I have been writing about utilizing social media and social networking to connect to candidates and build candidate communities here on EXCELER8ion for about 3 years, and in just the last 6 months, I have felt a very powerful wave of corporate acceptance and understanding that they need to have a social recruiting strategy. Large corporate clients are asking en masse to have their teams educated on social recruiting techniques and it is the number one topic that I am asked to speak about.

Does this mean that you should launch a blog (like my favorite MicroSpotting.com), start a facebook page or use Twitter to hold public chats with candidates like E&Y, or should you develop a YouTube channel to distribute video like Deloitte? Should you create widgets to distribute your jobs, events, and other career related content? Should you develop a social game or an employee social network where candidates can interact and ask questions to get the insider’s perspective?

Maybe you should do all of this. But before you buy into the latest service trying to sell you a socket page or build you a community – Do you know the status of your Employer reputation online?

Are you regularly monitoring what people find in Google when they search for information about working for your company? (and they are searching – to the tune of hundreds of thousands of career related searches every month.) Do you know what people are talking about as it relates to working for your company? Do you know who is talking, where they are talking, if it is positive – negative – or just neutral, and why?

No, this isn’t a test. Auditing, analyzing, understanding, and monitoring your online employer reputation should be the first step to developing a successful social recruiting strategy. Without first listening to and understanding what people are already saying about you as an employer, without knowing what issues exist or topics that are already being discussed – your company is in no position to begin effectively participating.

Launching social recruiting initiatives without understanding the state of your online reputation first can be a recipe for disaster. You may discover that launching a recruiting blog is the way to go, but you might also discover that there are issues that are actively being discussed that should be addressed as a first step.

So how do you gather this info about your online reputation? Google “Online Reputation Management” and you will find a myriad of resources from how to set up Google Alerts to full monitoring software packages such as Radian6 and SM2.

The information that candidates find online about you as an employer can be highly influential and considered more credible than the info they find on your corporate career site. I will cover these options, time needed, and how to tailor/focus your monitoring efforts to discussions that affect Employer Brand and candidate opinions specifically in the weeks to come.

Shannon co-authors EXCELER8ion with her other half Julian Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.

Shannon is a regular speaker in the HR & Talent Acquisition space where she’s known for her work in social media and integrated digital engagement. By day Shannon works at a Recruitment Marketing Agency.

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We launched popula8ion here on EXCELER8ion and at popula8ion.com this weekend.

popula8ion is a Google custom search engine focused specifically on Sourcing, Recruiting, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing & Communications, Candidate & Employee Experience. By hand picking the sites that get included in the popula8ion CSE, we can control the topics and focus of the results that are returned. For example – I can make sure that anything in my search engine that relates to ERP is about Employee referral programs (and not enterprise resource planning). Or anything about Recruiting relates to sourcing and recruiting top talent for companies, not sports teams.

Try it out. If you would like to collaborate so that you can add sites to help popula8 – popula8ion – please send us an email at: info*at*exceler8.com and we will set you up.

163 sites as of 12/07/06 have been indexed in the search engine and counting. Jason from Recruiting.com asked me for a list of all of the web sites and blogs that have been indexed so far, so here you go:

