Ethnio Movie from bolt peters on Vimeo.

http://boltpeters.com/services/live-remote-research/

Mark Burke, Sales Manager for UK & Middle East was recently interviewed by one of the leading broadcast publications in the region, Digital Production. Read on for an extract from the interview….

Digital Production

What are some of the common requirements you receive requests for?

For our systems integration clients, we have recently been working on a number of sales roles. We have been especially looking for people with existing relationships with broadcasters in the region; we have also been looking at Proposals Engineers and Technical Architects.

What are some of the pre-requisites when hiring staff for the Middle East region?

One of the major pre-requisites we have been encountering recently with companies in the UAE, for instance, is the need for Emiratis for a number of positions. This has proved a major challenge as we have discovered a distinct lack of UAE nationals working within the industry at any sort of experience level.

Other pre-requisites we have encountered are some roles that require Arabic speakers due to the nature of the role or the content they will be working with such as Video Editors and Studio Bookings Coordinators.

Because we have built up, and are continuing to develop our database of candidates based in the Middle East this proves less challenging.

What are some of the challenges you face when hiring for this region?

When looking at filling roles with candidates from outside the region i.e Westerners, the main problem is the higher living costs especially on accommodation although this has begun to fall in Dubai.

Whereas previously people were moving to the region to make a lot more money, broadcasters can no longer afford to pay these high salaries and they have come more in line with Western markets, although the TAX free situation still makes it appealing.

Because of this we have made one of our core aims as a specialist recruitment agency for the region to develop a strong database or regional candidates to enable us to respond quickly to our clients’ requirements.

Candidates that are already based within the region are often a cheaper prospect than paying for prospective employees to relocate from Europe. We then have the added bonus of Arabic language skills and an appreciation of the local culture. But we do also have a strong international database of candidates should the skills or level of expertise not be available within the region.

The temporary staffing industry continues to expand, with yearly double-digit growth being commonplace. Companies find it convenient and cost-effective to work with a temporary recruitment agency to fulfill unforeseen demand, fill short-term vacancies, and assist with changing workloads due to reorganization or mergers. Additionally, employers are enticed by the idea of “test driving” new employees to minimize risk and ensure a good match for permanent positions.

Many a job seeker has obtained great rewards from temporary staffing. Skilled but yet-inexperienced workers are able to get a foot in the door at impressive companies, where a weak resume would have made it very difficult to be considered. Retirees and college students are also very common candidates. A retired nurse may find enjoyment and extra income from temporary recruitment agencies. A computer science major can gain valuable experience working with a technical recruitment agency.

Only a small number of personnel are required to handle recruitment and customers. Even the largest international firms such as recruitment Harrogate tend to function with small, mostly-independent branch offices serving specific regions. This modular structure means it is quite possible for a one office temporary staffing agency to compete effectively with established firms.

Overall, the triple benefit to clients, associates, and entrepreneurs has contributed to the phenomenal growth of the temporary recruitment agency like Harrogate recruitment. Because of these advantages, it will remain an integral part of the employment process through good times and bad.

Jakarta, BNP2TKI (23/11) – Warga negara Malaysia kemungkinan akan bisa kembali mempekerjakan Penata Laksana Rumah Tangga (PLRT) asal Indonesia bulan Desember mentang. Isyarat ini disampaikan Menteri Sumber Daya Manusia Malaysia Datuk Dr S Subramaniam sebagaimana dilannsir harian Malaysia, The Star, Senin (23/11).

Menurut Subramaniam, pembicaraan antara Malaysia dan Indonesia sedang berlangsung untuk menyelesaikan beberapa hal. “Masih ada beberapa hal lagi yang perlu diselesaikan. Begitu ini selesai, para pembantu rumah tangga bisa datang lagi ” ujarnya.

Sebagaimana diketahui, Pemerintah Indonesia telah menghentikan sementara pengiriman TKI ke Malaysia pada Juni 2009 lalu menyusul maraknya kasus kekerasan terhadap PLRT Indonesia di negeri jiran itu.

