For many people, LinkedIn is THE website for social media networking. Without denying the wide reach (upwards of 120 million public profiles) and general usefulness of LinkedIn, it is just one out of the many ways social media can be used to seek out new employees. Creative job recruiters have achieved results by effectively using other social media resources, and the staggeringly high number of unemployed persons are eager to seek out new and more clever ways to land a job. A few alternatives to LinkedIn that have proven effective are:

Twitter

The beauty of Twitter is it allows users to connect with people they do not know using common interests. If a job recruiter is interested in seeking new employees, he/she is likely to already have a healthy catalog of Twitter followers to send out a tweet to. The Twitter tool Twellow searches user biographies and the URLs on user bios. While recruiters are limited to 140 character messages in their advertisements for employment, the benefit comes in how accessible and, ultimately, viral these messages come to be. A response from one person can domino into responses from multiple people as public back-and-forth conversation ensues.

Twitter is also user-friendly for the job-seeker in search of job postings. Several job search engines scan Twitter for information about available positions. For example, by posting a listing on TwitterJobSearch.com, users can search Twitter for jobs by keyword. This will mean strategically phrasing your listing to fit what you expect your future employees to be looking for. By experimenting with the tools available on Twitter, job recruiters can greatly improve their chances of finding new employees.

Blogs

Blogs are often overlooked as a means of seeking employees. However, recently, large blogs have started to include job banks in their websites using software from companies such as Job-a-matic.  Some blogs that have embraced this functionality include Guy Kawasaki’s blog, GigaOM, and Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy Blog. Using these blogs as examples, recruiters can utilize currently existing blogs such as these or create their own employment-based blog to solely focus on recruitment and job banks.

Or, if a job recruiter is looking to be a little more cunning, it might be a wise idea to comment on reputable blogs that are relevant to the open job position, advertising the need for an employee.

Smartphone Job Apps

Sometimes timing is everything. A recent survey by LinkUp found that 20% of job seekers use their Smartphones to look for a job. Other apps like CareerBuilder, JobCompass, Monster, BusyBee and a new app from Manpower can help job recruiters find a new employee by posting a listing that fits a customized and filtered search matching required qualifications for the job. Also, these apps permit job recruiters to take advantage of RSS or alerts from these sites. Applications give the employer more control and particular selection over who they choose to interview or hire. Using these new Smartphone apps enable job recruiters to keep track of responses no matter where they are.

YouTube

More and more, job seekers are making video resumes and uploading them to YouTube or other video-sharing sites. These resumes give you a chance to see the applicant “in action,” to observe their interpersonal skills, speaking ability, and other attributes that translate more clearly to video than paper.  For many people, video-sharing sites can function as quasi-interviews, enabling them to stand out from the crowd and to inject their resume with a touch of humanity and transform them into something more than a list of qualifications on a sheet of paper. This assists in expediting the hiring process, as an intuitive job recruiter is likely to be able to filter out who is qualified and who is not after sorting through a variety of applicants in a relatively short period of time.

All in all, there is way more to social media networking than just LinkedIn. With a little creativity, job recruiters can now reach out to potential employees in a plethora of ways and improve their chances of finding new employees quickly.

This post was submitted by Guest Blogger Anne Berlow. Berlow is a content specialist at Capterra, a business software resource with over 300 directories, including recruiting software and medical billing software.

For those businesses just about ready to hit the reset button and pick up where you left off in 2007, STOP!  This is not your grandfather’s workplace anymore.

Once upon a time, work was about getting a paycheck – a way to put food on the table and a roof over your family’s head.   Health care benefits, vacation pay, and other perks were exceptions not the rule. Sundays were a day off to rest, pray, and recoup for next week’s work.  That changed with the formation of guilds and later labor unions, when the process of representation for the workers began in the hopes of achieving fair wages and reasonable work schedules.   

But thanks to a recession and a world marketplace where dramatic change occurs in months not decades, the definition of work and what constitutes quality of life has been indelibly altered.  Welcome to Talent Management 2011!

Recruitment and retention strategies that were considered best practices and highly competitive just a few years ago are now ineffective and even detrimental. New pressures coming from aging demographics, globalization, and technology are turning workplaces upside down and inside out. In fact, it’s even hard to tell anymore who is working when and where. Many traditional workplaces of the past are gone – caput. Others have gone virtual, invisible to the passerby but very real in terms of productivity and profitability.  And for the first time in history, four generations are working side by side all but killing one-size-fits-all recruitment and retention strategies. 

