By Dave Mendoza, Master Cybersleuth, JobMachine Inc.

At Kennedy Expo, Las Vegas on May 9th, I had the opportunity to serve as Blog Panel Moderator. I was privileged to have distinguished All-Star colleagues, such as Dennis Smith, Gretchen Ledgard, Shally Steckerl and Steve Levy join me as blog panelists, to elaborate on what forms and to what extent blogs have benefited recruiters. It was an invigorating discussion and we received fantastic questions from the general assembly. In a magnificent illustration of how dramatic Recruitment blogging has immersed itself into the mainstream within our industry, – over two thirds of the audience stood when asked if they had either heard or read a recruitment industry blog. My blog panel colleagues shared my enthusiasm with the fact that audience participation in this genre had increased significantly from prior Kennedy Expo events.

Our Blog Panel explored the following issues:

Dennis Smith, Sr. Manager, Executive Recruitment, T-Mobile USA
Over 10 years of experience in agency and corporate recruiting, primarily in the wireless industry. As a Talent Acquisition Manager for T-Mobile, he is dedicated to meeting the needs of the HotSpot and Engineering Operations teams in the company’s Central & Southern Regions. Dennis’s passion for recruiting, as well as his desire to be an active participant within the recruiting community, sparked his first blogging activity in December ’04. Since that time, he has been an active contributor in the recruiting blogosphere, participating regularly on Recruiting.com, ERE Blog Central, and his personal blog, TalentBloggers.com. Formerly known as the “Masked-Blogger,” Dennis currently enjoys the freedoms associated with mask-less blogging.

Gretchen Ledgard, co-founder of JobSyntax
Gretchen Ledgard is a technical recruiter turned employment marketer. As a co-founder of JobSyntax, Gretchen helps software engineers and small technology companies develop and implement personal and employment marketing strategies. Prior to JobSyntax, Gretchen worked at the Microsoft Corporation where she sourced, evaluated, and closed software engineers for the company’s international, college, and industry recruiting teams and later managed marketing programs which attracted the industry’s best technical talent to the company. Gretchen holds a BA in English Literature from Vanderbilt University.

Shally Steckerl, Chief Cybersleuth, JobMachine Inc.
Shally is a talent acquisition strategist, speaker and recruitment consultant originally from Columbia, South America, now residing in Atlanta, GA. Most recently Mr. Steckerl managed the Research Arm of Microsoft’s Core Technical Assistance Sourcing team. Prior to joining Microsoft he has consulted with leading organizations such as Google, Genetech, Disney, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Cisco Systems, and Motorola where he has been instrumental in architecting centralized recruitment models. Because of his passion for the Internet as a recruitment tool and his continually innovative methods, Mr. Steckerl has developed a reputation as an authority in Internet search, and a pioneer in recruitment research. An accomplished author, consultant, and trainer, Mr. Steckerl is a frequent contributor to many industry forums and speaker at leading conferences. He is the founder of JobMachine, Inc. and www.jobmachine.net. He is the 2005 Recruiting.com Winner of the Best Recruiting Research Blog Award for his blog, Cybersleuthing.

Steve Levy, Out of The Box Consulting
Bringing to the table substantial business experience outside of HR (sales, marketing, information technology, software development, management consulting, patent law), Steve works with companies to plan, design and implement creative systems, processes and infrastructures that improve workforce planning, talent acquisition, and talent management while strengthening financial and operational performance under demanding business conditions. Steve was the Electronic Recruiting Exchange’s first blogger and presently offers his points of view on sourcing, recruiting, on-boarding, and business with Maureen Sharib on The Recruiting Edge (Blog of the Year Nominee, 2006). He is on the Board of Directors for the New Jersey Metro EMA, the Board of Advisors for JibberJobber.com and BountyJobs.com, and the Metrics Committee of the HR Metrics Consortium.

NOTE: Stay Tuned for Information on the Next Kennedy Conference & Expo in Orlando, Florida on November 12 & 13, 2007.

LinkedIn | Bio | MSN | Skype

Speakers: Dave Mendoza, Gretchen Ledgard & Joel Cheesman

ONLY $275 – To Sign Up for Tomorrow’s Audio Conference CLICK HERE:

What are your employees already saying about your company on the internet, and how can properly highlighting their voices attract more qualified applicants to your open jobs? As blogging grows in popularity, more and more employees are sharing their personal stories about corporate life, and these open conversations can both help and hurt your company’s employment brand.

In Part 2 of this 3-part series, you’ll join Gretchen Ledgard, the first corporate recruiting blogger, and Joel Cheesman, recipient of Recruiting.com’s 2006 Best Blog Award, as they share blogging experiences from across the employment industry and show you how to leverage employee blogs to attract top talent to your company. In this session you will learn how to –

• Develop proper oversight of employee blogs (not recruiter blogs) to enhance (not hurt) a company’s reputation as a sought-after employer.
• Develop a corporate Blog to effectively attract passive candidates, and increase your company’s search rankings with heightened corporate brand awareness through search engine optimization strategies.
• Promote the candidate experience: educate prospective candidates on the application process (what to expect in an interview), and develop and identify your cultural brand.
• Enhance the employment brand of your business groups, market corporate events such as job fairs, Corporate Technology Forums, conferences, trade shows.
• Obtain better search engine rankings and attract passive candidates.

What are your employees already saying about your company on the internet, and how can properly highlighting their voices attract more qualified applicants to your open jobs? As blogging grows in popularity, more and more employees are sharing their personal stories about corporate life, and these open conversations can both help and hurt your company’s employment brand.

In Part 2 of this 3-part series, you’ll join Gretchen Ledgard, the first corporate recruiting blogger, and Joel Cheesman, recipient of Recruiting.com’s 2006 Best Blog Award, as they share blogging experiences from across the employment industry and show you how to leverage employee blogs to attract top talent to your company. You’ll learn how employee blogs (as opposed to recruiter blogs) can enhance — or hurt — a company’s reputation as a sought-after employer, how to obtain better search engine rankings and how to attract passive candidates.

There will also be time for your questions!

Join us for one or all!

Gretchen Ledgard, Partner, JobSyntax, Inc



Gretchen Ledgard is a Partner with JobSyntax, Inc, an employment marketing firm based in Redmond, WA. An alumnae of Microsoft’s recruiting organization, Gretchen co-founded, authored, and managed the first corporate recruiting blog, JobsBlog. In her current role, she advises corporations on how best to utilize blogs and other social media channels to enhance employment branding and recruiting efforts. Along with her business partner, Zoë Goldring, Gretchen also writes the JobSyntax blog and studies the effects of social media technology on the employment industry.

Joel Cheesman, President, HRSEO



Joel Cheesman, president of HRSEO and author of award-winning blog, Cheezhead, is one of the most widely-read bloggers on emerging recruitment issues in the world. He was the recipient of Recruiting.com’s Best Technology Recruitment Blog for 2005 and received Best Recruiting Blog in 2007. He has been featured in Fast Company magazine and its blog under FC Reads, as well as NewsNow, Workforce Management, AIRS and Crain’s Business.

Joel’s blog is a daily chronicle of how the Internet and technology are shaping human resources and how organizations can attract the talent needed to thrive in tomorrow’s economy. As an employee and insider of some of America’s biggest online job sites since 1997, Joel founded HRSEO to help employers and companies in the recruitment space move to a world where search engines deliver high quality and cost-effective traffic.

One session: ONLY $275
Two sessions: $468 – Save 15%!
Three sessions: $659 – Save 20%!

For more information, to register, or order CD recordings please contact Karen Bison at 1-800-531-0007 ext. 631, or email kbison@kennedyinfo.com