I’m a culture change specialist with a vision to make workplaces better. I’m employed as the Head of Human Resources at DuluxGroup – a successful, growing international consumer goods company based in Melbourne, where my focus in on creating a more consumer-oriented and growth focused culture.

I trained as an organizational psychologist and hold a BA in Psychology and a Masters degree in Occupational Psychology from University of Sheffield, England. I began my career as a management consultant at PricewaterHouse Coopers in London where I crisscrossed Europe helping clients create successful culture transformations. In this role I advised leaders across four continents about how to create more vibrant and productive work environments.

In 1994 I grew tired of the long, wet English winters and moved to Australia, where I continued my work as a change advisor with Accenture.

After a decade as a consultant I wanted to put some “skin in the game” and decided to test all that I had learned in an actual corporate setting.  I was employed as the executive in charge of change in a series of large, complex organizations. In these workplaces I was no longer operating as an outsider but actually getting my hands dirty working in the challenging and often messy trenches of transformation. These “insider” positions gave me a markedly different perspective on workplace change.

You have an impressive a track record of creating more engaged businesses across four continents. What is the connection between engaged employees and a strong talent brand?

I worked at Accenture which is one of the biggest consulting firms in the world. Within 3 months of joining I had moved countries from Australia to New Zealand and was working in the retail sector, which was completely new to me. I was on an accelerated learning curve but my experience in the consulting firm was completely aligned with the promise that I had been ‘sold’ when I interviewed for the job. I was told by the partners that I was entering a fast-paced, stretch culture where I was expected to be agile. I was not surprised when, three months after I had joined, I was asked to move countries.

The important thing with your employer brand is that it is congruent with the ‘deal’ that you are espousing to employees. When there is misalignment between the promise and the deal, then that’s when you get noise. So, for instance, if you are telling people that they can expect a highly engaged workplace and you don’t deliver on this promise then employees will be disappointed when they enter your firm.   The clearer you can be about the expectations and the closer you can deliver to these, the better.

DuluxGroup has a quite unusual Brand Ambassador. Can you tell us more about him?

Yes, our brand ambassador is an Old English Sheepdog called Digby. Our employees love Digby and he shows up to staff events where there is typically a queue to get a photo taken with him. The dog was first introduced in advertising campaigns in 1961. Since then the sheepdog has been a constant and highly popular feature of Dulux television and print adverts wherever the paint is sold. So much so, that many people in those markets refer to the breed as a ‘Dulux dog’ rather than a sheepdog. Over the years, different dogs have appeared in the adverts. However, they all look very similar and Fernville Lord Digby, was the most famous Dulux dog.

What is the role of the leadership team in creating a powerful talent brand of Dulux? Can you give us some examples?

Our approach as DuluxGroup is what we call “Leader-led” which means that line managers are in charge of bringing the employer brand to life and it is HR’s role to support them in this endeavour. Leaders are expected to walk the talk and lead by example. They are the ones who bring the employment promise to life every day for employees.

Our engagement survey results show that we have a high level of employee satisfaction and a high performing culture which I believe is the holy grail when it comes to employer brand. We tend to attract people who want to do their very best in a friendly work environment. The leader’s job at DuluxGroup is to maintain and build this highly engaged culture.

What are your company values and how do you communicate them?

Our employer brand is built off the DuluxGroup company Values & Behaviours which employees are expected to bring to life every day at work. Whether it be ‘putting themselves in our customers’ shoes’, looking out for their workmates, unleashing their imagination to find a smarter solution or giving back to the community – our employees act with confidence that this is ‘the DuluxGroup way’.

These Values were collectively developed and agreed by our employees – across all businesses and geographies – in 2011, soon after we became an independent company following a demerger from our parent company Orica.  Workshops were held across the firm and people across the organisation were invited to have their say. The Values are inspired in equal measure by where we’ve come from and where we want to be as a company. Our strategy guides what we do, our Values guide how we do it. We know that ‘culture trumps strategy’ every time – therefore, we encourage, recognise and reward our people for living our Values in everything they do.

How does DuluxGroup use content marketing and storytelling methods on LinkedIn or online to generate stronger candidate pipelines?

Our strategy is to engage authentically about what it’s like to work at DuluxGroup. We encourage our people to share their stories about what their experiences have been and what opportunities they have been given. We believe that the best way of attracting the right people is to show them what really happens when you join the company.

In my role as Head of HR, I also publish content and share my views on all things HR, culture and change. I write about topics that I’m passionate about and that I think can help to make workplaces better – which is my vision in my work. I’m also passionate about the HR profession and how we can progress (here is a link to a recent article about my views on the topic of The future of HR https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hr-outer-your-business-so-here-3-ways-fix-siobhan-mchale). Your readers can follow or connect with me on LinkedIn if these are topics of interest for them.

How do you empower your employees to tell your company story?

Because our employees are highly engaged and proud of working at DuluxGroup, they share this story with family and wider network.   We know from our employee engagement surveys that our people recommend DuluxGroup to their family and friends as a great place to work.

Thank you for the interview!

Thank you!

***

Picture credit: Siobhan McHale, DuluxGroup

Leni, congratulations for Meltwater being awarded the Top 7 Best Place to Work in Australia in 2017 and Top 12 Best Place to Work in Asia in 2018, as well as being one of 2016, 2017 & 2018 Great Place to Work Awards Winners in Canada. Can you share some secretes of your company success: what are the best practices of talent attraction and retention at Meltwater?

What attracted me to Meltwater was the fact that the company has managed to establish itself as a global leader in media monitoring with 60+ offices in less than 17 years! However, despite the success and growth we are experiencing, candidates I approach on LinkedIn typically have not heard about us, but when they do their research, they’re always surprised that they have not come across us yet!

Our target market is Gen Y (also known as Millennials), it is well reported that personal growth and career development is the key factor in choosing a suitable employer for this generation. As such Meltwater is extremely conscious of building a culture that facilitates that experience, we challenge our employees from day one to be the best version of themselves. We work in a fast-paced environment, things change quickly so our new recruits need to be agile and learn quickly.

Research also shows Gen Y wants to be connected to the work they’re doing and for us, that means ensuring there is a sense of shared purpose. There is plenty of time spent with line managers and even though these meetings may sometimes seem like simple catch ups, the regularity achieves a greater purpose. A constant two-way feedback ensures people feel they have a seat at the table, they are given a platform to speak up and make an impact on the business and its culture.

Last but not least, we promote based on merits, not tenure. Drive and determination and your ability to realize your potential quickly are what determines the speed at which your progress. You can easily check this by a simple search of our employees on LinkedIn.

Is building a strong talent brand a “must have” or “nice to have” for modern employers?

Definitely a “must have”. Especially for Gen Y, they want to be coming to a place where they don’t only do what they enjoy doing but also a place where they feel welcome and are surrounded by like-minded individuals. Showing them what our culture is about, what our workplace looks like (maybe even giving them a sneak peek into our office playlists), how we celebrate success and what we do together outside of our workplace, is a no-brainer. This way they will already anticipate if this is an environment they would love to be part of or not.

What has been the process of building a strong talent brand at Meltwater?

We don’t have a designated team or employees for building our talent brand. I believe this should be a common effort of recruitment, marketing and HR, but, ultimately, all employees are responsible for this. Of course, all of us have a slightly different goal but at the end of the day, we all want to increase our brand awareness. I drive different initiatives, such as encouraging our employees to write blog posts, partner with top universities and students’ societies and provide training to all newbies (regardless of what team they join) on how to manage/promote our brand on LinkedIn. I already started this in my last job and it worked really well so took it over with me to Meltwater. It only takes about 15 minutes (if they’re in Sydney, its F2F, if in any other office, it’s via a video Skype call) but you would be surprised how little people know about different functions on LinkedIn and how to use them to your advantage. I always start the training with showing them some numbers on how many people interact with our brand on daily basis which always leads them to understand why this training is so important.

What is your social media strategy when it comes to employer branding?

I’m a huge advocate of LinkedIn and that’s where I spend lots of my time during the day. From my experience, the most quality talent is right there and it’s easy to tap into. On the other hand, it is true that the Gen Y don’t necessarily have a LinkedIn profile (yet!) and so it is important to build a strong strategy on their favourite social channels, such as Instagram and Snapchat – this is work in progress for us right now!

