The past three years I have hosted a networking event for HR, Recruiters, human capital management folks, and interesting people I wanted to connect with at the interactive media conference SXSW.  This year (2012) we decided to do something a little different.  Instead of  hosting an evening event with loud music and little opportunity to talk among the group, we are hosting an lunchish event called “Social Siesta.”

The location is yet to be announced but this event is VIP only meaning that you should suck up big time.  That means tweeting us directly, leaving comments here on the blog and sending us raving fan mail.  So if you are in Austin March 10, 2012 sign up for our Social Siesta event during SXSW.  Meet amazing technology folks, human capital management professionals, and nurse that hangover.  Don’t worry because the bloody mary’s and light lunch are on us . . .

We are in the market for sponsors so if you are a vendor that’s looking to engage 150 of the awesomest minds in HCM and social media, hit me up.  Sponsor pricing starts at $2,500.  I’m doing a full scale PR campaign both SEO optimized and social media.  Last year we had over 20,000 views of our event page so it’s a good bet you will get some eyes on your logo.  Contact me via this form or by phone at 405.293.2564 for pricing and more details.

**Disclaimer:  We are not affiliated in any way with SXSW. 

The job search is a process.   A process that involves training, strategy, and patience.  Much like an artist works to craft and design their masterpiece.  The planning and strategy involved with your job search should begin no less than six months prior to when your job search begins.  These preparations involved include fostering relationships, establishing connections, creating an online presence and developing a long-term strategy to grow your professional skills.

For your job search to be effective, one must start at the beginning.  This involves an honest assessment of your skills, qualifications, and how you stack up against the competition.  I liken this to artists drawing sketches or creating molds prior to casting their iron masterpiece.  This preparation involves a great deal of time and attention.

The most effective way in which to develop your job search strategy involves conducting a gap analysis. A gap analysis is a common planning and strategy tactic used by businesses to determine ways a brand can adapt to market conditions to reach their goals.  For a job seeker, these goals could be to meet new industry connections, get their work published, or to find a new position.

Performing a gap analysis involves a simple five-step process:

1. Start with a list known gaps — holes in the market where a need is not being served by the products and services currently available.
2. List potential gaps — areas of opportunity that could arise later.
3. Make a list of triggers that may lead to gaps — what could you do to turn a potential gap into a real opportunity?
4. List market trends related to your industry or blog specialization. Where do you fit in?
5. Assign actions you can take in these areas.

An analysis like this can be as involved or as simple as you wish.  The goal is to benefit the end user and its complexity depends on the complexity of your own brand, a new job and long-term career goals.  The key is to focus on the long-term strategy being meticulous and calculated.  Just like a work of art, your career and job is often a reflection and celebration of your accomplishments.  With a clear strategy and plan to get there, you’re job search and personal brand can be a work of art.

Are you a recruiter, hiring manager, or business leader?  Consider joining in the #GiveLabor Day movement and spend 15 minutes on Labor Day to help get America back to work.  Learn more by visiting the press release, get your badge, and follow the Twitter hash tag #GiveLabor to learn more.  Leave a comment and tell me how you are going to make a difference. 

Photo Credit Rogueego. 

FTC Disclosure: Smartrecruiters is a client of Xceptional HR. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. And I believe in the Zero Unemployment Movement.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

In 2007, I started blogging here at Blogging4Jobs with the intention of providing job seekers information, resources, and insights into why they couldn’t get the job.  As a corporate HR and Recruiting pro, my hands were tied.  Attorney’s advised me from giving you the real reason you didn’t get the job for fear it could result in legal action.  They’re risk averse in general.  It’s not that we were likely doing anything wrong, it’s just status quo.  My blog started to give you more than, “I’m sorry you weren’t the right fit for the position,” and here I am.

