While the question sounds like the preamble to a funny punch line, the answer is no laughing matter.

According to an article last week in the Wall Street Journal, it takes many more than most employers think (or at least want to accept.) I repeat – a lot more. The actual numbers are mind boggling.

For example, infographic presented in the Wall Street article revealed that it takes approximately 1,000 online views by candidates to get 100 candidates to complete the application. Out of that, 25 applications are selected for review, and then 4 to 6 candidates are recommended for an interview. When all is said and done, companies may find their one diamond in the rough only after 1,000 candidates view the job posting. If those numbers hold up, it is clear that the impending war for talent is no longer imminent or pending. It’s here today.

Not one to rely only exclusively on hearsay, I was prompted by the article to review 25 jobs posted on our applicant processing system by clients during the last 3 months. The results don’t only confirm the findings presented in the Wall Street Journal but throw up an even bigger gauntlet to challenge employers. The best views-to-applicant scenario was 10 percent. But a more common scenario was as low as 1 percent.

Unfortunately for many companies, as good or bad as those results are, the job search does not always end when the one lonely qualified candidate is identified and offered the job. According to research presented by Talent Function Group, LLC, “the chosen applicant accepts the offer only 80% of the time.” That situation leads to two options – offer the job to your second choice (if there is one) or go back to the drawing board. Neither choice is desirable when a company’s productivity and competitive advantage are on the line and dependent on a minimum time to hire and high quality of hire.

To win the war for talent moving forward, nearly every employer will need to cast the widest possible sourcing net to attract, identify, and hire qualified candidates. In addition, operations and sales managers don’t have the time to waste interviewing candidates who can’t do the job. The competition for recruiting qualified skilled workers poses a formidable challenge for most organizations. Management has a choice: deal with a “resu-mess” which will inundate recruiting and human resource staffs, which are already running lean; or insist on applicant processing automation to build a talent pool of qualified candidates, reduce the time-to-hire, and ultimately improve the quality of employees.

 

Mobile recruiting, in its purest form, is the act of recruiting or engaging candidates on a mobile device. Using mobile devices to recruit candidates includes many different forms and involves many different devices, such as a smart phone, cell phone, tablet, or iTouch. Mobile recruiting can be the use of mobile devices for either the candidate or the recruiter, and it supplements any social and internet recruiting strategy. When making your company’s recruitment strategy, consider the many apps, technologies, and tools that are already out there and developed for the company’s benefit.

Mobile recruiting involves any action or conversation regarding the job search using a mobile device. This could include an app that aids in candidate sourcing or pushes notifications when a candidate applies or schedules an interview, or even reads QR Codes for use at job fairs. According to Mashable, mobile recruiting is on rise in the job seekers mind: 19% of job seekers use mobile devices to search for jobs, but 57% of job seekers would like to use mobile devices to search for jobs. Technology will catch up to the job seeker. While best practice of mobile recruiting is still evolving to candidate behavior, it is clear that companies should have a mobile recruiting strategy going forward.

“For employers, mobile is the new paradigm shift,” states mobile recruiting expert Michael Marlatt.

Tools exist to make the hiring and interview process easy and mobile-ready for the job seeker as well. These include mobile ready web sites, audio job listings, and text message alerts for job seekers who are mobile, active, and on the go. Mobile is especially appealing for this reason. Recruiters and companies can engage job seekers anywhere and at any time. A quick text message for a recruiter to alert a job seeker offers a real-time opportunity to engage. Job seekers don’t have to wait to be in front of a computer to apply, or receive email about a job. Job seekers want to be able to easily research and apply for your position without being tied to a computer.

Creating and executing a mobile recruiting campaign doesn’t have to be expensive. It can be as simple, complicated, inexpensive, or expensive as you wish it to be. Let’s start with easy, here are three budget friendly ways to leverage mobile recruiting:

• Schedule Candidate Interviews via Text. Enterprise text message systems serve as a form of CRM. Make it easy for your Millennial candidate pool by scheduling and communicating the details regarding their interview via text. Offer to send interview location and directions via their cell phone linking to a simple Google Map. Candidates can easily create a route using their Maps app while also having the option to receive directions via emails.

• Make Applying & Research Easy. Your company must be easily accessible on mobile devices. As candidates have more choices – even in this current economic market – it’s important to make it easy for job seekers to learn more about your company, the company culture, and where they could fit in. This includes open jobs and details of what those jobs actually entail. Mobile formatted career sites make it easier for candidates to quickly view information. Also bear in mind that the traditional employee applications take an average of 45 minutes to complete. Using mobile technologies, and a professional profile, the application process can be snap, sometimes even 60 seconds or less. Consider not only the context of employee applications, but also in the context of building a talent community.

