This week I'm honored to give a social media webinar for members of the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) of the American Hospital Association (AHA). The webinar is sponsored by Human Resources IQ.

There have been huge strides in the health care industry with respect to social media. Hospitals and medical facilities have looked beyond the strict, historical constraints of the healthcare industry and are leveraging social media more and more every day.

Here is the slide deck from my webinar, in case you missed it:

View more presentations from Jenny DeVaughn.

Today, I'm honored to join an amazing team of people at Bernard HODES Group as the Director, Social Strategy. It has been a wonderful first day thanks to my new colleagues, due in a large part to leaders like Kevin Hensley, Vince Vitti and Shannon Seery Gude. I'm humbled by the article about my new opportunity with HODES that was written by John Zappe and published today in the ERE Daily.

You may read the article here: http://bit.ly/JennyjoinsHODES.

Of course, I'll keep on blogging under Social Precision. Please continue to reach out to me for speaking engagements, conferences, on-site training, webinars and step-by-step workshops.

Here is the slide deck for my presentation at the TAG Recruiting Society meeting tonight in Atlanta:

My first speaking engagement of the year is delivering a "Social Recruiting Boot Camp" at the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Recruiting Society. Hope to see you there.

Here is the official invitation:
Let's kick off the New Year with one of the hottest trends in recruiting! In part 1 of our 3 part series of Social Media content, Jenny DeVaughn, Chief Enthusiast Officer (CEO) of Social Precision, will help you start 2010 in the right direction.

Jenny will get rid of your social media timewasters and make sure that your social recruiting strategy is in top form. Jenny has been on the front lines and used social media tools to reach her recruiting, business development and career goals. With some consistent and persistent effort, you can also get the social recruiting results you have always desired. This will be an interactive and energetic session that you do not want to miss.

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Recruiting Society's January 2010 Meeting

Tuesday, January 19th
5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Mirant Corporation
1155 Perimeter Center West, 1st Floor Assembly Room
Atlanta, GA 30338

Cost:  Complimentary for members and $20 for non-members

Meeting Time:  5:30 - 6:00 PM - Networking and Registration
                        6:00 - 7:30 PM - Presentation

Register online at http://bit.ly/tagbootcamp and walk-ins are welcome.

As we begin another year in our recruiting careers, it is time to assess our social recruiting efforts. Here are some tips as you reflect and refocus your online social recruiting goals:

1. Examine your social media footprint. You can start by visiting Pipl.com to see what information exists about you online. If you don’t like the content that is shown, you have an opportunity to immediately change it. Start commenting on blogs of influencers in your industry. Contribute a post to ERE or Recruiting Blogs. Be a part of Twitter conversations to share best practices. Create a Google profile.
   
   
2. Your social media presence should reflect your passions. Reassess your professional goals. It may be time to hire a career coach to help you identify strengths or skills that you are overlooking. Read, Crush It, by Gary Vaynerchuk for inspiration.
   
   
3. Update your avatar. I had the same profile picture for over 6 years, until a close friend suggested that I change it. It is important that your photo shows who you are professionally.
   
   
4. Review your online bios. Due to size restrictions, you will have different versions on Twitter, LinkedIn and your company website. Your bio should reflect what makes you special and different from other recruiters, including critical keywords so that your profile can be found. Is your bio a long-winded press release that no one will take the time to read?
   
   
5. Plan your social media activities after you set specific goals. Social media networks are designed to engage. You may start in LinkedIn searching for an IT candidate and 30 minutes later you wind up in an alumni group looking for old friends. In order to combat this, calendar specific functions. For example, from 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM, reserve time to find 10 qualified candidates for your Java Developer opening.
   
   
6. Change the frequency of your social recruiting activities. Social media never sleeps. How often do you update your Twitter or LinkedIn status? When was the last time you posted something to your company’s Facebook Fan page? Set Outlook reminders to ensure that your communication is consistent to your social media communities.
   
   
7. Keep paying it forward to candidates. Conduct a complimentary webinar for your ideal candidates on a subject that they truly value.  Volunteer to speak or review resumes at job seekers groups, like a career ministry to help those who need recruiting resources now more than ever.
   
   
8. Outline your job notification process. When you get a new opening within your company, how do you promote it to your networks? Is there a standard process based on past recruiting metrics or a random series of posts depending upon how you are feeling that day?
   
   
9. Evaluate your accomplishments on specific platforms. Hopefully, you have been measuring your recruiting activities. Review your past placements. Where did your best referrals and candidates come from? When you are determining which social platforms to focus your resources into this year, don’t believe the hype and the propaganda of biased resources. Your best social recruiting platform may be an internal network from employee referrals or cold calling niche online directories of candidates. Remember that your social recruiting strategy is unique.
   
