Talentism

Colin Kingsbury Get's it Right

Thanks Colin. You are right. I don't want a different kind of recruiting... I am predicting a whole new business. You get it completely.

My insights on reqs are silly (if not downright stupid) if you consider them from the perspective of managing cost and risk for administrative functions inside a stable business. In that case reqs make a lot of sense. But, as I have maintained many times, the business landscape is changing so fast that those recruiting departments will be evaluated only on price per transaction, and therefore they will be outsourced. It is simply impossible for an internal recruiting department to compete on price with an RPO (assuming the RPO is run correctly).

Recruiting departments that stay as integral strategic parts of their business must operate on the value / experience concept, and reqs are antithetical to that proposition. But, as you so wisely note, this is not saying "The old recruiting department needs to think differently". Au contraire! I am  saying "The old recruitment department is going to go away, and in it's place will be a outsourced relationship or a completely different business."

So you got it exactly. Thanks for your great piece.

Mandarin Anybody?

I just posted a new article over at SimplyHired blog. It was a lot of fun to write (here's hoping I have blown through the writers block).

I have been pleasantly surprised at how upset people are with my article about recruiting B.S.  Perhaps I should hit below the belt more often.

Some really cool news on the next Taluncon coming up in April. Get ready for the next one... in London!

Taking on the Critics: Series at SimplyHired

Starting a new series over on the SimplyHired blog in response to some of the feedback I got about my post Recruiting BS and How to Get Rid of It.

Check out the New Talent Unconference Blog

The Talent Unconference is continuing to gain momentum, and I have decided to start a new blog to handle all the logistics, Q&A and ongoing knowledge management around the event.

You can find the new site here or at:

http://www.taluncon.com/

I put up a new post with all the logistics information, including what will happen at the Talent Unconference and hotel information. I will be making all future updates there, including who will be attending and any changes to agenda, etc.

The View from Minute 16

What to post? My 15 minutes ticked off the clock a long time ago. It seems that I should have something insightful to add about what makes a great blog and why you should vote for one person versus another. But I don't. Thanks to the Jason's and the growing multitude that add their passionate voices to the blogging milleu, recruiting blogging has progressed past the cult of personality into the land of serious business. I find myself at a loss for words.

Well, maybe not. This post was going to end there, but then I thought I would throw in a word or two for some of the great work that people are doing around the blogosphere.

Other than his mention of this blog, I agree with Bob Wilson's post this past Wednesday. I'm a fan of early American politics, where no matter how bad you want it, you let your proxies do the work for you. I really enjoy Bob's blog, and think he is definitely worthy of consideration for your vote.

And then there is Mr. Davis' list. It is rather uncanny, but his list and mine are exactly the same... with one exception. I think that once you own the company you should abstain from the vote, so although I would stand by my beleif that Jason Goldberg is the best CEO blogger out there (see below), exploring the very edges of how to use blogging as a way to build credibility, authenticity and market traction for your company, I did not vote for him. Instead I voted for Julian and Shannon Seery Gude's blog Exceler8ion. I love their voice and perspective. I look forward to reading more from them next year.

I would have thrown in a vote for my favorite sourcer Shally, who consistently produces some of the best content on how to source at the leading edge, but then I got a spam mail from him asking for my vote, so, alas, it was not to be. But that doesn't mean that Shally isn't worthy of your consideration. And if you care about how to be a better sourcer, you should definitely check out his blog.

And I also would have thrown in a vote for Colin Kingsbury, because he is quite possibly the smartest guy in the recruiting blogosphere and I love what he writes. His blog is always worth the read, but if I had thrown in a vote for a tech blog it still would have gone to Dubs (see below) because the guy just turns out consistently great stuff, day-after-day, year-after-year. And I owe Dubs because he flew up to Vancouver on his own dime to be a part of an EA technology meeting we had and added some great wisdom and insight. Colin has said that he is coming to the Unconference, so next year hopefully I will owe him!

My favorite new voice of the year is Ami. He is on Bob's and Jason's list, and I couldn't agree with them more. Whereas Mr. Goldberg has explored the edges of what blogging means to business, Ami has explored the far more difficult territory of what blogging means to Self. Ami is presently struggling with whether he can reconcile his id's need to connect with a broader audience with his superego's need to make a living. Let's all support Ami and show him that this is an "and" situation, not an "or." It would be a shame to lose his voice in our growing community.