One thing I’ve noticed  from last year to this year at SHRM there seems to be smaller amount of after hour parties as part of the 2011 SHRM Annual Conference.  That could be largely due to the fact that Vegas is packed full of shows, events, and entertainment for days.  Or maybe I’m just not cool enough to be invited.  Sometimes these things happen at the last minute at least that’s what I’m telling myself.  I’m sure the amount of outside activity choices is the reason and not the $20,000 minimim cost to reserve a cocktail room in Vegas for a two hour soire.  Otherwise, you’d be seeing a Blogging4Jobs tweetup I promise you.

I’ve combed the web for you to find some events, activities, and after hours meetups happening during the 2011 SHRM Annual Conference.  If you have one (a SHRM party) I didn’t mention, be sure to include it in the comments with a link for registration and I’ll add it to the list.

• SHRM Stratosphere Event.  Sunday night, June 26th from 6:00-9:00 PM at the Stratosphere Tower hosted by Merchants Leasing.  Register.

• TNLTup. Sunday night, June 26th from 7:30-9:30 PM at the Lavo Club in the Palazzo Hotel Resort Hotel.  Register.

• McGraw-Hill Professional SHRM Happy Hour Meetup.  Monday night June 27th from 5:00-6:00 PM at the Pub at Monte Carlo Resort and Hotel.  Limited registration.  Register.

• Michigan SHRM Member Event. Monday night, June 27th from 5:00-7:00 PM at the Hilton Grand Vacation Resort, Poolside Patio.  I’m not from Michigan but it sounds like fun. Register.

• Direct Employers & Career Arc Group SHRM 11 Meetup. Monday night, June 27th from 5:30-7:30 PM at the Hilton Hotel Elvis Suite.  RSVP required as Elvis is in attendance.  Register.

• Fisher & Phillips SHRM Mixer. Monday night, June 27th from 5:30-8:00 PM at Mix atop THEHotel.  Limited registration.  Register or email jgreenbaum@laborlawyers.com.

• Wine & Whiskey Tasting Event. Monday night, June 27th from 6:00-late PM at Double Helix.  Hosted by Robert Hohman, CEO of Glassdoor.  Private event.  Details.

• Monster Private Concert. Monday night, June 25th from 7:30-late PM at the Aria Resort and Casino. Private event. Register to win tickets,  Details.

• SHRM Tweetup.  Monday night, June 27th  starting at 8:00 PM at Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum just in front of the Venetian.  I attended last years and it was a great time.  Register.

• Keith Urban in Concert.  Tuesday night, June 28th.  Time not yet announced.  Location is at the Vegas Convention Center.  More information here.

• SHRM Deals.  SHRM has partnered with a site that offers discounts on shows and events throughout the conference.  I’m excited to get 35% of Cirque show tickets if I can fit it into my schedule.  Details here .

Photo Credit Life 123.

In just a few short weeks, I’ll be landing in Vegas for the SHRM 2011 Annual Conference.  An estimated 25,000 HR professionals will be attending the world’s largest global human resources conference.  And I’m excited to be speaking along side other celebrities like Sir Richard Branson, Michael J. Fox, Arriana Huffington, Barry Reid, CEO of AARP, and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.

Social Media Boot Camp for HR is a four hour workshop geared toward social media basics for the human resources, talent management, and recruiting professional.  Carrie Corbin, SPHR (@thealphafemme) Associate Director of Talent Attraction at AT&T will be co-presenting with me giving HR pros the low down on social media.  One of the exciting developments is that the has 4 HRCI recertification credits for those that attend.  We’ll have internet access and will be able to take all attendee social media questions to get you up to speed.

Registration and more information about the workshop is at the SHRM Conference Website.  Attendees will receive a special session workbook and access to amazing resources at the ToolBox HR website.  Be sure to stay visit the bookstore just after the session for a book signing of my book, Tweet This!  Twitter for Business.

