Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization Show

Business Builders Show host Marty Wolff interviews Ira S. Wolfe, author of this great new book Recruiting in the Age of Googlization: When The Shift Hits Your Plan. The Business Builders Show with Marty Wolff is proud to bring you this interview on www.c-suiteradio.com   Ira was one of the FIRST and most outspoken leaders to talk about job and skill changes nearly twenty years ago. And he remains an expert in this field as you will hear in the interview and see in his book.   To schedule more interviews like this with Ira, call 800-803-4303 or visit www.irawolfe.com.

Google receives 300 million job-related search requests each month, which makes up nearly 30 percent of all Google searches. Unfortunately, for many organizations, there's often a significant disconnect between how job seekers search for opportunities and how recruiters post jobs. Consequently, it's all too easy for a job posting to evaporate into cyberspace and become an invisible blip in a sea of information, even with seven out of every 10 (or more) job searches starting online. Using SEM and SEO strategies can boost recruiters' chances of getting a job opening noticed. Here are a few simple recruiting hacks that can help your next job posting find its way to the right candidates. Listen to this article written and read by author Ira S Wolfe and posted on ReWork.   Resources:  Google Keyword Planner (FREE) Paid Keyword Tools: Moz, SEMRush, Wordstream

"Shift or die. It's that simple." These are the opening words of the new best seller Recruiting in the Age of Googlization. Author Ira S Wolfe explains how most people don't think big enough and how many executives, business owners, and individuals tune out what's happening and underestimate the disruption that exponential change causes.  He even cites how legendary American business magnate and investor Warren Buffet admitted he was caught flat-footed by the transformative powers of Amazon. While this episode is focused on why companies and individuals must SHIFT, the book lays out the beginning of a recruiting blueprint for recruiting in the age of Googlization.   The book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and independent bookstore.  You can also call 800-803-4303 to order a signed copy. A download of a free chapter is available here. (It's a different chapter! To schedule Ira S Wolfe for an interview or speaking event, click here.

“Is this year going to be more challenged than last year” when it comes to talent acquisition. "Yes" is the nearly unanimous answer! Consequently, recruiters and HR are scrambling to chase top talent. Unfortunately traditional recruitment practices that just aren’t working anymore. One underutilized but massively successful solution is video which might explain its explosion of popularity in every marketing strategy except … you guessed it: HR! My guest for this episode is Abby Cheesman, co-founder of Skill Scout.  In this podcast we explore: Why companies should be using video for talent acquisition How companies should be using video for talent acquisition What are some of the pitfalls to avoid when using video for talent acquisition Let’s start with what was one of my favorite quotes from Abby:” Job descriptions are lame. They are the last thing candidates want to read but they’re often the first touch point. The job description is a legal document; a list of requirements that doesn’t tell anything about the look-and-feel of the job or company culture.”   Using video to post a job tells a story. It helps differentiate your company from your competitors. “It serves as a purposeful piece of the recruiting puzzle,” Abby told me. She offered an amazing statistic that tells it all: “When you use a text- based job description, people recall 16% of what they read …and that’s being generous. With video people recall 65% of what they see and hear on a video. On top of that, visibility skyrockets with video. Search engine marketing explodes because video is 50X more likely to be shared than text. Everyone wants to be #1 on Google but many recruiters don’t realize that the 2nd largest search engine in the world is YouTube! And since YouTube is owned by Google, video helps Google rankings too. And here’s one more twist. Skill Scout’s research has shown that candidates are not just going direct to job boards or company career sites to search for jobs. They are first  going to YouTube to find jobs and learn about your company before searching on job boards like Indeed and Careerbuilder.   Video opens up a whole new channel and source for talent acquisition. What I shared so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Now that I whet your appetite for why and how you should be using video for recruitment, it's time to download or hit play! As an added bonus, Abby shared this “Skill Scout Video Recipe,” a free checklist with questions to ask and clips to capture. Click here to download. In addition, here’s the link to a 1-minute video about how to set your shot with a smartphone. And here's the link to Abby's article 5 Ways to Introduce Video into Your Candidate Experience.

Recruiting top talent in 2018 - from the production floor to the C-Suite - will be more competitive than ever. To reach and engage qualified candidates, organizations must stand out. And no matter how creative the text-based job posting, text is still text and it pales in comparison to the power of video. For example, video is watched and shared 1200% more than text and images. The impact of video in search engine rankings is 50X greater than text and video. How can recruiters and HR take advantage of the power of video. Join Ira S Wolfe and his guest The Video Godfather Lou Bortone, author the new book Video Marketing Rules. In this podcast you will learn what it takes to convert your cold-and-corporate job postings  to warm-and-engaging. It's much easier than most people think and the ROI can be spectacular. Don't forget to check out Lou's website at www.loubortone.com and grab a copy of his book Video Marketing Rules. And while you're shopping don't forget to pick up a copy of my new bestseller Recruiting in the Age of Googlization.

