Dear .jobs,

This is a hard letter to write – but I know it must be done.  It seems like just yesterday when we first met – but its been almost 5 years.  In that time, I always wanted to believe in you and think what you were saying was true.  I was young and hopeful and really did think that you were going to change the world.

I’m in my 30′s now, .jobs, and while I still wish for that youthful love and world conquering idealism I once had with you – the dream has faded – partially because of the reasons I pointed out in 2007 on the mis-steps and marketing errors and pricing structure and lack of buy in  and ….  but I still hoped for your sake I was wrong.

I know we had some moments of glimmer and you told me about all the wonderful things you were going to do for me.  But now, its just sad.  The time to strike was hot a few years ago and the relationships are lost.

I’ve moved on .jobs.  I’ve seen that love .com and I shared was real and the “Ohh Shiney” stuff that you offered was not real.   He does what he says.  He shows up in google searches.  His domains are only $6.99 with a discount code at GoDaddy.  He gets hits because its where my job seekers want to go.   We are happy, our career sites are thriving.    Please stop and leave us alone.  Leave SHRM alone – they are getting this social media thing finally figured out – please let them focus on that.

Sincerely,

Me

PS.  Thanks to @jobboarddoctor for his post today on ERE which made me get all worked up over this issue again.  Read it.  He’s right.  Only 1 winner.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I love movies and the way that regardless of what is going on in our economy, lives, politics, world, etc a good movie can totally take you out of it and introduce you into a world unknown for a period of time.  I also love the lessons that we can learn from watching them – on life, risk taking, love, friendship, forgiveness and of course recruiting & branding.

20 Years ago – An Oscar was THE goal.  It was credibility, notoriety, fame, fortune and the physical manifestation of success.  Today its is the same thing with a interesting way to select movies that half the US population never will see.

20 Years Ago – The MTV Movie Awards didn’t exist.  But in the last 19 years it has evolved into being the one place where movies that people actually watch over and over and over – regardless of their technical and acting quality can be recognized for simply being awesome.

The Oscar is like the HR’s answer to the “Best Places to Work List”

The MTV Movie award is where your friends love to work.

(Now, select the alternate ending of the blog that best meets your needs)

I’m A Company:

Having a “best places to work” icon on your career site is great and a huge feat and something every company should be extremely proud of.  But don’t expect it to sell its self any more.  People aren’t looking at that as the end all be all of great places to actually work.  Its an icon, like an Oscar, but we all know that where people fill the seats and spend the money isn’t always on the oscar contenders.   Make sure that you are selling your company for what makes it unique an some of the features that aren’t always considered on those lists.

MTV Movie awards does the basics (best female lead, best movie…blah blah) but what makes them stand out and unique is they do other categories like best kiss or best WTF moment.  And the other categories aren’t wasted on things like costume and make up design because, well, people EXPECT that to be there in movies now.  You only playing up your branding around your excellent benefits or other things that everyone else on that list can offer is actually putting you at the disadvantage.  Job Seekers are EXPECTING that – especially from a Oscar Worthy organization.

I’m A JobSeeker:

So, you are out there searching for a job.  You are like an actor that is reading over 2 scripts determining if your next best career move is the oscar worthy epic where you will have a bit part or if it is the potential summer break out hit where you will have a bit part.

Don’t feel pressure to “want” to work at the companies on the “best places to work” or where your friends love to work.  Its ok to work for the quirky off the wall place that everyone just loves to work at but doesn’t win any awards.  As you look for your next role – take a look at those lists, but also take a look at other places that you hear about, read about on social media or online or just randomly see a opening at.   Decide for yourself based on conversations with current employees, the feel you get when you walk in for your interview, the way you are treated throughout the process to make your decision and where the “best place to work for you”.

Honestly, its because we women often suck.

We are competitive and jealous and insecure and catty and feel that we need to tear each other down to build ourselves up. We look at other successful, beautiful, intelligent women and think that we have to be better from them vs. learning, supporting & partnering with them.

