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.