Government leaders are increasingly adopting mobile and social recruiting technologies to help match job seekers with employers in their cities.

The latest is Mayor Annise Parker, who today announced the launch of TweetMyJobs Houston!, a platform to connect job seekers with employers in Texas’ largest city. Houston is the 4th largest city in the United States, based on population.

At her “State of the City” address at the Hilton Americas Houston hotel, Mayor Parker unveiled the new site, Houston.TweetMyJobs.com, to thousands of local businesses and Houstonians in attendance.

According to Carlecia Wright, the director of the city’s office of business development, “The city took interest in this because one of the mayor’s priorities is to sustain jobs.”

The service is also available via mobile applications for iOS as well as Android. You can download the TweetMyJobs Hoston! app from iTunes or get it for your Android device as well. Congratulations to Mayor Parker and the city of Houston on a great new jobs platform!

About.com recently announced the winners to their popular 2013 Readers’ Choice Awards in the Careers Space and TweetMyJobs came out on top!

TweetMyJobs took home the 2013 Readers’ Choice Award for Best Mobile App for Job Searching.

Our app takes advantage of the power of location based services – using the GPS on your phone to let you view jobs nearby on a map as well as taking advantage of the phone’s camera to explore work opportunities through our augmented reality overlay – pictured above.

We’re proud of our work in mobile – and we know it’s not just the future in the recruiting industry, but also the present. In fact, there are about 5.1 billion cell phones on the planet, but only 4.2 billion toothbrushes, according to the Mobile Marketing Association, so if you’re thinking about how mobile can affect your business, and your talent acquisition strategy, then you’re doing the right thing.

If you haven’t checked out the TweetMyJobs app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device, make sure to download it today- it’s free.

And if you want to learn more about what we’re doing in the social and mobile recruiting space, feel free to contact us.

The Nassau Works App

Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano this week launched the new website and mobile application Nassau Works, a solution to connect local job seekers and employers. The platform is powered by TweetMyJobs and integrates innovative social and mobile solutions to get people back to work.

“Nassau County is leading the charge in helping our citizens get back to work and reduce the demand on social services,” said County Executive Mangano. “This free, new online jobs platform will help job seekers find employment and provide our local businesses with free access to the same cutting edge tools that Fortune 500 companies are using today.”

Free to use for both job seekers and employers, Nassau Works complements the other job creation initiatives being implemented by Mangano.

Visit NassauWorks.com and download the free Nassau Works app in iTunes.

Check out the news coverage of the Nassau Works launch, featuring Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano and TweetMyJobs CEO Robin Richards:

This week in San Francisco,  HR pros and recruiters from around the world are gathered at the Social Recruiting Strategies Conference to discuss new and existing ways to implement social recruiting strategies to find the best candidates. Leading brands and organizations are in attendance to share their best practices and success stories.

Over the last few years, IHG has been strategically building a social media presence to attract and engage with talent worldwide, and has utilized TweetMyJobs to do much of the heavy lifting of distribution, targeting, and branding for their social recruiting needs.

Gary Zukowski, Founder of TweetMyJobs

During their session “IHG + TMJ = ROI: A Case Study of InterContinental Hotels Group and TweetMyJobs“, Francene Taylor, Director of Resourcing for the Americas, and Gary Zukowski, Founder of TweetMyJobs, will share IHG’s expanding footprint in social recruiting and how this effort is driving revenue to their organization.

If you’re at SRSC, join Gary and Francene on January 31 at 10:30am pacific. The conference has been pre-approved for 18 HRCI credits!

Featured speakers at the Social Recruiting Strategies Conference also include UPS, Groupon, NPR and many more. If you’re not at the San Francisco conference, follow along on Twitter: #SRSC

TweetMyJobs has many features to develop a successful social recruiting strategy for your organization. Learn more and change the way you recruit.

Our sister site Internships.com just released an extensive new set of survey results on the importance of the internships market. The results reveal the importance of an internship experience, for students and employers alike.

Make sure you’re up to date on the latest employer trends in the exploding internships market:

1) More employers are hiring their interns for full-time positions.

Internships have become the new interview as 69% of companies with 100 or more employees offered full-time jobs to their interns in 2012. This comes after the fact that the overall internship experience has been overwhelmingly positive, as 85% of employers report that hiring interns was a positive experience.

2) Employers value work experience over academic performance.

A snapshot of the infographic, below, reveals that employers largely look at interview performance and relevant experience when making hiring decisions, and report that college / university preference is the least important factor.

This emphasis on experience gives momentum to the idea that internships have become a “must have” and are no longer a “nice to have” on the resume of an entry-level candidate. Employers are open to hiring college grads looking to gain real-life work experience – 83% of employers would consider internship applications from recent college graduates.

Click to View the Full Infographic

3) Employers will hire more interns in 2013

53% of companies plan to hire more interns in 2013 than they did in 2012. While students are able to test drive a career, employers are able to test drive talent. Internships.com CMO Stuart Lander explains further in a recent Forbes article, “Internships May Be The Easiest Way To A Job In 2013” -

“… employers get the opportunity to find the talent they need to help grow their business without relying on just a short interview,” Lander says. “Entry level employees are the future of a company and so in many ways the most important recruiting decisions an employer can make.”

