New blog in town: HRLitehouse

It's always a pleasure welcoming other blogs to the fold. Particularly when they're written by intelligent people with a perspective that should be shared.

So I'm very happy to say that Dr. Dennis Doverspike of the University of Akron and his colleagues have started HRLitehouse. In their own words,

"In deciding to create this blog, our goal was to do our small part to attempt to contribute to the ongoing conversation on the management of people at work. In order to do so, we hope to share our views through short reports and commentary on critical issues and current research in the areas of human resource management, personnel recruitment and testing, and organizational business consulting and coaching."

The I/O Psychology program at the University of Akron is one of the top in the country, consistently ranked in the top 10. It's refreshing to see an academic institution take the plunge into this form of knowledge sharing--and they'll probably get a decent amount of social networking out of it as well for their students (see I/O careers for an example of what can be done).

So welcome! Here's the feed.

Another member of the blog family

I consider this blog to be part of a fairly small family (with a few notable exceptions, e.g., Selection Matters) in that I focus on trying to put personnel psychology research into layperson terms. But I think I may have found a lost member of my blogging family.

The Association of Test Publishers (ATP) has an I-O Division, and lo and behold, they have a blog! And it's been up since January! I feel so...out of touch.

Anyway, check out some of their recent posts:

- The Validity-Diversity Dilemma (yes, we both blogged about this)

- Input Needed on "Model Guidelines" Revision

- Economic Study of Impact of Pre-Employment Assessment

So, belated welcome to the blogosphere! Like what you see? Pick up the feed.

New blogs to watch

Here are a couple of new blogs to head over and check out:

HR Recruiting Alert; here are a few recent articles:

• Recruitment strategies for older workers
• EEOC warns of bias in 2 common hiring practices
• Who won this case: Objective interviewing or biased process?
  

Interested? Feed is here.

The other to check out is HR-Worldview; here are some recent articles:

• What's wrong with the formal interview?
• Connectivity and productivity

Like it? Here's the feed.

Now if I could just add 5 hours to my day to read all this great stuff!

Mini book review: Groundswell

Did you know that by reading this blog post you've been put into a category? Yep, at the very least you're a "spectator." In fact, you might be a "joiner", a "collector", a "critic" or even (as I am) a "creator." Where am I getting these labels? They all come from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's new book, Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

This is by no means a new subject. There have been quite a few books in recent years that cover social technologies and how they can be used productively. But these books have tended to have either a more narrow focus (e.g., by focusing on particular technologies or organizational functions such as marketing) or an extremely broad focus. In Groundswell, Li and Bernoff, both VPs and analysts at Forrester Research, describe the current slate of social technologies and provide organizations with a road map of how they should (or shouldn't) be used.

Those of you familiar with Charlene's blog will recognize much of the content of the book--in fact to be honest there aren't a lot of new concepts in the book, which is a potential drawback. The book is, to a large extent, a collection of the various concepts that the authors have already published. But there's no denying that having it all in one place is mighty handy, and the in-depth case studies serve to flush out the details. And those of you that aren't avid readers of the blog will find much in here to digest.

So what is "the groundswell"? According to the authors it's "A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

These technologies include all the usual suspects, including blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, review sites, tags, RSS, widgets--you get the point. They also touch on newer technologies such as Twitter (which isn't so new anymore).

The biggest strength of the book lies in its description of two concepts:

- the social technographic ladder, a graphical description of various categories of technology participation. These are the categories I mentioned at the beginning of this post and it's how the authors suggest organizations stratify their customers to figure out what social technology will work best.

- POST, the authors' recommendation for how to plan to engage the groundswell. This deliberate, logical approach to using social technologies is the biggest takeaway from the book. It recognizes that not all technologies are appropriate for all organizations and provides users with a rational way of planning the strategic implementation of them.

On balance, the book is an easy read and provides a great mix of big picture considerations with real-world examples. Unless you're completely new to the subject it's not likely to rock your world, but if you're interested in using social technologies but aren't sure how, this is not a bad book to have.

What would improve the book? More specifics--details--on how exactly to use the technologies. Best practices for setting up a Facebook page, for example. The different blogging platforms and their pros and cons. It's not enough to understand the concept of the technology--you need to understand the technology itself.

So what does all this have to do with recruitment and assessment? Quite a bit actually, but mostly with the former (after all, check out where people spend their time). Tapping into social technologies is a great way to spread and monitor your employment brand--i..e, why should people want to work for you? It's also a great way to identify potential candidates and spread the word about opportunities. In terms of testing, we're not there yet (and won't be until we have a secure database of individual test scores). But maybe that's okay--after all you want a job-person match, not a person-test score match.

So why did I call this a mini-review? Because I haven't read the whole book (yet). I've read most of the beginning and latter chapters, but haven't made my way through the middle, which is comprised mostly of case studies. I don't claim to have read it cover-to-cover, so take this review with that in mind.