All these changes – both gradual and dramatic – have converged to put many companies at risk for losing their top talent.  New and innovative talent strategies must be put in place to position companies for success.

Executives confirmed this need to change in a recent Deloitte survey and white paper titled Talent Edge 2020.  Forty-one percent of executives said “competing for talent” was a top concern, followed by developing leaders and succession planning (38%), and retaining employees at all levels (37%).  Severe talent shortages are expected over the next year in Research & Development (34%), executive leadership (25%), and sales (19%).  Even positions like customer service and marketing are expected to be tough to fill positions with severe shortages, 19 percent and 16 percent respectively, expected by executives.

The executives and senior talent managers who participated in this survey clearly recognize the importance of developing a strategy to retain key employees. Over the next twelve months, nearly seven in ten executives surveyed (68%) reported they have a high (39%) or very high (29%) level of concern about retaining critical talent.  Another six in ten (64%) have a high (40%) or very high (24%) fear of losing high-potential talent and leadership.

The problem is most of the companies surveyed, by their own admission, are not doing a very good job of holding onto key employees. Worse, many do not even have a clear understanding about what factors are driving voluntary turnover at their organizations.  With a return to some economic normalcy and the well-documented skills shortage among applicants, the need to recruit for new openings will be hard enough without having to replace the home-grown talent pipeline. 

While the white paper highlighted numerous best practices, one stood out: “Companies differentiate themselves by culture, compensation and future opportunities…and deploy different strategies to appeal to different generations.”

The executives broke down their most effective retention initiatives as follows (each generation listed by priority rank):

Veterans (over age 65)

1. Additional bonuses or financial incentives (25%)
2. Additional benefits (health and pensions) (24%)
3. Flexible work arrangements (20%) -  Corporate social responsibility (20%)

Baby Boomers (ages 45-64)

1. Additional benefits (health and pensions) (26%)
2. Additional bonuses or financial incentives (23%)
3. Additional compensation (21%) – Strong leadership/organizational support (21%)

Generation X (ages 30-44)

1. Additional bonuses or financial incentives (21%)
2. Additional compensation (19%) – Strong leadership/organizational support (19%)
3. Customized/individualized career planning (18%) – Succession planning (18%)

Generation Y (under age 30)

1. Company culture (21%)
2. Flexible work arrangements (20%)
3. New training programs (19%) - Support and recognition from supervisors or managers (19%)

Recruitment and retention of critical talent is sure to stay on the radar of executives for years to come as shortages and losses of skilled workers deepen.  As a result, an effective talent management program becomes a much sought-after competitive advantage as less than one company in five participating in the Talent Edge 2020 survey could describe themselves as “world class.”  

The Internet isn’t just prevalent in our lives, it is our lives. According to a 2010 Pew Research Center survey, over 93% percent of teens ages 12 to 17 go online, 75% of them own a cell phone, 66% say they text, and  72% of teens have a social networking profile (eg. Facebook).

With the growing popularity of these social networking sites and mobile cell phones, the neighborhood playground now spans the globe.  Teens, as well as adults, now have access to and are exposed to more people than ever before.  Unfortunately the world has always known evil people to find new opportunity and the Internet is no exception.  The ubiquity and popularity of the Internet is just their fertile place to lurk and be mischievous if not downright hostile.

What follows are seventeen of the most shocking statistics I’ve read about a growing epidemic of online harassment and cyberbullying.  It’s a wake-up call for parents, teens, educators, politicians – just about everyone who uses the Internet or mobile phones. It is also a dramatic statement that the role of adults is to help our youth learn to use the Internet safely, not forbid its use. Because accessing the Internet is no longer a luxury or discretionary choice.  I’ll repeat my opening statement: The Internet…..is our lives.  (Keep reading too because at the end of this article, I have 2 important recommendations for parents on how to help their children use the Internet and mobile technologies safely.