Social Media Boot Camp for HR Session Description

Social Media Boot Camp for HR session we will cover social media basics for the Human Resource professional including creating and using Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Blogging, and LinkedIn. This course is a foundational social media course specifically designed for the strategic human resource professional who is driven to understand the new online landscape and mitigate organization and corporate risk.

Our session will demonstrate to the HR professional as well as provide case studies of more than 15 companies how organizations are using social media strategies and tools to grow and build their talent pools, communicate more effectively with their current and future employee base and discuss the topic of current law as well as organizational ethics in the workplace.

In addition to introducing these tools, we will discuss some facts, figures, and basic practical uses and applications for business, human resources, sales, finance, and marketing.  Our session will provide a cross-functional point of view allowing for our attendees to become engaged and knowledgeable business partner.

Social media monitoring and research strategies will also be covered and discussed including using a RSS as well as creating a Google Reader and leveraging tools like Google Alerts to monitor brand, employee activities, and corporate mentions on the internet.

Special attention will be taken to provide the human resource and recruiting professional with time saving tips and social media monitoring practices with a focus on current and future employment law trends as well as recent case rules including the NLRB, Supreme Court, and the teacher who was terminated in Philadelphia for her comments about students on her anonymous personal blog.

Attendees will receive a complete workbook that provides a social media investigation toolkit, social media policy guidelines and best practices, as well as online blogs and resources written by other human resource professionals throughout providing a global context for our attendees.

To learn more about other topics I speak about as well as downloading a copy of my bio, visit my speaker’s site, www.jessicamiller-merrell.com.

Some of you may know that I am the PR/Social Media Director for the Oklahoma State HR Council also known as OKHR.  I’m also HR blogger here at Blogging4Jobs.  My role at OKHR is to drive awareness about the professional association with the added hope of increasing membership.  I’ve pitched to the press here in Oklahoma with some success.  I’m happy to report our releases are getting several thousand views.

Sadly, some of the larger newspapers and publications in Oklahoma have not been as receptive as I would have liked when it comes specifically to social media.  And earlier today, I learned why.

A reporter from The Daily Oklahoman, a daily newspaper in Oklahoma City,  the city where I call home replied with the following after I sent an email to discuss their interest in covering our HR state conference:

My editor wants me to stay awy from SM stories. We just ran one April 27 for Crowe hc conf. … and when it comes to tweeting/fb’ing etc. it gets a little ticklish since The Oklahoman is now in the game as an online source and also provides contract SM services.

From this message the city’s largest newspaper and publication is avoiding stories that involve social media because they provide social media services and are a source of publication.  It’s sad because a partnership could be created, a relationship among the bloggers in Oklahoma City and The Daily Oklahoman where we build each other up instead of tearing each other down.

Let me just say that I wasn’t pitching publications and media to write strictly about social media.  Human Resources involves things that are mostly outside of social media and that was what this conference was all about.  It just happened to be the topic of conversation when I was referred to the writer at the Oklahoma.

The blogsphere and social media space in Oklahoma is very active.  It’s a great source of news and yesterday’s announcement of the death of Osama bin laden is a fine example.  In doing a quick Google search on the keywords Osama bin laden, you can see that there are over 1900 real time messages of his death from social media.  And this is nearly 24 hours after the story was broke to the press.

More importantly, is where I learned about bin laden’s death.  Just before shutting down for the night, I saw a tweet saying the following, “Ding dong the wicked witch is dead.”  Slightly intrigued I further investigated my Twitter stream to see an announcement from both TMZ and CNN.  I quickly retweeted the message to my own 24,000 plus followers and several responded quite surprised.

I see the world of blogging and social media as a tool to work together with more traditional publications instead of against them.  With more than 500 active bloggers in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa Metro areas, I believe that by all working together we can help one another instead of singling out community members who serve content generators and community influencers.  Because content generators and influencers ingest content at a greater rate than their counter parts.

Am I wrong or am I right?  Should traditional media engage or ignore bloggers?

Photo Credit Leadership Freak.