About El Dave

ERE Recruiting Excellence Award, “Most Strategic Use of Technology”

SAN DIEGO, April 5, 2011/ — The talent strategy architecture directly based upon the consulting contributions of social recruiting architect, Dave Mendoza recently took home the “Most Strategic Use of Technology” Award at the ERE Expo 2011 Recruiting Excellence Awards. Awarded on the basis of the strategic architecture that combined competitive intelligence mapping with knowledge management systems, said Mendoza of the solution: ”The research-oriented product was made actionable, as a plug-and-play resource for our talent acquisition team to access sourcing syntax which could adopt and refine itself in progressive updates.”

Given each year at the ERE Spring Expo in San Diego, the Recruiting Excellence Awards are given to companies who demonstrate innovative recruiting campaigns. ERE Media holds a yearly global competition aimed at identifying the best “next practices” in recruiting. Each year, ERE receives hundreds of applications in eight recruiting program categories from well-known organizations like Microsoft, IBM, Ernst & Young, Intuit, Accenture, GE, and Yahoo!

His client’s Vice President of Talent Acquisition was on hand to accept the award, stating “Dave has opened doors to not only revolutionary ways of talent mapping through competitive intelligence that is immediately actionable, but I have likewise been able to harness his enormous database of industry contacts to produce cost cutting, value-enhanced access to new tool sets and job boards. I readily predict this is a first of several industry recognitions for our corporation and for Dave directly as one of the leading talent strategist consultants of our times.

Dave Mendoza, Principal of “Dave Mendoza & Associates, Inc.” is an award winning Journalist blogger, global speaker and sourcing consultant. He has served previously as an Adjunct Faculty member at JobMachine.net, and as corporate partner to RecruitingBlogs.com. Dave was recognized as 2008 “Person of the Year” by Recruitingbloggers.com and Recruiting Radioshow. . In 2010, he was recognized by HRExaminer’s Top 25 Most Influential Online Recruiters and Top 25 Online Influencers in Talent Management.

CONTACT INFORMATION: Media Contact: Dave Mendoza, Principal

Dave Mendoza & Associates, Inc.
Reach me directly at (303) 718-2440

Dave Mendoza has been at the forefront of emphasizing competitive intelligence (CI) mapping and how it can translate findings into actionable sourcing channels. He developed a system whereby CI findings are cataloged into a streamlined and simplified library that can be easily shared with stakeholders to act as a decision making aid. Together with his Client, he has developed an intuitive approach that combines CI with subject matter expertise in critical candidate specializations into a knowledge management system that facilitates novice recruiters to quickly adapt and produce output matching the proficiency level of experienced veterans. The outcome is a solution to a common industry ailment, a repository of data that retains the intellectual property of the organization’s recruiters as a process and as an output, regardless of staff reorganization.

He developed an approach that mirrored the data driven approach of corporate product services and evolved the concept to coincide with its talent procurement. In so doing, Dave conceived, developed and implemented the most elaborate and unparalleled recruiting competitive intelligence mapping effort of its kind.

Similarly, his approach segments identified resources from social media destinations by niche, which will later parlay into future RSS feeds to automatically alert talent orgs of new, relevant content; continuously monitoring competitor areas of expertise and identifying learning institutions as well as job title variations throughout the world into a manageable and identifiable “talent ecosystem.”

Dave has evangelized CI investment also as a noteworthy benchmarking tool. By charting the social media imprint of competitors via Linkedin Careers, Facebook Careers, Twitter Careers, branded YouTube pages, Webinars/Podcasts, Newsletter Programs, etc., the approach enhances strategies to meet and exceed long term goals as an “Employer of Choice.”

Mr. Mendoza’s unfaltering dedication to fostering the art of sourcing in mainstream recruitment has established him as one of the most widely-read voices in recruiting.

His recruitment blog “Six Degrees from Dave, spotlights Talent Acquisition industry leaders, sourcing gurus, global staffing best practices and social networking. Through their stories, he spotlights global staffing practices, leading-edge sourcing techniques and best practices. It has been honored with 3 awards: RecruitingBlogs.com’s “Best Overall Recruitment Blog of 2007″ & “Best Recruitment Industry Blog of 2007, and HireAbility’s “Best Recruitment Blog of 2007.” Dave’s blog was listed #3 out of 25 of the best blogs of 2007 by HRWorld.com. His site also received most votes for Best Recruitment blog of 2006 at Recruiting.com.