How do you use content marketing and storytelling methods on LinkedIn to generate stronger candidate pipelines?

As mentioned before, I love LinkedIn and consider content marketing as a great tool for raising brand awareness. I always make sure my posts have a purpose and most importantly, have a personal touch. Sharing only jobs, I’m currently hiring for wouldn’t make the cut! I divide my posts in 25% about our office life/culture, 25% about company updates, 25% about job posts (always accompanied by the right culture pic!) and 25% about my personal/professional interests. Sometimes it’s hard to keep the office life pictures to only 25% because there’s always something happening (ranging from a simple celebration of someone’s birthday – yes, everyone loves a good piece of cake! – through celebrating a new deal that just came in, to those crazy closing days when we always have a theme and dress up).

How does Meltwater empower their employees to tell their company story?

With the high retention we have, I feel like we don’t even need to empower our employees to tell the story (esp. off line)! We’ve had great examples when my colleagues randomly met people in a shop, bar or a taxi, started a conversation and suddenly, I had a referral, or we had a new client! It’s great when you are surrounded by people who are passionate about the company they work for!

What is the role of the leadership team in creating a powerful talent brand of Meltwater?

Our leadership team is active mainly on LinkedIn, giving advice and tips on how to better understand the billions of conversations happening online and how PR and Marketing Managers can use the #OutsideInsight (as we call it) to make their life easier. Meltwater started investing in AI already in 2013 and has heavily increased that in the past 18 months when we acquired 7 start ups (mainly based around AI). #OutsideInsight (which is a part of our software) leverages AI to discover valuable insights from external data, helping business executives make better, more forward-looking decisions.

We recently introduced a developed “Give back” program that enables our employees to take work days off to contribute to causes they care deeply about. My colleague Laura Rowland (Director of Support APAC, now based in our Melbourne office but soon to relocate to our Shanghai office) was the first one to take a full advantage of this new initiative and spent 2 days with the Mirabel Foundation which is the only organisation in Australia specifically addressing the needs of children who have been orphaned or abandoned due to parental drug use.

What are your company values and how (when and where?) do you communicate them?

Our values are at the core of our culture and can be summed up by the acronym MER, which means “more” in Norwegian (our founder Jorn Lyseggen comes from Norway). The values are:

Moro = fun. We believe that to become successful as a whole, we should all enjoy ourselves. That’s why we promote a fun, collaborative working environment.

Enere = number 1. At Meltwater, average isn’t good enough. Our goal is to build a groundbreaking company supported by a thriving culture in which our people aspire to exceed their personal expectations.

Respekt = respect. We believe it matters how a company or an individual becomes number one. Striving to be the best doesn’t mean sharp elbows: we should all treat our colleagues and customers with respect and humility.

These values have been with us from Day 1 in 2001 and are really a true heart of the way how we operate. We begin educating future employees about our values during our interview process and we communicate them very frequently; they guide us through everything we do, from how we prioritize our objectives and make decisions to how we clarify expectations and measure our success.

Can you give us some examples of your innovative HR / talent management policies? How do you communicate them internally and externally?

There are a couple of things we do differently. We only promote from within and based on merits, not tenure. All managerial roles are filled internally which gives lots of opportunities for our own employees. Candidates typically realize this when they come here and are interviewed by other people who are also Gen Y. It proves these people have been promoted quickly, based on their experience here.

We foster an environment which promotes socializing. We have monthly social events (including a dress code which is usually topical depending on what’s happening around us, such as tennis dress code for the Australian Open, Chinese dress code for Chinese New Year but we also had random ones such as rock star dress code or Italian one!) and every two years we all go to what we call a “Kick Off” – three – four days company conference which is always held at a different location and everyone who’s been with us for over a year gets to go. I was lucky enough that when I joined last year in January, there was a Kick Off happening in March and I also went to Thailand! It was fantastic to meet Jorn, our founder, my colleagues from all over the world and understand where we are going as a company (I do believe this was crucial for the success in my role as it gave me even more insightful exposure to our values and what they actually mean). I cannot wait for the next one!

How you measure your success? What is (or should be) the most important metric for a great recruiter/ employer branding expert?

It may sound like a cliché, but I’m driven by the success of my hires. When I see people, who joined us only few months ago closing big deals and really enjoying their work and our culture, that’s what makes me get out of bed every morning and keep doing what I’m doing.

I don’t think you can’t pick up the most important metric for a great recruiter, especially when talking about in-house recruitment. It should be a combination of a number of things, such as the amount and quality of hires, providing positive and effective recruitment experience (regardless of the outcome) and increasing the brand awareness.

Thank you for the interview!

Thank you!

***

Picture Credit: Leni Rokosova, Meltwater

Read on to learn how the recruiters, HR and employer branding specialists from the different parts of the world generate stronger candidates’ pipelines by using content marketing and storytelling.

1.Introduce Social Media / LinkedIn Training

 Did you know that employees have 10 times more connections on average than a company has followers? To leverage your employees personal brand and network introduce Social Media / LinkedIn training.

For example, Dell’s HR strategy including social media training resulted in higher quality hires, lower turnover and better engagement rates for Dell.

“We have trained to date over 16,000 employees! We also train our summer interns as part of their development and introduction to Dell. The biggest success is the ongoing focus on the program including monthly power hours by topic (how to deal with trolls, what is the deal with SnapChat, etc.) as well as the revisiting and updating of the content. The opportunity we have is to continue to have executives model this activity and behaviour.” – says Jennifer Jones Newbill, Senior Manager, Global Candidate Attraction, Engagement and Experience at Dell.

Click HERE to read our case study About social media and recruiting with Jennifer Jones Newbill from Dell.

2.  Empower your employees to tell the story about the company

Of course, they need to love their work in a first place, and the post should come from them, you cannot simply order a praising article. Readers will only spend their precious time on reading and sharing authentic stories. Pay attention to employees who already blog or vlog. Often those who relocate will be interested in documenting they journey.

3. Enchant your staff

Delight the staff with a small gesture or help when it is not expected, for example offering them flexible work arrangements or even showing that you listen, and you care:

“When you enchant people, your goal is not make money from them or get them to do what you want, but to fill them with delight.”

“(…) in a world of mass media, social media, and advertising media, it takes more than instant shallow, and temporary relationships to get the job done.”

Guy Kawasaki, Enchantment

4. Communicate your innovative HR policies

Challenge yourself (and your top management) to introduce a HR policy that could be shared as an interesting story.

Impossible? Here is the update from BrewDog:

“Thrilled to find out today that BrewDog have been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2018 Scottish Top Employers for Working Families Awards, in the ‘Best for Innovation’ category, for our Pawternity Leave initiative! (…)”

Seems standard but wait, did they misspell “paternity”? Or…

5. Measure success on your LinkedIn company page

Even if your company already has its LinkedIn page, you might strongly consider setting up a new page for your geographical region.

A simple company page is free yet give you some visitor demographics and some invaluable metric tools such as updates engagement and followers acquired in a specific month, week or even day.

Followers acquired are only included for sponsored updates. You could still measure the success of your organic (not paid) updates, by looking at the followers acquired on a given day if you post no more than one update per day.

This article was inspired by the companies and experts from Scotland, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, and China.

What are your favorite company updates or ideas for using LinkedIn as employer branding tool? Reach out on LinkedIn or Facebook; we would love to hear about the examples from other countries.

Beata Dziedzic

Mirco, as a Big Data geek with a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics, how do you see social media transform in the next 5-10 years from now?

Great question to start off  Dagmara! I think we should always begin with a touch of SF, because quite often what some mavericks are dreaming about now, becomes reality later. Social media means media which are social, media that are embedded in the very tissue of the social web. Now, where is the social web and where is it going?

I believe that the plumbing has already been done, we have plenty of large scales social communities. We also have small dedicated communities, we have various types of communication tools, we have, in a word, the proper infrastructure. But something is still lacking, isn’t it?

What is lacking is true SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE. By this I mean: just like there is a logical intelligence, there is a social one. Not many people are social intelligence geniuses, to be sure, and yet without it not much happens in one’s life, because social intelligence drives success. 

So, here is my little piece of SF: I dream that very soon there will be another Social Web, let us say Social Web 3.0, which looks and feel like the existing one but with a glaring difference – it is smart. In this social web on steroids, people will get together, form teams, virtual ventures. All of that thanks to some help from the embedded social intelligence. It goes without saying that this would drastically impact social media and social advertisement as well. Highly focused communities would also demand highly focused media….

