Minnesota Headhunter

LinkUp.com Hosts Social Recruiting Summit TweetUp

 
Minneapolis based LinkUp.com hosted a TweetUp (for the non Twitter folks think Happy Hour or reception) May 16th, 2010 for those attending the Social Recruiting Summit and some Minnesota Recruiters.

 
I wrote about LinkUp in the post announcing the TweetUp LinkUp.com Sponsors Social Recruiting Summit Happy Hour 

I would have to guess but there had to be at least 100 attendees and was held at Crave Restaurant at the Mall of America.

It was a great evening. For me (personally) it was an opportunity to meet friends in person who I have been following online, swapping email with and having phone chats with for years.

Nothing, NOTHING is better than finally being able to shake hands, give a hug and sit down and chat face to face. I know that may sound odd but while online networks are awesome nothing takes the place of seeing a friend in person.

LinkUp.com Sponsors Social Recruiting Summit Happy Hour

Minneapolis based LinkUp.com (and good friends of mine and the local Recruiter and HR community) are hosting a social gathering on the eve of the Social Recruiting Summit.

Details of the event:

LinkUp's Social Recruiting Summit TweetUp

Sunday, May 16th • 6:00 - 9:00pm

CRAVE Restaurant
Mall of America • Park Side Patio
368 South Avenue • Bloomington, MN 55425
(3rd Floor across from Macy's)

For more information and to RSVP click LinkUp Rocks

Minneapolis Hosts ERE And Social Recruiting Summit

Tomorrow (May 17, 2010) Minnesota will host 300 attendees for the 3^rd edition of the Social Recruiting Summit.

Previous summits were held at Google headquarters and in the Big Apple, New York City.

The Minnesota event will be held at Best Buy headquarters in Richfield, MN (a suburb of Minneapolis).

You can catch a live stream of many of the sessions by clicking www.ere.net

Some folks have asked how the heck did Minneapolis land such a big event?

Well, I am not going to be shy about it but a few of us did a lot of lobbying. I think my first email was about 30 minutes after the event at Google ended.

Minnesota Recruiters Hiring And Jobs Survey | Spring 2010

Leading up to Minnesota Recruiters Conference 10 held April 30^th, 2010 at Best Buy Headquarters I sent out a Survey Monkey link to gauge what hiring looked like during Q1 of 2010 along with expectations of Q2 and 2010 in general, what jobs and skill sets were most an least in demand and how Recruiters and HR professionals felt about their own job security.

This is not a scientific survey. The survey link was sent multiple times to the Minnesota Recruiters email list of 1900 Recruiter and HR professionals with a 10% response rate.

While not scientific the results do show what most in the Recruiter and HR community have been seeing and talking about over the past weeks and points of conversation during the conference.

Minnesota Recruiters Conference 10 | Spring 2010 | Recap

Wow, we made it to 10 events in less than 3 years. There are days when it feels like 1 and days when it is like 100.

The constant about the events is that feedback is always very positive with a few critiques along the way on how to make things better, more engaging or new topics to cover.

Something I only spoke with a few people over the past year was that these events were starting to take a toll on me. I liked having them be free as we had sponsors who were willing to support the events and the group.

The issue was as the group was growing (now 2,000 on the email list) and planning an event was taking about a full week to do.

So with the support of the co founders, sponsors and asking some people from the group I chose to start charging $25 for each event.

Some suggested the fee be $40 and others $50 but all agreed something was in order.

Funny thing, after all the conversations and my worrying about it, turned out to be not such a big deal.

Minnesota Recruiters Raise Money For Second Harvest Heartland

Prior to Minnesota Recruiters Conference 9 I created a page so those who have attended a Minnesota Recruiters event could make a donation to Second Harvest Heartland.

 

 

I am a big fan of the work Second Harvest Heartland is involved in both because of the good work they do and because of my personal interest in the homeless situation, kids and those who are hungry in our community.

We raised $1,150 after the event and I want to thank them all for their support:

Minnesota Recruiters Conference 9 #mnrec Twitter Stream

I am trying to find the file I saved of the Twitter stream but in order to keep everything in chronological order from the events I need to post this now.

