'Not'working

In reading the short post here, I was surprised to view this recruiting ad for Yahoo on Craigslist. Many companies, especially in India, recruit a substantial portion of their new hires through internal networking means. This means that current employees of the company, will refer someone they know as a candidate for a job at that company.

I would think that an online empire like Yahoo would have the social networking skills and connections to recruit recently graduate college students for hire. People have friends, but Yahoo has Craigslist. I don't think this makes Yahoo look very good. In a sense, online marketing for hires like this is good thinking, but in my opinion, it's not good enough. A nice little "I'm for Sale" tag goes up in my mind on anything that I see on Craigslist. Yahoo is simply saying, "we're too socially inept that we can't think of any better way to recruit hires than on Craigslist." How's about putting the recruitment ad on... YAHOO?? Perhaps on the Yahoo careers page?

This site talks about one's blog as fulfilling the role of their new resume. Your blog represents you. Well, I'd like to relate this back to the Yahoo faux-pas mentioned above. Job postings, in my eyes, are, as the blog reads, "serious business," "represent[ative] of you [i.e. Yahoo]," and "the unedited version of yourself." So, then, is Yahoo's recruiting techniques to say "we're cheap, not serious, and unoriginal?" It certainly appears this way. This reminds me of when an Army recruiting ad accidentally appeared on a gay social networking site.

I believe that how an organization recruits is reflective of the company's nature, style, and operation. What I am suggesting in this post is that my professional opinion of Yahoo has lessened slightly.

Social Networking on Steroids, Speed, and X

Yes, you read that correctly.

Take 21 seconds to read point #6 of "Working Together...When Apart."

I am the Project Manager for Kogod's class KSB-252: Washington Initiative [Instructor: Allison Holcomb]. The goal of the class is to execute an AU-wide marketing initiative surrounding the Help the Homeless Walkathon, which is sponsored by Fannie Mae and takes place on the National Mall on November 17th.

Our team of 8 meets once weekly, and as such it is my responsibility to make sure that everyone is doing their jobs outside of the meetings. Each member of my team has a lot to do, and my job is essentially 8-fold in trying to keep up with it all. I require my team members to produce finite results for every meeting, and as such I am able to keep them accountable to the group.

I also take ITEC-200 with Professor Melander. You'd better believe that there's a wiki page for that course too. Blackboard, in my opinion, is not the best tool for keeping a class organized. This is why I commend Professor Melander so much for using the wiki pages. I had no idea the things that were possible with wiki's. Likewise, the blog for Brendan Monaghan, our guest speaker two classes ago, featured an awesome video about making a wiki page for a team or an event. My team needs to be able to edit documents together, and collaborate on our project. The above sources [i.e. Professor Melander] inspired me to make a wiki for my team. So, I created ksb252.wetpaint.com. Wetpaint is another site that hosts wiki's, although it does have advertising.

My team members have been responsible for editing several pages, and making noticeable contributions each week in preparation for meetings and events. As a result, our team is very connected, both in and out of the boardroom (we meet in the Kogod boardroom). Our client is very happy with our presentation, and our team is able to get things done in a no-excuse [online] environment that I feel promotes punctuality and cooperation.

So, when I read point #6 above, it made me very excited because for my e-connected team, this is something that I had actually done. And, I was able to related to the article instead of taking it with a grain of salt and much skepticism.

Thank you, Professor.