New blog: Criteria

Let's welcome a new blog in town. The new entrant is a corporate blog from Criteria, an employment testing firm based in LA.

They start off with a bang, taking a clever look at the relationship between Wonderlic scores (a measure of cognitive ability) and performance in the NFL.

Good stuff, check it out.

Web 2.0 Presentation

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at WRIPAC's April meeting in beautiful Napa, CA.

The topic was "Recruiting in the Age of Web 2.0" and I covered topics such as wikis, social networking, and blogs (which, coincidentally, I'm sure they're talking about right now just over the hills in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo).

For those of you that weren't able to attend but are interested, you can view the slideshow below or here.

New HR Tests feature: Shared items

I read a lot of blogs and other websites. I try to include links to the most interesting things here, but I don't always get around to it.

So I've created a Shared Items site using Google Reader that's available here. If you're interested in receiving links to articles I found interesting, it is now available to you either through the webpage, by signing up to receive e-mails, or by using the feed.

If you use Google Reader, it's a simple click to add the feed to your list. If you don't, copy this shortcut and add it to your feed reader. I've also added the ability to sign up via e-mail and feed on my main page.

I'll still be referencing content here but I'm going to try to stick as much as possible to original content and analysis. This is just a way for those of you out there, like me, who have an unhealthy addiction to information.

Thanks for reading!

A hiatus and government blogging

I'll be taking a brief hiatus from blogging as I move from the Pacific Northwest to California. There's plenty more blogging to come, it just may be a few weeks as I get settled in.

In the meantime, for those of you interested in learning more about blogs--how to make them and how to use them--you should check out an IBM study that came out recently titled The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0 by David Wyld. It's chock full of info, and not just for those of you in the public sector. Topics include:

- How do I blog?

- Touring the blogosphere

- Blogging policy

If this is a topic that interests you, don't forget to check out Scoble & Israel's Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Oh, and if you look at the bottom of my homepage you might just see a link to an article that a certain someone (okay, me) wrote recently about how to use blogs for recruitment, assessment, and retention.

Thanks for reading & I'll be back soon!

A funny employment lawyer

Of course they exist. If you don't know one, you do now.

Mark Toth is the Chief Legal Officer at Manpower and he's just started a blog on employment law that so far is highly amusing.

For example, he sings a song about employment law.

A song.

About employment law.

I mean, you gotta be into this stuff to go that far.

He's also got a REALLY BAD hiring interview up for you to watch, along with his top 10 "employment law greatest hits."

My personal favorite? #6: "Communicate, communicate, communicate (unless you communicate stupidly)"

One of the more creative blogs I've seen. Here's to hoping it lasts.

And no, I won't be singing a song about assessment. Unless you really want me to (and trust me, you don't want me to).

Hat tip.

Links a go-go for 8-24-07

Good reading for August 24, 2007:

OFCCP issues final regulations implementing Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002 (job banks for postings listed here), and...

OFCCP also posts interim guidance on use of race and ethnic categories (direct link here)

Are you sure you know where your hires are coming from? (hint: beware drop-down boxes)

Jobmatchbox does the 50 top recruiting blogs

Interview questions you can ask--and those you can't (includes simplistic video!)

Tracking adverse impact

Favorite defense motions in limine for employment cases

Does harassment training lead to more lawsuits? (hat tip)

The housing market and its relationship to recruiting

New regulations on no-match letters: Ho-hum?

Where does my traffic come from?

Given that it's a holiday (here in the U.S.), I thought I would post something on the lighter side...

Because I use Feedburner and Google Analytics, I'm able to see how my readers reach my home page. I thought it might be informative to show you how people get (t)here...

Here are, in descending order, the most popular ways people find HR Tests:

1. Through Wikipedia

2. By searching for Jobfox (a very promising job matching service that I wrote a post about)

3. From my colleague Michael Harris' ex-blog, EASI-HR blog (now he's over at HRMplus)

4. Through IPMAAC (a great professional organization devoted to public sector assessment)

5. Through recruiting.com (clearinghouse for recruitment-related matters)

6. From selectionmatters.com written by fellow blogger Jamie Madigan (who also writes for TIP)

7. Through searches for Hogan assessments

8. Through recruitingblogs.com

If you own a blog, you might consider becoming more visible through these avenues. Yahoo! Site Explorer will give you similar, albeit non-rolled-up, information.

Alternatively, you could now point out to me that I'm missing some obvious source of traffic :)

Other random information:

Visitor location: The majority of my visitors are from the states, with Pittsburgh being the most common source. I also get a fair amount of traffic from Bombay (Mumbai), India. Other visitor locations include Bangkok, Canada, Dubai, London, and Singapore (to name a few).

Search engine: Overwhelmingly Google. The other search engines don't even come close.

Web browser: Internet Explorer has the lion's share (83%) with Firefox at 12%.

That's all for now--thanks for reading!