Office 2007 Pro Plus blog no-comment-not-really

Heather forwarded Zoë and me the link to a recent article in Workforce Management Magazine entitled “Blogs: A New Frontier in Online Recruiting.” In the article, writer Susan Ladika explores the use of weblogs as a new trend in creative recruiting and as a way to add a personal touch to an otherwise faceless organization. In fact, she mentions yours truly:



One company that is trying this personal approach is Microsoft, which launched its own blog in March to talk about technical careers at the company. At this point, Microsoft is unwilling to discuss the blog, says Gretchen Ledgard, a senior talent scout and one of the two women facilitating the blog.



Wow, I sound like a word that starts with b and rhymes with witch!



But there is more to this story …



In previous posts, I;ve eluded to internal concerns which threatened the livelihood our JobsBlog. Susan;s attempt to record a quote from Zoë and me actually created quite a large storm here on the back-end.



As everyone knows from our disclaimers, we (as all other Microsoft bloggers) make it very clear that this weblog is the work of Zoë and Gretchen, two people who happen to recruit at Microsoft … and not the official work of Microsoft or the company;s HR or Staffing organizations. If you like or dislike something we say, take it up with us as individuals, not our company.



Obviously,Office 2007 Pro Plus, that;s not to say we don;t realize our writing reflects upon Microsoft and its career opportunities. Of course, it does. But we are not officially sanctioned by our department, and any views expressed are ours and ours alone. In fact, we purposely didn;t ask permission before creating this blog because we knew if we did,Windows 7 Pro Product Key, we;d run into so much administrative red tape that the eventual output would be nothing anyone would want to read.



So back to the story at hand … In early April, Susan contacted our PR department to request an interview with Zoë and me. It;s rather funny because we found out about this request through the grapevine. PR escalated the request to someone else in Staffing who escalated it someone else … and along the way no one thought about looping us in. By the time we got wind of the e-mail thread, about five people who didn;t even know us had weighed in with their opinions. Our favorite part was the original request from PR which stated that Susan wanted to interview the creators of the blog. The e-mail went on to read:



The web site referenced is called Technical Careers @ Microsoft, and the address is It appears that the blog was set up by Microsoft, and the women who run it,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional, Zoë Goldring and Gretchen Ledgard say they work for Microsoft.



Let me tell you … we loved that. We started joking about how we were the “alleged woman” who “allegedly worked at Microsoft.” And if you know me personally, you probably heard me rant and rant and rant about this for hours.



The next week (which was during the MVP Summit), Zoë and I met with PR and quieted the fire.



About a week after all this settled with PR, Susan e-mailed me privately. She requested an interview,Office 2007 Professional Plus, and under instructions from PR,Office Pro, I told her we could not speak with her about the blog as this time.



Josh suggested that I also tell her she could ask any questions she wanted via our comments forum, and we could answer them. I even had a post all ready to go up that said just that, but at that point, Zoë and I decided we just needed to play it safe and get out of this mess. In that particular situation, I think we made the right choice.



So at the risk of sounding like a witch with a b in the future, I invite anyone wanting to learn more about us or our blog to read our posts and to publicly pose questions via the comments section. As Zoë stated earlier today, “Gosh, why do you need to speak with us directly? We bare our souls on the site everyday.”



Well said.



gretchen