It’s no secret I am an email address hoarder, therefore, I get a lot of email. I am also an inbox (near) zero person, so I delete a lot of email. I was doing some spot research on what gets kept and what gets trashed not too long ago to see if there was a pattern.

Can we talk about the whole “thank you note” kerfuffle? The absurdity of it all. I mean, seriously, you won’t hire someone who doesn’t send a thank you note? Ok, well, good luck to you and your old school nonsense. It’s going to be pretty hard to sustain or grow a business who goes out there to say, you know what…this whole thank you note thing is THE deal breaker.

For the love of Pete, please stop crafting pieces about Generation Z and how they want these absurd things like feedback, and communications, and good managers, and oxygen. It’s draining and infuriating. If you want to write about a cohort, come to the table with an insight that is genuinely unique about the audience.

Seems to me that there are a lot of people freaking out about the robots. Chatbots are all the rage. Snatching up some nice funding, getting wonderful press, and solving some real problems for customers. It’s a remarkable time to be alive and working in talent acquisition. As much hope is being put in these chatbots, there is a hefty amount of fear surrounding the them. People are genuinely worried that robots will replace them.

Funny thing about the humans, they will fill whatever vessel we are given. We fill our homes with all kinds of things. We fill our cars with gear. We fill handbags will all kinds of items (hi lipbalm!). It doesn’t matter what you hand a human, we will fill it. This even includes time. We fill our hours and our days. You see, time is absolutely a vessel that is happily filled by every human I know. When we give people time to do something, chances are they will take the whole time they are allotted.

There is no shortage of online ink being spilled telling candidates how to behave and how not to behave. This week, I read a piece telling people not to ask about salary and benefits in the interview. And this isn’t an isolated piece. Don’t have a gap in your resume! Don’t job hop! Don’t apply to too many roles at our company! It doesn’t seem to end. It’s like jobsplaining.

It’s about all talent. Even those who will never be successful with OUR companies. It’s about creating experiences for current employees, former employees, people who LOVE our brand. It is about a Talent Experience. And if we are going to create great ones that stand out, we need to accept a few things.

In looking at how our candidates are facing when it comes to changing jobs, Now couple this mind-blowing choice top talent has that forces them to sift through information that feels generic, with the fact that changing jobs is a top 20 stress creator! Changing jobs is scary. It’s not like changing toothpaste.

ve been lucky enough to have watched modern recruiting and recruitment marketing grow up. Everything from running the first jobs-related banner ad, to posting jobs on Usenet groups, to launching a MySpace campaign for recruiting in 2005, I’ve had a front row seat in the war for talent. In some ways, I was a general, in others, a correspondent, and no matter what capacity, what I witness is now over. And this war for talent, here’s the truth: nobody won.

There have been a LOT of articles in the last year about candidates ghosting recruiters. The bulk of the articles are just gobsmacked. People are shocked that candidates are just not responding. Me, I’ve been all like: “HA!” It was only a matter of time, folks. Talent Acquisition has perfecting the job ghosting for more than 20 years.

The things we say as marketers and recruiters is sometimes telling in how we feel about job seekers, candidates, and talent. Our out-loud voices can be really obnoxious if you think about it. I’ve been marketing things for about 20 years and in those years, I’ve been to countless meetings and read thousands of blog posts. In these posts and meetings I come across some language that simply sucks

Be proud they selected your company, because you have done a lot of work to get them to this point with brand, however you need to take care of that relationship, that’s valuable! They chose your name and reputation, however the “buying power” (sticking in through the hiring process) is in your performance; your communication, when and how you engage your applicants.

We all know that an amazing candidate experience can make all the difference when you’re competing for talent, but designing a compelling experience (let alone executing it) isn’t an easy task. In our efforts to continually improve and push the envelope in recruitment marketing…

Bear with me, friends, it’s been a wild few weeks. I am about to go on a true ramble. Welcome to the random, inner-workings of my brain…

Working with brands for more than 20 years to make their recruiting easier has shown me a lot of stuff. From launching early career sites in the 90s, to MySpace campaigns in 2005, I have seen people try a lot of things to attract people to their applications. We get SUPER creative when it comes to getting people to that thing that they hate.

My beloved dad, who we lost last month, always liked to point out to me that I have two ears and one mouth for a reason. He liked to tell me this because I talk a lot. And loud. Now, we have social platforms that let everyone talk, a lot. And loud.

As I was mulling over the whole consultancy over the holiday break, I had an epiphany. My son said he might want a new phone. He said the current phone worked really well, so he wasn’t sure, but some of the things he likes to do on his phone require an OS that doesn’t work on his current device. Now, I, too have been thinking about a new phone because I want a better camera.

A thought leader in our space, Craig Fisher, espouses that you should have four gives for every ask you make in social media. Meaning you give people four pieces of valuable information. Four ideas. Four insights. Four nuggets before you ever ask for anything. I love this concept and have put it a little differently in some old posts on Social Media Explorer (and by old, I mean 2013 old. Obama was president old.

Filling reqs isn’t as simple as posting and praying anymore. You know the story already. Record unemployment, gig economy, yada, yada, yada. Our reality is more about understanding our audience and how they make decisions. We need to attract them, grab their attention with the things that matter to them. Late last year, I ran a survey with a customer

A friend reached out over the holidays to ask for some support on Employer Brand KPI. Since I am a measure twice, cut once kind of gal, I put together this quick and dirty list of KPI to put into your strategy/scorecard. Enjoy!

Back in 2005 I launched a MySpace campaign. I know, right?! My Space. HA! And having been both a consultant and a practitioner, I have heard and offered so many different pieces of advice to get things working for a brand. To drive that engagement. To get our messages out there and to use this new tool as it was designed to be used, to create discovery, dialog and connection. But my favorite and one of the most common themes has been that our brands have to be more human. You’ve heard this, right? Be human. Mr. Brand, start by being human, it will work, I swear!