How To Create Great Profiles And Passive Talent Circles On Google Plus (Slides)

If there is one social media platform that is polarizing opinion in the social recruiting world currently, then it is most definitely Google Plus! As I said in my last G+ post, many of the detractors have actually never given it a real go. But, what I do like is that when you show people who have never seen it before, what Google Plus can potentially do, and their eyes light up with excitement. This happened last week in Calgary in Western Canada. A bonus was that our hotel room overlooked the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Park - the day and night picture seen above.

Just a brief note to say that for all my regular readers of SironaSays, I have definitely not forsaken my normal regular blogging. I slipped a disc (back) just before Christmas and had a very painful January. One thing I learnt is that extreme pain dampens your blogging mojo! Anyway, it is not quite healed yet, but it is a lot better than it was, and I can now actually start working with my clients again, and doing what I enjoy, sharing my blogs with you all.

A big tip: Don’t take a transatlantic flight with a slipped disc! But if you do, make sure you have Sara there to support you! I wouldn’t have made it without her.

So, back to Calgary.

I was invited to speak at the first ever social recruiting conference in Western Canada, on the subject of Google Plus. It was a great line-up to be part of, and a style of conference that really resonates with me - hands-on and practical advice. So well done Shahid and Kathleen for that approach.

There was just short of 70 attendees from across Western Canada - all recruiters or Talent Managers, with about 50% coming from the Oil and Gas industry, which I guess was no surprise considering where it was based.

What was really interesting to me was that low levels of social media use in recruitment - even Twitter and Facebook was only being used by a very small number of people. LinkedIn was the only tool that was being used by the majority of the recruiters in the room, which is amazing when you consider that:

“71% of Canada is not on LinkedIn” via @shally so don’t rely on LinkedIn for your recruiting #srscalgary

— Andy Headworth (@andyheadworth) January 30, 2014

So there was a day of learning ahead then! And learn they did with some excellent presentations on Twitter (Kathleen Teixeira), Facebook (Shahid Wazed), LinkedIn (Lauralee Guthrie) ‘Show Me, Don’t Tell Me’ (Kasey Sixt), Sourcing Strategies (Shally Steckerl and of course Google Plus from me.

There were two presentations I delivered and of course as always I am sharing the slide decks with you here on the blog.

The first was entitled, How To Create Unlimited Targeted Talent Pools Of Passive Candidates Using Google Plus. In this session I covered Google+ Authorship, creating talent pools with Google+ Circles and how to construct a great Google+ post.

This was a superb inaugural social recruiting conference in Calgary, and I know that next year the plans are for a bigger event. Keep an eye out for it next year, because it is definitely worth a day of your time.

As always, with my slides, I hope you get something out of them and if you need any extra info please contact me.

As I said above, normal blogging will be resumed, with a few changes coming this way over the next month as we have a redesign and new platform for our website and blog coming very soon.

I work with recruitment agencies and corporates to help them understand and leverage the different social media networks to improve their recruitment strategy, recruitment process, candidate attraction, employer branding and content marketing strategy. If you require guidance, advice or social recruiting training, get in touch today.

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