As an example, I think Wal-Mart would have been better served by participating in the conversation first, before jumping out there with their own blog. Or at least one that has a diff look and feel.

Good stuff, folks!

Honeywell is one of the few large corporations that understands that blogging is both a recruitment and retention tool. Those who understand blogging almost all get that blogging is great for recruitment because of the highly targeted content that it…..

We started this effort around June and have been adding more bloggers as fast as we can recruit them. These blogs are focused toward the software developer audience.

Second, Rohit’s got it right. I was just talking about this yesterday. The conversation is the magic, blogging is just the medium. It’s a highly efficient medium (megaphone versus postcard), but it’s definitely not for everyone. I can pinpoint a number of reasons why a company should not blog (but rather choose a different method of conversing). So recruiters should stop letting people tell them that they should blog but examine *whether* they should and if they do, how to be effective.

Often, I think we get excited about new techology due to novelty but forget to examine whether it’s filling a need (or extending a value proposition). Some things to think about WRT blogging: your corporate culture, whether you have the right people to do the blogging, whether jobs are crafted to allow for blogging, current state of your employment brand (online specifically), whether your candidates are blog savvy. It’s not a simple yes or no answer. And of course, I didn’t have the benefit of considering all these things before I started blogging (hindsight and all). Though I will say that I get pretty excited to find a good, new business or recruiting blog too.

I look forward to seeing your thoughts on more of Easton’s posts about this.

A blog is not always the answer. There are some situations where brands may realize far more effect from participating in existing dialogue than in launching their own blog – and though it may seem like the default way to have your own voice in the conversation, sometimes it is more important to find other ways to participate rather than adding just a soapbox online for your own opinion.

Not everyone HAS to have a corporate or recruiting blog. Frankly, many companies need to make internal changes first before they are really equipped to do it right and make it a productive forum – but participating in the conversations (not just monitoring them) is the crucial factor for me.

That’s a very good question, especially considering that blogs are ideal if you want to (at least partly) avoid the incredibly formal “show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine” exchange that normally takes place between applicant and employer. It’s a highly asymmetric exchange for the applicant, who hardly gets to ask any questions or find out more about the inner workings of the company.