Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog

No doubt, the organizers of the Society of Human Resources [SHRM] 63rd Annual Conference will tell you that their shindigs take a lot of advance planning. One assumes that includes their choice of venue, this year in Las Vegas.

Unable to substantiate my suspicions that the decision to congregate in the Mecca of smoke and mirrors had something to do with “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” I shall refrain from speculating that, if not that, perhaps some polyester PR plonker persuaded SHRM’s leadership that there is no better place to engage the dissenting voices going ga-ga for transparency than on the Vegas Strip. Where better to make a show of it!

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The Future of Work examines the challenges to conventional notions of work and organization brought on by new digital technologies and trends. As the velocity of change increases, institutions and individuals must adapt. Yet many structures, including those in education, government, business and the economy, often remain rooted in the past.

The report captures the insights of the Nineteenth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, where business leaders, technologists, international politicians, academics and innovators explored how global structures and institutions are being confronted by the 21st century realities of distributed knowledge, crowdsourcing, open platforms and networked environments.

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As business involves more interactions on the internet, the legal and practical implications of what you say and where you say things online is changing. Access to information is instantaneous-thoughtful responses and time to consider are rare.

It used to be that something was written, set aside, edited and mulled over before it was published in one of a few media outlets. Today, information, including photographs and video, get Tweeted, posted, linked, YouTubed, Googled and emailed instantaneously.

The opportunities to create havoc and legal liability abound. Part of it is the disconnect of between the author and the audiences. There is a false sense of intimacy in being able to communicate so quickly to multiple audiences of one.

Posting our hearts out from a computer, we are completely removed from the checks and balances of body language and voice inflections inherent in in-person communications. We like what we’re saying. We think we’re right. It’s often difficult to know when we are completely out of line until it’s too late. And once you post, it’s pretty much too late.

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Industry patriarch and beloved Dumbledorian John Sumser posts on HRExaminer another in his series on branding: Traffic Development. What follows will make more sense if you begin by reading John’s post and our exchange of comments. You may also want to use the restroom first.

I spent a good amount of time trying to post what follows to the original post in reply to a rebuff from John.  To no avail. Apparently a plug-in on John’s site may have become unplugged. Feel free to post your comments here or there, at this point it may not matter.

Anyway, reluctant to break the thread, or retire for the night with this undone, here is my closing argument…

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John Sumser poses some interesting questions in a post on HRExaminer: Structural Unemployment in HR , commenting:

The market will face a dichotomy: a surplus of people with HR resumes and a shortage of people with the right skills. This is how structural employment looks within a single discipline.

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As of the time of this writing there are somewhere between 10-20,000 online threats associated with recruiter training, maybe more. I should know. Not only have I been responsible for developing my own ingenious countermeasures to  threats like Threat 1158: “Hey Buddy, can you spare a dime-a-dozen Boolean string for my [fill in the blank] search?”, and Threat 3823: “I tweet therefore I am #socialrecruiting,” but I may have authored a few threats of my own.

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Okay, call me old-fashioned, a stickler if you like, but I happen to think publishing in the recruiting space comes with some social and corporate responsbilities. Don’t you?

While Jobster still has employees on the payroll it would serve their brand — not to mention Recruitopians and the community at large – if someone took a moment to monitor who is submitting what on Recruiting.com. Today, Filipino Hot Babes, tomorrow what – incest, donkey-love?

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Incoming Chief Executive Officer Jeff Seely on Monster.com:

I like an industry that is defined by some really great class A players

Outgoing Chief Jobster Jason Goldberg on the same subject:

Crap product!

In the final analysis, money talks.

Hat tip:  Jason Davis, RecruitingBlogs.com

‘The See-Through CEO’ » Amitai Givertz’s Blogversity Blog

Wired posts The See-Through CEO that explores the advantage corporate top-dogs gain from understanding and managing transparency as a strategic tool. The article weighs the pros and cons of radical transparency — as questionable a term as “totally honest” as if to suggest there are degrees of integrity — and cites some examples worth thinking about.