Human Nature At Work – added 12/07/06
Employment Law Colorado – added 12/07/06
Digital Recruiter – added 12/07/06
InSourced – added 12/06/06
Recruiting Nevada – added 11/24/06
Jim Thomason’s “The Business of People” – added 11/21/06
Trac Talent added 11/20/06
e-recruitment strategy
Evolving Ideas
Hire Strategies
Indeed Blog
TMP blog
Jim Stroud 2.0
HR’s Brand New Experience
Charlene Li – Recruitment blogs – a no-brainer
Recruitment Technology: Beyond the ATS
One Louder
A corporate blog from SuccessFactors
Being Bold Blog
The HR Blog
CATS
David Maister – Added November 4, 2006
Leading Questions
Wikipedia.org – Employer Branding
Wikipedia.org – Recruiter
Wikipedia.org – Recruitment
Gautam Ghosh – Management Consultant
HireBlog – Recruiting Technology Blog
Beyond HR
Internet Recruiting: Past, Present and Future
SimplyBlog
Bob Sutton – Work Matters
Career Hub
Chinwag Jobs Blog
Alliance HR Network: Recruiter-news
Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques
Blue Sky Resumes Blog
College Recruiter
HR Management
http://www.inc.com/resources/recruiting/
Job|Search Marketing
About.com – Human Resources
The Imagence Partners
it’s ALL about the experience
Internet Inc
The Human Capitalist
JobSyntax
Management Craft Added October 30, 2006
meritocracy.net
http://nytimes.typepad.com/employercentral/
Online Recruitment Blog
http://ontalent.typepad.com
http://portal.recruiting.com/Viva
http://prplanet.typepad.com
http://recruitermarketing.com
http://recruitersdumpingground.blogspot.com
http://recruitingfly.blogspot.com
http://recruitingrevolution.blogspot.com
http://recruitomatic.wordpress.com
http://resourcingstrategies.com
http://rmwilsonconsulting.typepad.com
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/04/21st_century_re.html
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2006/08/5_rules_of_soci.html
http://searchniche.blogs.com
http://sixdegreesfromdave.com
http://social-media-optimization.com/2006/10/recruiting-through-social-media/
http://sourcerersapprentice.spaces.live.com
http://systematichr.com
TalentEcology Added – November 4, 2006
http://theaccidentalreporter.typepad.com
http://thebogles.com
http://thechad.jobcentral.com
http://thedayinrecruiting.com
http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com
http://thesourcingriff.blogspot.com
http://workblogging.blogspot.com
http://www.adlerconcepts.com
http://www.airsdirectory.com
http://www.authoria.com
http://www.bls.gov
http://www.blueskyresumesblog.com
http://www.careerjournal.com
http://www.careerxroads.com/news/articles.html
http://www.cecsearch.com
http://www.cenekreport.com
http://www.cheezhead.com
http://www.corzen.com/recruitment/index.aspx
http://www.diversityjobs.com/blog
http://www.diversityworking.com
http://www.dol.gov
http://www.drjohnsullivan.com
http://www.employmentblawg.com
http://www.ere.net
http://www.ere.net/blogs/cybersleuthing/
http://www.ere.net/blogs/e-cruit_blog/
http://www.ere.net/blogs/Hire_Calling/
http://www.ere.net/blogs/The_CareerXroads_Annex/
http://www.ere.net/blogs/world_of_talent/
http://www.exceler8.com
http://www.exceler8ion.com
http://www.getthejob.com/Community/blogs/water_cooler/default.aspx
http://www.glresources.com
http://www.goto.jobs
http://www.hodes.com
http://www.hodesiq.com
http://www.hr.com
http://www.hrmarketer.com
http://www.hrmdirect.com
http://www.hrseo.com
http://www.humancapitalinstitute.org
http://www.interbiznet.com
http://www.itzbigblog.com
http://www.jobmachine.net
http://www.jobster.blogs.com
http://www.keepingthepeople.com
http://www.kennedyinfo.com
http://www.magicpotofjobs.com
http://www.management-issues.com
http://www.managementrecruiter.com
http://www.marketingheadhunter.com
http://www.naceweb.org
http://www.nasrecruitment.com
http://www.newsvine.com/hiring
http://www.newsvine.com/jobs
http://www.onrec.com
http://www.people-metrics.com
http://www.recruitersnetwork.com
http://www.recruiting.com
http://www.recruitinganimal.com
http://www.recruitingbloggers.com
http://www.recruitingroundtable.com
http://www.recruitment-views.com
http://www.shaker.com
http://www.shrm.org
http://www.specht.com.au
http://www.spherion.com
http://www.squidoo.com/exceler8ion/
http://www.squidoo.com/wirelessjobs/
http://www.stlrecruiting.com
http://www.supersourcer.com
http://www.susanstrayer.com/kaleidoblog/ Added October 30, 2006
http://www.talentism.com
http://www.taleo.com
http://www.thefutureofwork.net/blog/
http://www.trueloveofcoffee.com
http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/ Added October 31, 2006
http://www.vault.com
http://www.versantblogs.com
http://www.vurv.com
http://www.weddles.com/recruiternews/
http://www.wetfeet.com
http://www.wetjello.com/blog/
http://www.workforce.com
http://www.workforceatm.org
http://www.yourhrguy.com
http://xtremerecruiting.org

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