The Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros: Meet Joel Peterson from Goshow Architects

Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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One of the coolest things about working with Glassdoor on the Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros has been I get to meet and introduce you to some pretty great people.  Today is no exception to that!  Joel Peterson is our next great pro on the Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros!  Joel is the Director of HR for Goshow Architects the largest woman-owned architectural firm in New York City.

Joel is the Social Media Director for the New York State Council of SHRM and Master’s graduate in Acting!  What? Acting? Yeah, that makes him perfect for working in HR!  Here is Joel’s player’s card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - JOEL PETERSON

 

Joel’s player card is solid across everything!  He’s like a five-tool baseball player, he doesn’t have a weakness when it comes to branding himself as an HR professional. As a writer Joel started a very blog series on SHRM called Life as a HRDEPT1, to help others like him that were running HR as a department of one. Joel was also on the SHRM National blogging team this summer in Las Vegas.

As a speaker Joel is involved with local and state level SHRM meetings, various industry events and his own little video project called #AuthenticLife, check it out:

Joel is what we like to call Twitter famous, Tweeting over 23,000 times!  You can connect with him on Twitter at @Joelyoh. What does he tweet about? All the stuff that makes HR cool, if that’s possible! Plus, he gets involved with a ton of the twitter chats around various HR topics. Like many of our Top 20, Joel has found out how to leverage the power of LinkedIn.  He has close to a thousand followers following his posts on LI, where he cross promotes his SHRM series HRDEPT1.

Joel is one of the bigger users of Instagram in our Top 20 list with over 600 followers and almost 800 posts.  Joel utilizes Instagram to share and promote one of his passions outside of HR, the Special Olympics, where he was on the technology team supporting the World Special Olympics in LA this past summer.

Congratulations Joel on making the Glassdoor’s Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros in the world!  Make sure you connect with Joel, you shouldn’t have a hard time finding him!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

The Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros: Meet Stacy Williamson from ESPN

Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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I’m super excited to introduce you to Stacy Williamson!  When Kris and I originally broke down the Top 20 list I personally asked to profile Stacy because I was intrigued about her working for ESPN and how cool that must be.  What I found was Stacy standups on her own, with or without ESPN, which is a testament to how well she has branded herself, and, ultimately, that is what this recognition is all about!

Stacy is a Senior Technical Recruiter with ESPN where she has spent 15 years with the network in various roles within Talent Acquisition. A Virginia Tech Alum with an MBA, she clearly has the functional chops within the industry.  Here is Stacy’s Player Card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Stacy Williamson

 

Stacy is Twitter Famous!  Going by the handle @RecruiterStacy, she has over 27,000 followers and over 20,000 tweets! Stacy is a twitter machine. What does she tweet about? It’s a mix of ESPN Careers, Star Wars, sports, candidate advice and overall industry content for the masses.  Her Instagram is similar in content, with a lean towards a little more family love!

Which brings me to another huge positive, and really another testament to her great decision making, Stacy married a Sparty!  One of the cool things Kris and I get to do on this project is stalk peoples social profiles to learn more about them and how they’ve branded themselves, which is where I got to discover Stacy’s and I connection to Michigan State!  The universe was looking out for me on this one for sure!

Stacy is what Jason Seiden coined as “Profersonal“.  She lives one life. She is a mom of twin boys, a top notch recruiter in the trenches and a fan of Star Wars.  She does personal branding like it’s meant to be.  Here is who I am. Take me, or leave me!  She does all of this in a way that makes her employer proud to have her, her family proud to claim her, all the while being the person she wants to be!

 

On the professional front Stacy has a great LinkedIn presence.  In fact, her LinkedIn profile could be used as a model for other HR and Talent Pros trying to do a better job at branding themselves.  Stacy has great links, within the profile, back to ESPN generated content of which she is a part of, that presents her in a way that highlights and brand and herself.  Take note HR and Talent Pros, you need some high quality video on your profile!

As a brand ambassador, Stacy exemplifies what organizations would hope all of their employees would strive for.  That is always a fine line when it comes to branding yourself and leveraging your organization’s brand together.  Again, Stacy does this as good as anyone we looked at in the Top 20. This isn’t easy when you work for a strong brand, like ESPN.  Many people in this position tend to ride the coat tails of the brand too much, and lose their own identity and Stacy has a great balance.