1. About half of all teenagers have experienced some form of online harassment and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly (Cyberbullying Research Center).
2. Over 25 percent of adolescents and teens have been bullied repeatedly through their cell phones or the Internet (i-SAFE).
3. Over half of bullying and cyberbully attacks go unreported to parents, educators, or authorities.
4. On a daily average, 160,000 children miss school because they fear they will be bullied if they attend classes.
5. Every 7 minutes, a child is bullied on a school playground, with over 85 percent of those instances occurring without any intervention.
6. 100,000 children carry guns to school in 2009 as a result of being bullied.
7. As a result of being bullied, 19,000 children are attempting suicide over the course of one year.
8. Once every half hour a child commits suicide as a direct result of being bullied (online and offline).
9. At the end of 2010, over 30 children had taken their own lives after being cyberbullied.
10. 64 percent of all teens say they do things online they don’t want their parents to know about (Lenhart, Made, and Rainie, 2006).
11. 71 percent of teens receive message online from strangers (National Center for Minind and Exploited Children).
12. 51 percent of teens have been asked for personal information online (MCAfee, Inc.).
13. 42 percent of youths ages 10 to 17 have seen porn in the past year.Two-thirds of these exposures are unwanted (University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center).
14. 26 percent of teens have been harassed by their cell phones either by voice or text (Pew Research: Lenhart, 2010).
15. Size doesn’t matter – cyberbullies don’t have to be “tough” or big.
16. 72 percent of parents say they can see their child’s full profile on social networking sites.
17. Most victims have not set up privacy and security settings.

What can a parent do?

First, take the time to learn what Facebook is. Even if you don’t have to time yourself to use it, you need to understand it. Whether it’s Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or any other social networking site, these sites are part of mainstream communication today.

Next, take some time and set up privacy and security settings. I can count on one hand out of the thousands of people I’ve met in workshops, seminars, and classrooms who have even glanced at the privacy settings in Facebook, the most popular of all the social networking sites.  Admittedly Facebook might be doing some squirrely things with our data but to their credit they do offer the most robust and sophisticated system of privacy settings of any social site.  Unfortunately their mission is for all people to be more social so the personal default settings are often a lot less restricted than most people might realize.  To help both adults and teens protect their privacy when using Facebook, I’ve prepared a step-by-step guide on how to “Network Safely When Using Facebook.”  It’s available now for only $5 by clicking here.

Third, it’s important that parents prepare not only their teens, but themselves as well, to combat this serious topic. The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media: Understanding the Benefits and Dangers of Parenting in a Digital World by Shawn Edgington guides parents and teens to developing an open communication on the dangers of the internet and bullying. It’s important that both parents and teens recognize symptoms and causes of bullying and are able to report it to an adult. Learn more about The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media and order Shawn’s book.

As cyberbullying has become more frequent and increasingly vicious, the importance of educating parents about how to protect their kids is of paramount importance, says social media expert Ira S Wolfe. This epidemic of online bullying is what got Wolfe, managing partner/founder of Social Media Architects of Delmarva, involved with National Cyber Safety Awareness Day on May 17.

After listening to a recent radio interview about the threat and consequences of cyberbullying, Wolfe picked up the phone and called the radio guest, Shawn Edgington, America’s leading cyberbullying prevention expert.  The timing was perfect because Wolfe was about to give a presentation to local high school students and their parents about the threats and risks of cyberbullying.  Edgington shared with him her just released book, The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media: Understanding the Benefits and Dangers of Parenting in a Digital World.  “I immediately became immersed in the book, Wolfe said. “I rarely sit down and read a book but Shawn’s research and statistics were startling.”

Wolfe immediately agreed to help promote National Cyber Safety Awareness Day which coincided with a book drive for The Megan Meier Foundation.  On that day (May 17), donations of 1,000 copies of Edgington’s book are being sought to help the foundation’s founder,Tina Meier,educate parents about how to prevent cyberbullying. Meier created the foundation after her 13-year-old daughter committed suicide because she had been cyberbullied on a social network by a neighbor. This tragedy has been the impetus for Meier’s drive to warn parents of the hazards kids face growing up in a digitally connected world.

Wolfe hopes to have more opportunities to speak with parents about how to use social media safely.  “I’ve been helping hundreds of business people who attend workshops and classes at local Chambers of Commerce and Wor-Wic Community College understand how to use social media effectively and safely. Most of the participants are also parents and grandparents which makes what I teach in class touch them personally too. Helping children navigate online safely is also a great way to give back to the community.”

Book donations are 100% tax deductible and any individual or organization that donates a case of  books or more will be thanked in Edgington’s next printing of her book.  Books can be purchased  at:  https://secure4.planetlink.com/shawn_edgington.