The survey results are a positive and powerful reminder of the importance of an internship experience. View the full “Internships: The New Interview” infographic on Internships.com

Lisa Jones

Lisa Jones is a Director at Barclay Jones, a Consultancy working with agency recruiters, corporate recruiters and B2Bs advising them on the most effective use of technology, web and social media to improve their business processes, recruitment and bottom line.

Follow Lisa on Twitter, her business Facebook page, read her blog, check out her Pinterest page and connect via LinkedIn.

I run regular polls on LinkedIn (it helps with my marketing, profile awareness, contacts etc…). A recent poll of mine asked the question “What’s your main reason for using social media?” Here were the options:

• Raising your / your business’ profile
• Researching: sector/clients/competitors
• Sourcing: candidates/staff/clients
• Lead Generation
• Other (please comment)

I went into this poll having an opinion about what the results would be – generating leads, right?

WRONG! I was really shocked to find that only 13% of people had the primary aim of using social media to generate leads, while 42% of people commented that they used it primarily to raise their profile. This got me thinking… why are so few people actually hunting social media for leads and deals? Why does it seem to be OK to shout and scream on social media, but not to hunt?

“There is the perception that social media is not a direct sales tool, or even a lead sourcing tool”

When I meet some recruitment clients for the first time and ask them if they are sourcing leads through, for example, Twitter, I often get incredulous looks. There is the perception that social media is not a direct sales tool, or even a lead sourcing tool. Recruiters are comfortable with it being a job marketing tool, and when it comes to LinkedIn a candidate sourcing tool, but they seem to stop at that.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am an avid fan of great content, but none of us have time to simply blog and bleat all day long.

Show Me the Money

If I were a recruitment director, I would be looking at how to use social media to source leads. Yes, it’s important to increase profile, but that will happen naturally if you take part as if you were in a room of people (commenting, liking, etc…)

Sourcing vacancies is a great way to start. Reasons to be cheerful:

1. Source vacancies for “inspiration” – you have an advert to write and last night’s work has killed too many brain cells
2. Source vacancies to research your market and competitors – you have a duty to do this regularly if you claim to be on top of your sector, even if you are an internal/corporate recruiter
3. Source vacancies to find genuine leads. It doesn’t really get any easier than finding a vacancy on say LinkedIn or Twitter, seeing a client name that is in your sector and putting in the call. Even if they are keen to source the talent themselves, they have exposed themselves as an employer and could be a great contact going forward.

Want some tips on how to source vacancies? Watch out for my next blog.

The Capital and largest metro area in South Carolina – the City of Columbia, is hoping to make the job search process easier for its local businesses and citizens through the launch of a brand new jobs platform.

Mayor Steve Benjamin unveiled the platform, “Famously Hot Jobs” at a news conference on Main Street this past Thursday morning.

We applaud Mayor Steve Benjamin’s initiative to bring together the citizens and employers of Columbia, SC to improve the jobs situation in the city and metro area, and are proud to power the platform with our innovative social recruiting technology.

Matthew Ogston

Matthew is a co-founder of JobPage.com. He had been searching for a job he loved for the last 13 years… and so when he couldn’t find it, he started JobPage. He loves connecting real jobs to real people. You can connect to him on JobPage, email, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google Plus.

The savviest of job hunters turn to social media to find their next career move – in fact, according to a report by SocialTimes, 37 million people in 2011 found their job via Social Media. Which means that if you want to attract the right kinds of talent to your business then as a recruiter you need to be heading where the largest pool of applicants are.

Many businesses make the mistake of just diving in with social recruiting – they assume that because they use social media in their personal lives, recruiting via the same platforms must be a doddle.

Start making friends on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter, creating circles on Google+ and linking up on LinkedIn – now all you need to do is wait for the applications to roll in right? Wrong!

Have a platform-specific strategy

If you want to become a truly savvy social recruiter then your first step is to develop a strategy for each of the main social media platforms – this will help drive forward your plans when it comes to the day-to-day interactions.

You’ll probably be aware of the main social media platforms, but how can you get the most out of each of them?

• Facebook is the most ‘personal’ of the social platforms. When it comes to Facebook, it is vital you aren’t overly intrusive with your job promotion. Facebook is about developing strong relationships through interaction and association (being active in a relevant industry group can work wonders). Hitting random people with friend requests, and forceful recruiting is really going to put people off. Be a person – be who you are… not the person you think you should be.
• Twitter is a fast moving stream of conversation. Social recruiting via Twitter is about passively connecting with active job seekers, getting the attention of the influencers and watching your ‘message’ reach an exponential number of people. It can often seem like Twitter is just a broadcast channel, but the real value is in finding and building relationships with the people who are receptive (and responsive) to your message now, or in the near future.
• Google+ is the new kid on the block and plays nicely with other Google services such as YouTube and Places, adding a lot more depth and personality to the employer to candidate experience. Now that Google Plus supports video hangouts (ad hoc video conferencing), and deeper personal and company profiles, now is the time to dust off your web cam and organise your first informal video interview. There are also several services, such as plusfriendfinder.com, that provide search tools to help you identify prospective employees.
• LinkedIn is the weapon of choice for many savvy social recruiters.  This is the platform to connect with active professionals looking for their next role – similarly to Facebook, LinkedIn is driven by connections and real-world relationships. LinkedIn is also similar to Facebook in the sense that being active in industry forums and groups is one of the best ways to get started on the platform. LinkedIn also has a specific job advertising function which allows you to promote your vacancy to relevant job-hunters (paid of course).