Will the social media 3.0 allow people with scarce social intelligence to do the work for them? Also, it is interesting that you see the future of social media 3.0 as a collaboration tool. Would not that be just another LinkedIn or Slack on steroids? Just another networking tool?

We definitely need a layer of intelligence on top of the existing social web to form a team of collaborators. I am not suggesting that a machine is better than humans at assessing whether some fellow is the right one to cover some new role in a team, but the machine could act as an advisor. I would not like machines to replace my judgment, but I would like machines to expand my possibilities. Imagine I need someone for my team who is extremely smart, knows how to speak Farsi and Icelandic, has a record of traveling in off-the-road destinations, and has a passion for new projects. What is my chance to find such a fellow now? Very slim, right? So, why not have a little help? There is another dimension involved. This is not a battle humans vs machine. Humans could recommend people too, and perhaps the machine would learn from them…

That is why you decided to build a platform that will enable it?

The platform, that I am building right now, is a “gaming platform”, in a sense. The chief difference is that instead of letting you play in an alternate world, it tries to turn you into a superhero in this one. Most of us live an unnecessarily boring life because we dream and leave our dreams in our closet. Why not add a little spice by being able to post your dreams adventures or join other’s dreams and team up with other superheroes? That is precisely what I want for the Social Web 3.0.

You mentioned that the Social Web 3.0 will impact social advertising. What is the biggest challenge while using social media for advertising and the way to overcome it?

The biggest challenge is that we are completely drowning in information: everywhere we are bombarded with ads, brochures, emails. The only way to mitigate this miserable state of affair is to provide value, highly specific value, to the individuals. If you shoot me an ad, most likely I do not want to hear it, but if you know what I am after and you leverage this knowledge by assisting me in MY objectives things are quite different.

On the other hand, retargeted ads can be pretty helpful. But, let’s drop the topic of ads and let’s get into something more entertaining. You mentioned that our lives are quite boring. What about viral content? It makes our life more exciting, or at least more fun. Getting viral is what everyone secretly dreams about, but they don’t want to admit it at loud. What do you think it takes to achieve viral growth? What could be the key variables that drive viral growth?

The paper which I have coauthored with my fellow researchers at Chapman University partially answers the question: to become viral it means to become like a virus. Viruses go from place to place in the body, being hosted not only by single cells but by entire organs. We essentially found a math model of virality which involves leveraging groups and communities instead of single individuals, to spread information around. To be sure, our research is simply a modest step in the right direction, we need more sophistication to provide a better representation of virality. But using interest groups and active web communities to spread your “virus” is certainly a great way to begin.

If the information is like a virus, looks like we should start spreading info locally, to the people that are close to us in a strictly geographical sense (but they are not our friends like on Facebook), and let them share the info to everyone globally.  Do you see a potential in it, in a tool where everyone can share anything they like, but there are no other rules involved?

The beauty of the social web as it already operates now is that the notion of the locality has undergone great changes. When I grew up, several centuries ago, what was the chance of having a talk with you about social life? Close to zero. Now my nephews, who live in Milano, have friends in Spain or … China. Therefore, virality can take different clothes… however, having said that, there are certain types of information which must be spread locally, for the very simple reason that they are intrinsically local: why should I broadcast to the entire world the news that the guy next door offers the best pizza and a jazz concert for an incredible price? A guy in Peru could not care less…as for the second part of your question, I think we should have themes, channels through which information flows. I am not a big fan of Twitter’s model.

Neither am I. It’s way too messy and requires a constant time commitment. Mirco, if you were on a mission to predict the popularity of pieces of information that spread through the social media networks, where would you start?

Going back to the previous answer, I would try to understand which paths this piece of information follows to spread, and what is the relevance for folks and communities which dwell on mileposts along this path. Example: Suppose you try to spread some news about a service. You want to hit ONLY groups and folks for which this service could be intriguing, right? Nobody spreads info if they do not think it is “cool” and valuable…

Sure thing. But what is the probability to detect information big stories before they even happen?

It is extremely difficult to predict the future, especially where the human element is heavily involved. However, IF (big if!) I knew a lot about the folks and groups which receive this information, for instance, their tastes, goals, dislikes, then something can be predicted, especially if I do have a track record of previous scenarios.

Even if we knew the tastes, goals, dislikes, likes, interests of everyone in the earth, there are still many external factors that can mess your equation up. Is there anything certain about social media at all?

True, indeed the variables are almost infinite. But, as I have already said, I do not like Hal 9000 type of AI. I rather prefer Jarvis, the AI advisor of Tony Stark in Iron Man: Jarvis advises me, but I decide. If it makes mistakes, it will learn to adjust.

Using data and identifying new opportunities for unlocking it requires creativity. Could you give us an example of a product or a service that used creativity to bring data to the next level and unlocked its potential?

The obvious thing that comes to mind is Youtube. Not a rocket scientist type of technology, by any means,  but one that has changed radically many aspects of our life: we can post anything, opinions, products tests, news, personal journeys. A video which is on your computer is your video, a video that is on Youtube is humanity’s video…a big difference.

There are plenty of tools on the market that helps identify the most influential authors (influencers), but after finding the right ones for your product or niche, the question emerges: How do we minimize the risk of not getting enough brand exposure, engagement or leads from this cooperation? We cannot be sure that our content will resonate well with the audience. What data would you be searching for to maximize the success of the cooperation with an influencer?

With a partner in crime, I have been working hard at a new platform to do exactly what you ask for. To be more precise, and going back to the previous part of this interview, I do not believe that getting the influencers on your side is enough. You need to also catch groups and communities for which what you want to sell is relevant, and communities have a life of their own. So, whereas as you said there are plenty of tools which are aimed at individuals who are “hubs” in the social web, this perspective is a bit too skewed toward single individuals.

You mentioned that community has a life on its own, can you share more details here…?

A community to me is like a collective mind: we are the neurons, but the whole has an intelligence of its own. It is the same everywhere: a single cell is one thing, an organ quite another. This is extremely important to understand if we really want to unravel the mysteries of the social web: if we stick to the view of the cell, we miss the organs…

Any golden tip for social media managers out there on achieving a consistent analytical approach?

Hire people, who understand both analytical tools and what these managers are trying to get. 

What is the one social media metric you would die to measure, but no one out there came up with a solution yet?

How much what we offer aligns with what people really want.

 I would risk a statement that people often times don’t know what they want…they search for one thing, but end up using or doing something completely different. People are irrational, don’t you agree?

You are right, but my measure is not what they want now, rather: after you show it to them, they like it or not? People are very bad at figuring out what they want before they see it but quite good at deciding what they like after they have played with it.

Information overload is killing our productivity. You have plenty of projects on your plate and you are surely a busy man. How do you achieve a better quality of information and remove the noise?

I will be honest with you: I was never good at that, I am someone who begins 1000 things and completes 2-3. But recently things have changed for me, simply because I realized (finally!) the truth: I do not have much time, nobody has, we barely have the time to do what we need and truly wish to do, and send everything else to hell.

…so, prioritizing.

 Do not let information drive you, any information,  drive your life and use the right info to go where you want to go.

How do you see the role of AI in data mining?

Well, the fact is, little by little we will let machines do the dirty job. Data sets are huge and complicated, so this is bound to happen (in fact, it is already happening). But I do not see the role of humans as something that is going to die anytime soon: humans are still needed to create new ways to model data, to make sense of what machines will find. Let us say that I am here an optimist: instead of substituting humans, I like to think of future AI as expanding our cognitive powers. But maybe I am a tad too optimistic. Time will tell.

They say that failures make us stronger. Could you share with us one of your failures and what did you learn from it?

There was a project I started in 2009 called MergingPot, the ancestor of this new thing. I spent a considerable amount of time building it, putting it on FB as an app, but eventually it died. Why? Truth is, I had no clue how to run a start-up, how to prioritize, how to engage people, and also my timing was not right. In fact, everything was wrong EXCEPT the core idea, which was way ahead of time. Now, if I was a complete fool, I would give up. Far from it…I always loved the hero who has been beaten up  to a pulp and yet makes a last comeback

Do you want more blood? I could go on forever. What is more interesting is WHY I failed. Chiefly by lack of consistency: when you start something, you MUST complete it, no matter what.

