This Week, In Recruiting - Issue No23

Remember:?Recruiting Brainfood?for ever green, deep dive curated recruiting + HR content. Subscribe???

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Open Kitchen: How To Be Effective Whilst Ignorant

I don't embrace ignorance but I accept it as a fact of life. You can't be an expert at everything and if wait until you are comfortable with your knowledge level before you do anything, you'll end up not doing much at all.

It's for this reason the channels and communities of Recruiting Brainfood are somewhat(!) scattered about, horribly inconsistent in terms of brand and actually incomprehensible if you took a strategic perspective on it. I mean, who else writes TWO newsletters on separate platforms to different audiences, on consecutive mornings? ??. This is not a strategic idea. It's not even a good idea. But it's happening because I am prepared to 'act whilst ignorant'.

Here's some benefits of taking this approach:

1. Low Cost Experimentation

We generally spend way too much time doing due diligence on decisions whose outcomes are fundamentally difficult to predict. What we may reduce in risk - and it's not definitely clear you are actually doing this - you certainly pay for with time. And if you recall my essay on Coasian Constraints, if you are a solo player your personal time is 100% of your entire company's time - something super precious that you can ill afford to squander. It's almost always cheaper to 'try and fail' than 'analyse, strategise, execute'.

2. Consistent First Mover Advantage

This approach is not only cheaper but also definitely faster. Now we are not at Walmart on Black Friday, but being first mover can confer significant advantages, especially if you are able to 'land and expand' your audience by delivering value from the beginning. This does not mean other movers cannot get into the same game, but it does mean it will become increasingly heavier sledding for those who arrive later. Content consumers have finite attention spans - no one is free from Ronald Coase! - so, if you're in the business of audience building, or your business depends on having such an audience, being able to consistently move fast is a like always playing white in chess - the first mover gets the advantage because you are changing the board for everyone else.

3. Rapid Shipping (Once You Get There)

Getting there first is not enough, of course. It's even more important to be able to consistently deliver to a cadence (remember content cadence?). This is where the value of 'building in public' truly comes to the fore. Radical transparency is not only a more honest way of operating a business, but it is also a near limitless source of content ideas you can use to connect with your audience. In fact, when you operate in public, they cease to become 'content ideas' and instead are just public just rumination on stuff you don't have complete knowledge on. Your ignorance then, when made public, transforms from being a weakness to a strength - it becomes the active driver for things you can talk about.

4. Increase Resiliency in Decentralisation

image source: Bloom 2020

The kerfuffle on OnlyFans banning explicit content (follow the thread here for conversation, commentary and critique on it), is an example of the vulnerability we all share if we are overly dependent on one network or one channel. So rather than strategically selecting one channel / network / platform and committing everything you have on there, conducting lots of low cost experimentations on every channel, then building on the ones which show promise, you inadvertently achieve resilience through a kind of 'organic decentralisation'. Losing any one of these nodes will be painful, but not terminal as you have other nodes to rely on.

Aren't you dividing your audience Hung?

I like to think that the brainfood audience is deciding for themselves where they want to brainfood. You want read stuff on whats going on in the recruiting community? You're in the right place with This Week, In Recruiting. You want to spend more time on deeper dive content? Recruiting Brainfood is your ticket. You want to listen to smart conversations on brainfood topics? Check out the Recruiting Brainfood Podcast.

Of course you sign post all your other channels on each channel, but all of the audience data remains discreet to the channel and will stay that way. Migrating audiences is not the same as migrating data. 'Import CSV' in order to get an insta audience for your new channel comes with all kinds of ethical concerns. What you've done is basically taken the attention your audience has freely given you in one place - abstracted it as a sign of permanent commitment to you - and ported it somewhere else! They would be perfectly entitled to be upset with you if you did this. What the short term gain you may make in a vanity metric, you will lose forever in trust the audience once gave you.

So stop overthinking it. Grand strategies are great but lots of low cost experimentation is usually better. After all, no one really knows what they are doing, so stop asking and start doing.

Out of the Kitchen, onto the Lounge ??

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What's in the News?

SAP acquire talent data intelligence leader, Swoop Talent in the big purchase of the week.

Telling that the news report headlines the IP in the acquisition and Swoop Talent immediately folds into the SAP SuccessFactors business. The mission to be build the category of Human Experience Management is the SAP's big vision - read more about it here.

CloudPay raise $58 million almost exactly a year after raising $35 million in 2020.

Payments has always been sexy (jk) but never more so now in the world of the remote working and the distributed workforce. George LaRoque as ever with the exclusive interview - here he is with CloudPay CEO Paul Bartlett. If you want to keep up with HR tech M&A / Fundraising activity btw, the following George is the minimum requirement.

Finally, our friends at iCIMS file the registration statement for IPO.

Seems like the market has been waiting around for this one for a little while, so have a read of the PR here and apply to receive the prospectus by emailing: [email protected]

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share,?comment below,?this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer? (New Segment)

The hero Martyn Redstone is making an outstanding offer on jobs Chatbot focused job board - 50% off all prices using TWIR50!

Any readers/followers that are hiring for any conversational AI expertise - product managers, conversation designers, engineers, developers etc. 50% off any job postings at?https://bot-jobs.com?using code TWIR50. Get to it!

If you are a recruitment provider and want to be featured in next week's issue, make an offer to the community and?comment below?with the link and offer details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's Going On?

