We’ve come up with3 toys that we think will make you the most envied person in the room, but we want to hear what YOU think would be the coolest prize to get at the conference. Be sure to vote below, or throw in any opinions/ideas for other cool gadgets that would make the job or liefe easier/more fun!

GADGET #1: BLACKBERRY 8800

This phone has the easiest email setup I’ve ever seen, and is arguably the most business-minded phone out there. Perfect for staying in the loop even if you’re not in the office.

GADGET #2: CARDSCAN BUSINESS CARD READER

There are a lot of buisness card readers out there, but from my experience, the CardScan executive reader is the fastest and easiest to use.

GADGET #3: NINTENDO WII

While the Nintendo Wii might not make you a better recruiter, it will definitely help you kill your boredom while keeping you in shape… well that’s what us Wii addicts keep telling ourselves anyways :-)

So what’ll it be? I’m personally leaning towards the BlackBerry for it’s practical uses, but your vote could sway me.

Cast your vote, or leave a note!

 

Note: There is a poll within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

This post is the first in a series called "Internet Resume Delivery" where I’ll show you tips on how we get our resumes inexpensively and in great quantity using the Internet.

Here’s a question I get all the time: "Where are all these resumes coming from?"

As you know, at StaffLeads, our main job is to bring in targeted resumes for our clients. I’m not talking about a handful, but literally STREAMS of resumes.

We learned really quickly that if we were going to be able to compete with industry giants like Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com (even on a microscopic level), it was going to take some "outside the box" thinking and practices.

Here’s just one of those methods:

USING GOOGLE TO FIND CHEAP RESUMES

I know a lot of recruiters are not familiar with Google’s advertising application called adwords. there are entire books dedicated to understanding and mastering Google Adwords, but for the purposes of this post, we’ll stick to the very specific info that brings in thousands of resumes for our clients every day:

1. Sign up for Google Adwords: If you or your company does not have an Adwords account, signing up is very simple, just start here: http://adwords.google.com

2. Create a campaign: Google Adwords has options for you to either have your ad show up in their search results, or on websites that receive payment for displaying your ads on their pages. The search option is valuable, and we’ll talk about it in another post, but for this lesson, we’re going to use placement targeted campaigns. Below is an example of how these ads look on pages that utilize the Google Ad program:

The cool thing about the site placement option is that you can actually choose what sites you want your ads to show up on. You even have the option of only displaying to very specific demographics, including geo targeting.

3. Selecting your sites: This step is a little tricky, and will ultimately determine the overall success of your campaign because the type of site determines the type of visitors, which willl (you guessed it) determine the quality of resumes you get.

EXAMPLE:

If you’re a technical recruiter looking for .NET developers, you would want your ad to show up on sites where .NET developers are most likely to take interest in a job ad. A quick Google search for ".net Updates" will show you millions of sites that cater to .Net developers. A few minutes of research will also pull up a number of sites that have the google advertising on them.

If you don’t have time to research, you can simply grab the first 10 or so websites and Google will find similar sites to suggest. Google also allows you to choose where on the sites’ pages you want your ad to show up at.

4. Writing Your Ads: Using this method will typically yield the higher qualified passive jobseekers, so your ad is really going to need to stand out. Again, copywriting in itself is an entire study, but I would say that by offering the benefits of the job opening in your ads is very important. For example, you might want an ad that looks like this:

APPLY ONLINE NOW
Experienced .NET Developer Needed
Top Salary Plus Health Benefits
www.staffleads.com

5. Only Pay When Someone Clicks Your Ad: Google gives you two options to pay for your advertising: CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand people who SEE your ad). Obviously in this case, we’ll only want to pay for jobseekers who are interested enough to click the ad, so you’d want to choose CPC.

Google will ask you to "bid" on your ads, where you can offer as low as $.01 per click or as high as $10+ per click. A strategy we use is to start bidding around $1.50, then gradually lower the bid as we determine the success of the campaign.

Now, all you’ll need is a web page with your job posting and application, and you can start receiving applications immediately. The campaign could use some tweaking to lower the cost-per-resume, but once you have it optimized, you’ll have a steady stream of applications coming in.

I hope this helps some of you break free from the "standard" methods of getting your resumes. I’d like to see any thoughts you might have about this, and as always, ask as many questions as you want.

If you’ve been on the Internet for the last year or so, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of Squidoo. For those who haven’t, it’s a widely used platform that allows professionals to share their knowledge on any topic under the sun.
 

Some of the top companies in the world including Yahoo! and Microsoft have dedicated employees AND customers to make sure the world has an accurate (from their point of view anyways) understanding of their products and companies.

 

Since we’ve got a message that’s going to need some pretty loud shouting to be heard by the number of people we want to reach, StaffLeads has made the move to begin sharing information on Squidoo. (Plus, we didn’t want to feel left out!)

You can find our Squidoo Lens (posts on specific topics) at www.squidoo.com/staff-leads. Right now, we’re talking about the negative effects job boards are having on the talent acquisition and recruiting industries.
 

If you’re a regular squidoo-er (or squid?), stop by, leave us a note, and let me know what you think of the new digs!

 
What’s more fun than spending $10,000 or more every month for online job board postings and getting a MILLION spam emails and phone solicitations?

 
EVERYTHING!
 
I was on the phone with a recruiter I met in San Francisco this week, and she brought up a point that I’d forgotten was a complete headache that comes with posting jobs on the major (and even niche) job boards: SPAM!
 
It’s one of the inherent flaws of online job boards. You post that you want to fill a job, and the unscrupolous sales person feels the need to call and sell you their solution. Not to mention the endless stream of “better, cheaper, more targeted” job boards that email your account until you finally have to shut it off.
 
It’s really got me thinking… how much money are companies actually spending to be spammed, and what would the job boards be prepared to do if their customers decided enough is enough?
 
I’ll be looking into this further, and definitely welcome any thoughts you have on the subject.

Exactly what is “Social Media”? Well, I won’t give you Webster’s definition besides, that’s outdated already! Social Media is a broad term used to encompass any
number of activities that combine technology and social interaction – for the professionals in staffing that is a match made in heaven!
 
Some examples of Social Media you are probably familiar with (and may already be using) include internet forums, message boards, podcasts, blogs (like this one!), email, instant messaging, etc.
 
Incorporating “Social Media” in every-day staffing solutions is just smart business. There is no way to reach more people, more quickly than via the latest technology. Did you know the number of daily internet users has risen from 48 Million in 1996 to well over 1.1 Billion users today?
 
Social Media includes social networking sites, like Facebook (#1 in the 17-24 year-old crowd) and MySpace (with over 1 Million daily users). The United States is home to the largest social networking market, with 41 Million adults participating regularly. Most of us also commonly use media reference sites like Google and Wikipedia to gather information at the click of a mouse.
 
Some staffing professionals may have been dragged kicking and screaming into the brave new world of Social Media. Once there, however, the results are often immediate and users are hooked on this new way of interacting.
 
Around the world, companies are making the most of Social Media by:
 
- Use of video, photo and audio sharing sites to tell their unique story
 
- RSS (“Really Simple Syndication”) feeds – to get their information out beyond their own website
 
- Hosting “real” FAQs sections – candidates can ask questions and get their answers in real time
 
- Building relationships with online communities
 
 
If you’ve been considering taking the leap into the Social Media pool, “Come on in—the water is more than fine!”