 Ouch! You even don’t know how much I agree with you on that one…thanks for sharing!

And of course,  thank you a ton for the interview, Mirco!

Thank you Dagmara! I had a lot of fun.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu, Chinese Philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)

In 2011 I quit my job in SAP recruitment in London and moved to China. Little did I know what was going to happen, but I hoped that the relocation would help me change my career.

I didn’t love my job, but I didn’t strongly dislike it either. As everywhere, it had its rainy Monday mornings when commuters were rushing through the Liverpool Station. Everyone seemed stressed out and unhappy about starting a new week in the City. However, as soon as I would get inside the office and make my coffee while chatting with colleagues, it didn’t seem that bad. ‘I can do it, I can get through another week, if I only survived Monday’ I would say to myself. There was also the thrill of headhunting, the constant buzz in the office, and a lot of laughs. Life was good and the closer to the weekend the better it was becoming. Around Wednesday, emails from my friends were starting to circulate as we were preparing for another fabulous weekend in London. It rarely happens that we are entirely happy or unhappy in our job, and I guess that makes any decision harder. When is the cutting off moment when we say: “I’m done with it and ready for a new role”? Once we have reached that stage another obstacle appears – we don’t have clarity on what we WANT.

I realized that what bothered me the most about my job was the fact that I didn’t feel challenged anymore. I didn’t want to live only for the weekend. I thought about moving to internal HR, as that was one of the most common “career transitions” for agency recruiters. I was also asking myself when was the last time I was happy at my job? The answer was three years ago, working as an executive search consultant in the energy sector. With that in mind, I was considering going back to the executive search. Then my boyfriend got a job offer in Beijing. We discussed three options: a long-distance relationship, me staying in London and trying to job hunt in Beijing, or finally quitting my job and relocating together. From a recruiter perspective, I knew that being in the right location could make a huge difference. Firstly, my CV with London and the UK number on it could go into the “bin folder” in a matter of seconds. Secondly, meeting hiring managers face to face is a small difference that makes the all the difference.

While discussing relocation, we also decided to get married. Three weeks later, on a Monday morning, I was rushing through Liverpool Station to work. I was going straight from the airport and I asked my manager if we could have a meeting. He knew I just came back from Las Vegas, he wasn’t particularly surprised about the marriage decision. However, he didn’t expect the news that I was now moving to Beijing.

I was moving to a country that I haven’t visited before. I didn’t know anyone there and I didn’t speak the language. A country that scores at the top of the most difficult places to live and work in the world. The goal was to find a new career path and I was excited about it, especially about the fact that everything was going to be different.

What happened in China?

Since it wasn’t my first relocation experience, I was confident that soon I would find my dream job. However, my confidence was crushed and then rebuilt again. It turned out that majority of mid-level HR roles in China were reserved for Chinese speakers. One of the most shocking feedback replies was from P&G: We are only hiring native Chinese people for the HR department. Recruitment is a numbers game, so I set myself a target- twenty CVs to send out per week. I started to be headhunted by recruitment agencies and without any better option, I was going for every interview I was invited.

Over countless interviews and five formal job offers later (I rejected all of them), I was disillusioned with my job search. I accepted a role as the IT Recruitment Consultant. The same job I had in London. I realized that no matter how hard I tried I will never love this job. During that time, many foreigners asked me to consult them about the job market in Asia, their CVs, and interviewing. That was a first, small step to becoming a career coach in the future. I also enjoyed training my Chinese colleagues on recruitment best practices and social media.

One day I received a call about interviewing with another IT recruitment company. I explained that I was not looking for yet another similar role. “Why don’t you just meet the manager and see what happens?” said the recruiter. It was like hearing myself many times before, convincing my candidates to be open-minded and go for the interview.

During the interview, I was very clear about what I didn’t want and what interested me. The company decided to create a new, fixed term contract role for me, which was training and coaching their recruitment team. I was going to deliver what the company needed, doing the work I enjoyed. It turned out to be one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Before my contract expired, I updated my LinkedIn profile, and I got headhunted for an intercultural trainer role. A new career in training and coaching had officially begun.

How can you approach your career transition abroad?

• Before you throw away your current career, think about the moments you enjoy at work. These are the good clues. I realized that I was keen on helping others to learn and grow or find a better job. I did like the recruitment ambiance, and the whole process of headhunting supported by social media. Now, I train others on social media recruiting. My recruitment experience comes in handy in my coaching work.
• Think about your niche skills and how you can solve the company’s problems. Find out what are their struggles and propose your solution. Pay attention to direct competitors of your current employer. These are usually the companies that will want you the most. In my case, I offered my knowledge of SAP market and hands-on expertise in recruitment to secure a training position.
• If you work for a larger company, a good place to start career transition could be your current workplace. Much of recruitment efforts is about mitigating the risk of hiring the wrong person. Once you are in company A, someone else has already taken the risk of recruiting you. It’s much easier to change roles or even a whole career internally.
• If you relocate with your family, ask your partner’s company for career assistance. More and more companies deliver career coaching for relocating partners. Others don’t have formal programs in place yet, but they can provide some extra budget for it. I predict that it will become a growing trend because many more relocating families want to continue dual careers.
• Do an inventory of yourself (HERE is the book that will teach that) but don’t keep it for yourself. Go out, meet people, interview, brainstorm. Have the courage to say: I like your company, but I don’t like the job. If the company truly wants you, they will create a job for you. YES! It does happen.

Beata Dziedzic

Pictures: BD, Heather Schnacke, Canva

I love being able to connect with talent digitally and in-person and especially leveraging social media to tell a story behind some of the jobs that I recruit for.

I’ve been recruiting for the last 5.5 years, working across various industries ranging from healthcare, IT, marketing, creative, retail in both agency and corporate settings. I’ve been fortunate to recruit for many top brands & companies including Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, and Expedia.

Social media allows recruiters to connect with prospects in a more meaningful, authentic, and engaging ways than the traditional “submit and pray” system. For me, this is the most exciting part of my job as a social recruiter. I especially love showing off “behind the scenes” content and information to talent – whether that be fun group photos of the team or writing and sharing a blog on the “human” aspect of each job, team or organization.

Your LinkedIn summary is very impressive. It has all the “right ingredients” of a powerful summary, which are: storytelling, description of what you and your company do, call to action, keywords, and imagery. How did you come up with it?

Thank you! You know, in any profession, whether you’re a sales person, marketer or an engineer – there are tons of other people who do the same job you do. If you look across my network, I’m sure you can find many recruiters who have worked for the same organization or have held similar roles and I have. Given that situation, you have to figure out a way to stand out from the herd in an authentic and memorable way.

When I wrote this particular summary of mine, I thought about few things: 1) Who am I and what is my “brand”? 2) What are things I’m particularly good at? 3) What type of stuff gets me really excited?

The first part is really important – knowing your personal brand. Beyond being a recruiter at “company A” or being a specific industry recruiter, I have my own “flavor” or brand that I represent regardless of the company I work for or team I’m on. You have to have clarity & consistency in that brand & messaging.

The second piece is also important because that’s what makes you unique and different – your superpower if you will. You definitely need to understand the value you bring to the table and be able to celebrate that differentiator.

Third is being able to articulate the area of passion. This is where I ideally like to build more of my career on, and I think it’s beneficial for others to know as well. I’d like to think this is the reason why you reached out to me for an interview. I think overall you open up more doors by being transparent and letting others know what drives you.

You have worked as a corporate and agency recruiter since 2011. How did recruitment transform over the years?

I was fortunate enough to be a recruiter after the days of newspaper job ads and faxing or physically mailing over resumes (although in my early agency days I did receive some faxed resumes, no joke!). The biggest difference between when I initially started recruiting in 2011 and now is the realization by the industry that recruitment is a form of marketing! With the rise of social media especially, candidates want that premier experience – not only do they want “a job” but they want to be connected to the brand and want to know more about the culture and lifestyle that surrounds it. Also, top talent has options – so much like winning over customers, we have to strategically advertise and market our jobs and opportunities in a way that is exciting and makes candidates say, “THAT’S the job I want to go for.” Social media gives candidates a voice and a way to reach out & interact with recruiters and hiring managers. As recruiters and hiring managers, we also have to be ready and equipped to tell that story in a consistent and meaningful way.