 

• Leverage Video. One of my most popular online activities via mobile is viewing video. As more people own smartphones and as smartphones get bigger and better, more and more video viewing will be on phones. Whether live streaming or a 5 minute day in the life video or employee testimonial, companies can leverage opportunities to engage their candidate base using the power of mobile video. Video provides insights into the environment and company culture that we can see and hear creating a lasting impact that goes beyond any job fair brochure.

How do you know if the person you hire should be classified as an independent contractor or employee? Does it really matter? After all, he/she is performing a service and you are paying for the service. Oh, if only it were that simple. Unfortunately, employer liability can be huge when workers are misclassified. Penalties can include years of unpaid employment taxes, workers’ compensation unpaid premiums, reimbursements for work-related expenses and potential unpaid overtime compensation, not to mention liability for not providing employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement. That said, it’s not a problem until it’s a problem, right? If you subscribe to that philosophy, keep reading… Read the rest of this entry »

As the “Generational Guru” and author of Ties to Tattoos, I am often asked how social networking can positively impact recruitment strategies and develop the workforce of the future. Social Networking is a powerful recruiting tool that allows an organization the access to potential candidates that they could not reach before. Proven techniques and tools like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide support to business’ ongoing efforts to increase visibility with active and passive candidate pools. Use of effective social media channels allow interested parties immediate access to questions related to hiring practices, culture, and positions available. It also answers the important question: What’s In It For Me (WIIFM).

Now, imagine using Social Networking as an internal forum where new ideas are shared instantly, with every employee at every level. Questions are answered in real-time by your knowledge workers and leaders. People down the hall and across the country are brought together to share a common vision. And revenues increase while costs are lowered. That’s the power of Internal Social Networking.

An internal social network that is used as part of your strategic recruiting strategy can expand your talent pool options like never before—it’s powerful and proven. It can work for any employer interested in attracting the next Generation of Leaders.

Take a look at how we used social media strategies to attract 1500 new hires for an Oklahoma Casino “WinStar World Casino” in a town with a population of less and 800 people.

The latest Generational Guru Newsletter went out today! Click here to have a look. In it you’ll find articles on generational issues and other HR and business-related issues, including:

• How to Fire a Client (Transitioning Well)
• Six Diversity Competencies Successful People Share
• Economic Shift: Back to Employee Retention Basics
• Keeping the Keepers

Also take the Strong Life Quiz and find out what type of job best suits your personality!

Finally, enter the Texting Lingo contest and win a $50 iTunes gift card!

To subscribe, fill out the form in the upper right corner of this page.

It’s Okay to Manage Your Boss is the title of my friend Bruce Tulgan’s latest book. I want to personally invite you to check out his weekly video newsletter at http://www.rainmakerthinking.com.

Bruce offers practical strategies for keeping it together in the face of the competing demands of multiple supervisors.

Bruce says:

“If you are like most employees, you answer to multiple bosses — some directly, and others indirectly. You are often pulled in different directions by these competing authority figures with competing interests and agendas. All of them have the ability to improve or worsen your daily work conditions, your chances of getting rewards, and your long term career prospects. And all of them are different.

Under these circumstances, you are the only one you can control. You can control your role and conduct in each of these relationships. You can control how you manage and how you get what you need from these relationships.”

You can subscribe to Bruce’s weekly video newsletter for on-the-job tips in an easy to peruse format.  Enjoy!

Healthcare Changes Will Suffocate Businesses and Jeopardize Attraction of Top Talent

New Healthcare Reform went into effect September 23, 2010 or your health insurance plan’s first anniversary date. On March 1,2011, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act will then go into effect.   And, the bottom line is that many small businesses with 50 or more employees will be greatly impacted.  And, if they choose not to offer benefits because the new plans and revisions will increase premium rates with the providers they will be penalized with a $2,000 per employee penalty every year. If you have 50 employees or more that can be a $100,000 cost and you still will not be able to offer competitive health insurance coverage to your employee’s.

If you decide to bite the bullet and comply with the new changes, you will need to hire a full time HR/Benefits staff to monitor compliance since employers are ONLY allowed to charge up to a max of 9.5% of Adjusted Household Income. For example if you have an employee who is currently covered under “Family” medical coverage who earns $112,000 per year and the monthly premium all employee’s within your company contributes $908 per month, you will be compliant, however; the rest of your workforce under $112,000 will require their monthly contribution lowered to match the new formula of 9.5% of Adjusted Household Income.

