Search Results - ideas

Blog Post: An interview with VisualCV.com: I don't know how many of you have had a look at VisualCV.com yet? In a word: cute. Great idea, great networking capability, great future. We're all…; Added by Paul Harrison at 7:05am on August 18, 2008

Blog Post: Forget Big Data. Recruitment Has a Huge Data Problem.: Whenever I see an article on Big Data and how it's going to revolutionize HR from…; Added by Joel McLean at 5:13pm on August 14, 2015

Blog Post: HS Graduates Should Embrace Flexibility & Recruiters as They Enter College: Take Heed Millennials it Could be a Bumpy (But Exciting) Ride

It’s…; Added by Jason S. Capps, Ph.D. at 8:12pm on July 21, 2016

Blog Post: ERE/SourceCon Anaheim 2016: One Attendee's Perspective: ERE's SourceCon Anaheim was a stellar event. I arrived on a Tuesday Sept 20 -…; Added by Mike Rasmussen at 11:28pm on September 23, 2016

Blog Post: What you know about Internet Resume searching is wrong: Do you use search engines to look for resumes on the Internet? Do you use exclusions such as "-jobs" or "-submit"?

If you do. Stop it. Read…; Added by Donato Diorio at 11:32pm on June 22, 2010

Blog Post: 7 Best Practice Strategies for Virtual Campus Recruiting: Hiring graduate talents is one of the biggest challenges companies face today. That’s why hiring teams are steadily adopting virtual campus recruitment efforts in today’s digitized…; Added by Ngan Pham at 8:46pm on February 13, 2022

