I’m overwhelmed by the generalities about Generation Y in the HR-related press and blogs. They’re entitled. They expect to start at the top. They need a gold star every two minutes to know they’re doing good work.

What do I see in GenY? A group of young employees who want the same things from work and behave in very much the way I did when I was their age. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll likely admit the same. Sure they want to be at the top. That’s where the action is. They know they have to work hard to get there, though. But if you’re not giving them the “gold stars” – meaningful feedback on their work and praise when they do it well – how will they know they’re doing the right thing? But their drive does create one big challenge for business today – creating opportunities for them to grow into greater responsibility and contribution quickly, and remaining true to the company values at the same time.

That’s right – company values are very important to GenY. In fact, recent BlessingWhite research showed the top 5 characteristics recent grads want from their employers (quoting):

1. Company values, mission and culture
2. Recreation (gym facilities, ...

A few days ago, I told my husband the story of my brother and his unique approach to interviewing and finding a job. With perseverance, creativity, preparation and bit of luck, he landed the opportunity of a lifetime!

Like so many other people adversely affected by the staggering economy, he was laid off several months ago resulting from a reduction in force.  Adding insult to injury, the layoff occurred two weeks before Christmas, and the family’s holiday cheer evaporated faster than ice on a hot day. The stark realities of my brother’s situation set in and he began the daunting, and often overwhelming process of finding employment.  As a recruiter, I knew what he was up against and how hard it can be to stand out from a sea of other job seekers and grab a potential employer’s attention.

A short time ago, a recruiter contacted my brother to review an exciting opportunity with a growing firm. The recruiter provided the job description, which my brother reviewed, breaking it down piece by piece. This gave him a strong understanding of the qualifications of the position and specific responsibilities. Once the interview was scheduled, my brother knew that he would have .. ...

Chris Anderson’s article The web is dead: long live the internet, in the August edition of Wired magazine, has attracted a lot of attention, including mine, but for many the title of the article would mean very little. For the past five years I have been running 1-day workshops on learning technologies for new l&d professionals, in which I include a team quiz. The opening question asks, “When was the World Wide Web officially launched?”, with options for the 70s, 80s or 90s. Perhaps one team in ten gets the answer right – the 1990s – because they know the internet goes back a long way and they believe the web and the internet are the same thing. As we know, they are not.

The World Wide Web is a system which allows documents formatted using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to be shared across the internet in the form of web pages, aggregated as web sites. Web pages are viewed using applications called web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.). The web was the creation of Sir Tim Berners-Lee (pause for God save the Queen) when he was working at CERN in Geneva.

As the diagram in Wired shows, prior to the 1990s, the internet was primarily used for FTP ...

Knowing how long your phone interview will last and the type of questions you should anticipate is important. Talent acquisition coordinator Amelia Barron discusses what to expect during a phone interview.

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I’ve recently downloaded AIIM’s report “SharePoint – strategies and experiences” and it makes for a stimulating if number heavy read. AIIM is an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) body and the report reflects this. My background and focus is on social software in the Enterprise. And as I’ve been arguing, the whole area of ECM, internal comms, intranets and content management systems is in a state of flux, not least because of the drivers created by social software.

Reports such as this provide one with a window into this world from one perspective and provide a rich source of information. It was created from inputs from over 600 companies, the majority being US based and followed by Europe and the rest of the world. Of these, almost 2 thirds have SharePoint in one form or another and with this likely to increase, especially with the release of SharePoint 2010.

SharePoint 2010 is of interest of course, in that it provides enhanced social capabilities -the blogs, wiki and discussion capabilities are much better than in previous releases. But what the report shows is that the greatest use is in core data collaboration and document sharing functions and that Microsoft:

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