It is illegal to ask employees what other members of their HOUSEHOLD earn, it is a violation of our privacy. But if an employer is to be compliant with the new reform and to correctly calculate the monthly premium charge they must now ask. What if their spouse is a business owner like mine? Most business owners will tell you exactly what was declared to the IRS last year, ZERO.

Is it fair to charge more monthly insurance premiums to the people who earn more than those who do not or require them to disclose their personal family income? These changes forth coming are clearly not well thought out on behalf of the employer and the logistical nightmare they face with keeping up with the new laws or the employees who need health insurance coverage but now their employer may not be able to provide as it is more expensive and hard to administer.

As a small business owner and licensed health insurance broker, “The focus of the new law is to increase the number of people with health coverage, not to control costs for small businesses. In fact, small businesses won’t benefit in the least and may have to lay off people to cover increased health insurance costs or cancel health insurance benefits for existing employee’s.  Clearly, the real winners are NOT the employees.”

Here’s a basic overview of the financial impact for small businesses:

1)     Approximate 3-5% increase in cost due to plan design changes

2)     Indirect costs (i.e. pharmaceutical taxes, medical device taxes)

Here’s a basic overview of how employees will benefit in Phase 1 (2011-2013):

• Removes lifetime limits on PPO plans
• Removes annual limits on essential benefits
• Removes pre-existing conditions for dependent children under age 19 (PPO plans)
• Removes cost sharing for specific preventive services
• Increases eligibility age to 26 for dependent children
• FSA contributions capped at $2,500 (currently $3,000)
• FSA no longer includes OTC drugs

Phase II (2014) Employee Benefits:

• Annual limits removed
• Pre-existing conditions for all members (PPO plans) removed
• Wellness incentives increased
• Employer mandate and voucher requirements

How does an employer attract top talent and retain them if they can not afford to offer medical coverage to their “knowledge workers”? Boomers and Traditionalists are very interested in this part of the “rewards and compensation” package when considering a job offer. They do not want to have to work part-time at Wal-Mart as a greeter just to afford health insurance….

What steps can employers take to stay competitive in the marketplace with these new changes?

• Evaluate your employee demographics; determine if the “rewards and compensation” matches the personal needs of your employee base. For instance the younger generation, Millennials are not as concerned with health insurance because they do not need it yet but your “knowledge workers” which are the Boomers and Traditionalists need medical coverage.
• Contact local gyms and nutritionists to see if will offer discounts to your employees so they have an affordable and trusted venue to keep learn about a healthier lifestyle.
• Provide counseling coverage under your health insurance plan so employees have a place to seek advice when life events cause them concern.
• Provide opportunities for employees to work a flexible schedule or telecommute if it is feasible for your business. This provides them the opportunity to be home more and provide care for their children or aging parents and it is good for the environment.

Photo Credit Medicexchange.

Law 1: Employee Engagement is Linked to Discretionary Efforts:

Every employee comes to work every day with discretionary effort that he or she can only volunteer – no employer can squeeze or force it out of them. Getting that discretionary effort from them has been shown to deliver double-digit increases in productivity and profitability, along with significant improvements on other key business value indicators.

Law 2: You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure:

You have surely heard this phrase before, nowhere is it more relevant than in this field of human capital management to measure the highest company expense than this area….We bring lots of scientific and academic rigor to the table when we analyze our business, from financials to supply chain data but when it comes to managing our employees, we deploy too little scientific or mathematical evidence in the way we manage people. Much of what goes in to typical HR departments is focused on salary/benefits and as required by law compliance.

The first step in changing this scenario is actually to measure engagement throughout the organization. Better still, report it by division by leader and location so you only fix the areas that are broken.

Law 3: Your Customer’s Experience Hinges on Employee Engagement:

Have you ever had a bad experience at a restaurant because the waiter was not fully engaged? Of course the food is cold and never what you ordered, especially if you are like me and I need 10 sides of different condiments and sauces for dipping! Seriously, it is impossible to have extraordinary levels of positive, loyalty creating customer experiences if your employees are not highly engaged.

Your employees are the people who greet your customers, talk to them and provide solutions to their needs each and every day. Who do you want representing your company in the marketplace…someone On The Job Retired or a Fully Engaged Employee?