Its always been a issue I’ve wondered about and in an offline discussion at #ungeeked last week with Chris Brogan and Sally Hogshead when she flat out asked him why she thought there were so few women leaders in social media by comparison to men – his answer was simple – they tear each other down!

Its a uniquely female thing.  And it needs to end. We don’t see this happening with men in our industry – in fact many of the men within social media have amazingly quick rises to success because of the massive support of female “fans” – yet when the tables are turned – the support is just completely lacking.  In the business world, we have some left over remnants of a 1970′s life that makes us think that there are only so many “spots” for women in business and we are only competing with each other vs with all of the people we work with (men).  I’ve seen women in their 50′s tear down and almost punish younger women coming into the work force while supporting and almost mentoring the young men that came into the same situation.  I’ve seen women in their late 20′s and early 30′s refuse to even talk to other women in their industry space because they view them as competition vs. a potential partner.

I’ve got an amazing network of men in my industry that have taught me so much about my career path, going after what I want and not making apologies for anything.  At the same time, I realized that in HR, we are lucky to have a strong group of women who want to encourage and support the growth of one another and through that I have grown and developed both professionally and as a person through amazing relationships that I have developed and by listening to the advice of with strong, intelligent women in our industry like Laurie Ruettimann, Jenny DeVaughn, Susan Burns and more.

So, here’s the deal – you will never ever ever ever be the smartest, cutest, nicest, prettiest, youngest, most popular, most respected, most coveted, blah blah blah.

So my message is pretty simple:

Grow up. Support One Another. Don’t be a bitch.

In the real world people are cautious about what and how they say things.  There is something about looking someone in the eye or hearing their voice on the phone that changes the mental decision making process between what you want to say to someone and what you actually do say.  It is in that situation that your brains decision making process kicks into overdrive and helps you make good decisions not to upset, hurt, offend, etc.

In my real world life, I get faced with a tough decision (or lets face it, an easy one) and I carefully analyze it, weigh the risks, potential outcomes of each possible option, the impact it will have on all of the parties involved and make a educated decision based on those factors.  What wins is the path that seems the most logical.  I rarely make a decision based on emotional drivers.

In social media however, most people just put it out there (me included!!!).  I don’t always think through what I do or say or the larger, longer term impact that it can have.  From a decision making factor it is like taking a few shots of tequila then exposing me to 2000+ people to say exactly what I think.  We forget that much like when we say things in our real life, we can’t really take it back.  In fact its worse in social media because the electronic record is there forever.

The complete opposite tends to hold true for most organizations that are tightly controlling their “branding” – There is so much time spend doing the analyzing of what you should/shouldn’t put out there that they often come across so vanilla that a potential employee doesn’t really know them at all.  Your corporate facebook fan page, twitter accounts, corporate blog, etc  are all an extension of your organization and what you put out there about your organization – both good and bad – needs to be analyzed just like you were saying or presenting it to someone face to face.

When you are sitting in an interview with someone or talking to people at a BBQ – what do you say then (positive) about your company?  When they are frustrated or get a call from a headhunter – what makes employees stay with you?  Its typically not what is on your traditional branding material and on the information you feed out online.

I’m not suggesting you dive overboard and go to the extreme that a lot of us do as individuals – putting things out there that you probably shouldn’t have.  But, I am encouraging brands to move in that direction and be more human.  Be more real.  Be more vulnerable. Show the quirks and the not so positive part while highlighting the rest.

In doing so, you’ll gain the people that appreciate your company for who it is and want to work their regardless.

Just like the people who stay friends with me even when I do (and say) really stupid things.

Blame the sub-zero temperatures outside, or the fact that the #genYunconference dates have to change, or that I’m just feeling a bit sassy today – but this week I am rolling out a #WTF Friday post – because, well, this week a lot of stuff made me think that.

I’m setting my sites on Social Media Experts AKA Guru’s or Rockstars.

I am not a social media expert.  Guess what, neither are you!  You may have a lot of followers and make money convincing other people you are – but you (more than likely) aren’t.

