Recruitment 2.0

Recruiting on your iPhone 3G…

At home I'm a Mac user. I have a number of Mac gadgets, including a 3rd generation iPod (way out of date now!), but I don't yet own an iPhone. Probably like many people, I've been waiting for the 3G one to come out so I can upgrade my iPod and have that be my phone as well. Well it's here (well almost - July 11 launch now officially announced) and to use a Jobsism, it looks pretty "cool". You can watch Steve Jobs WWDC 2008 keynote presentation here to find out the full scoop.

In the key note presentation, there's a big section on the iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) which you can get for free here if you're a techie.

The SDK allows people to build applications for the iPhone which can take advantage of its built in features, such as location awareness, the accelerometer, camera, audio, etc. There were some great demonstrations of some applications that both software organisations and individuals had produced in remarkably short timescales. All very impressive.

One of the apps was actually one to enable you to post content including text and photos to your TypePad blog really easily over the air - might be useful for other keen bloggers out there! Find out more here.

So, the new iPhone 3G and the update to the software looks like it now ticks all the boxes for the enterprise and it also looks like it's really easy to develop some really nice applications for it. And as watching Jobs got me thinking about jobs, I was wondering what could we do in the recruitment space...

Here's a few for starters - all generally based on stuff an applicant tracking system (ATS) can do, but with an iPhone twist:

• Candidate screening - create an app which allows users to screen or shortlist candidates, e.g. on the train whilst commuting. Tilt your iPhone left to reject, right to proceed to the next stage.
• Review, approve, post vacancies to your own website or elsewhere on the move - iPhone displays a number on the app icon showing you how many things are waiting for you to act on.
• Record voice notes about candidates or take a photo of something like a passport (if an ID check record was required) which get uploaded straight into your ATS against a candidate record.
• Offer a download app for candidates with iPhones to track the status of their application and receive notifications to provide further info when required - e.g. choose an interview slot, provide references, etc.
• Job alerts - many companies offer a job alerts service. Perhaps someone could amalgamate these and offer a service. Users just choose the companies they're interested in, the type of job they're looking for and get updates straight to their iPhone. They view the job specs and shake their iPhone to delete the ones they're not interested in.
• Show me vacancies near where I am now.

I thought of some recruiter location aware type things as well, but they were all frankly a bit scary and big brother like, so I'll keep my thinking hat on for the moment! Would love to hear what ideas other people have...

- David

Linkedin as CV 2.0?

I love Linkedin; I think it’s one of the most innovative web 2.0 applications out there, the type of application that just would never work offline.

Whilst I’ve had a profile on Linkedin for a while, I’ve always felt its search tool was lacking. My search results always seemed to return U.S. people (even though I don’t have any really strong links with the U.S.). It’s crying out for a good location-based search tool for the U.K – e.g. I want to find graphic designers within 50 miles of EC1R 3AF. This always puts me off using it as a business tool for finding people – which of course is it’s raison d’etre.

The news that they are now taking the UK more seriously, by opening a European office, is really exciting, especially for our industry.

Having said that, I do know that Linkedin is one of those places that recruiters go to in order to check people out as part of their general background research into potential hires. It’s a good check and balance against a CV.

The thing I did not see coming was that candidates might start using their Linkedin public profile as a REPLACEMENT for their CV! What a fantastic idea.

We’ll certainly be asking our clients if they are interested in having a new field on their application forms prompting for Linkedin public profiles alongside CV upload boxes.

Here’s a few  links related to this Linkedin:
Matt Alder at Digital Recruiting
Linkedin's own blog
10 Ways to use Linkedin

- Mike