Microsoft Talent Network

On November 18, 2011, in HR Technology, HRExaminer, Reviews, by John Sumser

I got invited to join the so called Microsoft Talent Network. Being a good 21st Century pseudo-nerd, I wanted to avail myself of all the potential opportunities for work at Microsoft. Knowing that networks are really good things, I wanted to expand my reach and the interesting people I know. Certainly, I thought, a cutting edge tech company would be able to help me network.

I should have paid attention at the intro. It said:

What is the Microsoft Talent Network?

Signing up for the Talent Network allows you to receive customized job and event alerts sent to you via e-mail. You determine the types of jobs sent and the frequency you receive them.

How do I sign up?

It’s easy! Just enter your e-mail below. You will be taken to a sign-up page to customize your alerts. Once you sign-up, you’ll start receiving messages!

Is my information confidential?

Yes! Microsoft adheres to strict privacy regulations. We will not share your information with anyone.

In other words, it’s not a network at all. It’s an email list that you can sign up for to receive notifications from Microsoft. That has been the state of the art in job alerts for over a decade. There is nothing new here.

It’s not a network at all. There is nothing about it that is a network.

The first an most important part of communicating an employment brand or building a powerful candidate experience is clarity. Calling things by trendy names when the people you are talking to understand the language makes you look silly. When potential employees from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Google see this badly named job alert system, what do you suppose they will think?

At best, they will think that this is the work of an HR Department that is completely out of touch with the world of social media. That would be the best possible outcome. More likely, they’ll see it as further evidence of Microsoft’s retreat from relevance.

Employment Branding is a business that requires diligent attention. Every nuance of every utterance has to be scrutinized. While the rules are morphing for the social media universe, the are not moving as fast in corporate branding.

Microsoft is struggling to recruit exactly the sorts of people who will be turned off by this lack of attention to detail. As the story gets repeated, it will start to sound like “This is why HR can not be trusted with the employment brand.”

The fix is easy. Call it Job Alerts. Stop pretending that it’s something that it’s not. Honesty trumps puffery every single time in today’s employment market.

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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Staffing Lead

John – if you think that Microsoft is ONLY sending out job alerts then you have under-estimated us. We send out newsletters regarding our organizations, we invite those that have joined our network to view our other social networks, we invite these individuals to webinars, onsite evetns, etc…we do NOT just send alerts…don’t just write an article bashing something that you don’t fully understand…
http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

Hi Heather,

I don’t think that Microsoft’s recruiting effort is limited to the Talent Network. In fact, Microsoft has pioneered an amazing array of recruiting tactics and techniques. The so called TalentNetwork is a wart on the nose of an otherwise good looking operation.

That said, someone at Microsoft completely lost control of the branding on this one. Calling it a network when it’s a job alert is dishonest.
Staffing Lead

John – How are we dishonest when we clearly state what the Talent Network is here: http://bit.ly/vAk8hr “Completely Lost Control” really, that’s a bit of a radical statement. We do solicit jobs IF the potential candidate wants to receive alerts, but we also use our Jobs2Web Talent Network to to engage with talent (past, present and future) in many ways (such as what I mentioned in my first post), and I do believe that newsletters, invitations to webinars, networking opportunities and social engagement = Talent Network…
http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

Okay, Heather. Tell me what, exactly, makes this a network? Do the people in the network interact with each other in some way? If I sign up for this so called network, who do I meet? Aren’t you using the word network to describe something that isn’t a network at all?

If you want to take a moment and talk about the experience of a couple of people in this ‘network’, please do. I am more than happy to be wrong.
Elsewhere, you mentioned that you thought that personal issues had clouded the piece. Please point them out.
Staffing Lead

I think you are mixing up “Heathers”…I assume your personal issues comment is based on a tweet from my colleague Heather TInguely? Once someone joins the talent network, depending on the profile of the individual we will ask them to come join our conversations and activities on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and our blog. We will ask them to come to a webinar or an onsite event. Aren’t all of these opportunities network opportunities? Potential candidates have the opportunity to dicsuss roles, culture, environment at Microsoft. We then do our best to ensure that we are filtering candidates to the appropriate communities. For example, if they are intersted in support, we may ask them to join our support facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/microsoftcustomerservicejobs where as you can see there are jobs listed, information on our campuses, pictures and an opportunity to engage. Additionally, members of this “network” can dialogue with one another as well as directly with us. I write this post because I would hate for candidates to be disouraged to join our talent network with the limited information you have given in your post…they could be missing out on some great opportunities to get to know our employees, our recruiters and other folks that have similiar interests….
http://www.hrexaminer.com John Sumser

It’s so hard to tell all of those Heathers @ MSFT apart.

So what you are saying is that everyone who signs up for the network gets these various opportunities? If you tell me that’s true, I’ll buy it. But, it doesn’t really seem likely that you actually introduce everyone who signs up to everyone else. It seems pretty likely that there are some, probably many, who just get put on a job alerts list.

Would you be willing to say that 100% of the people who sign up get the benefits you describe? If not 100%, how many? For the people who do not get the benefits you’ve described, the case is as I’ve laid it out. To wit, you are calling it a network and it really isn’t.