How do I know this?  Because:

1. Your “expert” status is self imposed.  No one else called you that.  If they did -it was someone that you were just introducing twitter (or something else) too so they are way off the skew of what they consider and expert and don’t count..
2. You tell me.  Seriously?  Do I even need to explain this one?  Ok..read on
3. When I follow you (back)  on twitter you respond with an automated DM telling me you are and “expert, guru, rockstar, etc” and then frequently include a link back to the latest “e-book” you’ve written on the subject.  #lame

While I’m on the subject – STOP USING THE TERM ROCKSTAR!!!!   Seriously.  Enough.  It has made its way onto a gazillion blogs lately – a few were obviously done in a more sarcastic term – but the majority think they are serious.  WE ARE NOT ROCKSTARS – There are not really HR, Accounting or any other job in corporate America Rockstars.  There are people that kick a$$ at their jobs – but still, they are not rockstars.

Seriously.  Please. Stop.

To Clarify: “Rockstar” – If you are using that term in anyway but sarcastically, well, I just have nothing else to say.  We work in corporate america.  We are not rockstars.  We are not even real stars.  And for most of you – you don’t even Rock.

You have seen the tweets, heard the rumors and now, it’s really happening:

For me, social networking is part of my job.  Its a portion of how I brand our business.  Its a way to cultivate relationships with partners, clients and influencers.  Its how I keep up to date on what other vendors are doing.

It’s also been instrumental in my conversion of my blog from ERE to ImSoCorporate.com this fall. It has been through RT’s on twitter and networkedblogs.com on facebook – that I have met some really smart, interesting people.

On the flip side, if you follow my tweets – you know that it is about more than that to me as well.  On a personal level – it has blurred that line between totally professional relationships, pseudo-friendships and in some cases, true friendships and relationships that will last a very long time.

I’ve gotten some advice from someone that I respect to change how I am online.  That my ‘image’ isn’t what I want it to be and supplied some advice on perceptions of me.  I thought a lot about it.  A lot.  It was the inspiration behind my 2010: Twitter post.  It has caused me a internal debate and discussion.  It has honestly caused a little bit of writer’s block.

It caused doubt.

I don’t live my life with doubt.  I can’t.  I don’t have the time, energy or emotional attachment to do so.  Doubt to me is no different than failure.

So, Here is why I like social networking and why I’m not changing too much.

1.  In person, I am kinda shy. For those of you that only know “online me” this is typically a bit of a shocker.  In fact, I do a pretty good job hiding it (usually via a cosmo or xanax) but  know that I am actually really uncomfortable talking to you when we meet.  You make me nervous and i’m a bit intimidated.  As someone who is super uncomfortable in a 1-1 setting or in a small group of people, it has been a really interesting way to build relationships without the anxiety and fear that would normally stop us from meeting.

2.  It allows me to be less judgmental.  I’m not sure if she remembers, but the first time I met Laurie (PunkRockHR.com) she really, really didn’t like me.  And to be fair, I felt the same way.  We had next to nothing in common and that was the end of it.  It was because of conversations we started having via social networking, tweets about life, books, etc that we discovered we had way more in common than I ever imagined.  Social networking lets you watch, observe and learn about someone over time – not just that chance encounter – if you give it a chance.

3. It keeps me from talking to myself.  I work at home.  Alone in my basement.  Its kinda boring down here – so while I work, I listen to music or get random Facebook Messages, IM’s & DM’s throughout the day from other people that are in the same situation. Its like our version of running into someone my the water cooler, or popping our head over the cube.  Its like a little insulated support network that reads over each others blogs before they go public, helps get us unstuck when we can’t figure out how to do something on our new mac or just someone saying Hi.

4.  I learn stuff.  A lot of stuff from a lot of people who are way smarter than I am.  Sometimes it isn’t so much of learning as it is a new perspective that I hadn’t considered before.  I love to constantly be expanding my mind and learning new things – even when they are totally random.

5.  I can do it on my own time.  Unlike webinars and meetings and whatever – I can do social networking while i am working, when I am at the gym, or sitting on my couch.  It doesn’t matter to anyone else if I am there at a particular time as long as I get back to them.  (This may go back to my commitment issues…hmm….)