Dave presents at global recruitment conferences, Staffing Management Association events, webinars and workshops. He has been a featured speaker in various European cities; i.e., Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Paris, and Barcelona. Most recently his innovations in the area of talent mapping and Knowledge Library IP development were featured in the Luxembourg Magazine, Paperjam (page 40). He co-presented at the AustralAsian Talent Conference on “Blogging for Talent” with thought leader, Kevin Wheeler, and served on a panel on “Social Media: How is Technology Impacting Recruitment?” Panelist at Kennedy Expo Vegas 2008 – “Ask the Experts” a Sourcing Summit Town Hall.” He served as Moderator for a Three Part Kennedy Info, Audio Series on “Blogging for Talent, Branding and Web 2.0 Relationships” and a Kennedy Conference & Expo General Assembly Panel, “Blogging from Guerilla Marketing to Mainstream Recruiting,” Co-Presented both “Mastering Linkedin” an ERE “Full Day Master Session, Advanced Sourcing Workshop” with Shally Steckerl and Glenn Gutmacher.

About Dave Mendoza & Associates, Inc.
is a consulting firm which offers a broad talent strategy solution; i.e., Competitive Intelligence, Talent Mapping, Social Media and talent sourcing pipeline development. The firm’s consulting services include each of the following capabilities:

Conducts deep-dive, Talent Pipeline social research and analysis; evaluated key talent ecosystems within primary social media platforms, identified both niche industry site and blog influencers and produced corresponding search analytic ranking system

Utilizes key research findings, development of a robust online marketing strategy which builds upon existing baseline of social media talent communities, to business groups to drive new subscriber base using a variation of pilot programs

Initiates a detailed roadmap compilation of niche site advertising presentations and composed varied communications to key focus groups both internal and external to standardize the online marketing efforts on behalf of talent communities

Develops ‘Talent Audience Surveys’ to assess the online habits, communication preferences and industry specific knowledge to produce impactful data and enhance talent pipeline relationships.

Conception and development of an actionable, Sourcing Toolbar with crowd-sourcing component to facilitate IP retention within talent sourcing groups. Conceived of broader global translation to standardize sourcing tactics and optimize staffing on-boarding process

Develops deep-dive bench marking of existing corporate staffing best practices.

Reviews in-house Sourcing efforts to develop substantive recommendations to enhance sourcing investments based upon evaluation of both internal corporate and industry bench marked efforts: Sourcing Automation, Diversity sourcing, Employee Referral programs, Events promotion, and Social media

Conception and development of mobile employment marketing strategy; i.e. SMS alerts, mobile landing pages, and cross platform, mobile app. Facilitated brainstorm session on mobile application design.

Develops and recommends steps to be taken by corporate Staffing to drive a favorable employment brand for Staffing professionals.

Conducts employment branding advertising research. Produced and presented social media survey results and recommendations to enhance targeted communities strategy

Develops talent community strategy to MS team to motivate corporate staffing adoption of key talent community initiatives; Evaluation of existing Communities; recommendations to measure the ROI on existing Communities.

Name Generation Analysis to identify passive talent among key competitors

ABOUT “EL DAVE”



My first name initial is “L.” A friend once remarked El Dave should be accompanied by a strumming and dramatic acoustic guitar reminiscent of Desperado, hence the moniker.

Born in the East Coast and raised in Orange County, California I resided in Irvine, CA for the last 6 years. Thanks to the continued “Virtual Office” granted by my clients, the Mendoza clan recently relocated to the family-friendly locale of Castle Rock, Colorado following the birth of our daughter.

My wife, Heidi is a native of Finland and recently earned her citizenship to the U.S. We are the proud parents to two wonderful children: our son Valentino, (Tino) 18 years old, and our 4 year old daughter, Siena Blue. Dog lovers, we support animal shelter causes and add sound effects and love to our own home with three dogs, an Australian Shepard named “Thatcher” and our two Pomeranians, “Reagan” & “Nala.”

I have promised my son Tino that I will wear rubber pants and learn fly fishing with him. If I can convince my wife Heidi that forests have hair dryer outlets I will get her to join us on camping trips. Yes, we may even listen to John Denver’s ‘Rocky Mountain High’ if I can find a version by Nine Inch Nails.