And what as to the rest of this fabulous group that I get the honor to periodically chat with? I think the post I put up almost a year ago pretty well encapsulates my feelings. Amazing that the same exact group that I listed a year ago is still defining the leading edge of this grand adventure. Congratulations to all of you, and a hearty holiday "Thanks!" for making my life a better experience.

(Note: I updated the links and some of the content below to be more relevant.)

Vote for Heather and Joel and Dubs!

Congrats to Joel, Jason and Jason (and CH for batting clean-up) on the wonderful idea for the best of the blogs.

I don’t know about the categorization. Here are my thoughts:

Best Corporate Blog: Heather’s blog is making Microsoft hip again (yes, Heather, there was a time when Microsoft wasn’t hip). She is creating a community around a common interest (which is not Microsoft) and then periodically letting people in to take a look at life inside. She builds credibility through her transparency and authenticity. In short, Heather’s blog is the best brand building exercise on the web for a big company that I have ever seen.

Best Blog Blog: Joel Cheesman’s content is well written, relevant and imminently readable. Hs provides value and builds his brand all at the same time. I think Joel’s blog typifies what is possible for small and large businesses everywhere.

Best HR Tech Blog – While I love Jason’s Corsello’s blog, Dub Dubs’ willingness to engage me on the RPO topic means I owe him. His content is insightful and keeps its eyes on the user and overall purpose of HR technology.

And, even though they can’t be nominated:

In Nomine Patris Award – Goes to John Sumser. He set the stage on which we are all playing. Thanks John.

Best CEO Blog – Jason Goldberg at Jobster. It is amazing what he gets up there given his schedule and responsibilities. Thanks Jason.

Smartest Recruiting Strategist – Dave Lefkow. Is there anybody who doesn’t love and respect this guy? The fact that he is smart and knowledgable doesn’t hurt.

Most Likely to Be Dragged to Jail while Shouting – Canadian Headhunter (can’t help but love him)

Most Likely to be Canadian Prime Minister – CH (right after they legalize more pot than an ounce)

Most Likely to be CH’s Campaign Manager – It's still JD

And speaking of Jason Davis – Major kudos to him for everything he has done for the community. I don’t know how many arrows he had to take in the back to make it this far, but the rest of us following behind him sure appreciate the trail. From all of us – thank you!

Dashnote Launches: Common Cold Cured

... well, maybe not the common cold. But this is cool all the same.

You may remember me mentioning Dashnote a few times (here and here). Some of you were even included in the beta program (thanks for your feedback). Well Dashnote is ready for prime time and people are starting to use it in many interesting ways. For instance:

Sean Rehder is using Dashnote for distributed web-based support. He distributes a bookmarklet to users of his client’s Salesforce solutions and they use Dashnote to give him feedback on his apps, as well as request support for bugs and enhancement requests.

I have started using Dashnote for group Knowledge Management. I have set up different topics around areas I write about or am interested in, and then distribute the URL for the bookmarklet to people whom I want to include in my “Knowledge Group.” They find cool stuff for me to read on the web and provide their comments (Dashnote calls them “annotations”) through Dashnote.

Here is one that I think will really take off: recruiters have started using Dashnote to streamline their online sourcing. They set up an account, get the bookmarklet, and as they find resumes on the web they can quickly provide their comments about the resume, as well as store all the resumes they find in one convenient place. Some recruiters are even using the Dashnote “Snapper” functionality to clip resumes and forward them to hiring managers with their comments.

It’s all very exciting. I remember sitting down with Dashnote founder Ranjit Padmanabhan back in January envisioning a way to capture and annotate web content (we coined the term "3d Web" to describe it), and now it is a reality (due to the incredible efforts of Ranjit and David  and Dawn).

If you think of other cool ways to use Dashnote, or are using Dashnote for your business, let us know! You can comment on this post, send email to jjhunter at gmail dot com or, even better, drop a comment off at the Dashnote Blog.

Recruiting in the Creative Age over at SimplyHired

As I announced here :

Talentism will be getting less content, and the content that it does get will be more around business strategy, global HR best practice and cutting-edge technology...  SimplyHired is about to do something really cool with it’s blog and you can read my thoughts about recruiting and the job seeker experience over there.

