Glenn Gutmacher Recruiting Researcher Microsoft Staffing

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Glenn GutmacherRecruiting ResearcherMicrosoft
Staffing
Microsoft recruiting case study Innovative
uses of blogs, social networking other online
tools
December 2, 2005, Jersey City, NJBeyond Blogs
Social Networking Conference
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Microsoft Business Overview
Microsoft Platform Products Services Division
Microsoft Entertainment
Microsoft Business
Devices Division
Division
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Recruiting at Microsoft

• We receive approximately 70,000 candidate resume
  submissions per month.
• Approximately 16,000 unique new candidates per
  month
• 150 recruiters specialize by each business
  division.
• Recruiting teams are organized by
• Industry (experienced talent)
• College
• MBA
• Executive Recruitment
• Fiscal year July 1-June 30 drives hiring patterns
• Most positions are in Redmond, WA (HQ)

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Blogs More at Microsoft
Blogging falls under the robust umbrella of
Microsoft Technical Communities
(www.microsoft.com/communities) to help share
knowledge internally and externally about MS
products and related technologies. Communities
include

• Blogs (www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs) Over
  4,700 Microsoft bloggers, many hosted by MS, but
  not required
• Technical chats (www.microsoft.com/communities/cha
  ts) MS hosts 30 chats/month worldwide (2-way
  text format)
• Newsgroups (www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgrou
  ps) 2,000 newsgroups (Usenet) are dedicated to
  MS products
• Webcasts (www.microsoft.com/communities/webcasts)
  available live or archived on-demand, may be
  tech- or business-focused
• Online Tech Communities (www.microsoft.com/communi
  ties/find) by product, technology or geography
  plus many not run by MS employees
• User groups (www.microsoft.com/communities/usergro
  ups) includes in-person and online meetings,
  content, product discounts, reviews and demos,
  etc.
• Forums (www.microsoft.com/communities/forums)
  Similar to newsgroups, but hosted by MS about
  specific key technologies

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Benefits of Blogging

• Helps our staff be perceived as experts, closer
  ties to ones own department
• Bloggers become better writers/communicators
• Reading peer blogs increases your knowledge,
  exposes you to more ideas
• Generates ideas and content from our customers
  and peers
• Gets more visibility on search engines
• Generates press mentions
• Track readership trends/where interest is
• coming from (backend traffic log tools)
• Stimulates community development
• Puts a human face on a large corporation
• Allows customers to provide feedback for product
  design

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Blogging at Microsoft

• Registered blogs are promoted on
  Microsoft.com/communities, TechNet
  (blogs.technet.com) and MSDN (Microsoft
  Developers Network/MSDN (blogs.msdn.com)
• RSS and Atom news reader formats are built in for
  easy syndication
• Microsoft taking RSS to next level Simple
  Sharing Extensions (SSE) specification is an open
  license to make RSS 2.0 bidirectional will
  enable sharing calendar appointments, contacts,
  favorites, news, etc.
• Consolidated bios of many tech bloggers
  (www.microsoft.com/communities/bios)
• MS has an internal blogging community many
  employee access-only blogs, FAQs, recommendations
  for external blogging, a group email alias for
  help/discussion, etc.
• Blogcasts are short videos posted by MS
  bloggers (RSS feed at www.microsoft.com/communitie
  s/blogs)
• Channel 9 Discussion (http//channel9.msdn.com)
  and podcasts offer audio and video

For more on SSE, see http//msdn.microsoft.com/xm
l/rss/ssefaq/ and www.infoworld.com/article/05/11
/23/HNmicrosoftrss_1.html
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Recruitment Blogging at Microsoft
Microsofts two best-known career-focused blogs
are run by recruiters (time spent is corporately
sanctioned as part of their official duties), but
they are just part of the whole story

• 20 non-staffing personnel run blogs that have
  occasional careers-focused content about 10 from
  staffing/sourcing do
• Technical Careers _at_ Microsoft (http//blogs.msdn.c
  om/jobsblog) features career content by a
  contributing team led by Gretchen Ledgard
• That blog is our career face to the external
  developer community
• Features many employee interviews, inside look at
  MS groups, interviewing process, recruiting
  industry commentary, etc.
• Heather Hamilton's blog on Microsoft, Recruiting,
  Marketing, Careers, Finance (http//blogs.msdn.com
  /heatherleigh) has high visibility among the
  non-developer community
• They were the industrys first recruiters to run
  corporate blogs
• Both bloggers talk openly about themselves,
  adding personality to the (traditionally)
  impersonal process of recruiting
• Like MSs most famous blogger, Robert Scoble
  (http//scobleizer.wordpress.com, formerly
  http//radio.weblogs.com/0001011/), they can be
  candid

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Blogging fears objections

• Consider the issues not every
• company reacts the same way on these

Giving away the farm Public backlash
Negative media coverage Email volume spike
Employment termination
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Collegiate Outreach
The college community is very important to
Microsoft staffing, with many outreach
contributions from the developer divisions in
cooperation with recruiters. Here are a few