Microsoft’s Social Media Ambassador Community, which I’m a part of currently is exactly that – leveraging our best brand advocates (our own employees) to tell their unique stories. The community was created by our Global Talent Acquisition Excellence team for recruiters who are passionate about social recruiting and storytelling. We brainstorm and come up with different strategies on how we can best leverage the social platforms to amplify our unique experiences surrounding our jobs. I’ve personally contributed by authoring several “recruiter tips” articles on our Microsoft JobsBlog Platform for candidates looking to get some insights on our application & interview process. I’ve also identified key employees in the business I support that can tell an exciting story related to their career that makes the roles they do personal and “human”. The community is great at amplifying different Microsoft news, events, and stories that resonate with our talent population. It is the force driving social recruiting initiatives, training, and employment marketing campaigns for our Global Talent Acquisition and client groups.

Who are your roles models?

In sourcing, I very much look up to Johnny Campbell at Social Talent. I’ve taken his Boolean blackbelt course and that totally raised my recruiting bar. He and his team always have great information about the latest recruiting trends and new ways of uncovering talent!

I also very much respect and look up to Al Short – who was one of my first recruiting influences (he was the one who introduced me to the world of recruiting!) and still to this day is the best manager I’ve ever had the pleasure of working under. He really believed in my potential, knew how to tap into my strengths and helped me shape into the recruiter that I am today. I’ll forever be grateful for his mentorship and encouragement.

Can you recommend to our readers the best resources on social recruitment, personal and employer branding?

I would definitely read and follow articles written by Johnny Campbell and the team at Social Talent – they publish some good content on recruitment overall. ERE media is also a good site to follow. If you haven’t seen Top Recruiter videos by Jer Langhans & Chris LaVoie you’re missing out! SmashFly also puts out a lot of recruitment marketing content that I find interesting.

How do you give back to the community?

I have a passion for helping out women and early in career talent in the areas around career coaching and development. I have previously given resume coaching, interview tips, as well as LinkedIn Profile workshop to a women’s professional network called the LEVO group, and have also given talks for local college business fraternity and alumni panel. It’s interesting how going to school is supposed to ultimately prepare you for skills you need in your “dream job”, yet they provide very little practical information about how you go about getting that job!

What is your take on providing feedback to candidates?

A lot of times candidates do not get any feedback about why they are not getting selected for an interview for a role they had applied to, or why they didn’t get the position if they did go interview. There are several reasons why companies cannot and will not provide specific feedback, but I want to take the mystery out of that as much as possible and be able to provide the best candidate experience even if they didn’t get the job (which happens to be the majority of applicants for most open jobs!).

People shouldn’t be selected for a job because of how well they interview or the way they format their resumes – but we currently have no way of judging talent otherwise. So if that is the case, I want to make sure they can be as prepared as possible.

Is building a strong personal brand a “must have” or “nice to have” for modern recruiters?

It’s for sure a MUST HAVE! If you want to not only be relevant but be an effective recruiter, you have to differentiate yourself to not only your candidates but your current and potential future employers as well. You’re a business of one with a unique & clear value proposition! You must make that clear to both the company you work for and for the industry you serve.

Thank you for sharing your insights, Maasa.

Thank you!

***

You can contact Maasa on Twitter: @maasawalker or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maasawalker

Pictures: Maasa Walker and Microsoft

Pictures of Seattle: Matt Mrozinski, Twitter: @mattmrozinski  

Christie, can you explain the meaning behind your company’s name?

I recruit executives in the ad (advertising | branding) industry. Being in the digital media  industry I knew SEO and Google results would have an impact on my company’s visibility, so I looked at the major industry news sites such as Ad Week and Ad Age – and there you have it: Ad Recruiter. I think the name really helped clarify to industry executives what disciplines I focus on. I think it was a simple yet powerful naming strategy as a sole proprietor.

Social media conquered the world and it shows no sign of slowing down. What do you see as the most effective social media channel to recruit at?

Social platforms shift in popularity much like fashion does. Different platforms ‘trend’ and then new ones emerge – it’s very fluent and always shifting. Being ‘visible’ where the cutting edge, curious people are in social is important for recruiting and attracting the very best talent. Social media is composed of people and people are talent. It’s important to have a handle on how all the platforms operate. If I’m looking to attract college grads and interns – they absolutely love SnapChat. It’s such a fun platform, it’s a great place to attract them, because that’s where they are spending time! Instagram and Pinterest is a visual creative network for many aesthetic minded designers and creatives. It’s a great place to ‘discover’ talent and see how different people curate their boards and also see projects they are working on. LinkedIn is fantastic – for referencing and seeing peoples experience, it’s an invaluable tool. I’m not sure if it’s incredibly ‘social’ but they keep trying to improve that to some extent.

The best network (as of now) for Ad Recruiter is actually Twitter (w/LinkedIn) together. There are a few solid reasons why it’s great for communicating to talent and identifying talent. Twitter has low barrier to connecting to top executives and forming relationships. We’ve all experienced top executives ‘not accepting LinkedIn invites from strangers’ yet a follow is typically met with ‘how nice’ as a positive compliment! That makes it an ideal place to identify and build trust based on relationships with executives all over the world. I consider my social followers across all platforms  – my candidate pipeline (not an automated database of pdf CV attachments).

I use LinkedIn with Twitter at all times, in other words a new follower who’s bio on Twitter is vague, I’ll locate their LinkedIn profile to understand who they are and what they do. I advise all executives, to have a transparent / informative Twitter bio with a link to LinkedIn on Twitter – especially for career advancement, business networking and ‘being discovered’. The other platforms can be more personal and so people don’t share their real names, or where they work often times, especially Snapchat! So that’s makes it difficult to identify ‘targeted talent’ but attracting them there is always important!

You’re not only a seasoned recruiter, but also an employer brand specialist. Can you share how you engage candidates on social media?

Engaging candidates begins with knowing who it is as an employer you want to hire and attract.  Once you’ve identified the ‘type of candidates’ you want to attract and hire, you must then figure what the majority of them are passionate and care about. Engaging candidates flourishes when you share content {they} care about. So many companies are about themselves in social, when in reality they should be about adding value to their followers in what they are interested in. If you’re just posting job ads on Twitter – that’s not attracting passionate candidates. If you’re just talking about recruiting as a recruiter, again that’s not attracting candidates or adding value to talented executives you may be wishing to recruit. If you look at social media as a way to help others become better or more informed – you’re on the right foot.

When you follow talent back – you’re listening to talent, and as we all know listening is the number one way to build trust. Listening is also the number one way, to identify the innovators. I was once talking to a top three employer in technology and the hiring directors were not impressed with the software database applicants the in-house recruiters where presenting them. I asked them, if your recruiters aren’t on Twitter then how are they identifying the innovators – paper print magazines? I mean, employers should want recruiters to be engaged with top executives in social. If a finance search firm only shares social about recruitment – that’s typically not on the list of passions the people they want to recruit care about! Focusing on them not ‘us’ is what wins hearts and minds.

What do you think about branding of service-based companies and how this is different from the companies that have psychical products like Starbucks coffee?

There is no difference. A brand is who you are, what you stand for. For service-based companies the deliverer of the service must live the brand purpose for the company to deliver branded atmosphere. They deliver the brand, much like how Starbucks delivers its coffee with store/retail brand atmosphere. People – not place, become critical for ‘brand experience’ vs. physical atmosphere. It’s all the same in the end – experience.

Marketing and Human Resources have more in common in the recent years. What changed in the last decade in the HR industry?

Technology changed ‘reach’. A decade ago HR was dependent on post and pray job boards, not because they thought it efficient, but because it was all they had available to reach people on a mass scale. Collecting mass CV’s in databases was their only power. Before databases there were filing cabinets! What many HR departments struggle with is a fluid / tangible / constantly shifting line of candidates in their social followers. They have a hard time believing they are real without the PDF! Today, HR can develop a mass reach without solely relying on a public job board ‘service’ provider. That’s a pretty incredible shift! Now that HR has ‘reach’ available to them in social communications many intelligently understand that marketing to candidates is an essential component of employer brand and recruitment success.

The part HR needs to get comfortable with is ‘transparency’ with communications to their fans/followers on a socially acceptable level. Successful social media in HR is treating candidates as fans/customers and that means – delivering to them a trust based transparency communication style. In order for the very best executives to take a vulnerable position in applying to a new opportunity it requires a degree of trust and good will. When HR takes a social communication style that elicits respect, kindness, transparency and trust – they see the best recruitment results in terms of high quality applicants.

