chinwag jobs

It's not just Soylent Green that's made of people, it's the digital industry, too. Six of the world's leady tech heavyweights, Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit and Pixar have just agreed settlement of a complaint by the US Department of Justice into "anticompetitive employment practices" between the firms.

The genial relations between personnel teams is in stark contrast to frosty relations on the product front. The massive pressure to attract and retain the best talent will certainly have played its part.

As a recruitment company we're lucky enough to get great visibility on what's going on in the digital sector as a whole - where the demand for talent is greatest, which roles attract the most interest, and more besides.

We thought that a lot of the information we see would be useful to a wider audience, which is why we recently published our inaugural Digital Salary Survey. Using our data from the second half of 2009, and the first half of 2010, it shows some interesting trends in the sector - some of which I thought I would share here on Chinwag (thanks for the invite guys!)

Chinwag is on the hunt for a new member of our events team. Interested or know someone who might be? Read on...

Event Dynamo Required (3 month contract) £25,000-£35,000 pro-rata

Chinwag is a community of people working in digital media and marketing, primarily in the UK, but increasingly across the world. Our small but busy team runs a whole heap of exciting events, websites and trade missions including Chinwag.com, Chinwag Jobs, Chinwag Live, the Digital Missions, Social Media Week London amongst others.

We're lucky enough to work with some of the most dynamic and exciting companies in digital media, from start-ups to FTSE 100 corporates and government departments. Our tag-line 'connecting digital people' encapsulates what we're about, and the aim of our work on the web, social media, email and our live events.

And that's where you come in...

We need someone special to help deliver a series of exciting events this Autumn. Initially, this will be a 3 month contract starting immediately, but if things go well, there's the opportunity for something more permanent.

Project Canvas, a partnership formed by some of the biggest names in broadcasting and digital, has recently received its backing from the BBC trust. The project could change the way in which commercial entities communicate with consumers and the scope for digital content development and interactive services could be huge. So how can digital designers attempt to capitalise on this new venture? And how will it change the market place?
 

When the UK UPA (UK Usability Professionals' Association) listed their careers event on Chinwag's events listings, we asked UK UPA Head of Professional Development, Leslie Fountain, to share her insight.

Our annual June Careers event this year was more than just about which employer had the flashiest displays or cupcakes. Our attendees weren't concerned with how many goody bags they could get, this year we got really serious, enter Speed Dating...

Getting that dream job, sometimes requires more than a straight-forward job hunt, application and nailing the interview.

As an extension of a marketing discipline, it's all about understanding your audience and targeting them with an effective campaign. That's exactly what Alec Brownstein did using ingenuity and the grand total of $6 on Google Adwords.

The result? A gig at Y&R New York. Here's how he did it...

If you're interviewing with a start-up, in digital there are thousands, there are a whole bunch of interview questions you should ask.

It's not just a chance to make yourself sound smart, but to find out if the company who are interviewing you are going steady, not just in the financial sense.

It's something you'll want to know before you commit yourself.

Interviewing; it's just like dating.

Things like burn rate, financial backing and their current profit/loss situation should all be subtly investigated.  Here's our list of the top questions to ask in a start-up job interview:

As brands steadily move into social media and online PR Facebook and Twitter et al are no longer dirty words in the office.

But it's applicants who are missing a trick. A random CV sample by digital recruitment firm Major Players has found that social media mentions are missing in the majority of applications.

The survey sampled 4,500 CVs over the last two years. Only 6% referenced social media, 9% mentioned Twitter, a tiny 2% talked about blogging and only 13% included Facebook (often only highlighted in the interests section).

I've noticed a steady increase in the number of roles on Chinwag Jobs that mention "social media" or "community" in the title. But what's it like to do the job? In this guest post, Rebecca Jesson, Social Media Manager at Sheffield-based agency, Quba shares her day...

One of the questions I get asked frequently is “What exactly does a Social Media Manager do?” As Kat French so rightly puts it “…because apparently, people think social media managers spend all day on Twitter/Facebook collecting followers and congratulating each other on getting paid to spend all day on Twitter/Facebook”. Her “day in the life of…” post covers a lot of the things I do all day, but I wanted to write one of my own. So here it goes...

Too many candidates, chasing too few jobs mean that you have to be just a little bit sleeker than your average to score that prized interview. It's tough out there, I tell you.

If you're churning out the CVs, rapid-fire style, have a read below and see. You could be missing a trick.

Sending a CV online is quick, free and gets your an instant response, even if it's a ping back aknowledgement. Unsuprisingly it's the most common way of applying for a job but at the same time a CV sent by email runs the risk of just festering in an inbox.

Rather than sending your CV as an attachment, paste it into the body of the email. Attachments are often ignored because people are worried about viruses and wasting time downloading documents. With this in mind, stay clear of multi-media CVs. They may make you stand out and prove your technical credentials with their singing, all dancing displays but they're awkward to download, never mind format. 

We all love our iPhone apps. How did we possibly live without them?

There are green ones, dating ones, financial ones and ones that can even teach your kids how to read. Even the free ones can let you do a background check on a blind date and give you a turn at playing God.

So far the number of iPhone apps downloaded is sitting at a mind-blowing 2 billion. We're downloading from the app store at a rate of 6.6 million every day and the market is worth an estimated $2.5 billion US dollars each year. That's quite a hunk of cash.

The US picture may be bleak but are British women really as worse off as women in the States when it comes to social media salaries?

We got in touch with a UK-based social media recruitment company to find out if we really have anything to worry about.

According to Emma McNamara, Managing Director of recruitment firm Propel London, there are just more men applying for the roles at the outset:

"We have experienced more male applicants for the roles, however have not seen any gender preference from clients or differences in salaries offered. I think it really depends on the community involved and the candidates overall experience."

There are a lot of challenges for any company taking on an intern.

From where to advertise the vacancy to the costs involved in hosting and training can all be a drain on company resources.

It's been challenging at Chinwag, so I bent the ear of Dominic Potter, co-founder of Internocracy, a company that helps employers set up and run their internship programmes.

Here's a brief run-down of his top-tips to consider before taking on an intern:

Social media is the bread and butter of customer relations management and there's no doubt that for companies, employees who communicate well online hold a certain cache.

Any personal blog or website you have could be owned by the boss and the trouble lies where personal and work collide and whether blogging takes place in the office or at home.

If your blog mentions company-related news, who owns the rights to it, will be difficult to ascertain. In theory, working for a prominent organisation and mentioning their developements within your personal site is treading on terra-infirma. Should the site become successful, things get even more complicated. Once revenue is involved who gets a share of the profits?

If the latest figures from Forum One Networks' Online Community & Social Media Compensation Survey are to be believed, it's not good news ladies. 

The company's 2009 survey found that the gender pay gap is widening in social media at least. Male respondents to the survey made just over $86,644 (£52,249) while female respondents, in comparison, averaged just $75,624 (£45,702) a difference of almost $9,000. According to the survey women make 87% of what a man in a similar role brings home every month.

This time last year Forum One's 2008 study found that 55% of community managers were women. In 2009 this figure fell to 52%. Even with a slight dip in the number of women in social media's top jobs they still out number men in the sector; something which makes the pay difference strange.