Law 4: Employee Satisfaction Has Nothing to Do With Employee Engagement:

That is not to say we are not interested in having higher levels of employee satisfaction. In fact, that is one of the most vital outcomes of increased workplace engagement. The problem is that so called employee satisfaction is not a driver of engagement. Your office can be full of “highly satisfied” employees, only because they are getting paid the right amount of compensation and you give them time off. But what if anything in benefits and compensation part of their job changed due to the economy? Would they still be highly satisfied..? No, and it would reflect in their performance which is the reason they need to come to work because they believe in their contribution and the work they perform matters!

Law 5: Increasing Employee Engagement Delivers the Highest ROI:

Of all things a company can do to increase key business success such as the customer experience, productivity, retention, profits and safety targets, none deliver the kind of returns, per dollar spent, that efforts to increase employee engagement.

Law 6: People Drive the Numbers:

We all know that numbers drive the business, if we don’t have any money in the bank then no one gets paid and the lights are off. But for most organizations it’s people who drive the numbers. It might be customer service, it might be in sales or shipping – the bottom line is that high performance cultures are completely dependent on engaged employees, and if there is even one department or work group underperforming the entire organization suffers.

Law 7: Behavior Drives People:

People have a much more common “operating system” than most leadership teams realize. Common needs drive our behavior, and the more leadership focuses on those needs, the closer they will be to understanding the drivers of employee engagement.

Law 8: Emotion Drives Behavior:

We may come from very different cultural and ethnic and even different GENERATIONAL backgrounds, but what divides us at an emotional level is fairly insignificant. While it is common in the business literature to see key words such as trust, respect, inspiration or collaboration in relation to what drives employee engagement, it is the universal emotional needs in each of us.

Law 9: Leaders Must Convey Meaning That Connects with the Emotional Needs of Staff:

When senior leaders and managers understand the value of addressing the emotional needs of their staff and have been shown the most effective ways to “connect” with them, the shift in engagement is almost immediate. Employees will have greater clarity on:

• Their specific team targets as well as their own personal roles, goals and priorities
• How their daily work fits into team and organizational goals
• The current status of goal achievement (vs. plan) for themselves, their team and their organization
• How much they are valued for the contribution they make
• Their career development goals and their plan to achieve them

Law 10: Corporate Culture Is Essential to Workplace Engagement:

Whenever I work with companies, they are anxious to get my list of tactical steps to increase employee engagement so they can begin implementation. Unfortunately, tactical actions, no matter how many or in what combination are not enough to create a truly sustainable high performance organization. Sustainable change and improvement can come only through sustained (consistent and repeated) behavioral norms that are congruent with organizational core values, missions and vision. I do not mean the words that are posted on the company website or the walls of their company break room. I mean true values that each employee believes in and they understand how these values create the mission of their company.

In closing, or Law 11, the most important, your competitors do not have your “Secret Sauce”, that is your staff! More specifically, how your staff performs, be it in establishing memorable customer relationships or in volunteering the levels of discretionary effort that deliver business value across the enterprise in a way that creates distinguishing competitive advantage!

Photo Credit Bruce Markow, Lone Wolf Librarian, and Little Space.

1. If you aren’t measuring anything else, social media measurement isn’t the problem.

Measurement is a discipline, and it needs to be business-wide. If you’re going to ask about the ROI, value, or impact of social media and how to measure it, I’m going to ask how you’re going about determining those things for other areas of your business, and ask you to translate or adapt some of those practices over to social initiatives.

If you’re not measuring anything else, you’ll have a learning curve. A steep one. It’ll come complete with needing the right tools and platforms to collect data, the right people to analyze it, the buy in from management to spend the time doing all of this, and the commitment to use the measurement as a means to underscore your strategy. The social media data is available for the taking, so that’s not the problem. The *real* issue is connecting the dots. See #4.

2. Measurement is not the goal.

The goal is to derive insights that teach you something of value, and then act on them. Measurement is a way station, a path, but is not the goal in itself. You don’t get a cookie for measuring.

You probably need to spend three times as much time and effort evaluating and acting on your data than you do collecting and formatting it. Why? Because the analysis is what yields direction, plans, action steps, you name it. You START with the data. You need to end up with a course of action, or the act of measuring (and all the time you spent doing it) is wasted.

3. Measuring activity isn’t as important as measuring results.

Gathering fans on Facebook is an activity. How those fans chose to respond to your offer, sign up for your newsletter, or buy your product (or not) is a result.

Number of forum posts is an activity. How many of those forum posts converted new downloads of your latest e book is a result. (Even better if you can take it a step further and show the e book downloads that became leads).

