College Students Say, “I Want My CareerTV”
When You’re Talking About Employment Branding, This Is Where It’s At
“CareerTV is a place for employers to get their brand out there,” said Jim Buttimer, COO of CareerTV, in an interview yesterday. “It’s a single place for college students and MBAs to find information about companies. Sure, there are a few company videos out there, but you have to work to find them.” CareerTV puts all that information — employer videos, university videos, video resumes, and tools — in one place. “When you’re talking about employment branding, video is where it’s at.”
CareerTV Tells Company Stories to College Students
CareerTV, which launched early in 2007, is “the first and only global television programmer and interactive website designed to help college students and young professionals develop long-lasting successful careers within the world’s top employers,” according to their site. There’s a brief and instructive video about their service, as well. (Makes sense — they’re in the video business.)
CareerTV’s employer videos include Walt Disney, Google, FBI, CIA, Microsoft, and Apple among their Top 10. This section of the site can be sorted by the “2006 Universum Ideal 100″ list and can be filtered by industry.
Recruiters: Get Your Video Out There
CareerTV creates videos using professional journalists. “We do the editorial,” says Mr. Buttimer. “We can do that for employers, or they can put up an internally-produced video on our site. The advantage is that we have a single site, CareerTV for candidates to use, plus we can distribute videos to our sister companies.” Those include Wet Feet, Jungle Online, and Yahoo Hot Jobs.
Creating a Video Resume
CareerTV also is setting the standard for video resumes. “We think it’s a matter of education and efficiency,” says Mr. Buttimer. “Right now video resumes are in the very early stages, and there are no standards.” CareerTV is working on several formats and doing research on what works. “We’re going to be testing some materials. We’re at the National Collegiate Scholarship Convention this week and showing some different ideas.”
“Right now, HR thinks video resumes are time consuming,” says Mr. Buttimer. “It’s because there’s no definition of what a video resume should be and each is different.” Having video resumes that wander all over the place make them novelty items right now. CareerTV has some examples on their site of what’s a good format. “We have expectations about paper resumes; there’s a generally agreed format. When video resumes get to that point they’ll be very efficient for HR recruiting.”
Is There Really a video Resume Controversy?
Sure, there’s been a lot of talk on HR and legal blogs about video resumes and some even say you shouldn’t do them, but that doesn’t seem hold a lot of water.
“We’ve talked to people at the EEOC and their take is this: Don’t discriminate,” says Mr. Buttimer. “It’s an odd thing to hear people worrying about video resumes, when, in fact, they see people in person or on video conference all the time.” The essence, he says, is the same in person or on video: do the right thing.
Using Social Media and University Links
CareerTV videos can run on Facebook, and the company is working on a Facebook app. As many of you know, Facebook is the place to be seen these days, and companies like CareerTV that recognize that expand their reach for their target market — college students who are looking for jobs.
CareerTV On the Rise
Traffic is building at CareerTV. It’s a centralized place for employers to get their brand message out there, a way for college students to quick look through company videos in one place, and a place for job seekers to get salary planning and resume tools. CareerTV doesn’t have a job board right now, but it sure looks like it would be a logical addition.
Video is where it’s at. In five years, we’ll find recruiters who think that paper resumes are as quaint as pagers and mimeograph machines.
Dice Rolls the Dice, and Wins
Recruiting is big business, and Dice, “a leading provider of specialized career websites for select professional communities,” proved that again Tuesday with their IPO raising over $217 million. Their stock (DHX) surged as high as 15.4 percent on Wednesday and was up 3 percent today. Their valuation is expected to be north of $700 million.
Dice operates career sites such as eFinancial Careers, Jobs in the Money, and their eponymous, Dice.com. On Dice.com today they list 96,826 tech jobs.
Mock Dock for iPhone
Our man, Charlie Chambers, is always busy developing something. Two days ago he came up with an idea to make your iPhone rock. And within 8 hours Mock Dock was up and running; after 24 hours it was fully functional; and today it launches to much fanfare. It’s my go-to app on my iPhone.
If you’re an iPhone user, you have to check out Mock Dock. This bad boy is really a time saver, and a great way to access iPhone-ready apps using the world’s best “phone.”
Here’s the writeup on the site:
Mock Dock
by Charlie ChambersDevelopers cannot make true iPhone applications. Instead, 3rd-party iPhone applications are web-apps. While native iPhone apps, like Calendar and Weather, have spiffy icons on the home screen, web-apps are relegated to the bookmarks where they look plain and get mixed in with all kinds of other sites.
Enter Mock Dock.Mock Dock makes your iPhone apps look more like apps. You get a home screen that looks familiar, and works like the rest of your phone. You also get a handy way to find new apps as they become available.
Mock Dock is free. If your app is in our list (or isn’t), and there is anything you’d like to change about the listing, please send a note to charlie.chambers@mockdock.com.
Next up: Charlie is working on some HR-related apps for your iPhone. It’s an exciting time.
Technorati Tags: iPhone, shortcuts, Apple, apps
eBossWatch Knows if You’ve Been Bad or Good, So Be Good for Goodness Sake
You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I’m tellin’ you why: eBossWatch is comin’ to town.
Are you the boss who likes to dish it out, but can’t take it? Are you the kind of boss who just loves performance reviews so that you can “really give it” to your people? Could you be a case study in Robert Suttton’s bestseller? Then you better watch out, because eBossWatch is all along the watchtower.