Read the rest of this entry » ‘The See-Through CEO’

As I read Jeff’s Hunter’ Talentism post Is Transparency Worth It? I find myself wondering why, having already complained of having a headache contemplating such things, he wants to take me into migraine territory.  Jeff Hunter quotes Jonathan Schwartz who is the CEO of Sun Microsystems – a blogger – noting that transparency for this CEO is not as problematic as it could be for some us given that he has little to lose with an authentically naked conversation.  After all, Sun Microsystems has been in the pits of late so what does Jonathan Shwartz have to lose with his transparency blogalogue?  To the contrary, Jeff Hunter argues he has much to gain. He goes on to say:

“I am still searching for an example of being “too transparent” costing someone a company, where there are many examples of lack of transparency (or “being caught in a lie”) doing a lot of damage.”

Well, needless to say, I can’t think of an example where being too transparent cost someone a company either, but then again, I do have a migraine dammit! And, as for “being caught in a lie” and “doing a lot of damage” let’s consider for a moment the scandal de jour.

Ex-U.S. Congressman Mark Foley is demonstrating the cynical side of transparency, coming to full disclosure late in the game. Mark Foley resigned his office in disgrace over his sexually explicit text messages to underage boys, confusing the roles of Congressional Page with Washington call boy.  In damage control mode, Mark Foley is now being very open about his homosexuality – not a crime – and is sharing with the whole world his struggle with alcoholism, made worse by the unresolved emotional fallout resulting from his own being manhandled as a boy by a priest. Sound familiar?

In reply to Jeff Hunter’s post, one wonders how this type of “transparency” would have advanced the politician’s career had he made these revelations on his resume, before being labeled as a hypocrite and corrupt pervert. If Mark Foley had made his problems known up-front perhaps the resulting debate would have led to a more constructive outcome with the possibility of our being sympathetic, not as we are now, disgusted.  But of course, that would not have been possible would it? Who wants an emotional wreck – another drunk – at the seat of government?

Being “too transparent” – drawing a parallel between the ambitions and power plays in business and politics, as illustrated here – can be a decidedly bad thing. True, coming clean after the fact makes the offense seem more pathetic than sinister and one could argue there was some authenticity in Mark Foley’s decision to resign on-the-spot, without creating an even bigger circus of the whole affair but really, at this point, who cares?

The connection here may be tenuous, I accept that.  My question is, is there not a time and a place for everything, including transparency?

I have had a number of conversations in recent days about authenticity and transparency and evangelism and corporate blogging and the human condition. I have to admit, these things rattle around my cranium causing me to have a headache, raising more questions than answers. How these converging and sometimes colliding concepts are being applied – talent management, marketing communications and selling, the points of intersection for me – is interesting but not quite understood yet.  Trying to reconcile the absurdity of all this hypothesizing with the working realities we face every day leads me to wonder how I will ever translate these value propositions into deliverables, actions that count for something in my world – productivity and profit, self-actualization. I guess I should just get on with it, right?

Creating the impression of being more self-assured than I am, I get by winging it: transparency this, authentic that, accountability up, turnover down, this one’s in, that one’s out, yada, yada, yada… Hardly real is it, creating an impression that you might be in the know and then winging it. You would think my er-um speech and fidgety behavior would give away my discomfort fluffing it with the experts who champion such lofty things. Amazingly, some acknowledge me as one of the initiated. Others, too polite to tell me that they see right through my highfalutin tootin’, stop returning calls. How transparent is that?

Even so, when we talk about the new paradigm for business and talent management – without quite grasping what it all means and how it might all work – it is because we want to believe that there is more to our dealings than the routine chicanery, the marketing spin, the misleading sales tactics, and the shark-chumming that we have somehow confused with best-practice, deal making and winning the war for talent. If that desire alone is not enough to advance the agenda, the bubbling of transparency and authenticity among our leaders, vaporizing in conversation and online, amounts to nothing more than reflux.