6.  I can just be me.  (well, the me you would get if you knew me) I am who I am and people will judge me regardless.  If you think I am a ‘party girl’ because I post pictures of us having fun at conferences – then you obviously choose not to see that I am also there at 8am tweeting on the sessions or know anything about me. Like many things, I am a bit of an aquired taste – you love me or you don’t and that is fine.  My goal is to be me, not try and be who you think I should be.

7.  I like the personal/social part of it.  My goal in life isn’t to be friends with you.  I’m not impressed by the fact that you have 40,000 readers on your blog or you speak at SHRM.  I don’t really ready all your PR you send out.  Honestly, who cares.  That isn’t YOU.

8.  I rarely travel where I am alone.  Because of this network – anytime I travel – I have someone to grab lunch, dinner, drinks, etc with.  It makes work trips much less boring and I usually end up making really great connections because of it.

9.  Why not?  That is all.

Ok, Breaking News…More details to follow – but I am SUPER STOKED to have just found out that I will be doing a session along with David Peck at South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive this spring targeted to job seekers and hr pro’s that will be there titled “Using Social Media to Score” – we’ll be talking about linkedin, twitter, facebook, mobile and whatever else we feel like!!  With more than 2500 submissions for slots – I was honestly not expecting to actually be going!!!

It could have been the the fact that I found a guy at FAO Schwartz that was so corporate (I didn’t even ask for the shot!), great dinner Saturday night with a small group of people I admire in this industry, the Monster Social/Tweetup Sunday Night (see below),  the onslaught of  social recruiting discussion at the summit on Monday, the the 6 hours of business planning meetings that followed Monday night or the fact that I did most of it not realizing I had pneumonia, but I am exhausted and am glad I have an excuse to stay in bed the rest of this week and relax.  Will this post ramble.  Yes.  Sorry.

To start, I have to say a huge thank you to the ERE crew for putting on such an amazing event and a huge congratulations to Laurie Ruettimann for being a gracious and entertaining chairwoman.   I also have to say a HUGE thank you to HRMDirect for encouraging us to attend and to Elaine Orler with Talent Function for letting me test out her laptop mini (just one more time) so I could live tweet.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the morning keynote and am pretty disappointed about it, but here is what I did see live and some thoughts on in…

Overall lessons learned from my Tweets

Failing via social media because you are doing the same old style of work makes YOU suck, not the technology

Sometimes you have to be common sense smart

If you want to have a solid social media strategy – drive transparency & enable conversation

Most companies aren’t social media recruiting they are social media sourcing

Social Recruiting is a “boatload” more than posting jobs per @johnsumser

Resisting social media in 2010 is like resisting a website in 1997  (Which I saw was actually used in another conference this week)

Not everything is about today’s hire people!!! Think pipeline!!!

Content should be relevant to the jobseeker not just what the “pros” think we should do

#monstersocial – WOW!  Seriously, WOW!  From finding a uber cool location in the meat packing district to the DJ, the Vin Diesel look alike bouncer, free pac-man, the bartenders who made custom drinks to match your outfit (or mood) or the chocolate covered bacon. Again, Wow.  And it gave me a chance to wear a little sparkly dress.

While it was quite the social, there was a lot of shop talk going on still, people were talking about how they were using social media in their own lives – both professionally and personally and how the line between them had really evolved.  I stumbled upon conversations on the evolutions of job boards/applicant tracking/performance management/software, conversations about how to engage candidates more effectively (and if you should care to) and discussions about the droid vs iphone.

In back rooms ( the back rooms were very cool) the mood was more mellow, the setting was more intimate and the noise levels were low – it was where conversations turned into discussions.  Topics floated around other conferences and the rapid evolution of the conference world in the last 18 months thanks to social media and New York itsself.  There was one lengthy and passionate debate about the value of recruiting CRM, their place in this industry and who was leading the way and why. It was really interesting to hear peoples thoughts sans filters

All in all, it was an amazing event – lots of great conversation, tons of laughs and some fantabulous dancing with Maren Hogan, Jenny DeVaughn (once most everyone else had gone home).