Candidate pipelines use to be the database PDF attachments, now the real-time candidate pipelines are the followers in social. This is a tremendous paradigm shift from paper  filing cabinets. It’s not who you ‘have’ anymore, it’s who you attract and the strategy you use to implement that successfully. A PDF isn’t a representation of a living human being. You can communicate to mass PDF’s by generated software email notes but it’s not as effective as talking to them respectfully in mass via Social. People don’t like being talked to by software.

What do you think HR can learn from Marketing and vice versa?

Attracting targeted people, and getting them to buy-in is Marketing and it is Recruitment.

It is incredible how many marketers become recruiters and how many recruiters shift into marketing… you were a Fine Art Consultant and then a Director of Promotions before shifting to the HR department. How did it happen?

I followed my passion of people, culture, art and innovation. All of my jobs have focused on those 4 characteristics – including HR. Recruitment is the art of attraction …. as is selling a painting …  or leading a promotional campaign, it’s about targeted ‘people attraction’.

What is the best social recruiting case study you have seen recently in media?

L’Oreal does a very good job: http://linkhumans.com/case-study/how-loreal-use-social-media-for-recruitment

And what is the newest EB trend you would like to explore?

I’ve been waiting for this for a while now – but with LIVE streams now accessible to anyone I’d like to see HR create and produce Live Job Description (events) instead of just only typed stagnate job descriptions: a meet the team, see the place – live tour if you will, that can be replayed and shared across social.

Can you recommend to our readers the best 3 books on EB, HR or Marketing?

Sure! “Blue Ocean Strategy” – INSEAD, “Radical Openness” – Don Tapscott + Anthony D. Willams, “Who Cares Wins” – David Jones

Thank you for the interview!

Too difficult to answer?

How about this one:  what do all the above have in common PLUS establishing an internet shop, volunteering in Africa and running photography workshops – all at the same time?

As a career coach, I might be slightly more attuned to these ideas I hear literally every day – from my friends, acquaintances, and clients. What is this all about, you might ask. Is it about who has the best idea? Who is the most creative? Maybe who can execute something and bring it to life? Or perhaps about picking and focusing on just one idea? I can  see something on a much deeper level: people desperately long to add value to the world and be truly useful to others. When others around me say ‘I want to open a vegan bed and breakfast’ or ‘I want to create a job search app’ or ’I want to be a life coach,’ I hear “I want to add value.” They want to change the world – or at least help improve parts of others’ lives. At the same time, we would like to use our unique talents, be creative, have fun, and earn for living (except, of course  volunteering). Earning while doing something valuable and enjoyable seems to be the trickiest part. I think many of us still believe that they can not earn well while doing something they love. Others think they first have to sort out their own careers and financial security and only THEN they can start adding value and changing the world.

Is adding value and helping others a luxury you can only afford after you yourself become established and successful?

To the some extent, yes, especially if you are living and working abroad. We all know the Maslow pyramid of basic needs. If your priority is an international career, the  very first basic needs are the working visa, financial security, and simply making it in another country. However, some of us wait for too long. I hear you saying ‘let me get this promotion, let me save more money, and THEN I will go out and realise my dreams of being helpful to others.’ You don’t have to wait that long or wait for ideal circumstances to truly start adding value.

We would like to demonstrate to you that this is realistic and possibly quicker than you think. That is why we are starting the Adding Value Series on this Coachify blog. During the next months, you will find here stories of people like yourself who help to make a world a better place in an extraoridinary way. You will read case studies, interviews and tips on:

– how to fully transition your career so that you finally know your work truly contributes to the world

– how to add voluntering to your busy life abroad

– how to organise your creative ideas and pick the one you would like to pursue

This is exciting, isn’t it!? If you want to be a part of it,  and don’t miss out on all the know-how, sign up for our newsletter HERE.

If you cannot wait to start contributing to the world but unsure where to start, you can contact me HERE for a free, one-on-one strategy call. There is a limited number of available time slots so hurry up. The biggest risk you take is learning something new about yourself and learning to use your unique talents in a meaningful way.

We are looking forward to learning and exploring the Adding Value stories with you. At the very least, it will be fun and hopefully give you a bit of inspiration along the way.

Written by Beata Dziedzic

Picture: Canva

About Michelle…

Her background is in occupational psychology and recruitment, having built 14 years of experience. She is a Recruitment Manager – Strategy, having joined Scott Logic after three years at Balfour Beatty and prior to that, AMEC. In her role she provides a bridge between recruitment and marketing activities for Scott Logic. She’s been in post since February 2016 and her favourite things (at work) are employer branding, selection and assessment.

Michelle, social media are already full-fledged recruiting tools. What do you see as the most effective social media to recruit for Scott Logic? There is so much out there and sometimes it can be a waste of time if not used properly.

As a business, we create carefully targeted content, including three different blogs for different audiences that are shared through various channels. Our technical blog, which our consultants write, shares our thoughts and experiences of using technologies, techniques and tools, and is very popular. Our insights blog is for business leaders and decision makers, and our careers blog helps software developers, test engineers and user experience designers with their job search while showcasing what it’s like to work at Scott Logic.

At Scott Logic, the quality of our service is defined by our people; they are our greatest asset, so we already know we want more people just like them (we’d love to clone them, but this technology has not been suitably developed yet!). So, we asked our people what social media sites they spend time on so we can focus our efforts on the channels that are relevant to them.

Based on this information, we are focusing our efforts on LinkedIn and Twitter as recruitment tools. As an organisation, we do have a LinkedIn Recruiter License so we are able to source directly using that. However, I think delivering engaging, useful content that positions our employees as thought leaders and showcases what it is like to work here helps make our recruitment brand more desirable.

I wonder how do you assess the efficiency of your content marketing? How you set yourself a goal to reach which specific content and what stats are you looking at to define the success?

Our strategy is a long term one focused primarily on raising awareness of the Scott Logic brand among our key audiences. So, tracking all applications to ask how each candidate heard about us is vital. We also survey all candidates to assess the experience they’ve had of our recruitment process to obtain anecdotal and qualitative feedback that helps us improve on an ongoing basis.

Can you share how you engage candidates in your employer brand on social media?

Our social media strategy is to create compelling content and ensure it is seen by the type of people we’re looking to join us, as well as constantly monitoring results to refine and improve. We have a current project looking at our employee brand proposition in more depth. We will use the information we get from our people to review how we set out our stall and position ourselves as differentiators to attract more talented individuals like them. We want to ensure that we give people who are thinking of moving jobs a realistic preview of what they can expect from working at Scott Logic, along with an understanding of what makes a good consultant. We also monitor Glassdoor very closely and encourage our people, as well as those interviewed for roles, whether successful or not, to provide us with honest feedback so we can continually improve.

You mentioned that your social media strategy is to create compelling content and ensure it is seen by the type of people you’re looking to join you. So, what are the main factors that motivate candidates to join your team?

Not only do we find candidates attracted through word of mouth, but because we have a number of thought leaders in the business, that regularly speak at events and write blog posts and white papers, we are gaining a solid reputation as a business in which you can grow through learning from other smart and passionate people.

According to recent studies, automotive industries have mastered social media use (Source: https://blog.thesocialms.com/automotive-social-media-four-car-brands-winning-at-social-media/) Do you think that certain industries are naturally more engaging than others on social media, or is this just a matter of budget?

I feel it’s always easier to sell an organisation as an employer of choice when you have a defined product and brand – who wouldn’t want to work at Harrods, Apple or The Walt Disney Company? If you look at LinkedIn’s most InDemand companies, the vast majority are product- based. People tend to understand what this type of company does as it is consumer-facing, and I’m sure budgets are massive.

However, for the last few years, tech companies have also been coming at the top of these lists, so as an industry, we are creating an interest for people to get into technology. As a relatively small company, and a business to business, service-led firm at that, we need to stay on top of our game with our recruitment strategy and social media use. We have significantly smaller budgets than some of the more well-known brands out there, so we have to use our resources more creatively. We have a number of exciting plans in the pipeline…watch this space!