   
10. Add innovative tools to your social recruiting tool kit. It may be time to reevaluate your career website and the candidate’s experience with your online presence. Maybe you should consider incorporating video, jobcasts, Facebook advertising or an iPhone app for potential candidates. Be sure that any tactical choices support your comprehensive recruiting plan.

In the ever-changing world of social recruiting, there is always room for improvement. Continue to engage with potential talent in new ways and measure your results of each social recruiting campaign. Let’s continue to evolve our social recruiting efforts in 2010!

Click here to view more photos from the event on Flickr taken by Alana Lombardi.

Thank you to Eric Winegardner (and his colleagues from Monster Worldwide), Alice Joy with 675 Bar, Kathy O'Reilly, Ernest Feiteira and Kathleen Smith for making the tweetup a reality. We appreciate everyone who joined us for the tweetup. Although I love keeping up with my professional network using social media, it is so much more fun meeting in real life.

When an event has Laurie Ruettimann as the Chairwoman, a list of unbelievable speakers, attendees from all over the world, quick hit sessions and is located in the city that never sleeps, my expectations are high. The Social Recruiting Summit did not disappoint. Here are a few of the insights that continue to resonate with me:

1. Monster Worldwide should add a new revenue stream: event planning. I spent time organizing the #monstersocial tweetup with Eric Winegardner, Alana Lombardi and Kathy O'Reilly. Each person I interacted with from their organization was exceptional. The 675 Bar was a great venue. The tweetup was also a success due to the dedicated help of Ernest Feiteira and Kathleen Smith.
   
   
2. When discussing social media and recruiting, show me the data! We want to see the actual return on your social media investment. Master Burnett, Fred Wilson and Gerry Crispin provided lots of insights and the true analytical impact of social recruiting.
   
   
3. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all. Blame it on my Midwestern roots or the influence of my parents. When speaking or interacting in a public social network, I always try to find the good points to comment about people or organizations. In the past, I haven’t always succeeded and I have been deeply humbled by those moments. One can deliver an authentic and memorable message to their target audience by being polite.
   
   
4. The recruiting industry is full of unselfish leaders. I’m grateful to be a part of a conversation with those who are willing to share their experiences and miscues in social media, even in front of their competitors. Also, there are many of our colleagues that work tirelessly behind the scenes, especially the ERE team so that we can attend conferences like the Social Recruiting Summit.
   
   
5. Conferences are more rewarding when we include everyone. I loved the Google Wave started by Chris Hoyt. It was like having a live wiki of the event where we could instantly collaborate and have a document to review or update in the future. ERE also provided the live feed online and posted the #socialrecruiting Twitter stream via Twubs. We could share ideas and feedback with those who were interested in the event, even if they were not there in person with us.

Thank you again to those who made certain that the Social Recruiting Summit was one of my favorite conferences this year. I appreciate the ways you have encouraged me to continue to evolve and learn. Hope to reconnect with my friends, old and new, again soon.

Update on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 2:01PM by Jenny DeVaughn

View the cool Social Recruiting Summit #monstersocial tweetup video by clicking here.

When I started on Twitter, I was guilty of dumping. My Twitter stream looked like a mini-job board of open positions with links for qualified candidates to apply. It is impossible for a candidate have a conversation with a stream of open positions.

Here are some recommendations on how to avoid only dumping your jobs on Twitter:

1. Give value to your ideal candidates. Tweet about recent articles and blog posts that your target audience wants to know more about.
   
   
2. Connect with your potential candidates in person using Twitter. Coordinate and promote a tweetup.  Find a thought leader or author from their industry that you could feature at the event to generate additional interest.
   
   
3. Promote your professional relationships by tweeting about events and newsworthy highlights of your non-profit partners and other sister companies.
   
   
4. Help those who have questions via Twitter. Be sure to respond to each person, especially if they need to be redirected to another contact within your company.
   
   
5. Discover referral opportunities. Build relationships on Twitter with other recruiters who may be willing to refer candidates to you or partner with you on specific seasonal hiring projects.
   
   
6. Discuss competitive advantages of your culture. Any benefits that your organization offers that endorses a positive work-life balance is ideal tweet material.
   
   
7. Highlight loyal employees’ accomplishments or departmental successes of your business. Companies that are stable and doing well attract talent.
   
   
8. Remember your purpose on Twitter. Does your Twitter account exist only to broadcast open jobs and provide one-way communication to an audience of potential hires? Hopefully, your Twitter page is one small tactical piece of a significantly larger recruiting strategy.