Some thoughts on corporate recruitment blogging
I recently contributed the following to an ONREC magazine article (if/when I spot it online I’ll add the link here too):
How widespread / popular are recruiting blogs now?
As companies try and find an authentic voice for their employer brand (as well as be seen to be deploying web2.0 facilities) we’ll only see more of them. As for how popular they are – I think they’re popular with the business deploying one in the first instance because it makes them feel cool and “down with the new web” and then they realise how much work it is to keep one up, so the popularity (certainly amongst those targeted with producing content) wanes.
From a candidate’s perspective I think they’re popular as a reference point when they are considering an employment proposition, it will generally give you a good indication of at least how the business perceives itself – but there are very few, if any, examples of particularly engaging corporate Recruiting Blogs, blogs that you’d read up on all the time, so in that sense they still have a long way to go (or at least the people contributing to and managing them do).
Do you think recruiting blogs have much influence?(Any examples of companies that have done it well?)
They can have – both good & bad. One of the better blogs I’ve come across is the PwC blog, because if nothing else they’re really trying. I think they’re missing some pretty fundamental tricks with it, not least by not having a single page where you can read all recent comments & posts rather than hard categorising them, but those contributing clearly try their best to keep it up to date and personal, and those managing it I’m guessing work hard to keep them motivated and contributing (although a number of contributors haven’t for quite some time).
An employee blog isn’t about setting the world alight, but rather an efficient way of showing a human face – a genuine, authentic voice for the employer brand.
If you put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for a job – they will have preconceptions about Company X & Company Y, some good, some mixed, some maybe bad. The Corporate line that you’ll see trotted out on the careers site will in truth do little to influence this as everyone knows that the messaging is carefully crafted to sound alluring, but if there’s a blog that sounds honest (whether it be recruitment specific or not) and conveys real personality then all of sudden you have an insight into what that corporate personality really is, what it’s really like to work there. Just having an open blog is a statement in itself.
What are the possible benefits and risks for a company considering a recruiting blog?
You can really differentiate yourself from the competition. A blog should represent a voice that is more human, more believable and through that offers the best chance to enforce positive messages about your employment proposition and the opportunity to make people at the very least question any negative preconceptions they may have.
But blogging is not easy – for many individuals and for many corporate cultures. Blogging takes quite a bit of time, and after you’ve let lose all your “pent up” stories, how do you keep up the writing about day to day life? And for many businesses then there’s a real nervousness about letting people have their say, which waters down any commentary to the degree where it’s too dull to bother reading and too demotivating to have your thoughts picked apart to bother writing.
In the worst instances there’s the fear of whether what you’re saying is going to be career limiting – do you go down the ‘brown nose’ route and ruin your personal brand/integrity or say what you think and risk getting a stop put on your career progress? Fears that will lead to most people just refusing to contribute.
But in my opinion the worst risk of all in blogging is for the business that launches a blog and then lets it fall into disuse. Coming across a website that has a blog but no updates for the past 6weeks or more sends a louder message about that company’s corporate culture than not having one at all. And I’m afraid many many companies have been guilty of this (particularly in the graduate space where websites with blogs were the hot thing to have from about 2 years ago onwards) and it shows the company as the kind of place where they pick up an idea without thinking about how to execute and sustain it.
Do you think recruiting blogs are here to stay? How do you see them developing in the future?
I think there’ll be more of them as companies grow up to realise what the new web reality is all about, namely that there are conversations going on about them whether they like it or not, so do they want to get involved and direct, influence or contribute to those conversations or just hope they can still exist within a walled garden? The problem with the latter being that it becomes ever harder to get people into your garden when they have no idea what it’s really like.
Blogging is a great way to engage candidates, employees and customers – or at the very least show them your human face. Blogging ensures that your site is kept current, even if the rest of the ‘static’ content lags a little. Blogs are loved by search engines and so can see good returns in terms of SEO. Blogs reflect a level of employer brand integrity that you simply can’t generate in any other way on the corporate careers site.
But blogging is no quick fix, not some simple but sexy web2.0 bolt on to your corporate career site, nor should it be treated as a cheap way to manage a companies PR. It needs buy in from the senior management and investment of time and belief – belief in your brand, belief in your employees: belief in your true Employer Brand.
Alex,
This is a good piece, and you have captured the essence of why companies should be blogging.
But I have to disagree with your comment on the PWC blog. I just can’t see it with that blog.
