LATISM (Latinos in Social Media) sponsored a great discussion via Twitter on Hispanic Leadership. I adjusted my “Live Blogging” feature via CoverItLive to cut down on the repetitive tweets and focus on the key themes as the discussion progresses. I’ve also added my thoughts and observations. Enjoy!

Click Here to Access the Archive

A blog post over at recruiting blogs asks if you can have “Social Media & Recruit a Diverse Workforce?” A great topic and question (the post is great as well). I’ve linked to several studies that show the increasing number of Latinos getting online (via the internet and mobile technology). For employers interested in reaching a diverse workforce, social media should be an obvious resource – but not the only one.

A steady stream of tweets from the NACE 2010 Conference in Orlando kept me busy all day! Once again #NACE10 attendees shared valuable information — 140 characters at a time! Thanks again to all the tweepers keeping us “non-attendees” informed about the conference — much appreciated! Here are my takeaways as well as some tweets I captured from Day 3! You can check out Lessons from NACE 2010 Part 1 here. Enjoy!

Employer branding/recruiting processes. A big focus during day three was the importance of communication during and after the on-campus recruitment process. Keeping students informed during and after the recruitment process was seen as essential. Open lines of communication with career centers before and after the recruitment process was also encouraged. Some notable tweets:

Emp. values and mrkting should target your segmented audience. Often time employers highlight values that are of little interest. 
Relationship building is a contact sport. If you are in the office as a college recruiter you aren’t building relationships.
Relationships are built on communication. You can be anywhere as long as communication is both open and active
How many recruiters at all steps of the process ask candidates for feedback? What do you want candidates to say?
Candidates don’t just go away. Delivering feedback is crucial to the experience and the brand
We have to say no more than we say yes. So delivering feedback to candidates is important regardless of their status.
Candidates don’t just go away. Delivering feedback is crucial to the experience and the brand
Your employment brand should be accessible: career centers want to collaborate with your social media specialist
Is ur company accessible on all of those portals. And as you can see – we have a dedicated careers twitter account to complement our corporate presence
Biggest complaints — 1)feedback 2)interviewing and not hiring 3)difficult application process
Compare your job description to your competitors and cross out all the things you have in common. Then, sell your brand instead
Employer branding for college students: need to have significant website, social media, consistent MSG, dig/print brochure, VIDEOS
Does your recruiting team have vision statement & business case for UR that is developed and understood? 

Quite a bit of discussion on how career centers are using social media. A lot of sharing regarding this topic with suggestions on schools to check out that are doing good work in this regard (see tweets below). But… ‘who is responsible for managing social media efforts in career centers?’ – some obvious budget and resource questions; some comments below.

 How do you tell your story in a fun, quick, engaging way? Check out the UF Career Center Annual Report
Enjoyed seeing DePaul’s use of technology. Check out their 60 sec Career Road Map on You Tube
Learning that many university career centers & employers have hired social media managers
We are no longer on the network; we are in the network. @99gr81
@CHKcareers I’ve heard some centers here split SM amongst staff so they have some1 4 Twitter etc. Do you do it this way too?
We do split – but the staff is dedicated to maintaining their assigned presences. Social Media is ALL we do.
@lizkingevents No matter who manages SM at a center. It’s vital that it’s nurtured & developed. Identify goals & above all ENGAGE!
@careerjkm – @OSUOKC does some of the best SM engagement w/ students, potentials students, community and businesses.
SM portals like Facebook & Twitter become “websites” if you don’t engage in conversations. Don’t you already have a website?
How are any career centers assessing the effectiveness of their social media efforts?
UofToronto measures analytics, pg views, msgs, wall posts, comments, etc for SM w/ http://bit.ly/dctsxt 
I think @elinchen can tell you more about how they measure SM – especially w/ the Fb acct http://bit.ly/aaJkrm @reyjunco @careerjkm  
I look @ it as joining networks vs. Getting followers. Focus on the content that matters 2 u and followers will come. 
Columbia U is doing some awesome social media stuff! Webinars, Twitter, virtual fairs, and lots more.