TruLondon: The Return, August 25th, 10.00am -11.00pm

Happening, this Wednesday. TruLondon remains the No1 event for the unexpected in our industry. Hosted by the one and only Bill Boorman, the recruiting unconference features 50 track leaders (including Bill Fischer, Roland Chesters, Charlotte Johns, James Mayes, Dr Joanna Abeyie MBE, Joanne Lockwood and many more) discussing topics ranging from neurodiversity, anti-semitism, homeless unemployment and more. If you want to get out of your comfort zone to talk to people with with different challenges in recruiting and the job search, this event is the one to attend. It's all day-er and nearly an all nighter, so get ready - register here (tickets donation)

SOSUV - The 10 Year Anniversary - August 24-25, 1pm to 9pm CEST

One of the best online communities there is, SOSU has made it's mark on the landscape of sourcing. Phil Tusing celebrates the 10 year anniversary with a 2 day conference featuring some of the best think-doers in the sourcing game today. Ticketed but it's a bargain from $99 onward - get to it here.

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep123 - Building Culture for Hybrid World of Work, August 27th, 2pm BST

You know what I think about Hybrid(!) but I have the luxury of having no friends so easy for me to critique on the sidelines. Almost everyone else has to figure out a way to accommodate this mixed mode of working - how to do this when so much of culture building was done in-person, on-premise? We're with Melanie Hayes, VP of People (Harvey Nash), Julian Steinbuch, Founder (TechMinders) and Mertcan Uzun, Senior Manager?People & Culture (Blinkist) Must attend folks - we're all in this. Register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter,?comment below?with the link and event details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Hiring?

346 jobs for recruiters, HR people, RPO, and roles with recruitment technology firms covering sales, product and customer success.

Check out the new 'companies' tab for a look at the 200 companies post directly on Brainfood Jobs Job Board. No scrape, no import - real companies, directly hiring. Get to it if you're a job seeker and / or post a job if you're hiring. Do it here

If you want your job posted on the Brainfood Job Board, click on the link above. Selected the 'Featured' or 'Promoted' tiers if you additionally want promotion in next week's issue

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Who's Moving?

Ludmila Tomperi?moves to Avien after 5 years with Zalando as Talent Acquisition Partner. I've known Lumi since we met for the first time in Berlin in some conference or other and it's been great to see her life and career progress in the way it has. Remains the best recruiter to know in Helsinki.

Julie Griggs takes up an interim HRD position with Dartford & Gravesham NHS Trust. Always impressed when practitioners venture out of the industry specialism and try new sectors to do their work. Good luck with the move Julie!

Patrick Hussain joins Google as Recruitment Lead for Germany. With previous experience with tech scale ups Attest, Zego and of course DeepMind, this looks like a highly suitable hire.

Tatiana Nogueira?moves to SAP as Director of Tech Talent Attraction, North America, after spending 1 and half years as Senior Executive Recruiting Lead at Microsoft.

Greg Arendt joins Chewy as VP of Talent Acquisition after over six years with Amazon in various TA leadership roles in the global operations division, having previously held senior positions with Kelly Services. Big hitting hire for Chewy.

Cindy Williams takes up the important position of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Lead at The Electoral Commission. Fascinating to learn more about how HR operated in unique institutions. Somebody should do a podcast series on it.

Aksha Gang moves to virtual events company Bizzabo as Digital Marketing Lead after 3 years with Vettery / Hired. Great to work with Aksha - who I believe was the first ever sponsor of TWIR. Thanks for taking a chance and good luck in the new role Aksha!

Martyn Wright stays in the consultancy sector, joining Wipro as European Talent Acquisition Head, after 2 and half years with EY as Deputy EMEIA FSO Talent Attraction & Acquisition Leader

Daniel McCray switches Amazon for Facebook, joining as Tech Recruiter. Interesting to observe the mini-market for recruiters developing amongst the elite technology companies. Hard to get in, forever demand for your skills once you do.

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business,?and feel the wider community needs to know about it,?comment below?with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue.?Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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What Are You Doing?

Daniel Callaghan, CEO of Veremark and Founder of Workplace Accelerator is now accepting applications for second cohort starting Q4 2021. 12-week virtual accelerator programme, with access to a network of 250+ mentors in HR / TA. PR here, apply here

Christopher Taylor, Host of Oven Ready HR is looking for guests for Season 3 of his podcast series. Have something to say about the state of recruitment today? Get in touch with Chris at [email protected]

Kristen Graham, formerly with brainfood sponsors VideoMyJob, has a new project - dossy.co - tackling potentially a much more significant problem - loneliness in senior population. Amazing project with an amazing entrepreneur - look forward to seeing how I can help with this Kristen!

Agnieszka Porebska, VP External Relations at Talent Alpha is looking for tech recruiters from agencies, RPO, internal teams to help with Future of Work Report 2021. See last years report here - if you can help, get in touch with Agnieszka directly here

Lars Schmidt - the awesome Lars Schmidt(!) - continues to bring new stuff to the community. Check out his latest offering - AmplifyHR job board.

Finally, congratulations to my buddy Marc Mapes, Executive Director for HiringSolved for achieving his MBA in Marketing from Western Governors University. A great response - and result(!) - from being made redundant last year due to pandemic induced recession.

If you are doing something new,?comment below?with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

Lots of exciting news to report, particularly on some blockchain stuff, some twitter + revue integrations and maybe a new idea I have for the next project - 'What Recruiters Think About X', a space where members of the community talk about stuff we aren't experts on but maybe bring in one of those experts to tell us all about it.

What do you think - worth an experiment?

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of?Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world o work.