Minnesota Recruiters #9 | Fall 2009 | Recap

Originally posted on the Minnesota Recruiters group site December 7th, 2009.

The 9^th edition of the Minnesota Recruiters Conference is over, the dust has settled and all have full minds. I do wonder... if you are a newbie to our event and you have all this stuff in your head where do you start when you get back to the office?

I ask because after 9 events I feel much the same way every time and I have a fairly good clue what I am doing.

OK so I will start with the important stuff, our sponsors who all signed up for the event and the quarter, without who (or is it whom) none of this is possible:

Minnesota Recruiters Conference #8 | Summer 2009 | Repost

I am going to be doing a repost with information from our July 17th (July 2009) event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Future Of Talent Institute Minneapolis Edition | Repost

I am going to be doing a repost with information from the July 16, 2009 Future of Talent Institute event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Minnesota Recruiters Conference #7 | Winter 2009 | Repost

I am going to be doing a repost with information from our March 27th (Winter 2009) event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Minnesota Recruiters Supports Second Harvest Heartland

At our November 2008 Minnesota Recruiters event we partnered with Second Harvest Heartland to promote their organization, show how companies can get involved, donate some food and raise some dollars.

I was fortunate to get a tour of the facility before the event and was amazed at the operation and reach that they have not just here in Minneapolis and St. Paul but our region.

We heard from Rob Zeaske, Executive Director of Second Harvest Heartland, about how with current economic conditions the needs of their organization and others like them are growing by the week.

I want to encourage any company, group or individual who is looking to partner, team up, work with a community organization to consider the people and mission of Second Harvest Heartland.

And the need is significant:

• The fastest growing group of food shelf clients is the working poor. 49% of the families who accessed food shelves in 2004 were working
• Unfortunately, as the economy has worsened in recent months, increased demand at food shelves has resulted in diminishing food reserves.
• The need to support hunger relief in Minnesota is increasingly important. In 2007 there were about 482,000 Minnesotans in poverty, up 60,000 from 2006, and 1.9 million visits to Minnesota food shelves.
• The food shelves SHH works with are reporting that the need for emergency food is up about 50% over last year and rising steadily. And with the cost of everyday food items like milk increasing, these visits will continue to rise.
• For many Minnesotans, hunger is all too real. In fact, one in ten Minnesotans will struggle to have enough food this week. Many are children.
• Despite the fact that SHH distributed 41 million pounds of food last year (an increase of 20% over the previous year), demand is still outpacing supply.

Second Harvest Heartland through their buying power and other partnerships can turn $1 into $9 of food. It is super easy to set up an online donation site through them and you get a report of who donated how much so you can be sure to thank folks for their support.

Personally I want to thank Lindsi Gish for her help who I met at a Social Media Breakfast and who I follow on Twitter. Lindsi and her colleagues made this very easy for us to do and I have already committed that we would do this again leading up to our November 2009 event.

If you would like to do a company fundraiser on behalf of Second Harvest Heartland please contact Heidi Yankovec, Events Manager, hyankovec@2harvest.org

So how did we do?

The day of the event 349 pounds of food were donated. If you are thinking, “I wonder how much food that is” think of filling your front seat, back seats, floor and trunk with grocery bags. And then when possible lightly stack bags on top of bags.

After the event we raised $1,120

Here are a few pics:

Take a moment and watch this short video Rob played for us to better understand how Second Harvest Heartland serves our community:

 

I look forward to working with Rob, Lindsi, Heidi and Second Harvest Heartland this coming November.

Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference | Fall 2008 | Repost

I am going to be doing a repost with information from our November 21st (Fall 2008) event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Daily Twitter Notes

Sometimes the day does not allow a blog post let alone write about things on my mind or I hear about like economic, political, local news (sports too).

With Twitter, you at least get some of the flavor, a flash moment during the day, of what I am thinking about. You can follow during the day or see the digest below.