Follow me? We’re very caught up in trying to track all the stuff we’re doing, and not spending enough time connecting dots between those actions and how they drive progress toward the goals we’ve set. Speaking of which…

4. Metrics are determined by goals.

Learn how to develop measurable objectives and the metrics practically jump out at you. If you know where you’re headed and have a clear definition of what it means to reach your goal, it becomes pretty apparent which signals (metrics) will tell you whether you’re close, far, or right on target.

And you don’t need 40 different metrics to underscore a story or progress toward a goal. Typically you just need a few. If your goal is to raise awareness for a cause, you can look at reach of mentions and messages, increased donations, or a surge in volunteer signups. Those go up, you can be reasonably certain that what you’re doing is contributing to those things, and likely justify staying the course. Which leads me to a biggie…

5. Cause and Correlation are different.

Cause means that something you did drove someone to act. Directly, and usually singly. There’s a clear line between initiative and result. (We could argue that nearly every causal relationship has external influences, but that discussion for a headier day).

Correlation is fuzzier, and where most folks get hung up with measurement. It’s about a relationship between two things, usually an action and a result, but that relationship isn’t exclusive of other factors.

We struggle with these two, because we’re often trying to prove cause, when correlation can be just as valuable in terms of justifying our efforts. Think of correlation as “contributing to” or “influencing”. So if you do an outreach campaign in social media and lead numbers through those channels increase, you can say that those two events are likely strongly correlated. (By contrast, if you do a campaign in social media and your offline event attendance increases, they might still be related, but likely more loosely).

Remember that today, we have any number of points where prospects and customers can be impacted by what we do. Proving cause can be tricky, because you can’t trace every interaction someone has with your company.

But we strive for cause why? Because we want CREDIT. We want to be able to say that OUR effort is what moved the needle so we can justify time, budget, headcount. But the only way to truly prove cause to a major degree is to adjust ONLY one thing while leaving all other factors the same. We rarely if ever do that in business, because we’re not conducting science experiments. We’re simply trying to understand what helps and what hinders. Get comfortable with this phrase: reasonable degree of confidence.

6. Analysis is the hard part, not measurement.

The human brain factor is the complicated bit. Data is easy to collect, easy to smash together, easy to do math around. The REAL question is: what does all this MEAN to me and why? What does this tell me about the effect and impact of my actions?

That’s the hard part because no tool in the world can do that for you. No case study will show you precisely the map you need to follow for YOUR business (though it might spark some ideas). No one person can hand you a turn-key set of metrics that will suddenly give you a light bulb moment and show you the path ahead of you. Put the effort into goal setting on the front end and analysis on the back end, and let measurement be a process in between.

7. Standardization has limitations.

You might have some types of metrics and data bucketed together such as engagement or awareness metrics – but the unique ones that matter to your business aren’t likely to be standardized anytime soon. That’s a departure from the way we’ve always done it, but then again, some of our “standard” metrics haven’t really gotten us very far (like ad equivalency) and others are standard in name, but not in how they’re calculated (like customer satisfaction).

Instead of striving for metrics that are universally applicable, focus instead on the ones that consistently deliver valuable intelligence for your business. It doesn’t matter what the guy down the street is measuring unless you’re just looking for a little inspiration.

8. Reporting is not an outcome.

Related to #2, delivering the graph isn’t the end of the road. It’s what you outline as the next steps to either a) keep doing what you’re doing or b) adjust something in order to try and change the results.

The report, in fact, is often the starting line. And reports full of data alone aren’t very useful. The art in reporting isn’t just packaging the information, but its in interpreting and translating that. When you give your boss the monthly report of PR impressions or lead volume, do they ever ask you what you attribute those numbers to, and what recommendations you would make based on that information? Have YOU ever thought about that? Why?

9. Measurement doesn’t have to be complex to be effective.

You don’t necessarily need convoluted indices to get you where you’re headed, especially when you’re starting. Sometimes, just a simple correlation between an awareness metric and a sales timeline can tell you whether there might be a positive relationship, and you can act on that. Think of it this way: pair one qualitative metric – like customer satisfaction – with one related quantitative one, like sales or call center costs or website hits. One metric alone rarely tells you anything valuable.

Are they both headed in the direction you want them to be? Over time, do you see them moving together, away from each other, or in unrelated ways? Do the strategies you have in place to move them both tie into one another?

CAN measurement be complex? Sure. Some really detailed measurement formulas can help you get super scientific and granular. But again, if you’re getting mired in the process of measurement instead of the practice of deriving some intelligence from what you measure, you’re doing it wrong. The average business simply needs a guide, not a dissertation.

