Perhaps there is something more / else / different that we could be doing to drive things forward….would be really keen to discuss further. Let’s catch up soon

As you know, I’ve spent most of my time in the UK avoiding the noise about what is interesting, exciting or innovative within our industry. This is mostly down to lack of time, because I get the importance of people that have a few t-shirts under their belts sharing their views… both in terms of what it does for the industry, and for ourselves as “brands” in this little space of ours.

One topic I’d really enjoy discussing with you at some point is what are the barriers to the real change in our industry/sector (whatever)… how do we move past talking about it, and predicting it and start seeing the real growth. I’d like to ask the industry a few questions, from the perspective of someone with a t-shirt or two to my name and see how it responds.

Here are some thoughts:
1. How come there are few/no Applicant/Tracking/Candidate/Management Systems out there that understand the importance of joining marketing and brand performance metrics to process metrics? (A “single tag” concept that would cover the entire candidate journey?)
2. Why have no Job Boards really looked at the importance of having a depth of understanding about WHO is in their CV database… and capitalized on the tremendous amount of insight that could be gained from actually being media owners, not service providers?
3. Why hasn’t an ATS added “Connect with Facebook” or “Connect with LinkedIn” (ideally) as a feature?

Here’ s a prediction for the future…

All of the gurus and experts who can actually say something to improve the sector and stop simply acknowledging that there’s new technology, but can (with their t-shirt on) tell people how to turn this stuff into a strategy, instead of a collection of tactics that make them feel “innovative”, will survive and will start pushing the entire industry to make more than just incremental changes.

Let’s build a wish list for the industry and challenge some of our peers who make things to meet the demand…

That’s my £.02…

Happy New Year!

@Gareth – I hope you’re right but I think we’ll see even more fake “experts” than ever before this year. An expert to me is someone who has been there done it, bought the t-shirt and crucially learnt from their mistakes. That’s why I would only ever call myself an expert in digital recruitment (after 13 years I have a lot of t-shirts!), the social stuff just happens to be what’s important at the moment it’s not the be all and end all of it

@Miguel – Not sure why this comment string has turned into a debate about virtual recruitment fairs. Gareth’s right they’ve been around a long time (I remember seeing them on CD ROM back in 1998) and not taken off so there is much to prove. If you have something genuinely different and interesting though then fair enough and good luck to you

@Rik – Good to hear from you! To me futurology is about looking at emerging trends and learning from what’s happened in the past to develop likely scenarios for the future. You’re right I could be a lot bolder in my predictions but the current pace of change doesn’t really support that. Watch this space over the coming weeks though, I have much more to say!

@ Phillip – happy to chat, email me

@Andy – Agreed, I sincerely hope I’m wrong and that the adoption moves quicker this year!

Glad to see you are thriving post Barkers, but I am afraid you will have to be a bit bolder with your predictions if you are going to wear that futureoligest hat. These things are like New Year Resolutions, nobody expects all of them to come true.

Here are my 2010 predictions.

1. More specialist stakeholder owned job boards like NHS Jobs and jobs.ac.uk for the public sector. With pressure on budgets this is an easy way to save money painlessly.

2. More low cost and possibly open source AMS systems will come onto the market. The current choice is limited and the market will respond.

3. Another high profile recruitment advertising agency will go the way of Barkers, selling out, merging or just going out of business. Now which one, that would take a real futureologist?

Happy New Year

Rik

This is the first time I have read your blog and your comments for 2010 got me thinking. I have posted a brief response on my own blog and linked back to this article. http://www.phillipjenkins.co.uk/2009/12/throw-me-a-sheep/

I doubt either of us have much spare time, but if your interested in collaborating on a 2010 in recruitment feature let me know. Im interested in all aspects of technology in recruitment, from website – CRM – B.I.

Have a great New Year

Phil

dear Gareth, I wonder if you had time to pay a visit to the new Rich Internet apps, based on Adobe Flex, that I call virtual fairs. I assume you are talking about crappy HTML pages or even worse complex and annoying metaverses, which everybody fancied calling virtual career fairs in the past.

If you are looking for recruit branding, collect resumees or a pre-screening of candidates saving costs and CO2 emissions, then I believe that apps that can deliver more than 100.000 unique visitors, and conversion rates higher than 15 % (which job board can claim that?) with live IM chat and webinar interaction, are an interesting option,

The recruiters and jobseekers will decide, but I am afraid virtual career fairs are here to staaaaay ,

Merry Christmas!!,
Miguel