About Ira S Wolfe: Ira Wolfe is the managing partner/founder of Social Media Architects of Delmarva (www.socialmediaarchitectsofdelmarva.com).  Wolfe has been described as a “Gen Y operating in a Baby Boomer body,” a name aptly given to him after writing his book, “Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.”  Wolfe is also president of Success Performance Solutions (www.super-solutions.com),  a pre-employment and leadership consulting firm as well as the author of several books including “The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0” and “Understanding Business Values and Motivators.” He has also been recognized by several human resources organizations as one of the most influential bloggers and is a sought after speaker at many CEO, business, and human resources association meetings.

About Shawn Edgington: Shawn Edgington is America’s leading textpert and cyberbullying prevention expert, and the author of the newly released The Parent’s Guide to Texting, Facebook and Social Media and Read Between the Lines: A Humorous Guide to Texting with Simplicity and Style. She is also the founder of The Cyber Safety Academy. Her mission is to raise public awareness about textual harassment, online predators, sexting, and cyberbullying prevention. Edgington has been featured in the upcoming documentary Submit:The Reality of Cyberbullying, and by Fox Business, Imus in the Morning, ABC-7′s View from the Bay in San Francisco,KRON4News in SanFrancisco, CNN Radio, the San Francisco Chronicle, The San Diego Union-Tribune, CBS Radio, ESPN Radio, NPR, andThe Leslie Marshall Showamong others.

Despite Baby Boomer’s pursuit to stay forever young, time marches on. When you look into the mirror, who do you see? The kid in your yearbook….or an eerie reflection of your parents? This presentation shares photos of celebrities – past and present – who were famous during Baby Boomer’s youth and young adult years. A few aged well. For others – let’s say a few wrinkles, gray hairs, and extra pounds make them look … “old.”

To enlarge the view to full screen, click on the “menu” icon, then full screen.

Are there any photos that surprise you?

Millions of eyes will be glued to the Super Bowl his Sunday.  Well….sort of. While watching TV is still a popular pasttime for most people, the experience is changing.

The days of the family gathering around the television with all eyes glued on Walter Cronkite delivering the news or Ozzie and Harriett entertaining us are gone – long gone.  While 74% of U.S. consumers still watch TV primarily on their TV sets, Americans are plugged in and multitasking. 

A new survey from Deloitte found that a full 42% of American consumers surf the Internet while watching the television, 29% talk on their phones while the TV is on and 26% of consumers are texting or sending IMs. And let’s not forget about checking on my friend’s status on Facebook or making phone calls.

This multitasking phenomenon has been propelled by the explosion of mobile technology.  Sixty-eight percent of participants in the survey own a laptop or a netbook and another 41% have Internet-enabled phones. Moreover, one-third of American households now own a smartphone, up from 22% in 2007.  In addition, 85% own a desktop computer, and like myself, many have a TV monitor sitting beside one or more computer monitors.

While the results are not surprising, they confirm that businesses that are hanging onto traditional means of advertising and marketing are quickly on the road to extinction. Not only is television viewership declining, but print newspapers are shrinking faster than a snowball on a hot summer day. 

There is some good news for print media fans.  Deloitte suggests that print magazines may be “surviving the digital tsunami.” Two-thirds of U.S. consumers have read a print copy of a magazine in the past six months, higher than newspaper and other forms of print media. Interestingly, 87% of U.S. consumers say that they prefer the print copy of magazines over the digital version. In fact, 55% of U.S. households still subscribe to at least one print magazine, up by 1% from 2009.

All this technology and our urge to do more in less time is forcing businesses to make some hard choices. What are you doing differently in 2011 to make sure you are listening, observing, and responding to your customers and employees?

Today marks the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We recognize the ever-changing demographics in our country, schools and work areas. These changes have influenced the way we relate to one another and how we do business. Based on the recent tragedy in Tucson and divisive political rhetoric, King’s dream of “one day [living] in a nation where [everyone] will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” has not been realized. Managing diversity remains a business imperative.

An organization’s success in managing and promoting diversity rests heavily on how well it harnesses the array of skills and experiences of its employees while they remain a part of its workforce. How good is it at fostering teamwork? Does it bring together people of diverse backgrounds and styles in order to enhance creativity, solve problems more effectively, and discover new approaches to old issues? The organizations must do all these things if it wants to achieve its goals and hold on to its best and brightest workers.

Many researchers and industry experts believe that the organizations that excel at managing diversity have six characteristics in common – six competencies form the foundation of a successful team of people who take pride in together achieving greater levels of success.

These six competencies are:

1. Awareness. Organizations and their employees develop and awareness of the benefits that can flow from cultural diversity, and establish and maintain a climate of mutual trust.
(Watch this video! Diversity – Wake Up Everybody - Contact us for permission to use at your next workshop or training.)

