After a week, I allowed myself to read a fiction book. That allowed me to sleep.

After 2 weeks I allowed myself to watch crime dramas on Netflix.

I did make it to 30 days without news media. It was a welcome break, especially in the midst of the election. However, I did realize that I couldn’t avoid news altogether. My friends,co-workers and strangers were more than willing to expose me to random pieces of news. Fact or fiction, I had no way of knowing since I wouldn’t allow myself to verify sources. The inaccuracies through word of mouth were just as bad as the most biased news media. I realized I had lept out of the frying pan into the fire. 30 days after the blackout I was eager and ready to read an online paper again.

The experience caused me to appreciate the media in my life. In measured doses, it adds depth, a stimuli and entertainment. I may choose to fast again, but more as I would a planned food fast than an escape. I’ve accepted media as the enrichment to life that it is.

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Good things as a result are that I’m ahead of myself on laundry (never happens), and I’ve cleaned out the closet in the office. Worst thing is that I have to over hear re-runs of Full House because the kids have free reign of the TV during prime time.

My husband promised to tell me about some really important world or local event. Otherwise, I’m enjoying not knowing what’s happening.

The cobwebs of public opinion still haven’t cleared so I’ll keep you posted on that.

If only I could tune out some of the software/tech analyst blogs who have little grip on reality. But alas, those are required reading for work.

For 30 days, I am going to cut off my access to media.  No TV or Netflix.  No trips to the library or novel reading.  No jumping on a variety of news sites throughout the day to catch up on the latest.  No movies or DVDs.  No blog reading except what is necessary for work.  I want to see what life feels like without a constant barrage of external agendas.

I’m going to try this for 30 days and just see what happens.  I told my husband and kids this morning and they laughed at me.  My husband told me he thinks it will last for 5 days at the most.  I’m not even sure why I’m doing this, except that I woke up at 5 am this morning thinking of my to-do list for the day, and the thought came to me.  Those early morning epiphanies can be killers, but I think I’ll give it a try.

I’ll post a blog every Tuesday and Friday with a short update of how it’s going and how it makes me feel. 

If you want to get real about your candidate experience, ask yourself these questions about your hiring process:

1. Do my job postings contain complete information about the duties of the job, the requirements, and the conditions of the job in easy to read language?
2. Do I communicate the length of time and the information required to fill out an application?
3. Am I only asking only relevant information from the applicant via the online application?
4. Do I give information to the applicant about the next steps in the hiring process?
5. Do I provide timely status updates to my applicants?  And ideally, a way for the applicant to check their status online?
6. Am I offering ways for my applicants to connect with my organization via social media or other communication methods?
7. Do I disposition the candidates during the hiring process, and especially once the requisition is filled?

Then, apply to one of your own jobs and validate that everything works the way you think it should.

After you’ve done that, enter the Candidate Experience Awards and get even more insight on how to create a positive experience for your candidates.  You might even win some nice recognition.

The big aha moment didn’t come for me until I strolled through the halls of SXSW this year. Having been at the front-end of a tech startup company, my focus has always been on what software can accomplish – on what the little 1s and 0s can automate for the customer. But at the national gathering of geeks, artists and marketers, it was obvious that the lines are completely blurred for the customer, just as the lines between programmers, artists and marketers are becoming more and more blurred. The customer sees technology as an entire package, a package that includes the image of the company (and how that image reflects on them), how they are treated by the people of the company, and what kind of information the company shares with them. A tech company could have the biggest, most intricate, innovative software product in the world, but if the content, service or marketing isn’t there, the software isn’t going to be adopted.

During a session on HTML5 for Film, the film makers on the panel talked about how the technology used to deliver their film affects how the audience experiences the product (film). In the audience’s mind, the code behind the delivery of the movie is an integral part of the quality of the movie. And vice versa – the information provided about and within your software, including the information the user is supposed to help provide, affects the customer’s experience of the product.

A recent comment on an article about the limited adoption of google plus mentioned that the mistake google made was not to import the user’s existing content from facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc, into google plus. Google, being the tech company that they are, focused on how the technology works. The customer’s experience using the software, however, was greatly hampered by the lack of content.

