“ONE THING ABOUT CHALLENGES IN LIFE IS: THROUGH THEM, WE LEARN HOW TO OVERCOME THEM. Always Pay Attention!”
― Olaotan Fawehinmi, The Soldier Within
Yeah, you got me. I am a total geek when it comes to Fantasy, sci-fi, games, comics, whatever you throw at me I will probably love. Except for anime, I don’t get anime. Anyway, that is not what this post is about it’s about us, the community that will be roughly considered the local inhabitants of a real Westeros and as simple soldiers we are trapped between several factions that only want one thing from us; money.
In our kingdom, we have:
The House Lannister of Casterly Rock rulers of LinkedIn vs.
The House Stark of Winterfell rulers of Indeed vs.
The House Tyrell of Highgarden rulers of the traditional job board vs.
The House Greyjoy of Pyke, rulers of The Chrome extensions vs.
The Mother of Dragons owner of Google vs.
The White Walkers, or, simply put, Facebook.
Dollar Bills Son!
Evolution in our industry has evolved beyond belief in the last 20 years going from fax machines and phones to email and, well phones; some things stay the same. However, we, as a community seem to have become complacent and have given heavy sighs when the very tools we have grown used to for free become monetized. It is to be expected you know, but at the rate, it is now I could see a Rico Act being played in the coming years with all the shuffling going on, let me explain.
Google shook the recruiting world offering their new engine Google Jobs. The very idea that Google was taking on the recruiting industry was long in the making, and the battle looks to be forming based on the moves that have been made thus far, let’s take a look.
Indeed made an announcement linking them with Craigslist to take on the Google platform as Google is not indexing either of these sites, read the article here, it is damn informative. The wagons are circling folks and not to mix movie or TV series metaphors here, but it seems that everyone wants to use the phrase, “there can be only one!”
Facebook entered the fray with more of a whimper than a bang just a while back and got very little press, which I found a bit odd. You can still look up people, connect, etc. yet now you can add jobs, for a nominal fee, to the site that can be searched by its members. No scraping, yet, and I would love to chat with someone that has success with using the platform, that’s why they are the white walkers, lots of members but we don’t know what the real play may be.
LinkedIn, once again, as it has been reported on multiple channels that using, certain, Google apps will land you in LI jail, even if you are a Microsoft employee, lovely. What is even BETTER is that even if you are a paying customer, you could get locked out as well. Certain sites are still being allowed access from what I am told by a reliable source and corroborated by another that there are tools that are still operating and will not land you in jail. They are being “evaluated” by Microsoft. This, if history has shown us anything, means they are going to see what the best tool is, to the “evaluators” that will then, in turn, initiate a run on buying the company OR they could go the cable route.
Dollar, dollar, Bills SON!
So, Let’s Look at Cable
Cable, losing relevancy to younger viewers and raising prices without telling anyone seemingly pissed off a swath of people who then ran to the internet and Hulu or SlingBox to retrieve the same shows for a quarter of the price, for a nominal fee. You know, it’s Comcastic. In a lot of areas, cable companies charge MORE for the internet than cable service now offering a cornucopia of choices that no one cares about. Enter Netflix with its programming as well, then Amazon, they all left the cable platform and moved to an even more reliable source, the internet, millions followed happily shelling out fewer buckets for similar services. A win-win for everyone and everyone in the industry is,
Dollars, dollars, dollars, SISTER!
Just my Take on This
So, opinion time and you know I have some. If LinkedIn and Indeed want to change the game then instead of blocking out independent aggregators they should instead partner with them and pull back the veil. By setting up an agreement to let the operators work on the platform they could get a percentage of the revenue. In my opinion, again, instant revenue stream with the hassle or investment that LinkedIn went with by acquiring Connectifier than turn around with multiple packages to use a pretty crappy tool. Now I know this was not Microsoft’s idea and it is an issue that they purchased as part of the package, but damn sometimes it’s a good idea just to scrap it and move on to a better plan or at least have the conversation.
Now, I bring this up and if anyone in Westeros is reading this from one of the factions understands where I am going with this please realize no matter what the market is like out there sourcing will find a way to get what we need, candidates, at the cheapest and most efficient way we can. As the sourcing and recruiting community continues to grow online and with one of the best conferences on the circuit, SourceCon, we are sharing ideas, tools, and there is a small band out there that are even learning to code to find candidates without any tools and for free.
This September, in Austin, Texas, is the 10th anniversary of SourceCon and looks to be the biggest one ever! The tracks are for the new and old, and when I say everyone there, speakers, welcoming committee, attendees are there to share tips, tricks, and knowledge. Personally, I will be there and would love to chat about recruiting and sourcing with you. Just look for the big guy with long hair and looks like the Dude from The Big Lebowski with a white Russian in his hand. #zellerout.