For me it is PWC putting up a site and saying “were web 2.0, and we blog”, but in reality it isn’t a blog at all. All they do is effectively put job profiles and experience profiles under the blog banner. They don’t engage with their readers, they don’t blog regularly, and quite frankly they are as boring as they come!
It amazes me that everyone heaps praise on that blog as the nirvana of corporate blogging. Yes it might look nice, but essentially it is jusrt another corporate website, artificially called a blog.
For me it is the IBM principle here – no one is going to be ‘embarrassed’ or ‘look stupid’ if they recommend PWC as THE corporate blog to go to.
It is a shame that there is still a lack of appetitie within the corporate world for corporate blogs, because they are such a powerful tool.
Comment by Andy Headworth — May 15, 2009 @ 8:28 am
thanks for the comment.
Only thing is though that we actually agree that the PwC is far from what it could or indeed should be. All I’m saying is that it’s the best I’ve come across – but kinda hoping other people will point me in the right direction of other instances (ideally UK based) where blogging is being done as it should be done. I’m currently pulling together a post on a US company I am smitten with in regards to their overall approach (Employer Branding through true employee engagement), so perhaps I should have just pointed at their work, but at the same time if you look back through some of the posts on the PwC blog I think they’ve made a real effort to allow people to talk from the heart.
Do they post frequently enough? no.
Is it particularly engaging? no (but then they are mainly accountants?
So we’ll absolutely agree it’s no nirvana – but in a very poor market in which to compare I’d give it 7/10 for initial effort and best intentions, but you’re right that it’s recent activity demotes it to a 5/10 for ongoing effort (and that’s only that high because the competition is so woeful).
Here’s to the day when we can join forces and help a client get it right from start to end & deliver compelling and engaging content along the way, showing the rest just how to do it.
Comment by Alex — May 15, 2009 @ 8:55 am
Alex
I had to comment on this one! Just because PWC are the ‘best’ you know of does not make them worthy of praise IMHO. I do not think they are trying at all and there are a few others doing just as much in the same sector.
Sodexo USA have a very active recruitment blog but to be honest, blogging is a time consuming activity and needs to be thought about before starting with – as we all know!
A better post would be @Why you should NOT have a recruitment blog’.
Peter
Comment by Peter Gold — May 15, 2009 @ 11:08 am
OK – so you wanna push me into a corner? That’s fine.
Firstly on the suggestion that I should have written about ‘Why you should NOT have a recruitment blog’ – well for a start I think there’s enough negativity out there in the world without me adding to it, and then there’s the fact that I believe a corporate blog, deployed well, is a very powerful tool (for the reasons stated in the original post). So that’s not my style, nor do I think it all that constructive to rubbish those where I can see the initial effort that stretched beyond the first couple of months, even if of late things have ‘slowed” in regards to recent updates.
I praise the blog for trying – and in an organisation like PwC (where I’d imagine there’s a fine line between actions that may be career propelling or career limiting, as well as having to constantly consider client confidentiality) then that’s something in itself. And I praise the people who have, if you read into it, tried to give a real glimpse of themselves in what they’ve written about.
In one particular post I recall reading a lady was writing about her pregnancy and what that meant to her re-maternity leave etc etc That in itself conveyed some real personality and truth about the employer brand (in a good way) – however unfortunately her next post explained how she’d lost the baby but how she felt the company had supported her through this difficult time. It was authentic and heart-felt. It was a subject that this lady, and PwC, could easily have decided to not comment on and just removed earlier posts – but they didn’t. And I applaud them for that.
In that action alone they demonstrated they understood the value of a genuine human voice sounding louder than all the fanfare corporate writing can muster. And that’s what corporate blogging, particularly in the recruitment sphere, is all about. Isn’t it?!
Is the blog interface/ blog pages very poorly constructed? Yes.
Are some of the participants a little tardy in writing up their thoughts of late? Yes.
Should there be a more persuasive impetus from senior management to encourage/incentivise people, once committed to blogging, to keep up their efforts or else the recruitment team work smarter to move the responsibly around? Clearly.
But do I feel there are aspects of their effort that are worthy of some praise at least for their initial approach, whilst hopefully also balancing the argument later by explaining the areas in which they have fallen / are falling down and therefore highlighting the pitfalls too? Yes.
As I said previously – if you have any good UK based examples then please do let me know (Sodexho USA doesn’t really fit that bill). It’s a big ole market and I’m always interested in being pointed to new and exciting corners of it – thanks ☺
Comment by Alex — May 15, 2009 @ 4:39 pm