Nick Ollington

1. What's the essence of your role?

• My job is a pretty typical sort of HR Manager's role – so endless variety and constant swings between immediate tactical needs and strategic initiatives. 
•    I’m lucky enough to work for a pretty interesting organisation. AgResearch employs about 1000 staff, and of these more than two thirds are actively involved in research, with 250 plus being PhD qualified. We employ from all over the world, and are probably one of the most culturally diverse organisations in the country. 
• I lead a team of 5 HR Advisors, three of which are based away from our Hamilton HQ in Palmerston North, Christchurch and Dunedin. Again, I’m very fortunate to have an exceptionally competent team who partner well with their parts of the business and help ensure the HR function has the credibility to operate strategically. This is critical, we’re a knowledge based organisation, so talent and talent management is really our competitive advantage.
• I’ve been in the current role for just over 5 years. Before this I had a brief stint at Telecom after returning from an extended stay in the UK where I worked for the Guardian Newspaper again in HR. 
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2. You have just completed your research on recruitment and online social networking in the New Zealand context as part of your postgraduate studies, and spoke to a number of members of this community in your data collection phase.  Do you have any lasting thoughts or advice on recruitment 2.0 for this community?   

• The research was great. I was fortunate to be studying a topic that’s got immediate relevance to practitioners and got to speak with some exceptional people. Truly, it was a real treat speaking to pioneers and thought leaders, people innovating and thinking. I should add that I was pretty exhausted at the end of it – fitting full time work with high level study and trying to keep up with the goings on in my young family was a stretch...
  
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• In terms of advice…in some ways it’s simple. Develop a coherent strategy. If you want to recruit using online social networks the potential is all there, but you do need to think about what you want, plan a strategy around this and then invest time and energy into making it work. There are plenty of opportunities, and probably low hanging fruit too, but to really make it work will require understanding and commitment. 
• I totally expect to see a lot of recruiters operating in this space – probably for a period of time in a specialised niche until there are software tools that enable more generalised recruiters to get on board. 
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3. What does Recruitment 2.0 mean to you? 

• Opportunities abound! Not only for recruitment I’d add. HR is a people thing, its all about the connections and interaction. 
• All the Web 2.0 technologies offer something new and have the potential to influence fundamentally key aspects of the work place and in many ways society in general. 
• For me that means looking hard at AgResearch’s employer brand, at our recruitment strategies/channels, and more generally at talent management initiatives.  I feel it’s too early to predict what the outcomes of this work will be, but I’m excited by the possibilities.
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