10. Measurement is a constant evolution.

You set a goal. You back out a few metrics. Then you evaluate, and realize you haven’t learned anything of value, or that you need more clarity, more specifics, a broader view, or whatever. That’s okay. Look, business is an iterative process. It’s part art, part science, and so is measurement. Who wrote the rule that said we had to have the perfect, bulletproof set of metrics before we start measuring?

If something doesn’t get you the information you need, change what you’re doing and try something else. If you’re missing something, add it. Eventually, you’ll settle into a few combinations of metrics that really illustrate to you those Almighty Actionable Insights.

We’re way too caught up with being perfectionists about gathering and presenting information, and not nearly good enough with FRAMING the information in a way that gives us something to chew on.

11. Measurement is cultural as well as operational.

We’re taught to fear failure, so if we track and measure failure, we don’t want to share it. We manipulate numbers to show our work in its best light, instead of showing the hard truth in order to identify what we need to improve to be more effective. That’s a *culture* problem, based in businesses where accountability is absolute, blame is personal, and failure is a dirty word. That’s a conversation that can’t be fixed with a PPT presentation.

12. Measurement is more than ROI.

Measuring ROI is something we can and should do. Track how much we spend (in time and capital), track how much we net in terms of return (usually $$). That’s a smart move.

But we can’t limit the discussion about measurement to ROI. We have to talk about qualitative metrics, like brand perception, customer satisfaction, advocacy. We have to talk about quantitative metrics that tie to things other than revenue, like reduced costs. We also have to understand the difference between justifying something from a “good use of time” perspective, and looking at a financial return as the way of determining success.

Ultimately, all roads lead to somewhere. But so much of social media isn’t about being the sales channel, but is about positively impacting the likelihood of sales through all other experiences.

13. “Social media isn’t measurable” is an excuse.

Here’s what people really mean:

• I don’t have the right tools in place to collect the data I need
• When I have all the data, I don’t know where to start
• I don’t know what data might relate to each other to analyze it well
• I don’t want to or am not empowered to spend time doing data collection and analysis as part of my job
• I’m afraid of what measuring will actually tell me about the effectiveness of my work

The first one is a functional problem. The second and third ones are knowledge based, with no exact “right” answers, and require a bit of practice and applied effort, but they’re solvable too. The last two are cultural, and are probably much more firmly rooted in the people rather than the process. That’s a different discussion.

Above all, we have to stop blaming the medium for hindering the measurement process. It’s not social media’s fault at all. If anything, it’s guilty of providing us too much information.

What we need to understand about our own measurement practices is whether we’re equipped with the right tools and data, whether we’re willing to spend the time evaluating that data and extracting the juicy bits, and whether we’re functionally and culturally prepared for what it might show us, for better or for worse.

But make no mistake, folks, basic social media measurement isn’t someone else’s responsibility to sort out for us. And waiting for the manual is simply burning time and money.

Measurement is our job. It’s our responsibility. And it’s within our capabilities, without doubt. So let’s get cracking.

Photo Credit by Amptoons.

There has been some controversy since yesterday’s announcement over the IPAD winner, Blake and the fact he is an intern with Blogging4Jobs. As the Social Media Newbie I want to be totally transparent and share with you my dilemma and ask you for your comments and feedback!

Blake is an intern with Blogging4Jobs and until the day BEFORE the SHRM Conference in San Diego I had never met him and he was chosen as the winner of the IPAD based on the number of tweets according to the contest rules. I received several Direct Messages from another Twitter user yesterday who feels that Blake was unfairly chosen to win the IPAD because he WORKS for Blogging4Jobs.

In the contest rules we did not specify that no one associated with either of my companies, clients or family members would be disqualified. I even received a text message from my 23 year old daughter who lives in Canada because she received a message on facebook regarding the contest and wanted to know how she could win the IPAD!

This was a fun contest for me to learn how to connect with the Social media crowd and I invested heavily in doing it “Right” with hiring a great teacher and mentor, Blogging4Jobs and by offering to give away a $600 IPAD but I never dreamed my integrity would be called into question.

Due to the popularity of the IPAD, I will not receive it until July 20th so I am glad it provides me the opportunity to publicly share this with you, my new group and ask for your thoughts…I could cancel the contest and save myself the time, trouble and money or I could award them both $250 and send back the IPAD?

I appreciate your thoughts and comments! Social Media Newbie, Sher

Photo Credit Gizmodo.