Ditandaskan Dr Subramaniam, diharapkan semua masalah akan selesai pada bulan Desember 2009. Menurut petinggi Malaysia itu, pemerintah Indonesia telah menyampaikan kesiapannya untuk menyelesaikan permasalahan tersebut secepat mungkin.

Saat ini ada diperkirakan terdapat sekitar 280 ribu PRT Indonesia yang bekerja sebagai Tenaga Kerja Indonesia (TKI) di Malaysia. (hp)

My firm recently started sourcing campaigns where we are going to target a specific type of candidate or technology for a month and try to find as many people as we can.  We have made it into a bit of a contest within the office and have dangled a small carrot at the end of it.  My personal opinion is that this is a good idea however I would caution any firm to stress the focus of the campaign. 

 The primary focus still needs to be recruiting the regular orders.  The sourcing campaign is something that should be done for a small portion of the day or during some downtime.  You would not want your recruiters to stop sourcing their real positions for a sourcing campaign that may not pay any immediate dividends.

 Does anyone else have any ideas or tactics their office uses this way?

Montmartre, Paris

Following continued business growth and particular development with our European clients we have now opened a new European office based in Paris. We see this as a very positive move which allows us to have a more permanent base to service our European clients from.

Alan Mercer, who is the Sales Manager for France & Europe, and a recent recruit to the the expanding Christy Media team, will head up the office and be permanently based out of the French capital. His substanstial broadcast industry experience across the EMEA region and specific experience within the French market will be a great addition to the team and we look forward to conducting more business within the local market.

Please view the French Christy Media website here

by Guest Contributer  [Source:  http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-6045887.html?tag=content;leftCol]

These suggestions are based on the article “Choose your words carefully when crafting a resume,” by Molly Joss.

It’s hard to believe that a few words could irritate someone enough to make them stop reading your resume, but it’s true. Some hiring managers and recruiters admit that they have their own mental lists of words that annoy them. Resume how-to books may recommend that you pack your resume full of as many verbs, adjectives, and adverbs as you can. But if you aren’t careful, you could turn off more prospective employers than you entice. Effective word choice is what really appeals to hiring managers–not action verbs and glittery modifiers. Here’s a rundown of some words that hiring managers say detract from the persuasiveness of resumes they see.

Assist, assisted

• Reasons to avoid: Hiring managers want to know what you did, not how you helped. If you’re familiar enough with a task to put it on your resume, you can choose a better word than assist.
• Example: Assisted marketing director by researching PDAs.
• Possible rephrasing: Researched PDAs for marketing department.

Experiment

• Reasons to avoid: No one wants to hear about what you tried to do–only what you have accomplished.
• Example: Experimented with new LAN management software.
• Possible rephrasing: Tested and evaluated new LAN management software.

Skillfully, effectively, carefully, quickly, expert, mastered

• Reasons to avoid: Hiring managers often object to words that describe how well you do a particular task. In many cases, it comes across as boastful–and it’s unnecessary. “If you aren’t good at it, why are you putting it on your resume?” one recruiter said.
• Example: Skillfully managed transition from Windows NT to Windows Server 2003.
• Possible rephrasing: Migrated organization from Windows NT to Windows Server 2003 with no downtime during business hours.

Cutting-edge, detail-oriented; coordinate, facilitate, transform; proven ability, synergy, and liaison

• Reasons to avoid: Hiring managers say such words take up space without communicating much. They’ve seen them so often that the words have lost their original energy.
• Example: Detail-oriented manager with proven ability to oversee day-to-day network operations and to implement major technology initiatives.
• Possible rephrasing: Supervised an eight-member IS staff; completed two full-scale platform migrations; consolidated equipment and resources following facilities move.

Responsible for…

• Reasons to avoid: You’re a manager, so of course you’re responsible for something. Specify exactly what your responsibilities are and work in a few numbers to convey the scope of what you do.
• Example: Responsible for managing inventory, overseeing network operations, making new equipment purchases, troubleshooting workstation issues.
• Possible rephrasing: Supervised the support of 70 users running Windows XP and two servers running Windows Server 2003; implemented asset management plan for inventorying equipment; built a network operations team responsible for the internal infrastructure.