Here are the highlights of my recent Twitter activity. If you want to see the full version click MN Headhunter on Twitter

MN Headhunter on Twitter | November 21, 2008 - November 13, 2008 (last one first, links added):

November 21, 2008

• Owner of the local grocery store sees me, says I look like crap. To get some sleep. I say really I just took a 3 hour nap. He says try again
• Channel 4 breaks news that Denny Hecker is closing 6 car dealerships impacting 400 jobs tonight
• News from Minnesota Recruiters event: Lots of email saying best event yet. 349 lbs of goods donated to Second Harvest Heartland. A good day
• #mnrecruiters @nicolebodem doing a great SEO/SEM presentation. Lots of notes being taken
• #mnrecruiters Made good on my bet with Lois Flad of the UW Business School. Yes, I am wearing a Badger hat.

• #mnrecruiters Back from break. Oberon did drawing for $50 Best Buy gift card. Allan Larson speaking on Deep Structure Recruiting

• #mnrecruiters Video from Second Harvest Heartland has brought tears to many eyes

• #mnrecruiters Rob Zeaske, Executive Director of Second Harvest Heartland speaking to our group @2harvest Thanks to our group for supporting

• If you are in MN, stop what you are doing and see this video from @2harvest http://tinyurl.com/66aan4

• #mnrecruiters asked how much time spend on Social Media. @txaggie94 says "constant partial attention"

• #mnrecruiters Group responded well. Donated food items that filled 3 large collection boxes plus more on the tables @2harvest we did good

• #mnrecruiters A full house at Best Buy. 220+ recruiters. Social Media Panel of @jokahn @txaggie94 @tavisd @steffenson Lots of donated food

November 20, 2008

• #mnrecruiters 8.5 hours until the event. @nicolebodem printing handouts. Big thanks to @marenhogan for the design help

• Wondering where all the #smbmsp tweets are?

• Registrations for event are closed. Space for 240. 260 are registered. 68 still want to. 14 cancelled. That's 342 who showed interest. WOW

• In order to finish work on #mnrecruiters event at Best Buy tomorrow I am missing #smbmsp and @jeffpulver at Best Buy today. Hey friends

November 19, 2008

• I care so very little about Hollywood stars but I am a big fan of Kristin Chenoweth. Tonight she talks about the "cooter smash"
• Leno to Maher: Bush is leaving office, we are screwed. The golden age of Clinton and Bush are over.
• Took a tour at @2harvest and working with @lindsi for our @mnrecruiters event Friday. They are a great organization and easy to work with
• Thinking about an idea for a mentoring program proposed by Jim D'Amico, Senior Recruitment Manager at Schwan's
• RT @mnrecruiters Looking forward to announcing discounts for Minnesota Recruiters members with ERE @ere_net
• Minnesota Recruiters is putting together a food drive with and then fundraiser for Second Harvest Heartland @2harvest
• Thanks @NicoleBodem and @jokahn for your part in the upcoming event. You never get enough credit but I hope you know how appreciative I am

November 18, 2008

• OH NO! MN Rep Michele Bachmann on Hannity & Colmes. Was hoping she would fade away for a while. Now hoping she says something stupid. Again
• @RobertFischer Used to be speakers/sponsors/logistics. Now with the group so big (1,300+ on the email list) lots of admin work, email, calls
• Planning this Minnesota Recruiters event is kicking my butt.

November 17, 2008

• RT @mnrecruiters Minnesota Recruiters event filled at 240. Added 20 more seats 260. Filled those. Now have 40+ on a waiting list. speechless
• RT @mnrecruiters: 209/240 seats registered. Trying to expand to 260. Response has been phenomenal. Formal invite to be sent at Noon

November 16, 2008

• Home Sweet Home. Lots and lots of Wisconsin State Troopers today. Fortunately did not meet any of them.

November 15, 2008

• I did get to Camp Randall at the end of Q3. Just in time to see the students "Jump Around" and for the Gophers to lose. But a good time
• Bummer. Much needed decompress weekend in Madison for the Gopher game has me missing it. Best friend with the flu and not leaving him alone
• Minnesota Recruiters Informal Invite posted at www.minnesotarecruiters.com
• Good time as sober driver in Madison last night. Lots of Gophers fans out and about. Wind chills in the teens today. Layering has begun
• RT @mnrecruiters Informal invite sent Fri afternoon for Nov 21st event. 124/250 registered. Fantastic. Formal invite to be sent Mon morning

November 14, 2008

• Looking forward to meeting @BizWerkerJulia while in Madison. An online recruiter friend I have known for a few months
• Halfway to Madison. Numerous WI state troopers. Minnesota Recruiters event set and about to send invite. (no I am not driving) Go Gophers
• On the road to Madison. Working on the Minnesota Recruiters event.

