Really enjoyed speaking at #irwd2013 today with HSN’s Hugo Guzman.

For the full slide deck, please visit:
IRWD Presentation on SEO Trends

IRWD 2013 is a post from: Shake The Tree

SEO Jobs is a post from: Shake The Tree

I happen to strenuously object.  ( strenuously object! ) and penned my POV below.

Recruiters, whether internal or external, serve several extraordinarily useful functions for a company/hiring mgr/team;

They help you nail down the real job and criteria for candidate consideration.

That job you think you totally understand the role for?   Well you really get that you don’t totally understand what you need until a good recruiter starts grilling you on if you want lots of experience or a little experience, if you want someone who has ALL of your check boxes neatly filled in, or if a potential superstar/up and comer with real success in a few things would fit the bill…

A third party benefits from an external view and can offer a broader canvas of potential for you to review and consider, or they can help you refine or redefine what the “must haves” are for the role so as to help create a more targeted pipeline of potential candidates for you to review and consider.

They pre-screen, qualify and vet before the resume gets to your desk.  
If you don’t get the value of this, then you need to look at what you do all day.  With only 28 hours a day of working time, you’re just not able to look under every rock to find great people (which is where the really great ones are most of the time), or you’re spending way too much time at the top of the people funnel.  And if you’re there – then there’s a pretty good chance that you’re overwhelmed and distracted from your core job.

They serve as a third voice/voice of reason.  
There is real value in having a frank conversation with someone who can be your ally in closing a deal.  Someone who can offer their everyday experience and knowledge of the market to you – and who can also be an ‘impartial’ player and take an offer back to the candidate as a “I think this would be the best way for you to potentially get this job.”

A good recruiter is essentially a member of your team/company… It’s a little Machiavellian, but if they work for/with you – you have the upper hand and ultimately, if they are good, listen and respond accordingly it’s a win-win-win.

Recruiters are also awesome at prying great people away from their current jobs.  Great people are pretty rarely active job seekers.  A recruiter is another voice of experience and knowledge and someone else to say “By the way, this company was named the third best place to work in NY” or something that resonates strongly and positively with the candidate(s) and it’s more believable/credible than if I say it.

(Which my company is, btw… for those of you keeping score at home  :) )

Of course, there are a lot of bad recruiters, just like there are a lot of bad plumbers, marketers, or salespeople.  Anyone can open a business just by putting up a web site and buying a business license.   If your primary experience is that you personally find a great person to hire, then hand them to the recruiter, then you’re doing all the work.   It’s even worse when recruiters latch onto a candidate, then shop them around like an auction to lots of clients to drive up their commissions/fees.   When a recruiter finds active job seekers or top talent they functionally serve as a matchmaker service, and are in essence working for the candidate, but getting paid by the company.   This stinks… but does happen.    But there are also great recruiters that take the strategic approach. and are focused on helping us with the end goal of finding us the best person for the long haul. They are a joy to work with and we renew our relationships with them over time as need and demand requires.

Personally, I love working with internal recruiters, because they can communicate more directly and more often, and will make your search special and their focus.  If you need to scale up a lot and quickly, get that recruiter in-house.  You don’t have to worry about them taking a commission from another company for that excellent candidate that would be great working for you.

But if you don’t have the resources or structure to hire an internal recruiter, finding a trusted recruitment partner on the outside can be an amazing multiplier to your talent pool and also can help you to cast your net out a lot further with potential candidates than just hoping you’ll get it together in your spare time.

Seth

Do I need a recruiter? is a post from: Shake The Tree

I have three kids – the oldest is now finishing first grade (the two boys are still preschool aged) so I love this post that

I came across today on helping kids manage their homework backlogs using kanban and technology.

Your Family, Agile, and You

Can see this being enormously helpful in getting through that backlog of homework.

Kanban for Kids is a post from: Shake The Tree

Read the latest Conductor blog post for more analysis of the where wikipedia ranks in the SERP landscape: http://cdtr.co/GB66Ou

Does Wikipedia really dominate the SERPs? is a post from: Shake The Tree

Personal Brand Management in the Google Age

Now – if Google would go about releasing profiles for Google Apps domains….

Google + and your personal brand . is a post from: Shake The Tree

One can often tell a great deal about where an industry’s technology is headed by understanding both the size of the opportunity in the space and the operational inefficiencies that plague it. The greater the opportunity (the more at stake) and the greater the operational inefficiencies, the higher the likelihood technology will step in to fill the gap. This can be expressed formulaically as: market opportunity *operational inefficiencies=technology trajectory.

The opportunity in SEO is indisputable: according to Comscore, monthly worldwide searches have reached more than 26 billion per month. With 92% of all search engine clicks occurring in the natural search results the opportunities for brands to reach consumers are limitless–provided they are visible in the search engines.

The operational inefficiencies in SEO are equally indisputable: surveys have shown that up to 40% of an SEO professional’s time is wasted on low-impact operational activities. The industries inefficiencies can be traced back to it’s origins as a discipline amongst techies and web developers. Home grown tools have long been the tool of the trade—born from a lack of better options, they have, until now persisted as the de facto operating system for SEO practitioners.

Here at Conductor we believe that is all about to change. We believe we are at an inflection point in SEO: the size of the opportunity in natural search is simply too great, the inefficiencies too profound, for Marketers not to be primed to be ready to do things differently. As a long-time Marketer I have seen this phenomenon occur in many industries, both online and off.

Our years of helping SEO professionals at many of the world’s largest brands succeed in natural search gave us the rich background to understand their pain points and inefficiencies. From this foundation we created Searchlight, a SaaS SEO technology platform that automates many of the manual and time consuming tasks that hold back the SEO. Searchlight gives the SEO professional unprecedented insight into their natural search visibility and is redefining SEO as a practice. It is already used by many of the world’s largest and most successful brands such as FedEx, Monster Inc, Travelocity and Siemens to manage billions of dollars in natural search assets.

We are delighted to announce today our partnership with e-consultancy on a new study titled SEO Trends: Issues and Opportunities that will provide insight into the move to metrics and technology and shed light on the rapid maturation of the SEO industry that is happening right before our eyes.

A few of the key findings:

• 3 out of 4 SEO professionals state that SEO metrics have more influence on business strategy decisions than 12 months ago
• 65% of organizations expect an increase in their SEO budgets this year
• 9 out of 10 search marketers overwhelmingly find value in the SEO platform as it offers improved information gathering and analysis in such capabilities as rank tracking, automated alerts and on-page functionality.

Download the study here to understand how the SEO industry is rapidly evolving to metrics, tools and technology.

(and of course, as always, your feedback and comments are greatly appreciated.)

Seth

Is SEO Technology at an Inflection Point? is a post from: Shake The Tree

“Did they expect it to be like a normal interview?” he added. “Did they expect it to be just conventional and boring and whatever else? No, man, it’s — we’re shaking the tree.”

(emphasis added, but I’m sure he and his two live in girlfriends are regular readers.)

And now we’ve made it…. is a post from: Shake The Tree

Read the full article on Adotas:

Google Search In Disrepair? I chat with Adotas is a post from: Shake The Tree

William…. is a post from: Shake The Tree