Stacy’s speaking and writing opportunities are mostly tied to brand related events and various panels, at this point, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her getting some more opportunities on this front!  Like me, I think a lot of people would love to hear her stories and behind the scenes action of working at ESPN in Talent Acquisition.  Also, she has built in content on how to build your personal brand and employment brand with a huge organizational brand, which a lot of people would love to learn.

 

I had to ask Stacy who was the most famous athlete she has met do to her position at ESPN.  She’s met a ton, but she her fondest memory is meeting Robin Roberts.  Here it is in Stacy’s words:

“I’ve met many famous athletes and coaches; with each encounter serving as a reminder of how cool it to work at ESPN. However, my fondest memory is when I had the honor of meeting Robin Roberts during her time as a SportsCenter anchor. The poise and authenticity she has shown throughout her career remains an inspiration. Her courage to remain positive through her battle with breast cancer and myelodysplastic syndrome, while being a light to others in similar situations, makes her truly remarkable.” 

Well said, Stacy! Congratulations as well to you on making the Top 20 Brand HR and Talent Pros!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

T3 – @Glassdoor Employer Center

Okay, I get it you know who Glassdoor is.  They’re that site where employees go to complain about how crappy a company is, right!?  Well, maybe Glassdoor of about 5 years ago.  In the past five years Glassdoor has built itself into one of the best Employer Branding tools on the market!

How so?

Glassdoor did what LinkedIn did in a way, but opposite. LinkedIn tricked employers into thinking it was great to have your employees all get this one site and upload their resume profile and call it “professional networking”. Oh! You got us, LinkedIn. That’s really going to hurt when all of our employees get recruited! I give LI full credit. They did something no other HR/Talent vendor has ever been able to do. Monster, CareerBuilder and Dice all wish they could have did what LI did.

Glassdoor opened up their site and let everyone and anyone comment on your work environment, and we thought ‘how evil!’. Why would a company let our disgruntled employees tell their story? Ugh! But, low and behold, the longtail prevails and we find out that Glassdoor actually gave us a way to respond to those few who are disgruntled and show people what your true brand is all about, in a way that is transparent and fresh – aka the Tripadvisor of Employers!

LinkedIn? They became a job board.  Funny how tables get turned.

Glassdoor just launched its newly designed Employer Center, which is basically a dashboard for Employers to manage and monitor their Glassdoor presence (i.e., your Employment Brand).  Most of what is in the Employer Center is actually free and any employer can claim theirs by just signing up. Interesting that Glassdoor has over 400,000 companies indexed, but only about 10% have actually claimed their brand! 90% of Employers have no idea and/or control of their Brand on Glassdoor and it’s free!

In the Employer Center Glassdoor gives you the tools to post jobs, run your own companies content stream, look a ton of various analytics and review and manage your Glassdoor user responses, all in one place. The new Employer Center also allows you to grant additional access to others in your organization. Let Marketing upload new content and look at analytics, allow operations to respond to a user response, etc.

5 Things I Really Like About Glassdoor for Employers: 

1. There’s a ton of just free stuff Glassdoor gives you to use and monitor that you’re silly for not taking advantage of, but one paid thing that I LOVE is your ability to post your jobs on your competitors page (if they are not a paid Glassdoor client -which most aren’t). People going to look at their page, many of them candidates, will see your jobs instead!

2. Candidate Activity stats. Glassdoor’s analytics show you which competitor jobs candidates are clicking. This allows you to do some very specific sourcing, and also see some possible candidates pools you weren’t aware of.

3. User Review Management. From the employer center you can now in one place read user reviews and respond, but you can also ‘feature’ one review that will be shown at the top of all reviews on your page. Basically, you can pick which of your reviews you want to feature. This is a paid service, but one I think is worth the ROI as it’s the first impression all candidates will read.

4. Running your own content stream on your Glassdoor page (free service). Glassdoor allows you place employment branding updates on your page and set up a live stream so that anytime something new is posted, it automatically shows up on your Glassdoor employer page.