Changing college recruiting environment: A lot of chatter about how college recruiting continues to evolve.

 More people are accessing websites via their mobile devices than their home computers
Employers may be turning to more niche career fairs rather than large, general fairs. Thoughts?
Not sure abt Twitter? All I can say is that 2 days ago I was tweeting into the dark & I’m now having gr8 convos w gr8 ppl!! 
Trends changing college recruiting à Lots to think about-economy, univ budget cuts, distance learning, legislation. So many things!
Wow stat: 53% of students say they want a company where they can spend their whole career!
Wow.  From ‘98-’18 the percentage of 55+ workers will grow from 12% to 24%
BLS: info, wholesale/retail trade, healthcare industries with largest projected growth of output until 2018
According to Career Builder 2009 survey, over 45% of employers are using social media to research candidates
By 2020 US Census Bureau anticipates 46% of students in the US will be students of color. #NACE10 Expanding Your Diversity Reach
Internships – Employer expectations have increased: they now expect from interns what they expected from new hires a few years ago

Career Centers and Athletic Departments Working Together: Interesting conversion of career center and athletic department functions. How can they work together to provide valuable services to student athletes? See below.

 Career Svcs & Athletic dept shouldn’t be competitors on campus. They should be collaborators. Goal is to prepare students.
Even after graduation (even IF they go pro), athletes need to be prepared for the business world.
Coaches are mentors. Mentors have influence. Know how to partner and share responsibility.
97% of athletes don’t know where Career Svcs is on campus per research by @CareerAthletes. I’d say it applies to gen pop, too.
Have a busines card! Not even 1% of the 250k student athletes educated since ‘98 have provided a card at a career athlete event.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, most organizations and employers are now aware about the benefits of using online strategies to build awareness amongst college students. No where is this more notable than in targeting Hispanic college students. A new study shared by eMarketer shows that close to 40 million Hispanics will be online by the year 2014 – that translates into approximately 70% of Hispanics. According to the report:

The majority of online Hispanics are native born and speak English proficiently, but they still take notice when marketers’ Spanish-language efforts are lacking. Additionally, data shows that the Hispanic market is more receptive to online advertising than non-Hispanics.

Taken together with other reports that show Hispanics making significant increases using social media and mobile internet usage means employers should be making online strategies a big part of their college recruiting strategies.

Intern Bridge shares a great post regarding employer engagement on campus penned by Sara Gonzalez at Amway. For employers looking for a starting point or ‘blueprint’ of either starting or revamping their college recruiting efforts – here’s a great place to start.  As I shared via the post’s comments section, I think the atmosphere on college campuses has certainly changed. College recruits need to be seen more as consumers not only looking for the right opportunity – but the right fit. While career fairs serve a purpose, they’re only part of a larger college recruitment strategy which allows an organization to be actively engaged with a campus. Yet, many organizations are still using traditional recruiting approaches to reach a new generation of students. Students are also much savvier, multicultural, and engaged given the rise of technology.  Unlike the days when I was looking for my “first job,” It’s easy to spot an organization that is “not walking the talk” from what they say on campus and what they do within their industry using social media, Google, and networking resources. This is what today’s college student is following as a strategy to find the right employer – so it indeed takes more than attending a college career fair.

Here are a couple more thoughts regarding the Hispanic PR and Social Media Conference. The first is from the HispanicPR Blog summarizing some of the trends and issues coming out of the conference – including numbers on the incredible number of sharing that has resulted from the event. The second comes from Bixal recognizing how the Hispanic Scholarship Fund is leveraging online marketing to reach Hispanic college students through its partnership with the AdCouncil. The lessons keep coming.