Very funny short cartoon film about LinkedIn and how useful it really is.

USE THIS LINK

http://current.com/items/91503521_linked-in-to-what.htm

Cheers,

Kohlben Vodden

Marketing4recruiters

Email: Marketing4recruiters@gmail.com

Blog: http://www.marketing4recruiters.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/marketing4recs

LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2317988&trk=hb_side_g

Facebook Page: http://bit.ly/CH2bz

They burst through the door in a noisy explosion of pushchairs, Primark and under fives. Seems she’d just dropped her fourth and they needed a bigger motor. A brand new twenty two grand S-Max people carrier fits the bill rather well they’d decided, very nice too.

The finance appraisal was revealing. She didn’t work, he’d been working a few months as a building labourer, part time mind, don’t want to overdo these things. House all provided for them, naturally.

The new S-Max was out of reach, but a nice four year old low mileage model was within their monthly budget. At late twenties and with a couple of their kids happily destroying the showroom behind their oblivious parents I couldn’t help rather bitterly musing that maybe they were only another sprog and a nice ADHD carers allowance away from that new S-Max after all.

Those who’ve been with this blog from the beginning will recall my ruminating on the benefit system in this country before. It seems to me that very quickly into adulthood (and sometimes before) you’re designated a giver, or a taker. Either you relax into a warm bath of benefits, council houses and kids, and reward yourself with a shiny ten grand S-Max once you pass four sprogs, or you get labeled a worker bee and you get out there and you earn and you pay and you pay and you earn. And you pay. After all, someone has to keep the system afloat.

I had good reason to reflect on this a day or two after the S-Max family. Twenty five years of giving had entitled me to the princely sum of £64/week and a bit of help with the council tax when I lost my job. Not enough to finance a pair of roller skates. Or live on. Pretty clear which category I fall into.

Indeed, over my nearly six month period of unemployment I was able to claim the princely sum of precisely £1,240-08. A rather exact figure, but there’s a good reason why I know this. And it’s because a day or two after the S-Max family were in choosing their new wheels I received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions.

It seems that now I’m back to my rightful place on the treadmill they’d like some of it back please. And to that end they’ve informed me that the entire amount is now liable for income tax and will be added to my earnings for the purposes of claiming it back from me.

A rough calculation suggests that £385 will be clawed back. Over a quarter of it! Absolutely staggering!!!

And bear this in mind, I’m earning much less than I was. Had I secured a job at my previous pay-scale I could have been taxed on some or all of it at 40%!

Still, I suppose someone has to keep the takers in fags, booze, satellite TV’s and five figure motorcars.

Benjamin Franklin once postulated that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

He was right. Especially about the taxes.

Innit.

Ok, yes I am looking for a permanent role again – contracting is too unreliable at the moment.

Amongst other options, I am also chasing the job adverts.  Being as pedantic as I usually am,  I record what I write and to whom, and their response.  You would think that after hearing so much about providing good customer service over the years that all industries will have assimilated some of the rhetoric.

Today I was surprised, it was one of those days where you come away thinking that was a good interview (irrespective of whether I am the one for the job or not).  The interviewer was personable, pleasant, knowledgeable, courteous and above all respectful.  He gave me, what I felt, was honest information, he did not pull any punches and he did not give platitudes (he was not nice because he could not be honest).  This told me that there are some agencies that really are working for their money and I should not be so cynical as to tar them all the same.

BUT…  at least 50%, on first instance, do not respond all if you are not suitable for the role.  Some make the disclaimer when they register your application  that there will be a nil response unless they do want to interview you  “but we would still like to keep your record on file if something proves more inline with your resume”.   In fact that did happen ONCE – and I did get a job through it (although I was satisfactorily employed at the time).  About 25% will come back and state if you were unsuccessful.

