Firstly I will say thanks to Andy over at Sirona, for thinking that I offer some kind of expertise!!

And secondly I wanted to carry on his discussion about whether Price Waterhouse Coopers careers site blog is up to the mark.

So after further inspection I felt that Andy may have been just a little harsh, particularly as poor old Paula is the only one of 9 contributors who is actually contributing on a regular basis. And to be fair to Paula, she writes well and has the makings of a good blogger.

Saying that I do agree this is a poor recruitment blog, but the more you delve into their website, you find the whole place is littered with contributors who don’t contribute!!

What did make me laugh was the second paragraph of the article in question, which said

But be warned -if you do not have the resources or commitment to update the site regularly with quality content this strategy could backfire and not make the positive impression that you intended.

Hmm say no more, but when Susanna goes on with a number of tips, on what would make a good recruitment blog, such as write once or twice a week, advertise current jobs, explain the interview process and grab the interest of the reader to keep them coming back. Well there is none of that, so why does she thinks this is a good example, and like Andy I have no idea!

As I said when you go deeper you find there are more blogs here, one for fresh graduates and a number from experts within their sectors and all appear to write as if it is a chore. You certainly get the feeling that someone was told “you need to have blogs to improve your search rankings”, without telling the contributors what they should be doing. Someone should tell management that writing post for blogs are not easy, as I try to complete this one as the clock moves closer to 1am.

The problem with corporate blogs they tend following the company line, which doesn’t really help with creativity, at the best of times. Probably the most famous corporate blogger is the famed Robert Scoble, whom I suppose is the grandfather of all corporate recruitment blogs, partly because he did it within Microsoft and secondly he was very vocal in his disappointment of Microsoft when needed, the result was he gave a more personable image of this mega corporation.

Now if I was to give some advise to Price Waterhouse Coopers, I would say you need to find someone with a passion for their company who is happy to say it as it is, give it some respect and pay the writers (Paula), motivate them by giving them their stats, because at the end of the day you are the one benefiting from their creative ability in improving your company image.

And what would I write about, well you need to think of who will be reading your blog “the prospective Employee”. If I was reading your blog I would want to see photos of the office, the team, trips for achievers, xmas party photos, the charity run you all did last week, the guest post of the work from home mum, it goes on but that’s what candidates wants to know not just the every day ins and outs but will I enjoy working for Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Probably on reflection a blog on careers may not be the best way to show your company, as you may want and if I was PWC I would take a look at www.hewittgraduate.co.uk to see how they should have approached it.

Still if I was to give a prize for the best use of a blog in recruitment, then it would go to Jonathan Fagan with his Legal Recruitment blog, why because it shows candidates and clients he is an expert in his field, what more do you need to say!