Topic: Meet Jeff Newman, Empathetic Eccentricity: Passion in Recruitment, Punjabi Cooking To History of Baltic Republics: thenticity. My friends, rarely has someone been so transparent in his quirks, been so effusive in his passion in our trade, and so in love with candy, wife and gaming ... but within it all ... a love for his fellow man. He identified the 9/11 perspective, one I share ... a crisis which taught lessons. We found the inner core of what drives this business for not only successful people but also successful human beings. Jeff is one of those successful 'human beings' because he has been shaped, by circumstance, to view his own personal mortality. Even so ... its also part of who Jeff truly is as a person to pull himself forward, look his client in the eyes, and be driven to know what he can do for his fellow man. He is the embodiment of the reality our friend Steve Levy often speaks of ... the People skills 1.0 few people pay mind to, preferring a run from basics and onwards to all things 2.0 We know that without people skills 1.0 we have fads and gimmickry. In Jeff, we have someone who can count 1.0, 2.0 and so forth and having lived them before they were terms. A 'people' person in a people 'industry' - imagine that. Jeff reflects the conscience of Industry Leader, Don Ramer and his themes of bringing empathy, transparency and love to our passion for humanity and I am esteemed to have observed this in his own words. We have authenticity as a driving force in a veteran recruiter like Jeff, not for love of dollar alone, but for love of looking in his reflection and valuing what he represents. It matters to Jeff, it matters to me and it should matter to all of us. It isn't a value that is fait accompli in this industry regretfully. I see talent in Jeff, his colleagues at the office do as well. but today my friends, it is important all of you see it as well which is why I take great pleasure in introducing a valued contributor to our community today. Meet Our friend .... Jeff Newman. Jeff Newman, Senior Technical Recruiter at Genesis10 • RecruitingBlogs Profile • Linkedin Profile • Office Email and Personal Email • Office Number: 212.688.5522 ext. 20 Q&A with Jeff Newman Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Jeff: One of my strongest recruiting traits is that I really am not much of a game player. I am the same guy at home, as I am talking with a candidate, talking with a peer or making friends with someone in Human Resources. My essence, the core of Jeff Newman, is to take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass. I do this at the office, at home and occasionally at the Gym (to know me is to hug me). I am married 11 years as of January 18th. The key to my marriage is communication, being friends first, and nodding, leaning forward, and looking right in her eyes while saying “I agree”. It is kind of cool that that works in Sales relationships too, eh? Senda is my wife’s name and she is an MSW/CSW who specializes in HIV/AIDS. She works as a Senior Social Worker for St. Mary's in Harlem http://www.stmarysharlem.com/jsp/. I figure that her good work might make up for some of the things I've done while, what’s the word the hardcore ethicists use now, “rusing”? When I started, we called it Pirating...kinda like the folks in Somalia but without the heavy weaponry. Most important in my home life is the fact that Senda knows that recruiting often has lot more failure then success. We get hung up on more then we get to hear “AWESOME, I have been WAITING for someone to call me at work who I never heard of!” I had a boss once say to me that this is a Business of Failure. What do you call a baseball player who only succeeds three times out of ten? Very rich. The trick is to try and take that home as little as possible. At least in NYC, non-corporate side recruiters (especially in IT) are looked at better than muggers but still worse than building contractors, in terms of social status. You can't behave like that or you will start to believe you are that. Most of all, you cannot take the fact that out of 75 calls you made that day, 70 amounted to nothing. You take home the 5 that were successful and leave the negative ones in the office. I also am the pet human of 2 of the coolest cats in the world. Cleo has had Senda and I for 11 years, she is all black and she has had us since she was still taking milk in the bottle. She likes to lie in our bed and she sleeps with us every night. Goofy, our tabby, is about 2 years old and he is chock full of energy. Senda taught him how to play fetch with toy mice and he can do this for hours on end. He and Cleo are not the best of friends, however. Six Degrees: Tell us about the after-hours version of Jeff Newman Jeff: As anyone who has spent more then 10 minutes with me will tell you, I am quite unusual. If I was richer, they’d call me eccentric and I’d be on the front page of the NY Post. I feel that you can never have enough knowledge, learn enough things, and or try enough new things. I try to keep my span of knowledge broad, even if just to use as tidbits when forming