It appears that I am true to my word, as during the last month I have put up only 3 posts on Talentism but 10 posts over on the SimplyHired blog.

My original intent on the SH blog was to put up two paragraph hit pieces that would generate conversation. But I don't think in two paragraph chunks and so have found myself putting up the typical long-winded explorations of conventional wisdom that I have typically left for Talentism.

The present series around explaining and exploring "New Rules for Recruiting in the Creative Age" (originally posted here) might be worth your time if you are given to more philosophical flights of fancy. But even if you aren't it is worth noting that the role of the HR and recruiting department, and the practitioners therein, will be changing pretty radically. I may be long-winded and didactic, but I feel confident that the points contained within these posts will come to bear within the next three years. In fact, I believe many are already in progress and impacting the recruiting profession.

Rules for Recruiting in the Creative Age
Porfolios
Marketing & Sales
Be a Business
Run as a P&L
Real Artists Ship

As always, thoughts and comments welcome (especially over at SimplyHired!)

That's the Power of Blog: Peter Clayton

A little over a year ago I wrote something called 68 Posts. Whenever someone asks me why I blog I point them to that article. With my recent revelations about the futility of trying to change the world of recruiting, I thought it best to go back and reconnect with some of the rewards I get from this peculiar activity. Reading 68 Posts I was struck by the fact that Peter Clayton reminded me of the power of blogging and I hadn’t thanked him yet. Sorry Peter!

What does existential crisis, blogging and building a network have to do with Peter Clayton? Funny you should ask. Next year I am going to be starting a new blog (about politics, not business or talent) and I decided that I wanted to try podcasting my content rather than just writing. I don’t know how to podcast any more than I know how to flycast, so I set about to learn: how do I get my voice on RSS? Like most people I went to Google and ran a search and started reading. Inevitably I ended up with a long list of questions and realized that I needed a teacher. Where to find one?

Asking someone to be a teacher is not an insignificant request. As many teachers through the years can testify, I am not a very good student. Add to that the fact that I hate to impose on other people and I quickly hit a dead-end. Until I remembered that I had worked for the last two years to provide value to a diverse network of people, and that perhaps I wouldn’t be asking for a favor as much as I would be cashing in some of the trust I had deposited in the global bank of blog. So I put the question to a test and sent an email to Peter Clayton, a person who I greatly respect and frequently listen to, but whom wouldn’t know me from Adam if I ran in front of him and did jumping jacks while shouting out “Talentism!” Given that relative anonymity I had few hopes for success.

Much to my pleasant surprise Peter wrote me back in 5 minutes. He was gracious, offering to talk with me as soon as was mutually convenient. Before I knew it I was on the phone with a guy who probably gets a bazzilion requests for his time, asking him stupid questions like “how do I record my voice anyway?” Peter not only spent considerable time with me, but followed up our conversation with some emails with helpful tidbits and Flash code for embedded MP3 players. What a prince.

If you haven’t listened to Peter’s content you really must drop everything and get over to his site, TotalPicture.com. His content is thought provoking, his expert delivery is crisp and easy on the ears, his topics cogent and his technical wizardry without peer in the recruiting world. I know the last bit of information first-hand because Peter patiently described to me what goes into getting one of his shows up on TotalPicture. We’re not talking about some guy with half a cigarette hanging out of his mouth holding a lapel microphone up to a phone while he does the NY Times crossword puzzle and says “Uh-huh” every couple of seconds. Peter comes from an audio engineering background and so has a wide variety of equipment and mastering techniques that allow him to achieve the well-mixed clarity with his shows that only a professional can deliver.

TotalPicture’s content is always worth the time, but I especially like it when he hangs out with people I know. Peter is great at putting a guest at ease and asking questions that get to the heart of the recruiting matter. I especially liked his recent conversation with Heather Hamilton.

Peter’s generosity reminded me that blogging is not just about a mission (if, in fact, that is the purpose of your blog, as it is for me). Blogging is about community. About value for value. Though Peter had only a passing acquaintance with me and my name, he knew me through my blogging and guessed (astutely I hope) that it would be worth his time to help me out of my technical befuddlement. That is the power of blog... (so maybe it’s worth it after all….)

