Last July 29th and 30th , over 800 troops returning from active service in Afghanistan and Iraq attended a pilot 2-day event at Ft Dix, NJ. 

Volunteers included Tip of the Arrow, Fort Dix staff, ESGRA, and NJ SHRM members led by Sherrill Curtis from the NJ SHRM Garden State Council along with hundreds of professional coaches and 50 employers with openings.

Information about the event was promoted extensively including through my blog and summarized later in John Zappe’s article for ERE..

...but the core of this event, what made it a bit different from other initiatives was the time ...

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ERE's Social Recruiting Summit (#socialrecruiting), held in New York yesterday [Monday, Nov 17] was a another milestone in the evolution of niche, community-focused experiences that may eventually change the way we think about "conferences"- how we approach them as attendees and how their "owners" monetize them.

The fact that yesterday's subject matter reflected the medium was just coincidental. 

The combination of a comfortable guide (Laurie Ruettimann), diverse content (see next paragraph), pre-conference relationship building (#Monstersocial), intimate non-traditional setting (Comix on 14th street), and multi-media virtual conversations (free, live video-streaming, Twitter and google wave) were sufficient to engage nearly ...

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A future ERE Corporate Leadership Journal (not yet out) will include an article about what HR leaders should be doing NOW to plan for the hiring of recruiters during the recovery.

John Zappe, the article's author, asked several members of our industry to respond to a series of questions (and then extracted contrasting points of view). I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product.

I was among those asked to contribute and, here is the unabridged answer I provided to one of the questions (which will, of course, be edited and combined with others in the final article ...

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If Social Media is keeping you up at night, relax-- You've just been there before.

(As we approach ERE's SM summit for what I'm sure will be an valuable day of conversation, I thought this commentary from our November CareerXroads Update might be interesting.)

In 1996, just 13 years ago, the Internet was at a tipping point - not so new that we couldn't see its promise but also not so accepted that we couldn't imagine its dangers.

As the debate raged on, the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) and the Society of Human Resource Development ...

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8am on a dreary, rainy grey Wedenesday in a small corner of northern New Jersey.

Lots of trees past their peak as I look outside from a brightly lit Panera Bread breakfast nook. I'm sitting by a very fake but still enjoyable fireplace. The fog and drizzle cloak whatever is left of the trees' color.

I just backtracked 6 miles from the One Stop in the city of Dover, NJ to connect to Panera's wifi. Soon I'll spend a couple hours in conversation with 60 plus out of work professionals this morning.

Dover is in a time ...

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The 19th ERE Expo held last week in Hollywood, FL was well done.

Included among the many images I took home Friday was:

- A Little Giveback.

Kudos to about 4 dozen players and a bevy of sponsors who stepped up to support another great poker tournament managed by last Wednesday by Jeremy Langhans on behalf of the ERE Foundation.

The charity raised $10,000 for its global children's educational initiatives.

Unfortunately,Jason (Slouch) Davis and I were taken out early by one of the Atlanta Sourcing Mafia, Eric Jaquith,...in the same hand. There will be a rematch.

The ...

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Source of Talent, 09 is an extraordinary (free) report published the last week by two Australian staffing experts ‐ Phillip Tusing, Destination Talent and Michael Specht, Inspecht.

I admit to being somewhat biased about the study because Philip and Michael surveyed an area CareerXroads has long been passionate about‐ Sources of Hire.

Mark and I were given an advanced copy and our initial analysis of the report is included, although in a slightly different form, as a Forward to their report.

The study provides for the first time International comparative data - and it is a delightful contrast to the US mindset ...

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I get quoted often. Most recently in Tuesday's WSJ. It was one line. No biggee (unless it is the first time- and then of course I would bring it to mom and frame it). It wasn't my first, so I eventually post the link in a specific area of my website.

Then, this morning's first email arrived:

Great news can drive business - and there's no better way to promote your business than with a custom reprint from Dow Jones Reprint Solutions!

In case you missed it, below is the link to the article:

Keeping Skills Sharp ...

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(From CareerXroads' August Update)

The last bastion of the digital divide has fallen

He has accounts on Facebook, My Space and Twitter.

He runs an Internet Forum on Yahoo and keeps in touch with the rest of his friends via email.

He is 37 and homeless.

He lives under a bridge in NY City.

Mr. Pitts may lack a mailing address according to a Wall Street Journal feature by Phred Dvorak but you can certainly find him virtually.

Roughly half of some 200 shelters in the city run by various non-profits offer online access.  

When was the last time you ...

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(from the August Colloquium newsletter - Bellwether)

Social Networking, Reputational Risk and the Workplace

Deloitte's 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey suggests that many corporate leaders believe that there is a "great reputational risk associated with social networking."

Apparently 74 percent of those surveyed believe: "it is easy to damage a brand's reputation via sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube."

As a result, "60 percent of business executives say they have the "right to know" how employees portray themselves and their organizations online."

Maybe they do have a right to know how their organization is portrayed but we believe ...