5. Analytics. Some paid, some free.  Total activity and compare to competitors, candidate demographics, Rating and Interview trends, ratings by locations, competitor analysis, etc.  I can’t even tell you how robust the analytics are!  This alone is worth the demo.

I’m a big fan of what Glassdoor is doing and how they’ve evolved over the years.  If you haven’t checked them out lately, you need to. If  you haven’t claimed your free employer page, you’re an idiot. If you think you don’t have a brand, you’re wrong, you’re just not controlling it!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR & TALENT PROS: MEET Neil Morrison from Penguin Random House UK

Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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Let me introduce you to HR Pro Neil Morrison!  I believe Neil is the lone non-U.S. resident on Glassdoor’s list of the Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros.   I’m not sure what that says about the list or Neil, but just a fact when you pull the data we did from Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Writing and Speaking background and overall brand ambassador data, Neil showed up in a big way, all the way from the U.K.!

Neil is the Group HR Director for Penguin Random House in the U.K.  For the U.S. audience that is equivalent to a SVP of HR in America.  So, we have this big HR executive who has found the time to brand himself, and also understand the importance to his career, his profession and his organization.

I know Neil as a fellow Talent Advisor on CareerBuilder’s Hiring Site, where we have both been writing and speaking on live web chats for the better part of a year.  Neil has a great English accent, so I kid him on the chats about how everything he says sounds more brilliant, to my ear, than it probably really is! He knows I’m kidding, because what he says is always brilliant!

Here’s Neil’s player card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Neil Morrison

On the writing side of the fence Neil is the Kris Dunn and Laurie Ruettimann equivalent of HR blogging in the U.K., dare I say Mr. Punk Rock HR! He was one of the first, if not the first, HR bloggers to grab ahold of the U.K. audience with his smart, witty writing style, and he’s not afraid to tell it like it is.  His blog is called Change-Effect.com where he writes about HR, Talent and Leadership weekly.

As a speaker Neil is active in CIPD (U.K. SHRM type organization) and speaks often to HR professionals all over the world.  He is a true international brand advocate for his organization and CIPD.  Neil has won several awards including the UK’s Most Influential HR Practitioner.  Neil also has the most professional LinkedIn profile pic of any of the Glassdoor Top 20 Branded HR and Talent Pros!

He is all over the Twitters – @NeilMorrison with over 9,000 followers and 20,000 tweets, sharing his international HR perspective.  The one thing I know about Neil, which is unique to someone at his executive HR level, is that he makes time for those who seek his help.  Neil is a great mentor in HR to so many pros, and truly makes time to give back to the HR community.

What doesn’t Neil do well?  He hates Instagram!  He’s an amatuer photographer. So, Instagram is not something he enjoys to partake.  Which helps to point out, to be well branded you don’t have to do everything, but you do have to do something really, really well!

Congratulations Neil!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR & TALENT PROS: Meet Steve Browne of LaRosa’s Inc.

Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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I can’t remember the exact time and place I met Steve Browne in person but I think it was at the Ohio State SHRM Conference.  Steve stands about a foot taller than me, so I saw him way before he saw me!  What instantly struck me about Steve is he has an infectious personality and energy that people are drawn to in a very good way.

Steve Browne is the Executive Director of HR for LaRosa’s Inc. out of Cincinnati, OH.  LaRosa’s is a restaurant chain with about 1500 employees and Steve is responsible for running their HR team.  If you have ever worked in HR in the restaurant and/or retail industry you know Steve is knee deep in the trenches of real HR work on a daily basis! This makes his ability to brand himself and his organization so remarkable.

Here is Steve’s playing card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Steve Browne

 

Steve is also super involved with his volunteer work at the local, state and national level with SHRM.  Steve has been on various boards for SHRM in the past, but he also is currently running for SHRM’s  Executive Board, which is a very high honor!  Steve also is a frequent speaker on the SHRM circuit, statewide and nationally.

On the writing side of the business Steve is part of CareerBuilder’s Talent Advisors, where he gets to share his real-life HR strategies with a huge audience. Steve also is hugely creative with a weekly HR inspired song he sends out to a growing following. Each week Steve takes a popular song and changes the lyrics to be HR and Talent inspired! He’s been doing this for years, and it’s awesome to see this creativity coming from an HR guy!