a relationship. I genuinely am interested in everything from Punjabi cooking to the history of the Baltic republics. One thing unusual in our house is that we don't own a television. We watch DVDs through the PC and all the major networks post their shows through their websites so we don't miss much. At then end of the day, I think we only watch Lost, Fringe and 30 Rock, anyway. We watched the Presidential Debates streamed live through MSNBC.com and Meet the Press on the treadmill at the Gym. With the rest of the time, we talk, we read and we go out with friends. We'll play board or card games together and PC Games alone. My wife is an Everquest addict, she has been playing since 1999. In fact, I'll often call her by her EQ name. I'll pick up a new PC game every so often, from Spore (which stunk) to anything by Paradox Entertainment. Senda and I are also big Science Fiction fans, especially with Star Wars, but not limited to that. We go to I-Con every year and other Sci-Fi conventions when they hit NYC. As a Technical Recruiter, I have often made great connections through this world. Between us, I'd still be involved even if I was hunting for Admins. If that wasn't enough, I am also a StumbleUpon fan. If you are unfamiliar with that, check out the site. Make sure you have a good block of free time and don't say I didn't warn you. One more thing that I think really is important to understanding me is that I have Multiple Sclerosis. Go figure: I survived 9/11 yet was diagnosed shortly thereafter with MS. Nothing gives you greater focus and better understanding of whom you are that having a challenge of that nature. I usually don't mention it, or make a big deal about it but in terms of recruiting it has been very helpful. I can empathize and understand much better the unique challenges that everyone faces, even if I have never walked in those shoes. And it really does make for great stories. Every candidate has different and unique needs and helping them get through often means the difference between a placement and a turn down. Six Degrees: How many years as a recruiter? Jeff: I have been an Staffing Firm side recruiter for 10+ years. I have always done technical/IT staffing, through the good and bad times. I have never hesitated to place a different skill set if that was what the client wanted from me however. In recruiting you can specialize but you should never limit yourself. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Jeff: Ahh, I wish I could say I was embarrassed to admit it, but, another thing that people who know me will tell you is that Newman doesn't really get embarrassed much. I graduated Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/ in May 1998. I was married for 6 months and had spent the majority of my college career enjoying myself as opposed to studying. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up but I knew I needed a job. I sent out 200 plus resumes. A Technical Recruiting firm, Recruit Dynamics, had called me in because I had JAVA on my resume. I had JAVA there, because I was pumping that resume as much as I could, and once I had read a book on JAVA. They had a 6 month contract in Rochester, Minnesota for an entry level programmer. I replied that I really wasn't a developer I had applied for the recruiter role. You know, the one with no experience needed. The lady who brought me in came out and said the boss would meet with me, but not until lunch. It was about 8:30 AM at the time... I said no worries and was it OK if I waited here. I waited 6+ hours, to finally interview with the President of the firm. After an hour or so, he said, “Jeff, you know nothing about recruiting, in fact you know nothing about business. I do like the persistence of someone who will wait hours for an interview. Let's try it for 30 days and see what happens.” The irony is what kept me in the office wasn't truly persistence. It was the air-conditioning, free coffee and a bunch of magazines. I had no money and no place else I had to be. That's why I stuck around. 10 years later. I think it was a good decision. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Jeff: For me, it was the Death of COBOL following Y2k. For the year leading up to Y2K, COBOL developers were naming their rates. People who had taken a class in COBOL in 1978 and had been driving a cab ever since, were getting high paying contracting gigs. Everyone needed COBOL/MAINFRAME experts, they were paying for them through the nose and you couldn't find one not booked up to save your life. It was fun, the money was great, and I was very busy. Then came January 1st, 2000. The world didn't end, the machines stayed A-OK and I had to fire 50+ contractors. Developers, who a year ago wouldn't take your calls, were calling everyday. There was nothing we could do to help any of them. This taught me two very important lessons. First, it said don't focus your recruiting in one area or skill set. Diversity is the spice of life and to spread out as much as possible. The second thing it taught me was to keep your skills cutting edge or you could wake up one day and find yourself as obsolete as a Blacksmith after the invention of the personal automobile. A close runner up is the .Com bubble. The lesson I learned there was do not take commission payments in stock. Speaking of which, if anyone is interested in shares of Flooz, I have PLENTY! Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Jeff: I cannot name one specific person who I model myself on, but I have taken many different pieces from people over the years. The Big Boss at APS-Botal was a guy name Steve Sayetta. He had arranged for me to attend an 8 hour NYATS seminar. I complained as it was really focused on Admin recruiters and I only did IT. He said, “Newman, if you learn one thing, it will have been worth the time you spend.” I really believe that and have applied it to my recruiting career. I have worked with some amazing people over the years. TK Sheridan, Tom Sheridan and Paul Sheridan at E-Claro taught me the basics of the industry, from how to calculate a bill rate to the best way to close off a call without hurting someone’s feelings. Peter Elia, from APS-BOTAL (now Infinity Staffing), got me to better appreciate the importance of details. Peter is also one of the best relationship managers out there. He was also the best boss I ever had, because he had served “in the trenches” and knew what it was all about. Darren Greif, the IT Staffing Director from the Bachrach Group, is the best closer you have ever seen. He could see all the problems in a deal that would need to be gotten over before anyone else. As a manager, his policy of helping you to do better without interfering with what was working was amazing. Lately, I have been introduced and begun working with Steve Levy. I had read his blog, seen his comments on recruitingblogs.com, his blog and ERE and then I got to meet him in person. At first I was a bit star struck. But then I got to work with him and I thought, “And I got all veklempt of this?” Kids may admire and want to emulate sports heroes and guitar wizards, but since I started reading their works, for me it has been guys like Glenn Gutmacher, Shally Steckerl and Steve. What I have learned from him has just been fantastic. I try to learn as much from everyone I work with as I can get. Your talents can only get better through knowledge and practice. [I had other things to say about Steve but he knows where I live and work] Six Degrees: Tell us about your day in the life at the office Jeff: Well, right now I am with Genesis10. Genesis10 is one of the largest privately held business and IT staffing firms in the nation. The company was started in 1999, and has grown, on average, at a rate of 44%. One of the main reasons I chose to join Genesis10 is founder/CEO Harley Lippman. His bio really impressed me. Every company is a sailing ship and much can be told about how it will travel if you know her captain. Personally, I am a senior recruiter on a team dedicated to supporting one client in midtown NYC. The client has an awe inspiring need for excellent developers, especially in C++/UNIX. The process is one of the most difficult hurdles I have ever seen candidates need to get through, including two technical screens, a code review and then a final interview. It does ensure that our client is only getting the crème de le crème of the industry. This was the first time in about 6 years that I have ever been just recruiting, as opposed to a full desk. It is also the first time since the start of my career that I have been just supporting one client. With Genesis10's depth of resources and it's commitment to providing the best people, both technically and personality wise, I feel very comfortable in this role. It was an adjustment for a bit however. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Jeff: I am mainly acquainted with the firms in NYC. Our business, especially in IT, all seems to be 6 degrees of one another. I have heard buzz about many of the firms in our sphere, good and bad. Recruiters and sales people tend to gossip. Based on my second sentence in this paragraph, I will go with discretion being the better part of valor. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Jeff: The way you can wake up and have the market give you a surprise, I'd be uncomfortable guessing anything at this point. I don't just think our industry will change, I think the United States is changing. I couldn't even hazard a guess as to where we will be in a year. To quote myself from above, all you can do is “take everything with a smile, good and bad, and remember that this too will pass.” Six Degrees: What is your next career goal? What do you need to do to get there? Jeff: While at the Bachrach Group I helped to train a number of Junior recruiters. This was one of the most satisfying experiences of my career. It was a talent I didn't know I had and I really enjoyed it. At some point, I'd really like to be able to that again. Past that, I'd like to retire at 50 but if you look at my 401k.... To get there, you just need to work hard and get lucky.…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 12:34am on January 19, 2009