• Main college careers portal at www.microsoft.com/c
  ollege
• theSpoke (www.thespoke.net) a worldwide online
  community for students to discuss, use, and share
  ideas on technology. Members are given a blog,
  photo gallery, dramatic software discounts, etc.
• The Imagine Cup (4th annual) worlds largest and
  most inclusive student technology competition,
  sponsored by Microsoft and hosted on the Spoke.
  Many countries hold local preliminary offline
  events and competitions.
• Steve Sinofsky (VP of MS Office) actively writes
• an informative, 100 campus recruiting-focused
• blog (http//blogs.msdn.com/TechTalk)
• How-to presentations contributed to independent
• .NET developers community, DevHood
  (www.devhood.com/presentations)

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MS Career Website Audiences

• These sites vary in their levels of
  interactivity
• Careers home (www.microsoft.com/careers) the
  main site featuring career paths, inside track
  tips, meet MS people, etc.
• College (www.microsoft.com/college)
• International (www.microsoft.com/careers/internati
  onal) - has regional sites such as EMEA
  (www.microsoft.com/emea/careers) and Asia
  (www.microsoft.com/emea/careers)
• MBA (www.microsoft.com/mba) for full-time and
  internship
• Microsoft Research (http//research.microsoft.com/
  aboutmsr/jobs)- people profiles, future
  technology downloads, etc.
• Tech candidates (www.MyMicrosoftCareer.com)
  where techies answer a profiling questionnaire
  and can schedule recruiter appointments (rest of
  site in development)
• Diversity (www.microsoft.com/diversity) also
  links to many resources.

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Online Advertising

• Microsoft has also been a strong online
  advertiser for its products in portals and
  communities that reach developers and IT business
  decision-makers, as well as in more traditional
  media.
• Site/section and e-newsletter sponsorships
• Keyword-specific sponsored search results
• Online event marketing (e.g., promote things we
  host)
• Recruitment blog advertising Tech CST recently
  purchased exclusive month sponsorship on HRSEOs
  popular blog (http//cheesman.typepad.com) via
  auction.
• MSs Recruiting blogs feature links to Jobster,
  an online tool that extends the traditional
  employee referral program to an external network
  to encourage additional qualified applicants

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Social Networking Tools

• Many people in MS Recruiting utilize such sites,
  notably LinkedIn and OpenBC (esp. international).
• Tech CSTs Shally Steckerl is among the top 20
  most-connected out of 4.2MM LinkedIn users
• Several Tech CST staff were interviewed for Bill
  Vicks forthcoming book, LinkedIn for Recruiters
• Not used solely for sourcing candidates
• Value in serving as a connector node to recruiter
  and software developer communities
• Sourcers do not use third-party plug-ins on MS
  computers (e.g., LinkedIn for Outlook)
• Always experimenting with new tools in this space
  (e.g., Doostang, iMeem)

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Other Creative Search Methods
The researchers on the Microsoft Tech CST in
particular must utilize all the appropriate
online methods and evaluate new ones as they
arise

• Search engine-specific special commands
  (intitle, inurl, , etc.)
• Local search and mapping tools
• Niche search (blogs, conference attendees/speaker
  bios, mailing lists, patents, personal homepages,
  reverse lookups, thematic, user groups, tech
  journals, tech standards working groups, PGP
  keys, WhoIs, etc.)
• Competitors job postings
• New web tools leveraging other search engines
  data (Argali, PageBites, etc.)
• Reviewing suggestions from other researchers
  librarians and CI professionals are just as good
  as recruiters (ResearchBuzz, ResearchShelf, SCIP,
  etc.)!

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Sales ? Recruiting
The online tools of sales/marketing are often
quite applicable to recruiting

• MSCRM 3.0, our own next-gen customer relationship
  management product, is being used by Tech CST in
  a pre-ATS environment to track recruiting
  prospects
• Functionality allows us to maintain warm
  pipelines
• to automate emails and scheduling of frequent
  calls
• just as salespeople would for customer leads
• We proactively search for candidates/prospects
  using sales-oriented tools (Hoovers, Jigsaw,
  OneSource, ZoomInfo, etc.)
• Executive recruiting also uses subscriptions to
  databases of public information (e.g.,
  Lexis-Nexis) to help find people.

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Internal Tools Dogfooding
Besides internal-only blogs, Microsoft uses
self-developed online tools in other ways to
enhance collaboration internally (information
aggregation, networking, etc.). These tools
typically find their way to the public, but are
first tested internally until proven

• Groove.net - virtual office/team collaboration
• Live.com to aggregate RSS content (blogs,
  newsfeeds, search engine Boolean string results).
• Product- and technology topic-specific SharePoint
  intranet sites to distribute reports, latest
  information, etc.
• Internal-distribution e-newsletters to inform and
  promote successes

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Conclusions

• Microsoft is leading the corporate recruiting
  pack when it comes to using online tools
• Pioneering with blogs, as part of a corporate
  culture in which it flourishes with the largest
  number of employees blogging
• A leader in social networks
• Pioneering use of internal and third-party sales
  tools for recruiting
• Ongoing curiosity about new tools and methods, as
  part of a corporate culture that innovates with
  online and computer software

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Thank you! QA?

• Or reach me later if you prefer and please
  invite me into your social networks!
• Glenn Gutmacher
• Recruiting Research Consultant
• MICROSOFT
• 781-487-6611
• glenn.gutmacher_at_microsoft.com

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