What surprised me, was the interview I went to with a company itself  (they did not use agencies at all).  I ticked all the right boxes, got the impression that I was in the running and told I would hear something within the week as they wanted “to move quickly on this”.  One week later I followed up.  An excuse was given that “we had trouble coordinating the times, mainly due to the employing manager not being around ???? Really.  How can they move quickly if they cannot schedule interviews appropriately.   I was told they should have an answer the following Tuesday (5 days hence).

And the winner was – who knows, no call, no email, no text.  Completely irresponsible and disrespectful.

And the really frustrating thing about all this – my normal role is  a  “Manager”.  Yes, an employing manager, I employee staff and I use recruitment agencies AND the feeling is similar from the other side – although you do have a little more clout.

I suppose my gripe with this is due to the fact that part of my portfolio includes Customer Service – my normal title is Customer Service and Supply Chain Manager -  and seeing how bad companies still treat their customers astounds me, especially as the customers keep coming back until something really big changes their mind.  The crazy thing is that honest, respectful customer service is not that hard to do – to set it up is  as there is often a cultural barrier that needs to be removed.

Think about it, good customer service equals good customers, ie they are easier to deal with AND they stay customers.  What  I should do is start a rating register on recruitment agencies, I wonder if that would prompt any form of improvement ??  Also begs the question, are they putting forward the right candidate for the role, are they too lazy (or inept) to do the job right.  Is the potential employer getting value for money?

I really do hope it works out for the employer and the new incumbant, and that the recruitment agency did do their job.  Me, I am patiently waiting for the employer that needs my set of skills/experience – just a numbers game I keep reminding myself.  So if you are an employer or potential employee, keep asking questions and following up.

Cheers
Mark

The government has published the results from its consultation on changes to Conduct Regulations. It had been feared that changes would be made to the Limited Company opt-out but thankfully this has not been touched for either limited company contractors or umbrellas.

Read the ARC News bulletin for more information.

Register for Interim Jobs

1.3.2 Recruiting and Infiltrating Church Leaders

The easiest method of keeping religious communities under control is the recruitment of potential or actual leaders, both lay and ordained, as informers and collaborators.

The means of recruitment are as varied as the kinds of people approached, but they all major on some personal weakness that is exploited in a cunning way. Secret police often use promises, blackmail and fear in their attempts to recruit informers and they are frequently successful, in spite of the fact that many of those they approach are committed believers.

A second effective means of influence is the infiltration of specially trained officers into the leadership of certain important religious communities. The people selected for this undercover type of work often come from believing families, which makes it easier for them to be accepted in churches. Some of the most effective of these secret agents have been working as high-ranking secret police officers while at the same time serving as bishops or other important denominational leaders.

Milano, 2 dicembre alle ore 18.00 presso la Terrazza Martini, Piazza Diaz 7 presentazione di BIP Research BIP Research è il primo evento che si propone di rappresentare un momento di incontro tra chi, nel mondo dell’università e dell’impresa, si occupa di ricerca. Attraverso un format di interazione originale, vuole essere una manifestazione altamente innovativa in grado di favorire concretamente il trasferimento di innovazione e ricerca fra università e aziende. L’evento, che si svolgerà a Milano dal 19 al 21 maggio 2010, è promosso da: Emblema: società di consulenza leader nel campo del placement e del corporate recruiting, nonché ideatrice e organizzatrice di Borsa Internazionale del Placement e Bip Virtual Fair. IDC, leader mondiale nell’ambito della ricerca di mercato, dei servizi di consulenza e degli eventi nei settori dell’information technology, delle telecomunicazioni e della tecnologia consumer, già ideatrice del Forum dell’innovazione.Mind Mercatis, partner tecnologico a tutto campo in materia di soluzioni online per il placement-recruitment.

When I first decided to do an MBA, I had high expectations of what life would be like after graduation. I imagined a nice fat paycheck, being able to afford to drive to work, meetings at the Taj and a spacious office with a kick-ass view.

Reality?

Let’s just say that the only thing that does have a nice view is my building terrace, where I escape to, from time to time to avoid that recurring question “have you got a job yet, beta?”.

When they sell you the MBA dream – no one cares to mention that you’ll be one of millions of others with the same ‘degree stamp’ all competing for half the number of jobs.