Twitter was built for people like Steve.  Over 35,000 tweets and going!  Steve has a huge twitter following where he gets to share all of the latest and greatest HR and Talent content with his followers. Steve has never met a tweet he didn’t like!  Instagram on the other hand might be more of a challenge, but you can’t count Steve out of conquering this medium as well.

He’s an HR’s Pro, Pro.  In the dictionary next to HR Pro there should be a picture of Steve Browne!  As good of an HR guy, he might be a better person. Active in Scouting (his son just received his Eagle Scout rank) and always willing to help whomever might need it.  Make sure you connect with Steve, you’ll be better for it!  I’m super excited Glassdoor choose to recognize Steve for his professional efforts. Congratulations Steve!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.

 

THE TOP 20 BRANDED HR & TALENT PROS: Meet Jim D’Amico from Spectrum Health

Let’s face it – Fearful of the spotlight and conservative to a fault, HR pros generally aren’t the best examples to look towards when it comes to professional branding. Kris Dunn (Kinetix RPO, The HR Capitalist) and Tim Sackett (HRU Technical Resources, TimSackett.com) think that needs to change.  That’s why they created this series – The Top 20 Branded HR Pros(sponsored by the team at Glassdoor).

KD and Tim searched the globe for HR Pros who used the tools at their disposal (writing, speaking, social and more) to brand themselves in the HR space, but limited the results to actual practitioners in the areas of HR, Recruiting and Talent Management.  No consultants, no vendors. They found out well-branded HR pros who are actual practitioners are hard to find.  

Tim and KD are running the Top 20 they found here on the HR Capitalist and at TimSackett.com.  No rankings, just inclusion in the list and some notes on why.  There are at least 20 well-branded HR Pros in the world.  These are their stories. 

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Jim D’Amico was born to work in Talent Acquisition.  He’s the kind of guy who strikes up conversations with you while you wait in line at Starbucks hoping no one will strike up a conversation with you!  The great part of about Jim, is once he does strike up that conversation, you find out you just had a pretty cool conversation!

Jim is the Director of Talent Acquisition at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI.  Jim is personally responsible for branding his TA team, “The Best Damn Talent Acquisition Team on the Planet!”  To back up this assertion, ERE voted Spectrum Health the #1 Talent Acquisition team of 2015.  Jim is also the co-Founder of the Michigan Recruiters Conference, held bi-annually across the state to help other corporate TA shops develop into greatness!

Check out Jim’s player card:

Glassdoor Top 20 - Jim D'Amico

 

Jim has 15 years of experience in the Talent Acquisition game, with both domestic and international assignments.  His current role in healthcare supports an employee base of 24,000 and his team will hire over 5,000 in 2015 alone!

Jim’s branding game is anchored around his writing and speaking.  He’s a regular on the ERE speaking circuit, and a frequent contributor to the ERE writing side as well.  Jim also has been active and involved in many local grassroots efforts to support recruiting as a function in the communities he lives.  Most recently with the Michigan Recruiters Conference, but he also has worked on similar projects in West Michigan and Minnesota as well.

Jim is the poster child for being a Brand Ambassador. I mean, seriously, who comes in and names their TA team “The Best Damn TA Team on the Planet!” Jim Does!  That takes a ton of confidence to know that while we might not be ‘that’ yet, we are going to be!  ERE’s award this years solidified the title.

A fun fact about Jim?  He moonlights as a standup Comic!  He also does a ton of volunteer work in around Grand Rapids, MI.  Basically, branding, professionally and personally is who he is.   If you get a chance to catch him on Recruiting/HR speaking circuit make sure you do, he’s well worth it. Otherwise, connect with him on LinkedIn, you can try on Twitter (he’s a not a huge Tweeter), and don’t even try on Instagram!

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The Top 20 Branded HR Pros is brought to you by Glassdoor, who invites you to attend the Annual Glassdoor Employer Branding Summit on September 25th, where a stellar speaker lineup of industry experts and thought leaders exploring the intersection of employer branding and talent acquisition, the candidate experience and employee engagement. 

Tickets are sold out, but wait!  You can attend the livestream online featuring studio coverage with Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett by registering here (click to register).  Fun and games are sure to be a part of that coverage.