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from the August CareerXroads Update - musings on staffing written monthly since 1996

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Data geeks will love this TedTalks [Ted.com] video. I've never seen information presented visually the way Hans Rosling, a Swedish professor of global health, does it using an application he developed.

I was amazed by a deep data mining dive into global health care. The video (to which we were pointed by Jeremy Shapiro, a fellow data junkie who is leading one of the Staffing Standards Task Force groups) opens with a story by Professor Rosling trying to benchmark just how smart his students are at ...

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Last month 2800 NJ National Guard and Reserve troops returned home to NJ from Afghanistan and Iraq after a 9 month deployment.

Families in NJ were especially grateful because the mission was carried off without a fatality. The troops were greeted with applause, parades and many thanks.

Missing in the equation however was the fact that the troops were gone during an economic meltdown and many returned without a job.

Not fully knowing what career assistance was needed or, whether any help was needed at all, Sherrill Curtis, a volunteer leader on the  SHRM NJ State Council ( responsible for Workforce ...

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John Zappe's excellent article today (July 14) about how a jobboard has built its brand has many lessons.

I originally saw these ads on a New Zealand Recruitiment social network (Recruitment 2.0 Asia Pacific built by Paul Jacobs) a couple months ago and howled but didn't see the relevance until now.

First, check out a Youtube snippet of Chef Ramsey from popular restaurant reality show in the UK humiliating a local cook. I can only bear to watch part of it.

Then, contrast what you just saw with a typical but similar scenario (#2) of Little Gordon ...

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My eyelids droop when I hear lawyers or Phds explaining anything. And when they explain something legal, my head hurts. And when they explain the legality of testing, my head droops, hits the desk and I hurt even more.

(There are exceptions and among them I happen to love Charles Handler who recently wrote an ERE article on this subject)

However, while I think staffing leaders want to understand what is going on in all relevant corners of their world the recent Supreme Court decision on the Ricci case (which may eventually have some bearing on testing) is confusing.

The ...

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Saturday, June 27  #SHRM09-BoB

7:30AM
Cafe Du Monde. Hot coffee w chicory and Beignets. It's a ritual. Unfortunately,  by 8:00AM it appears to be the place every one wants to be this mornig and it is hot enough that I may be the only person drinking coffe hot.

Joined by LV and afterward we amble over to the Marriott for 8 hours of panel discussions surrounding the Society's assessment/re-assessment of its strategy, technology issues, legislative challenges, etc., etc. Finished up with 5 of us prioritizing technology trends impacting the profession. Most, but not all, were ...

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Friday, June 26  #SHRM09-BoB

8:00AM
Headed down to N'awlins this morning. First time in nearly a year. This has been the longest time between trips to my favorite city since 2004, a year before Katrina.

10:45AM
The plane included a few HR consultants (MJ Sinclair among them) and Academics (Mark Hueslid) whose company I enjoy. All of us have full agendas at the conference but in totally different spaces. In between the special expertise panels, vendor meetings, and presenting on candidate experience at a concurrent session Tuesday there's  food, drink and the sheer pleasure of N ...

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This week SHRM launched the second National Standards Development Task Force (Performance Management) since being named a Standards Development Organization (SDO) in February by the American National Standards Institute (the ISO member for the US).

In May, the first Standards Task force, Staffing and Workforce Planning, was launched to initially address three standards in the area of metrics, job description and WP as a way of jump starting its longer term of work. 170 professionals within the staffing community- academics, research and consulting professionals, suppliers and vendors, etc. responded to the call for interest by the closing date of June ...

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This blog (PRSquared) is an eye-opener.

The writer is a Principal in a PR firm, SHIFT. He was "targeted" on his Facebook page with an ad that said "SHIFT should hire me" and then went on to explain how the ad's author could help the firm.

Several other members of the firm also saw the ad on their Facebook pages.

You gotta love it. I'm adding it to my list of "disruptive" suggestions for job seekers.

This interesting note was passed on to me by Joe Shaker, Jr. Thanks Joe.

"As a manager my purpose is to serve the greater good by.... I will seek a course that enhances the value my enterprise can create for society over the long term...therefore , I promise..."

The idea of a Hippocratic Oath for the Business Grad is going to be ignored by many, scoffed at by nearly every GenXer and, perhaps even made the butt of a few jokes in the National Review but, most Boomers will not only get it, we'll applaud. (Personally, anyone who signs on to this and attempts to walk the talk in the next few years ...

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Cecilia Kang, writing in the Washington Post this past Wednesday, June 3, announced a Federal Antitrust Probe that is targeting Google, Apple, Yahoo, Genentech and more. Much more.

It might by you.

Remember how proud you were when you snagged that top performer from your company's biggest competitor? (And this was the third top pro your team won over from them this year.) They obviously were having retention problems as their new product pipeline emptied out.

Remember how worried your boss was? She kept asking if you were sure there were no legal non-compete contracts signed by the candidate ...

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