President Bush attended a fund raiser on Palm Beach this evening. I work about three miles from Palm Beach International, and of course Air Force One landed just as I left work. So while I was waiting for the motorcade to pass and let me continue home – I had some time to sit and listen to “All Thing’s Considered” on NPR.
On this edition, Robert Siegel interviewed Mike Pegg (listen here) about his Google Maps Mania blog and the Google Maps mashup craze. I immediately got to thinking about how targeted and local Google Maps are and, how they would translate brilliantly for recruitment marketing. How? Visual job searches. Of course as soon as I looked into it I realized my idea was hardly unique – Mike’s blog already lists the sites that are using mashups for Recruitment – http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/#jobs
For the Job Seeker – Visual Search
With this idea – job boards could offer visual search results. Instead of the usual overwhelming assortment of jobs that are returned, a map where you could then choose to see jobs based on their location would appear. The sample below is from Glendor.com’s job search page.
For the Recruiter – Visual Resume Search
Take a look at how FreeRecruiting.com has used Google maps for recruiters – The Linux Job, Resume and Consulting Market . FreeRecruiting.com runs 25 job boards, and they are all enabled with Google Maps. You can do a traditional text search to see all the relevant resumes. As candidates update their data in the database, you will be able to see the candidate posted on this map. FreeRecruiting.com claims that this is the world’s first map of Linux Professionals. Only the Linux board has data today, but their other job boards will be displaying data shortly.
This is the tip of the iceberg with how we can use mashups for recruitment marketing. Take a look at all the mashups for different categories that Mike has on his blog. Some of the best examples for how to apply this in a local marketing strategy can be found within Real Estate – take a look at this mashup – http://nosyneighbormap.com/. Other industries have already added images, additional information, and even video to their mashups.
In one of our recent post we spoke about the web’s power to bring authenticity to employer brands. I can see mashups’ use being expanded for employer branding, such that, a job seeker can find your open position on a map, click on its pin point, and have images of people currently working there – maybe some testimonials about why they work at the company or in that department, or for that manager, etc. Google could easily integrate this into Google Base right now.
The interview also featured some really fun things that people have created by hacking and placing overlays on Google Maps. When you are done here – check out some of the best one’s they discussed (BeerMapping.com; Dig to the other side of the Earth; Real-time locations of all running suburban trains in Dublin, Ireland.)
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