 You said two very important things, one about branding and the second about trying to stay on top of your industry. Please tell me, since you don’t have a product to sell (like Apple or Mercedes) and you sell services – how are you trying to build a brand around something that’s so…well, let’s say – indefinite? You’re a consulting company, so could you possibly consult on everything related to technology?! And secondly, the tech industry is extremely competitive and fast-paced. How do you retain your employees, who are the most attractive candidates on the job market?

You’re correct in that we are a service-led, business to business company, and relatively niche. However, the brand is built on the exceptional quality of the service we provide, due to the talent, passion and expertise of our people. The service we offer is bespoke, so we work with each client on an individual basis to truly assess their needs and build a solution that exceeds them, as well as lasting into the future. We drive business process improvements and organisational change for our clients through technology. We pride ourselves on creating a culture of learning and encourage all staff to embed themselves in all aspects of technology to develop themselves personally. This allows them, and us, to keep abreast of changes in the tech landscape.

Looks like marketing and HR have more in common in recent years. What’s changed in the last decade in the HR industry?

What has changed in the last decade in terms of recruitment – everything! Where recruiters used to place traditional print job advertisements in their local newspaper or trade magazine, the digital revolution has expanded our options. And there is still a place for such localised, targeted tactics. However, due to numerous disrupters such as LinkedIn and Glassdoor, increased competition for talented individuals and the evolution of the career from the job for life to the gig economy, the power has shifted away from employers and there is more choice now for high calibre job seekers to choose where they spend the vast majority of their lives – at work.

Employers need to craft a compelling message and give potential employees a real understanding about what it is like to work for their organisation; this is where the crossover with marketing has occurred. Though, we do not carry out recruitment campaigns around specific roles. We’ve always got our eye on the market so we are in a position to recruit exceptional candidates as and when we see them.

Do you mean that you create a job for exceptional candidates on the spot? First, find the person and then…find an occupation for the hire?

Our business is very fluid in the way it works and our organic growth is steady. We operate in a very Agile way, and generally hire technology agnostic, polyglot developers (developers who can write in more than one coding language). Our client project teams shrink and grow at different stages of release, and we have a number of projects taking place at any one time, all at different phases, including internal projects that help some of our junior developers improve their skills. This way of working means that if we see a good developer, test engineer or user experience designer then we are in a strong position to be able to hire them.

What HR can learn from marketing and vice versa?

There are many skills that lend themselves to both disciplines, such as branding, storytelling, segmentation, search engine optimisation (SEO), generating advocacy and networking, and I personally have felt this evolution, particularly over the last three or four years as digital channels have embedded themselves in our culture.

HR can learn from marketing on how to see themselves in more commercial terms, as huge contributors to the bottom line, while marketers can learn to be a little more human from HR, in terms of the power of the candidate experience, not only at the beginning of an individual’s appointment, but throughout the employee life cycle.

I had the impression that it’s the other way around, that HR managers often only contact candidates when they need them, and if the candidate is not interested, they often stop nurturing the relationship with them. Is it different at Scott Logic?

The relationship with HR and recruitment should not end when a candidate begins a role, and while I think this can be the case in some large organisations, we are a relatively small firm and are continually working to ensure we maintain strong relationships with all of our people, from the moment they first hear of the company, until in many cases long after they leave. Because of this we’ve had some staff members leave and come back to us after gaining experience elsewhere. Your people are your biggest asset, and their stories can be incredibly valuable in attracting new candidates; this doesn’t just apply to successful applicants. We’ve also had applicants come to us after being referred by those who weren’t offered a role themselves. The important thing is to leave people with a positive experience at every touch point, regardless of the relationship.

We know that normally marketers keep sending newsletters, nurture the customers on social media by fueling them with news, info for their entertainment, to create a community around the brand. If you could explain more how marketers can become more human in the sense you’re talking about?

As a recruitment specialist, my role does involve some overlap into marketing, but I’m not a marketing expert, so I may not be best placed to comment. That said, what I was alluding to was the fact that traditionally, marketing is a very commercial discipline that works to place messaging so it is seen by individuals with a view to them spending money with the brand. Historically, this has tended to be a one-way relationship, while HR works to have ongoing two-way conversations with candidates throughout the recruitment process and beyond.

Since we talk about marketing…we know marketers love metrics. What is (or should be) the most important metric for a great recruiter to track candidates?

Quality of hire is the most crucial aspect of measurement for us. It’s all about whether the individual is the best fit for the role as well as the business, and vice versa.

What’s the best social recruiting case study you’re seen recently in media?

Through a podcast, I became aware of the work that Craig Fisher has done at CA Technologies, using a rather lovely piece of technology to create employee brand advocates that helped the company spread the word and attract great talent. I am very encouraged by the results and hope to implement something similar here shortly.

And what’s the newest EB trend you would like to explore?

Good question…candidate experience is our team’s key focus and to help us create the best possible experience, I’d love to explore some new technologies that are now available. We have an incredibly good recruitment system, developed in-house and it serves us well. However, modern recruitment systems are doing some great things now, combining the traditional applicant tracking systems with a customer relationship management system and social referral systems, which will give us greater insight into the experience we’re providing, and enable us to communicate more smoothly with candidates throughout their application journey and beyond. This is another way in which our recruiting efforts are aligning with those of marketing. I also love data and recruitment analytics, so when selecting a system, I find being able get deep into the numbers attracts me, as it helps us to develop more effective ways to measure quality of hire.

Can you recommend to our readers the best three books you’ve read on employer branding, HR or marketing?

I am a prolific reader and reading fiction is one of the main ways I relax. In terms of EB, HR or marketing though, I tend to get my information from key influencers, and as such, spend time keeping up to date with podcasts and blogs. Three of my favourites are:

Matt Aldler’s Recruiting Futures podcast. Matt has a series of guests speaking to him on the future of recruiting. Great for listening to on the way to work.  

Meghan M. Biro from TalentCulture. Meghan speaks about the future of work and has a live podcast on the subject every Wednesday.

Ted Bauer’s The Context of Things blog. Ted is a highly entertaining writer, he makes me laugh and usually tackles topics around leadership, marketing and the future of work in a very matter of fact and common sense way.

If I had to choose a book it would be Lazlo Block’s Work Rules. While not similar culturally, as an organisation, we are similar to Google in what we look for in future employees; it’s useful for me to see how Google tackles talent acquisition, as we face similar challenges.

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Jennifer Jones Newbill is a quintessence of a modern HR director who is not afraid to play by the marketing rules to achieve higher quality hires as well as, lower turnover and better engagement rates for Dell. She has over 20 years of Human Resource experience working as an Employment Branding/Social Media and Recruiting Specialist and Leadership Development Expert, and she has also managed various global and regional HR programs/projects for Fortune 50 companies. Today she shares valuable lessons about developing the right set of skills within the HR profession and social recruiting best practices based on her experience at Dell.

Jennifer, you’re a Senior Manager: Global Candidate Attraction, Engagement and Experience. Your title already shows that your job is not a standard set associated with the tasks within an HR department. Can you tell me more about where your title comes from and why a Senior HR manager role would not be enough to describe your expertise?
I wanted to describe myself and what our team does in a way that was easy to understand and describe. It was tough and yes my title is a bit long, but typically people I speak to understand quickly. Our team is all tasked with candidate attraction (messaging including digital and, print as well as technologies used) engagement (social media and employee advocacy in partnership with our marketing team) and analyzing and improving the overall candidate experience.

I wonder how you’ve gotten involved in the role that links HR and Marketing?
In 2010, Marie Moynihan, Global VP Talent and Chief Diversity officer was appointed to her role and for the first time we had a global leader who had a centralized team (along with regional/local recruiting teams). At that time, we began looking at our standards, processes and policies across all regions and locations and that included evaluating our employment brand, digital properties, recruitment marketing strategies, etc. My role has evolved quite a bit since then including growing a global team that has strong proficiency in social media, content expertise and keeping a thread of candidate experience in mind with everything they do!

Do you think Marketing and HR have much in common? What changed in the last 10-15 years in your industry?
Marketing and HR have very similar goals – in a nutshell – candidate and customer attraction and retention. And it is clear that candidates and customers are frequently one in the same. Current or potential future customers can have their sentiment about your company influenced if they are referred to a job or interview with the company – very powerful stuff… There is huge opportunity for Marketing and HR to partner and collaborate in a way that is mutually beneficial.