Economics to Identity

Your grandfather probably worked to live. Your mother and father most likely tried to make a living. Your children will be working to define a life.

The inexorable trend of personal economics is from work as a fiscal necessity to work as expression of self, from safety to actualization. Work has always served as a basis for psychological affiliation (i.e. "I am a business person"), but now the expression of the work and the community of people you create with is as much a part of that identity as the role you play. I may be a business person, but I am more likely to describe myself as a over-forty family guy who works in the video games industry.

This means that I will probably search for my next job based on a specification that constrains my search based on those attributes with which I most commonly identify myself. Of course I will still care about company, geography and compensation. But I understand that I will spend more time at work than with my family or friends. And since work will become increasingly important to our identity you will want to make sure that you are spending that time with a group of people with whom you share similar values and principles, in a company that supports the growth and extension of that identity.

That is why I have always been a big fan of SimplyHired’s specialty searches. TechCrunch announced last week that SimplyHired is expanding their growing list of specialty searches to include "age-friendly search" (check it out here).  As with their previous specialty searches SimplyHired turned to a reputable partner to help define the nature of the identity. This continues to be a great business model: technical expertise and reach from SimplyHired, and content and expertise from the specialty partner. Both partners win, and the job seeker who is looking to "make a life" has a new tool in their search for the right fit between their need for connection and the employer's need to recruit more individuals attracted to their specific culture.

John Sumser has an great post today about the new specialty service. As John says "Nice move for both. It's the kind of win-win deal that should be a model for others." I agree, just as I agreed when SimplyHired introduced Dog Friendly search, Eco Friendly Search, Mom Friendly Search and GLBT Friendly Search. It has made great sense each and every time SimplyHired has added a new partner and extended the reach, relevance and power of their search engine.

For individuals who already view work as an exercise in community building, empowerment and actualization, the ability to see what employment opportunities exist across multiple companies that actively support your community and lifestyle choices puts the job seeker further in control of their economic destiny and affiliation. I think it is a good thing for Job Seekers and something that we will see more of in the future.

(Full Disclosure: I am a SimplyHired adviser, shareholder and writer for their blog. I am a completely interested party in their success.)

John, You Partisan Slut!

Can it be? John Sumser, counter-culture guru of the recruiting world, Mill Valley iconoclast and purveyor of contrarian wisdom, has finally gone completely around the bend to the other side? Has he become a partisan, a person who advocates for a point of view independent of any sound logic to support his conclusions?

That's right folks, John has become a neo-recruiter, a partisan for those halcyon days when all you needed was a telephone, your wits and a pack of Camels. When men were men and content was sacred. And in order to get us back to those days John is prepared to do whatever it takes, including scaring the hell out of us.

For those of you who haven't read it, John has decided that vertical search engines picking up your job content is like people showing up to mow your lawn without your permission. John is a little rusty at the fear-mongering thing, having given it up during the Carter administration, but given some time he can flesh this whole analogy out to:

"Speed-freak illegal aliens show up and mow your lawn, taking your clippigs (FOR GOD’S SAKE, NOT THE CLIPPINGS!) and then graffiti your house while you sit cowering inside AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!" Yes, unbeknownst to you, those perfectly crafted, Shakespearian job descriptions are being defiled by being ripped from your innocent website and posted in the company of other jobs! Heavens forefend! I believe I am about to swoon.

Allow me to “John Jack” here and reprint the most salacious parts of his article:

Job Jacking

Imagine this.

You wake up one morning and discover that your lawn has been cut. It's not particularly well done. It's long enough so that it will need to be cut again next week. The trimming has not been done.

There is a note stapled to your front door that says: If you do not want your lawn trimmed next week, please place a sign in your front yard saying so. If you want a better job done, please do one of the following:

• Contact an LEO (Lawn Equipment Optimization) Consultant,
• Buy outdoor advertising from us, or
• Place our billboards on your front yard (we'll pay you for this)

This is significantly more intrusive than the standard scam in which a donation is requested after the street number is painted on your curb. You'll notice that the process is opt-out rather than "opt-in". You'll also notice that the requirements for opting out are entirely the responsibility of a customer who never solicited the service in the first place. In this peculiar set of circumstances, none of the options really allow the lawn-owner to control his yard.

Now, imagine that twenty services were doing this to your front yard simultaneously.