November 13, 2008

• My head hurts and I am sleep deprived. And I have not left for Madison yet. grr
• Congrats to JobDig and their @LinkUp for being in this ABC News story Finally Found That Job? Start It Off Right

Minnesota Recruiters Informal Invite

As sent in an email to the Minnesota Recruiters group November 14^th, 2008

Colleagues,

Thank you again for your patience regarding event information:

• November 21, 2008 from 8:00 am - 12:15 pm
• This is a free event held at Best Buy Corporate Headquarters in Richfield, MN.
• We have space for 240 attendees. In the past we have had a “wait list”.
• The goal of our events is to share and learn information, see old friends and meet new ones.
• We will be serving breakfast from 7:15 – 8:00 am.
• We will not be serving lunch as we have in past events but will have snacks, coffee and soda available throughout the morning.
• Day of event logistics will be sent via email Tuesday and Thursday of next week.
• Below the following information is the URL to register. Once registered you will receive an email notification.

Please Note:

Those of you who have attended previous events know that I am a big Gopher football fan. I am sending this while in a car (I am not driving) while on my way Madison, WI to hopefully see the Gophers bring Paul Bunyan’s Axe back to Minneapolis. I will have infrequent access to email and do my best to return messages in a timely manner.

Here are the basics:

7:15 – 8:00 am Networking and Breakfast
8:00 – 12:15 pm 3 Presentations and Networking

Quarterly and Event Sponsor
Oberon

Group Sponsor
Arbita

Location Sponsor
Best Buy

Community Outreach Partner
Second Harvest Heartland

Presentations:

- Social Media Panel
Josh Kahn
Senior Pipeline Generation Expert
Accenture at Best Buy

Erica Steffenson
Sr. Sourcing Analyst
Ecolab

Katie Carty Tierney
Talent Acquisition Innovator
nGenera Corporation

Tavis Hudson
Headhunter/Partner
Technical Resources, Inc.

4 local experts will discuss how they use Social Media to source and recruit candidates, help establish a recruiter an employer brand, what their companies think of it, and pitfalls to watch out for.

- SEO/SEM More then Just Hype
Nicole Bodem
Director, Search Marketing - Arbita

A presentation that explains the basic of SEO and SEM and how it is applied to recruiting.

As a recruiting professional whether you’re using search engines like Google, professional networks liked LinkedIn or social networks like Facebook, you’re using keywords everyday to find candidates. These same candidates are using keywords to look for jobs. In fact millions of job related searches are done monthly on search engines, job boards, job aggregators and other web properties. Learn how to take advantage of this talent opportunity without hiring an expert.

- Deep Structure Recruiting
Allan Larson
Ovation, LLC Consultant

This session will focus on two concepts to take your candidate and hiring manager consulting skills to the next level. By the end of this session you will learn how to more accurately:

• Work within the unique styles of your managers and candidates
• Manage your own unique strengths and blind spots

This interactive session is the first of several skill development modules designed to increase recruiter competency during the position requirements definition, screening, and the candidate interview and closing process.

To register for the event click (or copy and paste) this URL:
http://minnesotarecruitersfall2008.eventbrite.com

Paul DeBettignies
Minnesota Recruiters
Co-Founder and Coordinator
www.minnesotarecruiters.com

Minnesota Recruiters 2008-2009 Job Market Survey Results

As posted on the Minnesota Recruiters group page October 21, 2008

After being a part of many national and local conversations regarding hiring, the economy, and the credit market crisis it seemed to be a good time for me to do a survey of the Minnesota Recruiters group.

The survey is unscientific but does give a good reading on what local corporate, search and consulting firm recruiters are experiencing and how they see the job market into 2009.