Nobody Should Have to Work with a Jerk
“We developed eBossWatch because of a personal experience I had,” said Asher Adelman, creator of eBossWatch, in an interview last week. “I interviewed for a job with a CEO who seemed like a nice guy,” he said. “But when I started it was too late, and the CEO was a nightmare. He threw things and was abusive.”
eBossWatch’s motto is “Nobody should work for a jerk.” In these days of transparency, that goes double. “I know that employees don’t want to work for an abusive boss,” said Mr. Adelman. “That’s why we wanted to hold managers accountable.”
360 Degree Feedback: It’s Not Just for HR Anymore
Sure, 360 degree feedback is a start. But what happens with that information? Is it just stored in some HR vault and acted on weakly, or not at all? And how does 360 degree feedback work in a small group, or with a raging jerk? Do you think people are willing to write that down? eBossWatch makes it a much cleaner and more painless process:
Help alert others about a nightmare boss, or recommend a great boss. The survey takes only about a minute to complete, and you remain completely anonymous.
Open Information for Everyone
“It’s not just to get bad managers,” said Mr. Adelman. “Somebody who’s been an excellent manager — people will want to know about that, too.” Yep, be good for goodness sake. Then you can get a good rating on eBossWatch.
A 6-Question Set Keeps eBossWatch from Libelous Comments
“We limit our survey to a 6-question set,” said Mr. Adelman. “That keeps the site professional and clear-cut.” eBossWatch also uses IP tracking to keep a level playing field. “We want open information, and one person gets only one vote on a boss.”
The six questions in the survey use a set of radio buttons ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” Brian Moore of the New York Post writes, “The process is caveman-easy.” Simple makes eBoss Watch work easily with these questions:
- I feel like there is open and honest communication between my boss and me.
- I feel like my boss cares about me as a person.
- I feel like my boss cares about my career development.
- I trust and respect my boss.
- I like working for my boss.
- I recommend this person as a good boss to work for.
The site allows users to search for “bosses” by name, company, or state. I think I might just go ahead and add a couple of names to the site. (One really good, and another not quite so.)
The HR lesson here is that there’s real transparency out there, folks. HR needs to get out in front of this stuff or risk waking up one day with their names on HRAintSoGreat.com.
Workstream Broadens Its Product Line to Serve Mid-Market Clients
You’re in HR Technology No Man’s Land if you work in a small company. You can can buy a performance management product from one company, a career planning module from another, and compensation planning from a third. But who has the time, or the money, to do that? Now you don’t have to.
Workstream Announces an End-to-End Solution for the Middle Market
Workstream announced a new suite of products to service businesses with between 100 and 2,500 employees. The company launched three major products today — Workstream Recruitment Professional, Performance Professional, and Development Professional — and four more modules are going to be released quickly on their heels. The “on-demand” tools are designed to be virtually turn-key and can be running in a couple of days.
One Neck to Choke
“When you buy multiple systems as a mid-sized company, who fixes your problem?” said Deepak Gupta, CEO of Workstream, in an interview last Friday. “Now with our new solutions for this market, there’s what I call ‘A Single Neck to Choke.’” Mr. Gupta was joking, of course, but the single source for mid-market customers is a big issue. Workstream is offering mid-market companies one-stop shopping for HR technology.
Built on the Same Platform as Large Enterprise Solutions
Workstream’s on-demand tools are fully configurable and are built on the same, tested platform as their large enterprise solutions. They’re just scaled down. “We’re providing and end-to-end suite that only the largest companies had access to,” said Kevin Dobbs, SVP Corporate Development and Marketing. “We make the price attractive for mid-sized businesses. It’s quick to implement. And it’s on-demand.”
The mid-market suite is built on an elastic platform. “If customers change — if they grow or their needs change — Workstream Pro can be configured to grow with them,” said CEO Deepak Gupta. “There’s no bait-and-switch where we show you one product for large enterprises and then sell you something different. ” Mr. Gupta made a comparison to premium autos. “If you went to buy an S-class Mercedes, you can get every single feature. But if went to buy a C-class Mercedes, there are fewer options. However, they’re both both Mercedes. That’s how we built our mid-market suite.”
So What’s the Big News?
Yes, Workstream announced an aggressive move into the middle market. So what? Taleo has a small and mid-size market offering. So does Success Factors. SAP and PeopleSoft have a mid-market approach to a certain extent.
“There are two points to be made about why this is news,” said Deepak Gupta. “One, mid-size companies used to have to deal with multiple vendors. Now they have one. And two, all of those vendors are offering different products. Our products are the same quality and configurability as our large enterprise solutions.” What should be interesting to mid-market HR departments is that Workstream’s tools are designed to be easy to use.
Walk Up Interface: Just Use It
What about training? How does a small company get training to use Workstream’s products? “We have what we call a ‘walk up interface,’” said SVP Kevin Dobbs. “Our interface is intuitive. Users can just walk up and use it. They don’t need training because it just works.”
You Can Try Workstream Free for 30 Days
If you’re running HR in a mid-sized company, you can try Workstream’s suite of on-demand products cost-free for 30 days. “Our solutions are affordable. And now mid-sized companies can try our integrated solutions right away,” said Deepak Gupta. A test drive of any product is cool. And with the quick time from “Let’s try it” to the product working, it sounds like a pretty easy decision for HR managers at mid-sized companies.
Find Out More About Workstream’s Mid-Market Products
Workstream is offering a webinar called “Workstream Professional – HR That’s Smart. Simple. Spreadsheet-free,” on Thursday, June 21 at 10:00 a.m. PDT.
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