That's what it's like if you have a set of job listings on your corporate website. It's what it's like if you run a legitimate job board, collecting fees for postings.

The gang member pulls up to your house, mows your lawn, takes your clippings and tells you that you can only stop him by placing a big sign in your front yard. Then the next one comes and so on. No respect for ownership, no respect for a particular approach to landscaping, no compensation for the value extracted, no consideration of the impact on the yard. It's just grab and run.

This incredible set of bad manners is brought to you by the likes of Jobster, Simply Hired, Indeed and a host of other examples. The model was established in days gone by FlipDog, CareerMosaic and CareerCast. "Spidered" job content has always been the ploy from job boards who were unable to muster a real sales force.

You have to go to his site to read the rest of the article, although I have to caution you that I just engaged in the “bad manners” of taking John’s writing and putting it on my site, all the while shoving money into his pockets against his will by driving up his traffic numbers. I guess my evil plan to trim John’s hedges for free is officially out of the question.

Now, first, I hope you will forgive me if I indulge in a confession. John has Jacked me before. A lot. And I liked it each and every time. John Jacks me when he takes the Talentism feed and puts it on one of his pages where he sells ads. I know I shouldn’t like it. After all, he is using me. Golly, I didn’t ask him to Jack me. He just did it all by himself. But like it I did, because it was better for me than it was for him. My “lawn” received a wider distribution which enabled it to better achieve its purpose. And after all is said and done, it’s about what you are trying to do with the content that matters.

But all this talk has got me thinking. You know, after the initial flush of excitement, maybe John jacking me isn’t so great after all. Especially when I see that he has ripped up my lawn, put it in front of his house, and then posted this sign on the front yard:

All the material on this website is the property of Interbiznet. Redistribution without permission is strictly prohibited.

Hey John, are you seeing other blogs on the side? I mean, isn’t this just so typically male! I put myself out there, ready to share my lawn with you and then you cast me aside and claim it as your own. You bastard! My mother was right about you.

Yes, content is property and as such it is protected. Just like the content of a flyer inviting people to a free concert is copyrighted. Just like speeches and campaign clippings and demo songs. As the owner of the content it certainly matters to you where your stuff is displayed. Punk bands don’t like their announcements displayed in stores that specialize in Barry Manalow. I get it. But Punk Bands do like their stuff displayed, because it means more people are likely to come see them. Sure, for their brand’s sake they would like the flyers to be found in methadone clinics and crack houses, but a full house is a full house. Better to play to a packed crowd than three committed fans.

So if you are trying to pack the hall (or drive traffic to your site) put the content up and know that it’s going to be disaplyed in places that you may not like or approve of, but that your ultimate purpose (a lot of traffic) is better served by wide distribution than no distribution. True, the mental picture of John standing in his front yard beating the crap out of anybody who walks by with a power mower was worth the price of admission. But if you want people coming to your show, you should avoid neo-recruiting partisanship and get yourself jacked. I highly recommend it.

Where Can I Buy Purple Cows?

If you have ever worked in the software industry, you know that this is a classic post. Great job Colin.

Is Digg Wise?

This morning I went over to Digg.com, the godfather of "user powered content aggregation." There I discovered that Digg users had this to say about the content they had powered:

• 889 votes for a picture of a McDonald’s ad on a campus that was based on the premise that since food is more difficult to steal than music, you might as well get your food cheap.
• 530 votes for an article about Terrell Owens, the receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, trying to kill himself (literally this time, not figuratively like all the previous times).
• 313 votes for a rather thoughtless but still provocative rant about America losing it’s standing as the number one economy in the world (apparently our problem is not enough taxes on the middle class – who would have thought?)
• 39 votes for an article about funding for Wallop, a new social networking service (Microsoft’s entry into the “Let’s kill MySpace” market).

I didn't find any articles about Bill Clinton's recent tête-à-tête with Chris Wallace, but I did find a lot of people interested in a girl trying to blow up her SUV with her sweater.

