Monday March 31st, 2008
MMPORGs: What are they - and do I need to care?

MMPORG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Reality Game.

Twelve or eighteen months ago, recruitment thinkers who wanted to prove they were teetering on the bleeding edge talked a lot about online reality games like SecondLife, which allow users to create avatars which then live out whole lives on the internet. A number of recruiting companies, including Manpower, 'bought' land in SecondLife and built virtual recruiting storefronts, hoping to attract the elusive Gen Ys.

However, SecondLife (the largest, but not the only MMPORG to enter the fray) ran into problems: signing up and creating an online life takes an enormous investment of time that runs counter to the sort of overachiever who has a high-pressure job, and the percentage of users who were actually visiting the site on a regular basis was very small. What's more, using the game could be problematic: without a powerful computer with a superfast internet connection, or sufficient server space on the game provider's end, playing games like SecondLife could be slow, boring, and non-gratifying.

So do you need to know about it?

Well, you'll still look cool if you can talk about MMPORGs, but from a recruiting perspective, don't be in a hurry to buy an island in SecondLife.

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Monday March 31st, 2008
Not another op-ed about Facebook: What Canadian recruiters need to know

Sure, we all know that social networking sites (like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5 and Orkut) are the hot new thing among mainstream HR and recruitment professionals. And you can't pick up an industry publication or surf an industry website without seeing opinion piece after opinion piece, predicting either that social networking is the future of sourcing and recruiting, or that it's the downfall of the entire recruiting and HR function.

The thing is, no one really knows the answer to this question:

"Does a site like Facebook in fact have any value to our recruiting and HR function as a business tool?"

The problem is that most of the people talking about social networking sites tend to fall into one of two camps: Passionate Proponents, or Determined Detractor.

As an industry, recruitment is just starting to see some real metrics around the use of social networking sites as sourcing tools, relationship management tools, recruitment and employment branding tools, and referral networks. However, what's already evident is that sites like Facebook do deliver demonstrable benefits - but only if you know your market.

Recently, we had the opportunity to observe a company hiring two people for the same intermediate role: they needed one person in the New York office and another in the Toronto office. The recruiters in each city both posted the opportunity to their network of contacts, including Facebook. Two weeks later, the Toronto recruiter had 5 viable, A-list candidates from Facebook; the New York recruiter had none.

Same job, same company, same compensation: so what was the difference?

The difference is that Toronto is now the most Facebooked region in the world, with more than 500,000 registered users. This means that fully 10% of the entire population of the GTA is now on Facebook. And if you surveyed your Gen Y-aged employees, you’d likely find that more than 75% of them are using Facebook on a regular basis.

Canada as a whole has always been ahead of the US in terms of broadband internet access, which means that Canadians have tended to be early adopters of new online technologies. And Canadians took to online shopping more quickly than Americans, largely - researchers say - due to our long history of mail-order shopping as far back as the old Sears catalogue.

Bottom line? Social networking, like all the other online sourcing and recruiting fads of the past 10 years, is here to stay - but it's still only one weapon among many in the war for top talent.

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Monday March 31st, 2008
An interesting approach to the talent shortage...

Across North America and the EU, employers and experts have been worried that the declining birthrate combined with baby-boomer retirement will result in a huge shortage of workers.

But in Japan, they've stopped worrying and just started replacing people with robots!

Check out this article on a store that uses robot babysitters to mind children while their parents are shopping: http://au.news.yahoo.com/080325/19/169ac.html

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Thursday March 20th, 2008
Recruiting company donating 25 cents for every hour worked to SEDI

Head2Head, a Canadian recruiting services company, is kicking off their 'H2H Gives Back' program with the Every Hour Counts initiative: They will donate 25 cents for every hour worked by their contractors in March to Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI).

See full article at Recruiting company donating 25 cents for every hour worked to SEDI

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About the Authors

Paul Dodd
Co-founder and President
Head2Head Canada

Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.

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