They especially forget to mention that when you graduate during a recession, you’re effectively competing for one position with hundreds of others who actually have work experience and are unemployed.

The result?

Endless interviews that go nowhere.

Or worse, interviews where they ask you what kind of salary you’re expecting – and then smirk at your response. Currently, I’m quoting for less than what BEST drivers get (they earn about 15k+ a month)

What was the point in spending lacs of rupees and two years of my life on a degree that leaves me unemployed!!!

So, the other day, I was sitting through what must be my hundredth interview in the past five months, since graduation and was actually one of five shortlisted candidates. Forever the optimist, I thought to myself – finally, I may just be getting a job. And instead of a final round of interviewing, they pose this discussion topic to all five of us and ask us to debate it out. It was some insane question on project management and I was totally stumped.

And I mean really totally lost. I didn’t even understand the question.

Luckily most of the group members were in the same boat (so that made me feel slightly better) – except for this one guy who talked at length – adequately making up for the rest of us!!!

But naturally, they gave him the job.

sigh….!!!

Apparently, he took a course in Project Management

Check it out! – I wish I had, before I did my MBA.

I recently advertised a job and received 150 responses – only 1 stood out.

One of the first pieces of advice I ever got when it came to applying for jobs was “It is important to stand out!” These days you face one of the most competitive times for graduates to get a job, it has become increasingly important to find an edge or ‘stand out’. It’s far easier that you may think to stand out and can be done in very little time.

I recently ran an experiment with a senior position I was recruiting for. I advertised a role on 4 separate internet job boards on the internet and received around 150 responses, only ONE stood out – why? Because it was accompanied by a personally written concise covering letter! It was the only application that made me open the CV immediately and I was on the phone to the candidate within 15 seconds…

The problem with internet job boards these days is that they make it very easy to be lazy, it’s easy to click a button and automatically send 20 applications or more – the problem is that while you are doing this so are hundreds of other candidates.

With the Graduate market being so competitive you need to stand out by writing a brief covering note, (not a lengthy cover letter) I want to offer my opinion on the best way to write these. The first principle to remember when you’re writing one is that the ONLY reason to write such a letter is to nudge the reader to read your CV. It is not about giving a lengthy description of your attributes, experience or qualities – just enough to encourage them to open your CV and consider your application. The best way to do this is to keep things brief and relevant.

Every single job application you EVER make should be accompanied with a brief covering note. Here I will explain my opinion on the best way to write one:

TAKE THE TIME TO WORK OUT WHO IS THE PERSON RECRUITING, IF IT’S NOT IN THE ADVERT THEN TRY USING GOOGLE – TRY TO AVOID WRITING SIR OR MADAM. ONLY IF IT’S REALLY NOT POSSIBLE THEN WRITE GOOD MORNING/AFTERNOON.

Hi (first name),

WRITE WHAT YOU ARE APPLYING FOR, WHAT YOUR CURRENT POSITION IS AND WHAT YOUR AVAILABILITY IS

I am writing to apply to the development position/internship. I am currently studying for an MSc in Computer Science at the University of *** and am available to start immediately.

WRITE HERE WHAT YOU CAN OFFER THE COMPANY – DO NOT START WITH WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR. FOLLOW ON WITH SOMETHING YOU HAVE READ IN THE AD AND WHY YOU WOULD BE A GOOD CANDIDATE (SEE BELOW)

I am a Java developer passionate about delivering well structured and easily manageable code. You mention in the ad that you are looking for (e.g.) someone with a passion for Open Source Software, I have used OSS and have researched a few projects on Sourceforge I’d like to get involved with but have yet to become a committer – I am currently investigating this with the Graduate Development Community.

OR

I am a Java developer passionate about working on Server side development. You mention in the ad you are looking for someone with an interest in Networking technologies – I completed a 3 month project in my final year and worked heavily with TCP/IP – I’d love to pursue a career along this route.