Digg is presently one of the top 20 trafficked website in the world, and its users search far and wide for interesting new content. The Digg user community has spoken loud and clear: silly ads are more important than America’s economic position or the funding of a new business. Why think about the merits of a political argument when you can watch a Jeep go "boom!"? Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Digg is based on a “Wisdom of Crowds” concept. And since I am a big fan of both the logic and the possibilities of that idea, one would think that I am a big fan of Digg. But as my analysis above probably telegraphed.. not so much. When the crowd that I am depending on to tell me what I should read thinks that cheap McDonalds copy is more important than the ability to create jobs in the future I tune out. I am left with the conclusion that the Digg crowd is not that wise, and I don’t just mean that I don’t agree with their preferences.

“The Wisdom of Crowds” was James Surowiecki’s breakthrough book which brought the heretofore mutually-exclusive concepts of "Wisdom" and "Crowds" together in the common lexicon. According to Surowiecki a “Wise” crowd has the following characteristics:

• It is diverse in composition
• The individuals are well informed and have access to the same data sources
• The opinion of one individual doesn’t unduly influence the opinion of others in the crowd
• There is an objective method for aggregating individual input into a group conclusion

When a crowd meets those criteria it is amazingly adept at predicting the future, including what is important and what isn't. When a crowd doesn’t meet those criteria, however, it runs the risk of thinking that McDonalds’ copy is a better use of your time than why somebody would try to kill themselves or why America may be in economic trouble.

So if user powered content is based on the “Wisdom of Crowds” then we have to examine whether the “Crowd” meets the “Wise” standard. In most cases the answer is clearly “no.” Here are just a few of the reasons why:

The New Recruiting.com Looks Awesome

Get over to Recruiting.com and take a look at their new site. I love how Jason Davis and crew continue to set the standard and innovate us all to greatness.

I have been reading Good to Great recently, and found one of the anecdotes in there interesting. Great companies sometimes get out of markets because the competition is poor. They define great markets by great competitors. If this is the case (and I think there is a lot of sense to it) then Recruiting.com continues to define recruitment blogging as a great market. They are truly in the "rising tide" business and it is an honor to be in the water with them.

Congrats Jason, Jason Goldberg and the entire Jobster crew. Great job!

Top 8 Reasons I am not Joel Cheesman

Joel had a great post over at Cheezhead today. He mentioned that he will never be me and I will never be him. Other than the pure philosophical and physical common sense of his statement, I thought it important to point out exactly why that is true. So here are my “Top 8 Reasons I am not Joel Cheesman.”

Reason 1 - Joel is cool. He hangs out with sports stars and cheerleaders (can’t find the link, but the pictures were good), he’s got swagger… even the picture on his blog just drips with a Fonzi-esque “You are boring me and we aren’t even talking yet” gestalt. He is no longer “Joel Cheesman” he is just “The Cheese.” Ehhhhhhh!

Reason 2 - Joel is happy. Or at least that’s what I think he means when he says “Never Bleu.” I like Bleu Cheese, but it stinks and is laden with fungus, so maybe he is saying he bathes regularly. Either way, a big thumbs up for Joel not being bleu.

Reason 3 - Joel is multi-media. He embeds pod casts and videos in his blog. The “Jumbo Shrimp” video was awesome. I think a video of Joel dancing around in his underwear would be a great add to his blog (please reference Reason 6).

Reason 4 - Joel is at the tip of the spear. HRSEO is going to be big, and Joel has established himself as the big dawg in the market.

Reason 5 - Joel lives in Cleveland. And we all know that Cleveland rocks (am I the only one that remembers that a Hunter (Ian Hunter specifically) wrote that song? Coincidence? I think not!)

Reason 6 - Joel has the same name as Tom Cruise in Risky Business. I don’t know whether Joel is pimping on the side to get into the college of his choice (or perhaps the customers of his dreams), but given Reason 1, I have to assume he has examined this as a marketing option.

Reason 7 - Joel picks fights with Monsters. OK, sure, considering the Monster in question it’s a little like fighting your Grandfather, but Joel makes us believe that his Grandfather is Jack Palance. I know I would be impressed if Joel could actually take Jack.

And the top reason I am not Joel - Joel is a really good blogger. Joel uses his blog to create value, and knows how his blog returns value to his business. He stays out of fights he can’t win and get’s dirty in ones he thinks he can. All that stands in direct contrast to Talentism, which is sporadic, overly long, complex and sometimes meandering. In short, when I thought about what a really good blog is, I thought of Joel (amongst others). When I think about a social crusade that may end up with a BWI (blogging while intoxicated) embarrassing episode, I think of Talentism.