2. Inclusion. Minority groups feel a part of and are included in the major decision-making processes of the organization. Their views and ideas are genuinely valued and seen to be important.

3. Tolerance and Understanding. Different beliefs, stated views, actions, and reactions are fully understood and are naturally tolerated and accepted as part of the rich overall “tapestry” of human behavior.

4. Empathy. Warmth, sincerity, and goodwill are extended to every individual and group without applying stereotypes, so that each person feels high levels of mutual empathy.

5. Adaptation and Change. Groups and the organization as a whole permanently adapt and change when bias or prejudice toward people who are different from the majority begin to hold back the organization or the work of individual employees.

6. Persistence and Commitment.   Individuals and the organization as a whole persist in their efforts in their efforts to recognize diversity and cultural awareness shortfalls; commit to increasing overall knowledge; and seek to reap the long-term benefits from people’s differences, rather than insist on similarity.

(Source: Diversity and Cultural Awareness Profile, Jon Warner)

Click here for more diversity training aids, books, workshops.

Texting has gone mainstream and popular abbreviations like  JK,  LOL, BTW, BFF, L8R, and CYA are now part of our everyday vocabulary. 

For those of you who still require an interpreter:

BTW = By The Way

JK = Just Kidding

LOL = Laugh Out Loud

BFF = Best Friend Forever

L8R = Later

CYA = See Ya

More and more seniors are texting, tweeting, and “Facebooking,” especially if they expect to communicate with the kids and grandkids. Not to be outdone by the digital natives (Generation Y), seniors (aka older Baby Boomers and the Veteran generation) have developed a texting code of their own. As you will soon read, this has created some confusion depending on the generation doing the writing and reading. For instance: when a 20-something writes LOL, he or she is “laughing out loud.”  But a senior might read “living on Lipitor.”  Or the teen who might write nonchalantly add BTW, meaning “by the way,”  a senior might read it as “bring the wheelchair.”  Of course, this code is all in jest…so far!  But just in case you do receive a text message from a senior, here’s a short list of senior texting codes (not to be confused with sexting!)  Enjoy the read.

ATD = At The Doctor’s
BFF = Best Friend Farted
BTW = Bring The Wheelchair
BYOT = Bring Your Own Teeth
CBM = Covered By Medicare
CUATSC = See You At The Senior Center
DWI = Driving While Incontinent
FWB = Friend With Beta Blockers
FWIW = Forgot Where I Was
FYI = Found Your Insulin
GGPBL = Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!
GHA = Got Heartburn Again
HGBM = Had Good Bowel Movement
IMHO = Is My Hearing-Aid On?
LMDO = Laughing My Dentures Out
LOL = Living On Lipitor
LWO = Lawrence Welk’s On
OMMR = On My Massage Recliner
OMSG = Oh My! Sorry, Gas.
ROFL…CGU = Rolling On The Floor Laughing… And Can’t Get Up
SGGP = Sorry, Gotta Go Poop
TTYL = Talk To You Louder
WAITT = Who Am I Talking To?
WTFA = Wet The Furniture Again
WTP = Where’s The Prunes?
WWNO = Walker Wheels Need Oil
LMGA= Lost My Glasses Again
GLKI (Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking In)

Older adults are catching up to young people when it comes to online social networking and other activities.

Social networking is growing at a faster rate among those ages 74 and up compared to any other demographic, a report says from the Pew Internet and American Life project released this week. The rate has quadrupled in the last two years, from 4 percent to 16 percent

While the Millennial Generation is more likely to access the Internet wirelessly than older adults, older generations are watching more online videos, listening to online music, and visiting online classified ad sites.

Better health, longer lives and less physically demanding jobs have prompted people to work longer. That’s good news for Baby Boomers who both long to work and have to work.  But it’s not good news for younger generations, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

The number of people 55 and older holding jobs is on track to hit a record 28 million in 2010. People in their 50s, 60s or 70s are staying employed longer than at any time on record. For example, 55% of people ages 60 to 64 were in the labor market during the first 11 months of 2010, up from 47% for the same period in 2000.

With job creation creeping along, young people increasingly are squeezed out of the labor market. The portion of people ages 16-24 in the labor market is at the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, falling from 66% in 2000 to 55% this year. There are 17 million in that age group who are employed, the fewest since 1971 when the population was much smaller.