Let’s get into details with the referral hires program at Dell you were involved in. In one of the interviews, you said that referrals were one of the best sources of hire and that you managed to achieve 50-125% increase in global referral hires. Global Employee Referral rate was 38% globally, and over 50% in some locations (previously only 19% in 2010). If you were to compare these numbers with the past, do you still think, it’s the best source of hire nowadays?
I can beat the drum about the importance of referrals all day every day! Regardless of the evolution of our digital lifestyles, we still believe in and trust what our friends and connections tell us – about products, services and yes, jobs. Where I think the industry struggles a bit is rewarding those that refer really great quality hires for the company. That is a next step for us at Dell – agreeing on a clear Quality of Hire metric and filtering by source – in particular referrals. Who is referring the best people/fit with the company? How do we drive this activity with our employees further?

Dell is on every social media channel including Pinterest. Which channel do you find most useful for recruiting?
Facebook and Twitter continue to have very inexpensive promotional solutions and we absolutely see hires through those platforms. Other social platforms are still important but play more of an influencing/branding role than direct hires. We don’t see people, for example, going to a job directly from Pinterest. However, we just hired someone onto our global social media team who specifically mentioned our Pinterest page and our Careers channel specifically. The mention was all praise and how it created more positive sentiment of Dell in their mind. This is a win even if we didn’t hire the person ‘from’ Pinterest.

Interesting. Looks like you also do a good job in terms of social listening across the board. With your Social Media Listening Command Center you are able to aggregate more than 6 million conversations about Dell every year (and that’s just only conversations in English). How are you able to manage and make sense of the demographics, reach, sentiment, subject matter of the discussions? How do you measure the brand sentiment across the board?
At Dell, we use Radian6 to listen to conversations but we also partner with our external partner, TMP Worldwide, to produce listening reports specific to our company culture/employees/candidates. The challenge for a large, global B2C company like Dell is the majority of the conversations are about our products and services so we need to be mindful that although those are important to overall brand sentiment, we need to filter/slice the commentary a bit further. The Marketing team has a whole staff of experts that monitor and support the conversations happening ‘real time’ in a couple of locations around the world!

It’s quite a lot of work. Can you give an example of important brand sentiment (could be negative) and tell me how you tackle this issue?
From a talent perspective, we want to know what people are sharing online (including sentiment sites like Glassdoor) around our culture, organization, change management, compensation and benefits and career opportunities. We are able by consistently reviewing and monitoring trends. Something to point out – sentiment and trends absolutely vary based on location. This can indicate local culture and company culture in that location – the leadership in that country or location, etc. For example, in Brazil, our sentiment is very positive. We can see consistently across multiple platforms including our internal employee survey, Tell Dell as well as Glassdoor. We can also see that engagement on social media across various platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook) is higher. More engagement tends to tell a story – that people are more involved and motivated.

How is social recruiting different, if we would like to compare Facebook to LinkedIn? What recruiting techniques do you use on Facebook – that you would never use on LinkedIn and vice versa?
LinkedIn is a great tool for recruiters and have a lot of possibilities for recruiters to identify and engage with specific individuals on the platform. Facebook is great for engaging with groups of people – for example, video streaming is something we will be testing this summer and we are really excited about it.

Back to employer branding. I love the fact that you guys implemented the news feed on the Dell job page for users to see that someone has just applied for a job offer. There are also videos presenting people hired by Dell, who tell about their experiences while working for the company. What other employer branding techniques, are you using online to support your hiring process?
Our people are our greatest asset (and really the best asset of any company!) – this helps drive our referrals and trust in our brand so it creates a super healthy eco-system. We create not only videos but social testimonials showcasing people in different markets sharing what they value about Dell. This includes flexible work, work-life balance, etc. The key is to share stories and share content that is honest.

Can you share with us other social recruiting practices that bring you good results?
Blogging – if you consider that social recruiting which I do – what we find beneficial is the storytelling and providing a bit more detail/context through a longer form. Shorter and sweeter works really well most of the time but we can take an ongoing conversation and provide more details through blogging. We post on our blog platform Direct2Dell.

What topics work best for Dell in terms of blogging?
Our people stories – we feature our early in career hires about how Dell has helped them launch their career. Also stories about our connected and flexible work where team members share their personal stories and how flexibility has benefited their professional and personal lives.

Since not every company has a budget of Dell, what practices would you recommend to a SME to get started with an effective social recruiting? What to focus on first?
A lot of things we do don’t require budget or minimal budget really. Blogging as I mentioned above is the time it takes the individual. The company doesn’t even need a blog platform as individuals can post on LinkedIn publisher now. Social videos are what we call phone/mobile based created videos that are very short and cost nothing. Also our activity on social media with posting images and encouraging our team members to share with their networks (again, our greatest asset) costs nothing. There is effort and time associated with but cost is little to nothing.

Dell trains their employees to become “Dell Certified Social Media and Community Professionals.” So far around 10,000 employees were trained to augment their jobs via social media. What are the biggest successes of SMaC U program and what things you would do differently, if you could turn back time?
We have actually trained to date over 16,000 employees! We also train our summer interns as part of their development and introduction to Dell. The biggest success is the ongoing focus on the program including monthly power hours by topic (how to deal with trolls, what is the deal with SnapChat, etc.) as well as the revisiting and updating of the content. The opportunity we have is to continue to have executives model this activity and behavior. Some of them do a fantastic job but I think there continues to be opportunity there. The good news is that a Social Executive program has been created and is proving to be quite successful.

Is the Social Executive program the same as SMaC U program? Or this is a new program?
It is a part of our SMaC U program but is a track designed specifically for executives. We find they have unique needs and the social media team has done an excellent job customizing for individual executives.

Social media environment changes as we speak. How do you stay up to date on a daily basis? Could you recommend sources for HR managers in order to grow in their professions and become fully-fledged modern social recruiters?
I primarily stay up to date by following key influencers on Twitter and LinkedIn. I also have to remind myself that just because something is new and sexy or interesting doesn’t mean it is for our team at Dell. The challenge is sifting through the noise. So, I also am a member of several Facebook groups comprised of experts in our field (Employment and Talent Branding) – these people act as sounding boards for each other and provide great lessons learned and advice to each other. I attend events as well but there is really only so much travel that I can do in all reality so monitoring trends online is very effective on a day over day basis. The social media leads on our global team are constantly scanning the marketplace. Our lead in India, Vandana Bellur, we refer to as “The Oracle”! She literally knows everything in our space and is constantly keeping our team (including me!) updated on the very latest.

There’s a lot being recently written about machine learning software that achieves better results in recruiting than humans. According to what I’ve read on https://powermore.dell.com/ the software called Evolv’s had a 35 percent lower 30-day attrition rate, reported 29 percent fewer hours of missed work in the first six months and handled calls 15 percent more quickly than those hired through the company’s existing recruiting services provider. Do you think that recruiters might be eventually replaced by the machines?
This is a good question and really, only time will truly tell. If you had asked me about machining a decade ago I would say no way but it does seem with certain processes it is possible. I can’t imagine that a human centric and relationship oriented process like recruiting could ever be people free – but again only time will tell. I continue to be amazed and surprised by technology!

What traits a good HR manager should have to be successful?
Listen to your team and value what inputs they have. Most importantly, trust them and TELL them that you trust them. This has worked wonders for me in my latest role – in particular leading a global team. Also, be responsive and be present. This is hard with all of the noise I was referring to earlier but people just want to feel that they are being heard and their ideas are adding value.

What other companies do a great job in social recruiting? What campaign were you impressed by recently?
Oracle does a great job – Celinda Appleby has a great team that is fully in house (content, design, copywriting, social). Indeed, Dropbox, HomeAway, GoDaddy, and Cisco are others that come to mind. There is a lot of competition for companies to differentiate their organization and their culture via social media in particular and all of these companies have invested in their employment brand and have great people on and leading their teams!

You’ve just participated in the Top Talent Summit in Toronto, ON on April 20-21. What would be your key notes from the conference and what changes (do you think) will the future bring for HR departments?
Better collaboration and partnership with teams outside of their own organization. I love what HR Open Source (#HROS) is bringing to the table for our function– best practices and case studies being openly shared across the HR and Recruiting teams – this is something that will benefit everyone but I don’t think I would have seen this a decade ago. The support, partnership and familial community in this space are blessings!

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