I’ve had this on-going love/hate relationship with Internet Explorer. Like many others, I use IE because it’s just the de-facto internet browser used by PC users. Lately, I’ve just had it with using IE. I always seem to have to deal with loads of pop-ups, security issues, patches, and the occasional virus – always when I least need to have these troubles. Of course, this doesn’t include unexpected fatal errors that close down ALL my tabs and windows from time to time – grrr. So I’ve committed myself to changing and begin using Mozilla Firefox. There are tons of people everywhere on the internet that rave about Firefox and how it’s better than IE. Namely, it’s an open-source browser. This means it’s supported by a community of developers and programmers that are always trying to make Firefox better. Since there’s a community that cares about the product, getting technical support is as easy as Googling for the answer. Another great benefit is all the neat and productive plug-ins or add-ons a user can use. You can literally customize your browser to meet YOUR needs and not be forced to use a canned browser. Of course, there are still those that will forever pick IE over Firefox.

So what does this have to do with my blog? Well, I got to thinking about how much college recruiting is very much a comparison between these two browsers. On the one hand, you have traditional college recruiting (the old guard) that still believes college recruiting should be done a certain way. Same old strategies – same old approaches. On the other hand, you have those that advocate a different approach – one that incorporates more technology, social media, and other non-traditional approaches. We should be more like Firefox shouldn’t we? Listening to the whole community, customizing the strategies, and sharing the information. This approach is what really makes the difference in creating change and making things better.

I still consider myself a novice (more like a zygote) when it comes to building an online presence via my blog, especially if it concerns knowing the right “jargon” regarding blogging and other social media tools. One term I finally figured out was “Google juice.” What the hell is “google juice” I wondered, and more importantly, regardless of not knowing what it means, how do I get some of it?! I figured anything associated with “Google” and “juice” had to be good for me and my website. I was right. In essence, Google juice is the value Google gives to your website for having a link from a very good site. As the worth increases for each link, you pick up improved search rankings (SEO) – hence the word “Google juice.” Check.

In my relentless quest for understanding terms like Google juice and other cool lingo, I got to thinking about what “lingo” is important to employers recruiting on campus. What came to mind were terms like: branding, relationships, planning, events, outreach, sourcing, scheduling, promoting, interviewing, screening, coordinating, traveling, tracking, communicating, researching, collecting, arranging, compiling, and handling. I’m sure there’s more I could’ve come up with – but you get my point. College recruitment doesn’t have a phrase like “Google juice” – terminology in this industry, let’s face it, is rather boring. So what’s your “Google juice” going to be? And more importantly, how can you as an employer apply the same principles Google juice commands on the internet? What tools, resources, and links are you going to use to improve your value and improve your ranking on the campuses you visit?

Louis Pagan over at Latino Rebranded shares an excellent post regarding the Hispanic Cyber Study put out by AOL. The statistics are eye opening and again can be applied to employers looking to leverage information on Hispanics, particularly Hispanic college students, and their online activities. A key observation:

They spend over 24 hours online per week, half of that time connected via mobile device.  They are highly innovative, thus are early adapters.

Employers need to consider how this social media trend can benefit their campus recruitment efforts given that Hispanics are incredibly active in using this technology.

Poder360 recently had a great article discussing the latest Hispanic technological and internet-related trends. While there has been substantial progress in this regard among Hispanics, there is still a sizeable technological access gap that exists between Hispanics and other groups -  known by many as the “digital divide.” While these statistics are both positive and negative, one can safely say they’re trending upward. In many ways, the advent of technology aligns nicely with Hispanic cultural traits. Take for instance social media.

Hispanics are incredibly communal. They enjoy being in groups: networking, sharing, talking, debating – anything that provides personal interaction. This cultural characteristic is also very evident on social media sites where Hispanics have formed any number of groups and networks to achieve the same but mediated interaction. Blogs such as Latino Rebranded, The Latino Edge, and others do a great job of discussing and blogging about how social media is impacting Hispanic cultural interactions. Jump on Twitter and search #latism, #latino, and #Hispanic,. Browse  Twitteros - and check out the results there. Marketers, advertisers, entrepreneurs, and especially recruiters are and should be taking note that the digital divide is certainly closing – mostly with help of Hispanic cultural bridges.