The Future of Candidate Information Systems

The more valuable the candidate, the more valuable their information. There are three critical pieces of information that a valuable candidate possesses that talent strategists need to know:

• Proof of their ability to create (or execute, which is tougher prove)
• The extent, power and transparency of their network
• Referral proofs about work preferences and behaviors

There will come a day (and it will be soon) when we will realize the value of that information, and we will pay candidates to get access to it. The candidate will create an opt-in market where the candidate decides who they want as their customers. In return for their payment (which may be money, but could also be further connections in a network or information of value to the candidate), the customer will get an RSS feed that provides an ongoing flow of information about what the candidate is creating and who they are talking with.. The candidate will invest in continually updating their information because they receive value in return: an increasingly large market for their information, which means more payments.

CRMs will integrate RSS readers into their platforms, either directly (Microsoft) or through their partner ecosystem (Salesforce). The RSS readers will aggregate the data from the candidates and present the latest and greatest to the customer (often a sourcer). The customer will be able to initiate a follow-up action (“Call Laura on Friday, really liked her latest portfolio addition”) as well as deposit the latest data into the repository of the CRM.

The local CRM repository will become the “Internal Portfolio” of the candidate for the customer’s purpose. Through the CRM it can be shared with hiring managers and constituents, automatically, based on the profiles of interest those hiring managers have set.

Candidates will pay money or provide access to their network in order to have a place to create these portfolios with access control. They will gravitate towards vendors who provide a single-source for networking, communication, portfolio and market management tools.

Who will be the first vendor to figure this out? The vendor will have to be candidate-focused in their business model and creative in their brand.

Comments

[Heather]

On a completely unrelated note, you dropped your "And". Was it getting between you and your public? I expect a Diddy-like pronouncement. Because it's alpha, you are now at the bottom of my bloglines list...boo! ; )

[Sean Rehder]

I have a concern and a question...

As an analyst, I have worked with many designers/developers who are paid to document their work...but don't. Not because they are lazy, but they just don't have the time to sit and write it out. So...I'm left to question them and document/describe things for them. My concern is that high end people (the kind I want to know and perhaps the kind that can build a "portfolio") also do not have the time.

My question and proposed solution...

What if these high end people had a "marketing agent." Someone who questioned them on what they are doing and documented it or actually marketed it to companies who could use the person's skills/talents. The agent could also do research for future opportuniies (the hardest is job is finding the right job sometimes). In return...the agent could get 10% of the talents wage or something. Especially if the talent is a consultant or independent contractor that comes with a "bill rate." The bill rate would include the agent's fee.