Letting the user share about their software experience has also become embedded into the technology identity.  Although normally a tech company would see sharing, tweeting and facebook-ing about their product as marketing, many customers consider the ability to share about their use of technology an integral part of it.

Technology companies that focus just on the functionality of the software will see less and less user adoption as the software marketplace becomes more mature.

In recruiting, the goal is to find a good match for a job.  While efforts to reduce the number of clicks for an online application are admirable, they are not necessarily meeting the end goal of the application.  The focus should be on an easy to use interface that allows an applicant to show whether or not he fits the job.

“The future of design is about creating engagement and commitment to meet measurable business goals.” – Dr. Eric Schaffer / Founder and CEO Human Factors International, Inc. in his white paper “Beyond Usability”

When applicants are polled regarding what they do not like about online job applications, they don’t complain about the number of clicks, but rather the lack of information about the job, the irrelevancy of the information collected,  the limited data formats accepted and the lack of follow-up.  Most of these are soft areas that relate more to content than technology.  However, in both applicants and recruiters minds, all of it is technology.

From The Candidate Experience Monograph by Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler, with others.

HR tech vendors can help assist their clients by providing suggested content, best practices information during implementation and staying on the cutting edge of consumer focused technology.  The end goal of a talent management application must be to find the best fit for the job, while leveraging technology to save as much time and effort as possible, and to enforce compliance.  The end goal often gets lost within the latest industry buzz words and trends, but it must stay in the forefront in order to create truly usable hr technology.

I heard a lot of frustration in their voices.  A very tech savvy crowd yes, but still unsure how to present themselves as a job applicant.  “I have a beautiful resume, but the online application is asking me to cut and paste my resume,” laments one job seeker.

“I fill my resume with keywords, but never hear a word from the company after filling out the online application.”

“How do I link up to my online portfolio when they just want me to type in my work experience?”

The questions during the SXSW 2012 session on “Online Personality Disorder: Resumes and Profiles” highlighted the gap between the expertise of the applicant, and the technology of the average applicant tracking system.  I had to raise my hand and admit I am with an applicant tracking system (although one of those that does allow portfolio uploads, online profiles, and formatted resumes), and suggest that when a cut and paste resume is required (by an ancient system, ahem), make sure to put a link to your online profile/ portfolio at the top of the resume text.

In this age of TVs that change the channel based on your hand motions, video enabled vending machines that measure your smile, and touch table computers, basic electronic resume applications fall flat.

The truth is that applicants want to reach out and touch the application process.  They want to put their unique mark on their application – they want to demonstrate their passion and their skills.  They don’t necessarily want to apply with just “two clicks,” they want to interact with the organization and provide relevant information.

And the truth is, hiring managers want to let them.  But too often time constraints and technology get in the way.  The solution isn’t to go back to the paper resume or in-person hiring event.  The solution is to adapt applicant tracking technology to let applicants express themselves, while automating as much as possible.

Here’s some ideas on making the online application and the hiring process “touchable” for the applicant, and still protect the hiring manager’s time:

• Allow the applicant to upload digital portfolios, images, and formatted resumes as part of their online application
• Provide easy ways for the applicant to link to their online professional content
• Give applicants status updates throughout the process – via email, text or a self-service portal.
• Word status updates and email communication as personally and warmly as professionally possible, so applicants realize they are communicating with a real person
• Consider using a company like Send Out Cards to send out recycled paper thank you notes with a status update after a phone interview.
• Provide a kiosk in the employer’s lobby to allow applicants to apply online and/or check their status.  It’s relatively inexpensive to do with an ipad kiosk.
• Use in-depth job descriptions and basic pre-screening questions to allow applicants who aren’t a fit to self-select out.  This allows more time for the hiring manager to review the information of qualified applicants.

Technology doesn’t have to be impersonal.  In fact, most innovation in tech sectors over the last few years has focused on making technology more and more personal.  Talent management systems and HR can provide a touchable application experience for applicants.  We all just have to try harder.