends and truths it uncovers. Picking and choosing the data you focus on, present to executives, and use to make decisions might work in the short-term, but the truths of data will make themselves known in the long-term. Instead, review the data, question the data, and learn when to believe in it. Only then can it help you make the right marketing decisions.

The best marketing team has both analytical minds and creative minds working together to interpret and use big data. It’s that human element that turns big data into big business opportunities and results.

What do you think?

Image: Lustfish

Research Finds Social Media Marketing Campaigns Are Too Short-Sighted

facebook iphoneAccording to the “Seriously Social” research report from Warc, social media marketing campaigns are too short, too siloed, and too hard to track. This determination came from a study of 800 marketing campaigns that included a social media tactic, which won significant industry awards. Brands like American Express, Walmart, Virgin Mobile, and AT&T were represented in the study.

The “Seriously Social” report found that social media marketing is being included in more campaigns, but those campaigns typically had lower budgets than campaigns without social elements. Furthermore, the social media part of those campaigns was often focused on short-term goals where results could not be accurately quantified. It’s this inability to calculate true return on investment that the report writers believe will ultimately separate great marketers from their peers.

The report identified several challenges that brand marketers need to address if they want to succeed with social media marketing campaigns in the future. Some of those challenges won’t be new to you. For example, Warc identifies the need to adopt a social media mindset as a significant challenge, but there is no doubt that success in social media marketing requires knowing what the target audience wants and giving it to them. The more realistic challenge is getting executive buy-in, so you can deliver the content that your audience wants, not the content that the powers-that-be think the audience wants. A second challenge identified in the report is the clear social articulation of your brand idea. In other words, let the audience engage with the brand experience on the social web and make it their own. Again, this isn’t a new concept.

More interesting to brand marketers are the second challenges identified in the report. The writers indicate that marketers need to “scale up ambition,” meaning they need to review the problem areas of social media campaigns, which Warc identified as being too focused on the short-term and limiting budgets. Finally, the Warc report warns brand marketers to avoid looking for a specific creative formula for social media campaigns, and instead, focus on learning what your target audience wants and delivering it in the way they’ll respond to. It’s not revolutionary advice, but it’s good advice.

You can subscribe and download the full report from the Warc website and get all of the details.

Image: Miki Yoshihito

Are you a neo environmentalist?

“I am not a big fan of the prefix “neo”,” writes James Murray, editor of Business Green

“It makes me think of Nazis…

“Marxists …

“and Keanu Reeves in the Matrix.”

Granted, anything which reminds you of Keanu Reeves is generally worth avoiding, the Matrix doubly so because it’s got Hugo Weaving’s clodhoppers all over it as well.  He was a rubbish Elrond, period.

But I digress.

These words are the opening of a rather long editorial James Murray published in October last year.

In it he examines an outpouring from the long established environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth in which he rounded on “neo environmentalists” who believe that man can “act as Gods” and save the world through interventionist science and business practices.

It’s an interesting debate but I’m not going to knife and fork both articles .. it’s enough to note that James Murray gives as good as he gets with talk of “unreconstructed” sections of the environmental movement.

However, taken together, both articles raise five serious questions which will, at the very least, give you pause to ponder your own place on this new environmentalist spectrum.

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