HERE IS THE CHANCE TO WRITE WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AND WHY – IF YOU CAN ACCOMPANY THIS WITH A ‘REAL’ REASON FOR WANTING TO WORK FOR THEM SUCH AS A NEWS ARTICLE ETC YOU CAN ALMOST GUARANTEE AN INTERVIEW

I am ideally looking for an internship with a chance to work with experienced developers and am looking to give 100% to the project.

OR

I am passionate about development and am interested to get the first step on my career as a developer. I have read about (company name) on (this site), it stands out to me because I have read about the high standards you have with Unit testing which I too am passionate about.

ADD SOMETHING HERE ABOUT YOUR COMMITMENT TO SOFTWARE OR YOUR CAREER. E.G. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO STAND OUT

Incidentally I am also trying to learn more about Hibernate and Spring as I find them very interesting technologies.

OR

Incidentally I am also involved with the Graduate Development Community in London as a way to try and improve my outlook on technologies.

FINALLY SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE NEXT STEP – THE BEST BET IS TO OFFER TO CALL TO FOLLOW UP, IF YOU ARE TOO NERVOUS TO CALL THEN WRITE THAT YOU WILL SEND A FOLLOW UP EMAIL.

I will endeavor to call you at some point on Monday or Tuesday, if you would prefer to get in touch at your convenience please call me on (your mobile number)

Kind regards,

Your name

Finally here are a few extra tips to help improve your ratio of applications to interviews:

-          Consider it your responsibility to follow up. It will be easy for a recruiter to ignore a standard email as it could be one of 200, but if you follow up with a second one that is personally written and just a few lines long (Did you get my CV? What did you think?) then people will be far more likely to reply.

-          Write each note personally – at the very least change the section that says “I read in the ad that you were looking for a…”

-          Keep it concise, it is far more likely to be read than if it is a long letter.

-          Consider including the note as the first page of the CV. Add the title “Covering letter to XYZ Ltd”. I would also save it as a word doc and include that in the email too.

-          Read the advert thoroughly – some ads will ask for you to do certain things if you do not do them you stand a good chance of having your CV not being read.

Good luck guys – I really do wish you the best of luck – don’t hesitate to let me know if you can add to this with further advice.

Barry Cranford

b.cranford@clearview-itrs.co.uk

If you are marketing your recruitment services on Facebook or considering doing so, read on for some important points that you should avoid if you want to be taken seriously.

1. Incomplete Profile/Fan Page.

An incomplete profile or fan page does not give enough insight of who you are and what you do. It makes you and/or your business appear insincere about your activities on Facebook.

2. Focusing on the Numbers of Fans.

We all want a lot of fans but we need to be able to engage and build a relationship with them. So rather than focus on the number of fans you have, focus on the quality. You only want fans that are part of your target audience. There is no point having uninterested fans they will take up your time and worse still may start making negative comments about your activities on Facebook. Lots of people accept page recommendations before even checking what the page is. Then when they start getting updates they realise the content isn’t relevant and either leave the page or start making negative comments about the business behind it.

3. Using Personal Profile for Commercial Gain.

Facebook has updated the Terms as recent as August 2009 and this is a violation of their Terms. Fan pages are for marketing, not personal pages.

4. Advertising/Selling via Wall Post.

Profile pages are cluttered up enough with Mafia Wars and FarmVille – trying to sell by interrupting someone on their wall with a post screams spammer!

5. Improper Event Invitations.

This is becoming more and more frustrating as events that people want to see are being overshadowed by poorly targeted event invites. No-one says it better than Peter Shankman.

6. Bulk Messages.

Not every fan or “friend” fits into the same category of your message. Take a minute to know your fans/friends and target the right ones with the right message. Just because they are single does not mean they want a dating service. Nor does it mean that if they happen to work in the sector you recruit within, that they want to hear about the latest jobs. Trust me on this one!

7. Being Non-Responsive.

Same rule applies as it does to blog comments. Be the most frequent voice on your fan page. The best conversations and friendships are born from responding and talking.

If you make a mistake – fix it and apologize. People will appreciate it greatly and respect and learn from you. Social media marketing is about learning and sharing – the good and the bad. No-one has all the answers and those that are the most respected have made mistakes but correct and apologize.