SurveyMonkey was used to collect responses. Approximately 1,150 received the survey link. Within a few percentage points the category of recruiter mirrors that of the email list. 338 started and 300 completed the survey between October 8-10, 2008:

Corporate Recruiter	42.90%	145
Search Firm Recruiter	29.30%	99
IT Consulting Firm Recruiter	14.20%	48
HR/Recruiter Consulting Firm Recruiter	13.60%	46

 

Items and thoughts to note:

• Generally it appears that our area and companies are doing better in terms of hiring and optimism than other regions.
• Generally speaking hiring cycles are becoming longer in terms of process, interviews, and back ground checks. Many times the word “deliberate” has been used to suggest companies are being very specific on who they hire.
• Generally speaking most Recruiters say that even if not hiring in an area, if a very talented candidate contacted them there is a good chance they would be hired.
• The Corporate Recruiters who did the survey like the Corporate Recruiters on the email list are 80% in a large company category. It does seem at this time larger companies are feeling the economic issues more than small and mid size companies.
• There are signs from the survey and through conversations that small and mid size companies are continuing to hire at a slightly slower pace. Only a little slow down has been seen with small to mid size companies.
• On a national level conversations are that one need to analyze regions and industries separately as there are many areas of strength and weakness in the economy.
• On our local level this too is seen. Some industries are doing better than others. Saying that there is evidence that at the company level each situation is different. For example, one healthcare company is not hiring IT, Marketing or Recruiter staff but another company down the road is.

Suggestions for the next survey(s) of this kind have been to add:

• Recruiter role as in VP, Manager, Recruiter, Sourcer
• Add 2 categories “Not Hiring” “Staff Reductions”. While the number of those who would have used those terms in their answers for this survey is very small if we continue to see the job market deteriorate then they will be needed in future surveys

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions about the survey please send me an email:

Paul DeBettignies
Co-Founder and Coordinator
Minnesota Recruiters
paul@mnheadhunter.com

 

SURVEY QUESTIONS AND RESULTS

We hired/placed _____ than planned for the 3rd Quarter (July-September):

	Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
significantly more	6.80%	1.20%	4.50%	2.60%
slightly more	18.90%	31.40%	18.20%	10.50%
the same	28.00%	23.30%	6.80%	28.90%
slightly fewer	22.70%	25.60%	40.90%	36.80%
significantly less	17.40%	15.10%	27.30%	21.10%
not sure	6.10%	3.50%	2.30%	0.00%

 

We plan to hire/place ___ in the 4th Quarter (October-December) compared to the 3rd Quarter:

	Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
significantly more	10.60%	14.90%	20.50%	5.40%
slightly more	7.60%	27.60%	27.30%	29.70%
the same	30.30%	25.30%	27.30%	18.90%
slightly fewer	25.80%	19.50%	18.20%	27.00%
significantly less	22.00%	8.00%	6.80%	18.90%
not sure	3.80%	4.60%	0.00%	0.00%

 

I am ___ about the job market for the first half of 2009:

	Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
Optimistic	20.60%	39.50%	25.00%	18.40%
Neutral	42.00%	30.20%	47.70%	34.20%
Pessimistic	25.20%	25.60%	20.50%	26.30%
Not Sure	12.20%	4.70%	6.80%	21.10%

 

I see the most job openings in:

Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
Healthcare	Engineering	Web Developers	HR Generalists
IT	IT	Java	Recruiters (IT)
Sales	Sales	.Net
Engineering	Finance	Open Source
Senior Management		ERP Systems

 

I see the fewest or no job openings in:

Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
Marketing	Manufacturing	Project Managers	Training
HR	Accounting	Business Analysts	Recruiters
Senior Management	HR
Accounting	Executive
IT

I am ___ about my job security:

	Corporate Recruiter	Search Firm Recruiter	IT Consulting	HR/Recruiter Consulting
Optimistic	48.5%	64.40%	56.80%	39.50%
Neutral	32.6%	20.70%	27.30%	42.10%
Pessimistic	12.9%	9.20%	11.40%	5.30%
Not Sure	6.1%	5.70%	4.50%	13.20%

Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference And Recruiting Roadshow | Summer 2008 | Recap v2

I am going to be doing a new post with updated information from our July 25th (Summer 2008) event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Daily Twitter Notes

This is a special edition of Twitter notes taken during the Minnesota Recruiters and Recruiting Roadshow event July 25th At Best Buy HQ's.