On to the main event – #socialrecruiting

Social Recruiting Panel -  The social recruiting panel was filled with big name people (Kelly Dingee, Ben Gotkin, Kerry Noone, Heather Tinguely) from big name companies talking about what they were doing with social media.  IT was a neat concept – I wish it would have been a little more interactive and got down into the how’s more than the should’s.   I would also love to see a similar panel that included some smaller/mid sized companies that were doing social media the right way.   I love hearing about what Microsoft, Sodexo, etc are doing but the reality is developing a social media strategy with an well known, established corporate brand is different and in some ways a lot easier than doing it from XCY Widget Maker with 500 ee’s.

SRS Quick Hit’s – Carmen Hudson (Tweetajob) got up in her typically, funny style and got things rolling before her breakout discussion and John Sumser (of everything and everywhere)- I think we all loved what he said, but the real winner (at our nerdy crew table) was the presentation software he was using.  Prezi.com  It was awesome and was a great lead into his unconference session

Social Recruiting from 30,000 Feet – This was by Master Burnett who rivals our own Afton Funk for coolest name ever and took a lot deeper look than I would have anticipated from the title.    It was really a quite enjoyable session

Then we got a look at what Talent Camp would have been like if there would have been 300 people at it and it was held in a comedy club.   There was some doubt on how it would work out, but as usual, Susan Burns (who happens to have been last SRS’s chairwoman)  pulled it off and IMHO was the session that got  a ton of involvement.   I know of one major company who had a few, um, non believers there – who told me later that it was that session that drove their non-recruiting people that required buy in, to get the buy in.

Finally, we come to the last sessions – I had to choose between Gerry Crispin and Jessica Lee – considering my laptop was almost out of juice, I stayed near the plug and sat in on Jessica Lee’s session on bashing monster social media for smaller companies.  It was an interesting session to say the least, I feel like I know Jessica know (even though I don’t) and think we have way to much in common to ever actually speak to one another.  It would be a dangerous mix.   Anyway, the most entertaining portion was when she happened to mention they were stopping the monster contracts and then it kinda went downhill from there.  I was proud of the restraint held at the table full of monster people behind me when comment after slide bashed them (although Eric Winegardner did retort quite nicely and professionally in a way that only he can) and felt a little bad at the comparison of free skype to Hirevue (Not even close to the same thing – its like saying I don’t need to have dinner, they give me free crackers while I wait).   But seriously people – not all jobs are right for all job boards – I get it.  Those of you that don’t have likely never worked in a small company before.   We’re cheap.  Seriously, like priceline cheap.  All in all – her message was awesome – you don’t need a huge budget to move mountains (or sumo wrestlers) in this space.  You just need innovation and engagement.

#SimplyHiredNetworkingReception

Very, very nice wrap up to the event – huge turn out, lots of ongoing discussions from the day and a bit of a feel of the last day of school for a lot of us who “conference” regularly and have grown accustomed to seeing the same people every few weeks.

Also, just have to say that it was so great to finally meet the Redhead.  I was confident that @therecruiterguy had been making her up and photo shopping her into pictures.

It’s time to put your social media prowess to the test and tell the Social Recruiting Summit what you want to see in the breakout sessions!  I am so excited to be going this year after missing the big event at Google in June.  There have been tons of great ideas submitted and all you have to do is add your own or just vote for mine a few.  (If you like mine, then feel free to vote for them!)

If you aren’t coming why do you care?  Simple – I’ll be tweeting (along with everyone else, likely) the highlights – so vote for what you want to know about!!

So – here are my ideas for the unconference/discussion based sessions -

• Imitatition isn’t the Sincerest Form of Flattery in Social Media: Authenticity, Individuality and Building YOUR Brand
• Rolling out Social Media & Social Recruiting Beyond HR:  Introducing and Earning Buy- In for Social Media At Your Organization.
• A Person Behind the Avatar: Why Connecting and Providing More than Just Business is Good for a Corporate Brand –

Want to see all of the suggestions – check out the official EtherPad for Social Recruiting.

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