Most of all enjoy this amazing media and have fun

Cheers,

Kohlben Vodden

Marketing4recruiters

Email: Marketing4recruiters@gmail.com

Blog: http://www.marketing4recruiters.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/marketing4recs

LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2317988&trk=hb_side_g

Facebook Page: http://bit.ly/CH2bz

Morning against the mountains in Logan, Utah

Evan Nelson here, and on behalf of everyone who hit the road for The Graduate School this autumn on recruitment visits, I want to let you know how great our travel season was. We visited schools near the beaches of Southern California and Lake Superior, in the cities of St. Louis and Missoula, during snow sprinkles in Salt Lake City and sunshine in South Dakota. All counted, in eight weeks and eleven states, we visited more than 40 schools.

I didn’t find a great burger —although I managed to find a couple of okay ones, but I did meet some great students:

• the aspiring novelist in Spearfish, South Dakota;
• the social worker who took time from her lunch break for coffee with me in Duluth, Minnesota;
• the history buff in Mayille, North Dakota whose dream is to someday work for the National Baseball Hall of Fame;
• the self-professed lab geek in Ogden, Utah—you know you want to live behind a microscope and you know how to get from Weber State’s campus back to the interstate (thanks!);

and many others. I can’t wait to get on the road again next year. Maybe I’ll run into some of you again!

Now, I’m back in the office and back home in Grand Forks. We’re getting ready for a new group of students coming in January. Never a moment’s rest!

 YouTube announced automated video captioning for videos. Converting audio to text in videos will make videos more accessible to deaf people or anyone searching for videos online, but it can also lead to several advantages for search engine optimization, too.

YouTube already allows manual captioning, but most video uploaders don’t take advantage of that feature.  To do so, the videos need to be transcribed by a human and that’s simply too high of a cost to do.  Google, YouTube’s parent company, has decided to use the automated transcription technology from Google Voice to produce automatic captions.  This eliminates the timely and costly process of a human doing the transcription.

The system isn’t perfect and struggles with accents, multiple voices, and quick speakers.

This video demos to learn about machine-generated captions in YouTube and automatic timing for manually created caption tracks. It’s a work in process. 

Even Google videos are incorrectly automatically captioned, see the image below, the caption barely makes any sense. 

The machine-generated transcription service will English-only captions initially on 13 partner channels, including Google channels and videos, PBS content, educational content, others.  Could this one day lead to organic video SEO?  If search engines could search the audio in video that could dramatically increase the viewership of videos that today rely on tags, viral marketing and direct marketing to get viewed watched.  There are Video SEO solutions today that will manually transcribe and optimize video so it is findable and ranks higher on search engine results.  The Career Corner Digital does this for recruitment videos.   Using its process companies like Schlumberger and GEICO have increased viewership from search engines results by 9-to-25 times the standard video uploading processes.  “Having a transcript in the video is the holy grail for video and SEO,” says Peter Young, President of Career Corner, a video recruitment, Video SEO and social media firm in based in NYC. “Having text from a video helps the video rank in search engines and drive candidates to a company’s website like job listing and blogs do today.”

While YouTube hasn’t mentioned specifically, it would seem a natural for the text from the captioning to be added to Google’s search tools.   Today a search for several captions resulted in ZERO results.  Among the searches was the caption from the photo above.  Based on my back of the envelope calculation analysis, less .00001% (less than 1 in a million) of the videos are captioned today and ZERO show up in search results.  But this automatic captioning system is giant leap forward. 

The machine-generated service will generate English-only captions initially on 13 partner channels. The service combines Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions.

“Auto-caps” use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video, according to Ken Harrenstien, the Google software engineer who created the technology.

Today, very little text from video is being captured on the Web because no one wants to transcribe thousands of videos.  But for important initiatives, the additional investment in Video SEO can be well worth it.  Peter Young stated that Schlumberger, who hires field engineers and had video content on its website to provide a glimpse into the job, culture and company for years, the content has been helpful to candidates once they got to our site. But, a search for “field engineer” on search engines and video sites produced NO Schlumberger field engineer video results.  With Career Corner video social media and Video SEO the field engineer videos are a top search result and people are embedding the video on blogs, job boards, and sharing on social networking sites, especially amongst the field engineering community.