Of course, all these confessions affect my personal brand don’t they? At least I have come to realize the therapeutic benefits of this openness. I am mildly amused that my being so uninhibited and honest – about faking for example – is, in of itself, quintessentially authentic, doing my brand good. But then again, I might be kidding myself or worse, you might think I’m kidding you – like one of those synthetic blogger types – unwittingly unravelling any good this baring of my soul might have done. Ouch! That would be awful, wouldn’t it?

So there you are, there you have it. How much more transparent could you want me to be? If my being upfront with you in this candid and reflective way does not make up for my being poorly versed in the new lingo of naked conversations, forgive me, do.

Most people I ask complain that unsolicited email is the most egregious form of advertising. There are many reasons for this, some of which I understand and some of which I don’t. To the extent that the cumulative affect of spam – clogging stuff up – is problematic, and porn and nasty words are offensive to most right-minded people, I get it. I can even see why some people might get annoyed with the same message touting mortgages or member-enhancing herbal concoctions arriving day in and day out can get tiresome. Even the deceptive subject lines. But, to the extent that spam is inherently bad because it is unsolicited, makes no sense to me at all.

With few exceptions advertising is, by its nature, obtrusive and mostly irrelevant to the luckless recipients’ needs, wants and desires. Most advertising is unsolicited, or a trade-off at best. I want televised entertainment and news, so I put up with the ads. Do I want to change my choice of tampon, refinance my house, or sleep with Fabio?  I don’t. Do you?  I listen to the radio, so I accept the ads. Am I suing someone, looking for hurricane shutters, needing a surgical procedure, fixing my credit scores and wishing I had to the fortitude to admit I’m an alcoholic and need help? Not this year. I drive up and down the turnpike but do I want to reconsider my unwanted pregnancy, go to college or tune in to another radio station and get a different demographically targeted set of ads? No more than I want to finish my on-the-road coffee without having to consider the fact that I should have saved a buck and bought a Styrofoam sandwich too.

Advertising – unsolicited, unwanted, and unnecessary – is everywhere! I use Instant Messenger and now have to consider whether I would do a number on Britney Spears or lie alone on a sleep-number bed. Even in the men’s room, as I stand there peeing, I am confronted with even more choices – but then again, what better place to catch my attention as I hold in my hand the very object of most advertisers subtle messaging? Yes, as an advertiser myself, I too find myself thinking on my feet.

The bottom-line? Advertising is the price we pay for free speech, freedom of choice and living in a free society. Whether unsolicited or not, it’s in your face (or in your hands) most of the time. And in the absence of these freedoms, advertising simply becomes repackaged and called propaganda.  Messaging in its multifarious forms is so prevalent because it’s fundamentally human.

Shally “Shallywag” Steckerl recently had a hot thread going on with his post Didn’t like SMS recruiting? Think again! Among the possible objections to text messaging recruitment/candidate communications to cell phones is the concern that this is “spamming”. But just as Yahoo! HotJobs and Monster have mass e-mail options for employers – is that considered spamming – the end may justify the means. Candidates are a de facto – not sacrosanct – audience. What many “Oh-golly-you-spammer-degenerate” critics seemingly forget is that when a candidate posts their resume online they are inviting the attention of recruiters. If those recruiters turn to bulk mail, text messaging or mass e-mail to get their message delivered, then that’s price a candidate must be prepared to pay for advertising themselves. While I concede that the delivery method can negatively impact employer branding and the candidate experience, that’s not the point here. The point is that some people should get over themselves thinking that spam is a) unstoppable and b) the work of Satan.

I don’t choose to hear “f-ing” this and “f-ing” that, but if I’m “out there” I accept there is a possibility I will.  I don’t want to cleanse my bowels or find a job but I’m grateful that there is someone out there who recognizes that one day I might. And, I know our inboxes and cell phones are so personal to us as to be near-holy, but He too moves in mysterious ways. I suggest that anyone who has the problem today we all faced a few years back with unsolicited “junk” should consider that – as with all two way communication – they too have a responsibility to manage their lives. With freedom comes responsibility, no?  I say, if you don’t like it, block it. If you don’t know how to block it, read the manual.  In the meantime, long live advertising – in all its myriad forms!