Sometimes the day does not allow a blog post let alone write about things on my mind or I hear about like economic, political, local news (sports too).

With Twitter, you at least get some of the flavor, a flash moment during the day, of what I am thinking about. You can follow during the day or see the digest below.

Here are the highlights of my recent Twitter activity. If you want to see the full version click MN Headhunter on Twitter

MN Headhunter on Twitter | July 25, 2008 (last one first, links added):

July 25, 2008

• 21 hour day comes to an end. A good day. Finally met Davis, Mendoza, Hogan and Buss. Very cool people and looking forward to next time
• @rickmahn It went well. I left there about 45 minutes ago. Will be there in the next two weeks for a meeting and will see if you are around
• #mnrecruiters: Ramer, Recruiting As if People Mattered
• #mnrecruiters: lights went down, room is dark, starting with Pink Floyd music. VERY COOL
• #mnrecruiters: Don Ramer of Arbita, Roadshow Underwriter and Group Sponsor of Minnesota Recruiters
• #mnrecruiters @stevenrothberg used to be my friend :) I am once again the person he pokes all jokes at.
• #mnrecruiters: Now speaking Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com @stevenrothberg
• #mnrecruiters Project for Pride in Living, Train To Work, Molly John hoping we can send her some new companies to partner with.
• #mnrecruiters: MinnPost.com not recruiter related but this is a fascinating look into print and online media.
• #mnrecruiters: dozens of newspapers are near bankruptcy
• #mnrecruiters: Joel Kramer of MinnPost.com. Thanks to GL Hoffman and Toby Dayton of JobDig for setting this up.
• #mnrecruiters: 45% had the Drug test question correct. OOPS
• #mnrecruiters: 89% answered the Sexual Harassment - Verbal correct
• #mnrecruiters: George LaRocque, VP Sales Bullhorn presenting Recruiter IQ
• #mnrecruiters: John finishing up presentation on demographics. Taking questions. Will post online at www.recruitingroadshow.com
• #mnrecruiters: @NicoleBodem covering event on her blog www.HRSearchMarketing.com
• #mnrecruiters: My tweets now going live on RecruitingBlogs.com
• #mnrecruiters: check out @txaggie94 @marenhogan (representing Omaha) @recruitingblogs doing some video interviews Dave Mendoza in house too
• #SMBMSP thrilled to see the turnout you all have. Wish I was there too.
• #mnrecruiters, whew, good start to the morning. John Sumser had a great networking exercise. Starting his presentation.
• @newcoventry dude, you too? I like to go to bed when the birds start singing not wake up to them.
• For those followers not at #SMBMSP or #mnrecruiters you may find me annoying for the next 6 hours.
• 5:30 am is too early. It is just not right.

Minnesota Recruiters (un)Conference | Spring 2008 | Recap v2

I am going to be doing a new post with updated information from our May 9th (Spring 2008) event at Best Buy but I need to post this now to keep the chronology correct in the archive.

Bookmark this link and come back in a couple of days.

Minnesota Recruiters Featured On Ning Blog

This was a pleasant surprise and I have no idea how it came about. It is nice to know that experts in social media think what we are doing with our site is cool.

Sometimes, much of the time, I feel like I am “winging” this but maybe I know what I am doing after all. It has helped my learning curve to watch and participate in the site run by Jason Davis at RecruitingBlogs.com.

Here is the link from the Ning Blog May 3, 2008:

Sharing ideas with Minnesota Recruiters

If you are thinking of start an online group I know there are a lot of platforms one can use but Ning is far and away the best (and easiest) to use. There are a lot of tools that come with the site. It can be customized and widgets from other providers are easy to put in.

Most of all, the couple of tech support issues I have had (caused by me not Ning) were quickly responded to.

You do not need to be an expert to set this up and if you such a person you will find it a good start to do with it as you wish.