The important thing to remember is that you don’t need to be on every platform – many businesses choose to really focus their efforts on just one or two. Do it well, not do it many.

The importance of authenticity

The social web responds well to humans, more so than faceless corporate accounts. Even if you are recruiting on behalf of a large business or entity, putting a real face to the social media profile and giving your account a personable voice goes a long way to helping you recruit effectively through social media channels.

In the real world, would-be job seekers try their hardest to put a hard copy of their CV in the hands of the right person – when it comes to social media, if someone is looking to join your organisation, they want to interact with a real person and feel like their attempts are going to be noticed rather than ignored by a social media account that isn’t properly managed.

Be selfless

A very common mistake that businesses make when they join the social web is that they endlessly promote their own stuff – pushing out update after update about the vacancies they have open or the latest service offerings

Social is not a purely ‘broadcast’ channel, the conversation flows both ways which is why it is important to interact and also to share the work and content of others. Yes, even competitors (sometimes!).

The point is that you can become the content curator of your industry which can help project you as the authority or go-to source for industry content and news. Why would someone follow hundreds of different blogs, individuals and companies when they can get the best bits just by following you.

If you strive to provide value then people will forgive the occasional self-promo tweet and will actively help you fill vacancies as they arise. That’s pretty powerful stuff.

Make the most of your time

When we are trawling through photos on Facebook or tweeting our friends about Saturday night telly – time isn’t really an issue. When it comes to social recruiting, remember that time really is money so your ROI (return on investment) must be considered carefully regardless of whether that is a financial or manpower investment.

There are a couple of things you can do to make the social recruiting process a little easier:

• Simple automation of tasks is a very effective way to maintain your presence on social networks. If you update a company or industry blog then using a tool like Ifttt.com can help you automate the sending of Tweets and Facebook status updates every time you publish an article.
• You might also like to use a service like Time.ly or Buffer App both of which can be preloaded with links to industry specific content that will then be drip fed onto your social networks – a real set and forget solution.

Another option is to utilise the power of a peer-to-peer social recruiting platform like JobPage. Much of recruitment is top down – an employer markets or broadcasts their job, then attempts to locate and engage with prospective candidates. JobPage turns this concept on its head and connects job seekers to other job seekers,  to help each other find jobs and work opportunities they would otherwise miss.

In summary, social is all about real people and real jobs. Keep it real and you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

This summer, business magazine Forbes called on their readers for submissions of the “best websites you know of for interns, job seekers, business owners, established professionals, retirees, and anyone else looking to launch, improve, advance, or change his or her career.”

After receiving almost 700 nominations, Forbes hand-picked what they believe are the most compelling and useful sites and created their inaugural list of the best career websites. We are very excited to be included in their list!

From the Forbes article:

TweetMyJobs
This service, free for job seekers, allows applicants to sign up and get alerts either by email, text or through Twitter, when jobs have been posted in their field of interest, or when their Facebook and LinkedIn connections have links to job postings.

Click to see the full list on Forbes.com – The Top 75 Websites For Your Career. For those still in college and just beginning their career discovery, our sister site Internships.com was included in the Top 10 list.

Barista at Starbucks

60 million customers visit Starbucks stores on a weekly basis. Yeah, that means they’re selling a lot of coffee. But it also means they need to hire a lot of baristas and shift supervisors.

Those potential baristas may not be hanging out on Starbucks’ career website, but they are hanging out on Twitter, and especially on their mobile phones. So innovative companies like Starbucks are leveraging the power of social media to distribute their jobs directly from their applicant tracking systems to social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Instead of making the barista come to the mountain, these companies are bringing the mountain to the barista. Brilliant.

And why is Twitter so valuable in the process? Well, there are about 2 billion searches conducted every day on Twitter. That makes the site one of the biggest search engines in the world, much less social media platforms.

But the power of Twitter goes far beyond job distribution and search. Marketers, HR directors, and recruiters are using the platform to engage with job seekers, have conversations, and build their employment brand.

Take a look at this recent tweet from Farmer’s Insurance on Twitter:

Farmers Insurance is showing their human side – they’re more than just a vanilla, plain corporate careers presence. They’re inspiring with a daily quote – and provoking a response: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”  That’s attractive to potential employees and followers of the business alike. It’s smart, it’s clean, and it searches for engagement.

The power of social media as a whole is obvious, and as a platform for recruiting, Twitter is supremely useful not only as a distribution mechanism to the millions of job seekers utilizing the service but also as a superb branding and engagement tool.

What are your favorite examples of big brands leveraging Twitter in social recruiting?