I think this should completely put to rest any confusion around my identity. I know that is a big weight off my shoulders and I am sure that Joel is just besides himself with joy. If you ever want to know why I am not you, just write me, and I can probably come up with a couple of good reasons.

SimplyBlog Off to Good Start

The new SimplyHired blog looks good and Gautam, Sean, C.M. and Nancy have already volunteered their writing services.  And yes, Gautam's namesake will be blogging.

Blogging with SimplyHired

Some time ago I said that I would be making an announcement. Then a little later I said that announcement was concerning where I would be doing my “recruiting specific” blogging for the foreseeable future. Well, today I get to tell you the rest of the story.

I met the fine people at SimplyHired in October of 2004. My consulting business was humming along and I saw a bright future telling software companies how to make products that would appeal to the recruiting and job seeker markets. Then, as luck would have it, I got a call from two recruiters in the same week: one from SimplyHired and one from EA. Over the course of the next several months I had many interesting discussions about the two sides of the talent market fence: the candidate experience and the needs of the corporate recruiter.

Although I pride myself on staying current with the latest and greatest in recruiting technology, my meeting with SimplyHired was a bit of a revelation. I had a sort of “no duh!” experience – aggregate jobs. Of course! We all watched FlipDog sputter out and so I just assumed the idea wouldn’t have much traction. My conversation with SimplyHired made me believe there was a better way to do it.

If that epiphany had been the breadth and depth of my interest the conversation would have quickly ended. But something about SimplyHired intrigued me. Here was this group of guys who had made it big in their last start-up and so should have been resting on a beach somewhere. Instead, they had decided to go look for jobs. And in the process of looking for jobs, they realized a universal truth – being a job seeker is not a lot of fun. We can have many grand conversations about how the candidate is in control (and I often do) but at the end of the day recruiters are the ones that buy services, not candidates. So recruiters get cool tools like Jobster and candidates get… well, less.

This realization made the guys at SimplyHired mad, and so they dedicated themselves to finding a way to put the candidate in control. Aggregating all the jobs that candidates could want was just the first step. As I said here and here the real business trick is not only to aggregate all the jobs, but also to provide services that make people who aren’t looking for jobs (but almost certainly will be at some point in the future) interested in spending their time thinking about their next opportunity.

Why the background? Well, recently I have been getting asked by people why I am not writing more. The truth is that I have been writing a lot, but just not for Talentism.

A couple of months ago my friends at SimplyHired came to me and said “Would you help us with our blog? We want to do a better job of having a conversation with our potential customers as well as the broader community of people who may be interested in what we offer, and we think the blog is a good way to do it.”

I haven’t spent a lot of time this year blogging about recruiting and job seeker topics so I thought it would be a good incentive to get back on that track. And so I agreed. I figured that if I was going to be writing about recruiting and the candidate experience anyway, I might as well publish for people that I like and respect and who will be able to put more time and energy into managing a blog than I could.

What does this mean? First, it means that Talentism will be getting less content, and the content that it does get will be more around business strategy, global HR best practice and cutting-edge technology. Second, it means that SimplyHired is about to do something really cool with it’s blog and you can read my thoughts about recruiting and the job seeker experience over there. And it also means that I will be reaching out to many of you, asking if you would like to be a part of the new SimplyHired blog and contribute your content there.

The people of SimplyHired are a great group to work with. They are inspired and passionate about their mission of giving candidates the right tools and connections to make Job Search fun (at least as fun as possible). It will be an honor to help them bring their unique voice back to the blogosphere. I hope that you will work with me to add your voice to the offering.

Go Ben Go(tkin)

Ben Gotkin of Mitre has started a new blog called "...From The Trenches". Ben describes himself thus:

I'm a 3rd Generation Washingtonian, born in DC, raised and currently work in Virginia, and reside in Maryland. I'm a husband and father of two. I'm a Corporate Recruiter, a collaborator, and a facilitator who wants to help carry on fresh, creative dialogue related to our profession.

I sat on a HCI panel with Ben and was impressed with the depth of his knowledge about recruiting (employee referral programs in particular). I am sure that he will have interesting things to say, and I look forward to his contribution.

Go Ben!