Mel Kettle is a communications and social media consultant, speaker, blogger, educator, coach, bookworm, obsessive foodie and eatie, and a budding photographer. She blogs on marketing and social media at www.melkettle.com.au. Mel is passionate about working with organisations to show them how to communicate effectively so they can develop communities, share their stories and raise awareness. She particularly enjoys working with people who want to make a difference to other people’s lives. In her spare time Mel writes a food blog, The cook’s notebook.

I often have people ask me why should they have a social media policy? They only have two or three staff. They don’t actually use social media within their business (What??? That’s a whole other issue!).

And I tell them that all organisations need a social media policy. Even those that don’t use it. And especially those that have staff. Even if it’s only one employee. Read the rest of this entry »

For many recruitment firms, the shift from one style of recruiting to another is a difficult transition. It is not unusual for those starting in the business to begin as contingent recruiters. And some firms find this model suits them well and continue as contingent recruitment firms with no need or desire to change. If it works and you are happy, your clients are good with your method, then keep a good thing going. Having recently spent a few days with a collection of 60-plus firm owners and recruiters, I saw a great desire on the part of many firms to move from purely contingent to at least a partially retained model. Most often there was a desire to offer both models dependent on the situation and the client. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently watched the film Moneyball (I’m perpetually behind on movie-watching, but I digress), and was struck by how similar it is to recruitment.

A little bit of background for those of you who aren’t baseball fans:

Moneyball is a film starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, that is based on a book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. The premise of the both the film and the book is that the game of baseball is unfairly rigged toward wealthy teams. Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s post is courtesy of guest blogger Elsa Duty. Elsa owns executive search firm Recruiting Services International (founded in 1970)  that specializes in technical search globally (R&D/engineering, manufacturing, science). Elsa has been an active member of NPAworldwide for 10 years and is currently serving on the Board of Directors.

If you’re like me, you often reflect on what we do and marvel a little. The proverbial “matchmaking” game we play is thrilling, challenging, stressful, and yet extraordinarily rewarding. I feel so fortunate to learn about what some of the brightest people in their professions do; how they’ve become who they are, their climb up the corporate ladder, details of their lives that are personal, intense, heart wrenching…intimate glimpses into how they run their lives. Many of these folks have sacrificed so much, and “played the game” so well, to be the best in their field. I often think how extraordinarily different their lives are than many of ours, yet our success levels are often parallel. Read the rest of this entry »