Sociology professor Tony Campolo said, “I am convinced we don’t live in a generation of bad kids. We live in a generation of kids who know too much too soon.” From an intellectual perspective, Millennials today have been exposed to so much more than Gen X and Baby Boomers at the same age. They’ve consumed information on everything from cyberspace to sexual techniques before they graduate from middle school. Everything is coming at them sooner.[1] On the other hand, many believe that emotional maturity is lacking.  Some blame the “helicopters parents.”  It’s like the butterfly grew up but couldn’t live outside the cocoon (or the parents’ basements!) But there might be another reason for the immature attitudes - a lack of emotional intelligence. Listen to host Ira S Wolfe with guest Jennifer Zamecki discuss Emotional Intelligence and how it may be impacting Millennials as well as employers. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/artificial-maturity/201211/the-marks-maturity  

A Baby Boomer walks into a room and finds 3 smart, hard-working Millennials sitting at a table. That’s it. There is no joke. Sparks didn’t fly. Attitudes didn’t clash. The Millennials didn’t ask to be CEO tomorrow. Ironically, these 3 twenty-something start-up entrepreneurs “hired” Baby Boomer Jon Carson, more than 3 ½ decades older and 2 generations removed, to be CollegeVine’s first chief executive officer.   Scenes like this - Baby Boomers and Millennials getting along - happen every day and are repeated thousands of times. We just don’t read much about collaboration and cooperation between generations because as they used to say in the newspaper business, “if it bleeds, it reads.”  Millennial bashing makes a much better headline. So how does it work? What does CEO Jon Carson do differently that so many other managers and executives don't? What does it take to get Millennials and Baby Boomers (as well as other generations) to work side-by-side as partners, colleagues, and co-workers? Listen and learn!

In these VUCA (Volatile-Uncertain-Complex-Ambiguous) times, what’s next seems to be top of everyone’s mind these days from the coffee shop to the board room.  So it seemed pretty obvious that when Dr. Liz Alexander and Geeks Geezers and Googlization host and TEDx Speaker Ira S Wolfe got together to discuss the future of work that what’s next in leadership would kick off the conversation. Here are 3 take-aways from this podcast. The Ambiguity of Leadership Did you ever wonder why most descriptions of leadership begin with an adjective – authentic, visionary, transformational, or spiritual? Dr. Liz shared a recent situation where someone on LinkedIn posted a question to describe leadership in one word…and over 20,000 responses were recorded! The diversity of answers amplified the ambiguity of leadership. Therefore any discussion of what’s next must start with a universal agreement about what leadership means to individuals and organization. She paraphrases Joel Barker’s definition of leadership as one example – someone that you might choose to follow to reach a desired future you may not reach by yourself. The Future Demands a Different Resume Too often people conflate a title of leadership with the role. Many people with the title of let’s say Vice-President may fill the box on an organizational chart but lack the ability to lead the business function. The problem with leadership today, says Dr. Liz, is that too many people are bound up by past notions of who is next in line rather than who is best qualified to lead. One example she offered was past leadership focused on the ability to solve problems. Today leadership requires the ability to decode dilemmas where there are no clear cut choices. Solving problems requires speed, analysis, and elimination of uncertainty. Dilemmas demand patience, sense-making, and an engagement with uncertainty. Leadership in the vision requires more than a mission to correct the wrongs of the past. It requires a vision of the future. 21st Century Critical Skills off Leadership Because a dilemma reached beyond the capability of any one individual or group, solutions require collaboration between co-workers, colleagues, and even the competition. That is just one of 6 leadership skills required to excel in a VUCA world. Jeff Hoffman, co-founder of Priceline, shared another which he calls info-sponging, a habit borne from curiosity. Other essential leadership skills for the 21st century include conscientiousness, creativity, critical thinking, and agility. What’s the single most important single “nugget” you will learn?  Listen now.

Purpose, vision, and mission often get bantered about in board rooms as if the words held magical powers.  They don't. It's the passion and action behind those words that matter. During this podcast, my friend and colleague John Dame didn’t waste any time tackling one of the biggest concerns we hear from executives and small business owners when we ask “what is the purpose of your business.”  The reaction we get suggests we are asking some sort of trick question like who's buried in Grant's tomb? Of course the purpose of business is to make money. Isn’t it? Unfortunately for companies today that philosophy doesn’t help attract enthusiastic customers or acquire and retain talent. “Few if any employees,” John explained, “want to come to work for you to help you make money.” When studying many of the most successful and sustainable companies, the one thing they have in common is that making a lot of money is the outcome of a great vision, purpose, focus, and clarity for what the future looks like. “If you just want people to come to work to make money,” it will be more difficult to grow your business and attract and retain talent going forward. Has it always been this way? Does purpose seem to be more important today than it was just a few years ago? Are the Millennials responsible for this greater emphasis on purpose? For those answers you’ll just have to listen! And to learn more about why finding and living your purpose will be more important than ever in an Age of Acceleration, download my free book preview and white paper When the Shift Hits Your Plan: What Happens When the Wired, Tired, and Technology Converge.

What does the future of work look like was the focus of a recent interview I had with Rick Anthony on his Entrepreneurs Network Radio show. Like most of our conversations, we started off with a discussion about the multi-generational workforce.  And like we do so often it led off with a discussion of the Baby Boomers and Millennials.  Rick started with, “What is the major shift you see occurring right now and where is it headed?” I’m not sure Rick got the answer he was expecting. Here’s an edited version of my response: We typically classify generations by date of birth. I wrote a book about it and you and I have talked about it. So have a lot of other people. And whether it's the Baby Boomer, Generation X, or Millennial Generation, these cohorts span 15 or 20 years before another cohort is defined. During each time span trends change and events happen. Each generation is indelibly stamped by them. When I wrote Geeks, Geezers and Googlization and even more so after it was published, I started to see a shift in how we describe generations. It wasn't so much an age dependent demographic as much as it was maybe a technology dependent demographic.  I’ve begun to look across those generational time spans and talk about more about the Wired and the Tired.  For more, click here. We then moved onto to other related topics such as: Why do we have such a shortage of skilled workers if the Millennials and Gen Z are so wired.? What effect will robots, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) have on the work, jobs, and future generations of workers/ How career planning is becoming an activity filled with disappointment….but a better approach is available. And what one recommendation did I have for entrepreneurs and start-ups? More Resources: Video Accelerate Work: Why Human Need Not Apply TEDs Talk: Make Change Work for You White Paper/Book Preview: When the Shift Hits Your Plan