That optimization allows for candidates to find and share the videos on search engines and on sites including Veoh.com, www.VirtualJobShadow.com, Youtube.com, MetaCafe.com and others.  The Video SEO and distribution has resulted in over 90,000 video views (11 times more than on the Schlumberger site).

Here’s some links to the Schlumberger videos.

• http://www.blinkx.com/videos/field+engineer (video search engine, results from many different sites)
• http://tinyurl.com/kvfx96 (YouTube search)
• http://tinyurl.com/ns9ldj (Metacafe search)
• http://tinyurl.com/m9h95d (Google search)
• http://tinyurl.com/l3xcfo (Bing Search)
• http://tinyurl.com/mmmwzn (Yahoo search)

The problem of only self-tagging to find video could one day be eliminated with YouTube’s new automatic captioning service.  In time other companies that host and serve video will surely launch similar solutions to make the Holy Grail for video a reality.

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Last week was the UK’s first recruitment unconference and it was certainly an interesting event. I was working the Social Media Track with @mattalder and @carveconsulting. Anyone who knows Matt and Paul will know how knowledgeable both are when it comes to social media; I cannot tell you how much I learned from them throughout the day!

Matt and Paul know all about using social media in business but me, I don’t know anything much about that really. I work in the construction industry and, as emaciated as the industry is, you don’t find that many candidates or clients from my little niche working the social networks. I use social media for me; my personal development and networking. I don’t know anything much about posting jobs, using boolean searches for finding candidates on LinkedIn, or monitoring my company’s brand because that’s not how I use it, so I didn’t feel as though I had an awful lot to contribute on that front. I’m more about personal branding and interaction, so I was a little sad that everyone was more interested in the corporate stuff. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised though really; these are tough times for recruiters and social media is a fairly new tool for a lot of people. Me, I’m a bit of a geek – I’ve been making friends and networking online since my mid-teens and the days of ICQ, IRC and forums.

Social media for personal use is something we all need to be aware of and work smarter at though. The benefits are endless but the two major ones are, in my opinion, personal development and networking.

Personal Development

We all have different work ethics, operate in different industries and have different training. Sharing our experiences and opinions, be it through blogs, tweets, emails or in person, is enlightening! We can learn something from everyone in our network and I think the unconference really highlighted that: There were all sorts of unique ways that companies and individuals were using social media, all sorts of tools that people were using to monitor their brand, and a variety of positive and negative experiences that people had had which we could all learn something from. I’m not going to list them all here; go to the next unconference in February and see for yourself! I didn’t get to visit any other tracks (apart from the secret track at the end!) but I still came away with a couple pages of notes, so I can only imagine what those who had a chance to move about learned!

Networking

I worked mostly in customer service and HR before moving into recruitment so, frankly, I don’t know an awful lot of people in the industry. I say “don’t” but I actually mean “didn’t” because social media (Twitter in particular) has totally changed that for me over the last nine months or so. There are some amazing people out there that you can talk to and Twitter is an amazing way to interact with people you might never meet or give a second glance to in real life. And these people can not only help you find useful tools, be your sounding board, provide services, or introduce you to relevant people; they can also become your friends.

My experiences of social media are nearly all positive. In fact, there’s very little negative I can think of in nearly 15 years of messing about with it in various formats. The kindness of strangers is an inspiring and thought provoking thing. Countless people who owe me nothing have helped me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and I am a better and wiser person for it. It may seem a daunting and unfamiliar place to those new to it, but give it the chance it deserves! Immerse yourself in it, interact with people, share your opinions, offer help and advice. To me, it’s not all about business. My favourite contacts aren’t those who constantly talk about business or forward links, but are those who share little titbits about their lives and let their personalities shine through. So even if you’re mostly using social media for business, consider the personal benefits too and do a bit of work on your personal brand. You won’t regret it!