Topic: Meet Andrew Heywood, Global Recruiter Veteran from Google, Apple, Adobe - Dog's Best Friend: dogs. * Email Andrew Directly Andrew Heywood is a veteran recruiter/sourcer with corporate staffing experience at Google, Apple, and Adobe. Andrew has developed extensive International staffing experience including Japan, Korea, India, China, Zurich, London and Australia markets. In addition, Andrew has project management, and sales expertise both in domestic and international markets. He has lived and worked in Japan for 4.5 years and gained additional international travel experience in Germany, Singapore, Philippines, Canada, and Mexico. Andrew is multi-lingual, speaking Japanese (JLPT3) and Cantonese (basic) in addition to his native English. Andrew's specific areas of expertise include: Diversity Recruiting Best Practices, Google ATS, HRIS, Hire.com, Filefinder, Offer Work-flow (Google specific), Internet Sourcing Training, Boolean Searches, LinkedIn, Conferences, Corporate Directories, Alumni directories, Associations, proprietary database, job boards, networking, and cold calls. Q&A with Andrew Heywood Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world. Andrew: I am currently single living in Northern California with my two wonderful dogs Kiseki and Surf. They are both 4.5 years old and I adopted them from the rescue organization Norsled (http://www.norsled.org/available.html). My family (father, mother, sister, brother) all live in California and I spend time with them when I can. I am an active person who loves the outdoors and is involved with various sport activities (triathlons, hiking, yoga, badminton). I use to be a Collegiate Division I, Cross Country runner and still love to run to this day. When I am not playing a sport, I love to keep up with my Japanese and volunteer my time with the dog rescue group Norsled. I spent over 4 years living/working in Japan prior to moving back to California (Jan 2005). I have then caught the travel bug and love to explore new parts of the world when time allows. Six Degrees: How many years have you been in the staffing industry? Andrew: I have been recruiting for over 7 years. I spent my first 3 years working for a recruiting agency in the heart of Tokyo Japan, then following working in house for Google, Apple, and Adobe once I moved back to the United States. Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter? Andrew: Prior to recruiting, I had just graduated from college and spent one year as an inside sales representative for MA Laboratories in San Jose California. I then moved to Japan to teach English in the country side for a year adventure before I settle down with my career. Little did I know that coming to a country on the other side of the world would open up a new career that I am very passionate about today. I had just completed my English teaching contract with the JET Program and moved back to California two months before September 11 2001. The job market had crumbled and there were no jobs in sight. I attended an alumni networking event for the JET Program (the program I taught English for in Japan) and there was a recruiting agency there trying to find young talent to go back to Tokyo and train to become a Head Hunter/Recruitment Consultant. I had no idea of what being a Head Hunter/Recruitment Consultant was all about, however I decided to take a chance and move back to Japan. The company Access Technology Japan (ATJ), really taught me the hard nose basics of sourcing and recruiting great talent. I was recruiting sales, marketing, IT professionals and developers. This was not only my first time in this profession, however I was recruiting Japanese nationals into foreign companies in Japan (which add another level to the learning curve). At the same time, I was also developing my Japanese language skills. I have never work so hard in my life however at the same time enjoying every minute of it. There was no such thing as a 40 hour week, I would call it more of a 60 - 80 hour week including working Saturdays. The colleagues who worked with me in the office were from all parts of the world (Japan, Canada, USA, Australia, Romania, China, Taiwan, New Zealand, etc) which made the experience even more exciting. If I look back at the various challenges learning recruiting in that market, I realize how much I learned as a 23 year old getting into the business. After ATJ, I decided to move back to California and begin my career in recruiting in the states. I ironically had more experience working in a foreign country than I did my own. When I moved back to California in January 2005, Google had just begun its growth frenzy and I had heard great things about working there. I applied and my good friend who was working in the AdSense department referred me to the staffing department. I landed a contract role where I was able to contribute to many of the emerging technical offices (China, Japan, India, Zurich, and Australia). I focused on technical positions from individual contributor to higher management. I spent a total time of 3.7 years at Google (2 years contract and 1.7 years as a permanent employee) focusing on a variety of technical roles not just for over seas offices but the Mountain View Head Quarters and YouTube San Bruno office. I also had the pleasure of working for Apple Computer and Adobe Systems during the time I was a contract recruiter. I am currently starting to work on a free-lance basis venturing into a new chapter of my recruiting career. Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career? Andrew: Without a doubt it would be during my first recruiting job at ATJ in Japan because it gave me the opportunity to feel the sense how much you are impacting a persons life and career. I learned so much during these years that I am using these basics to this day. A specific example of this is my experience working with a Japanese Sales Manager candidate. Although he did not accept the role I was recruiting him for due to his family situation, he told me I was one of the best recruiters he has ever worked with. It was the first deal I lost, but realized the relationship and trust I built with this person lasts a lifetime. We still keep in contact to this day and he has referred many people to me. Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after? Andrew: I have learned so much from many people I have worked with in Japan, Google, Apple and Adobe. It is hard for me to point out one particular person as I have had the honor of working with some top notch recruiters and people. From each experience, I take aspects I lack and try to grow from there. Six Degrees: Tell us about your most recent gigs. Andrew: My most recent position was recruiting technical roles for the YouTube San Bruno offices. I was located on site in San Bruno California. Google in general has a staffing organization consisting of hundreds of recruiters, although my group consisted of 5 recruiters at YouTube. Six Degrees: (A) What other companies' recruiting operations do you admire or have heard are best-practice examples? Andrew: I also had great experiences working for Apple Computer and Adobe Systems in their staffing organizations. Although each different in their own respect, they each have top notch teams and candidate process management. Six Degrees: What recent general news story or industry trend do you feel will have an impact on your work in the future? Why? Andrew: I feel the current state of the economy is definitely impacting the recruiting industry as a whole as many companies are freezing head count and laying off employees. “HOW DOES ANDREW DO IT?” Six Degrees: How many applicants at your present employer do you estimate are hired from your corporate website as compared to how many are hired through referrals? Andrew: At Google, they would receive thousands of resumes a day. however not all the hires came from general applications. More came from sourcing, various events and referrals. Google takes recruiting very seriously and will use these methods to find the best talent. Six Degrees: What is the source of the "Most Hires" collected from at your present employer? (In terms of Quantity #) Andrew: The source of most hires would have to be through proactive sourcing and employee Referrals. Six Degrees: What is the source of your "LOWEST COST OF HIRES" - (least amount of invested resources for the easiest hires, regardless of quality) at your present employer? Andrew: The source of lowest cost of hire would be through general application. Google has created a great environment in which top talent proactively apply. It is truly amazing the talent that works at the company. Six Degrees: What talent niche groups do you target and are these particular talent areas specialized under your review? Andrew: Through out the last 4 years I have focused on various software engineering professionals (back and front end software engineers, web developers, flash developers, product management, and system operations,). Also I have a niche for hard to find roles specifically language specific for instance korean and Japanese speaking engineers. Six Degrees: What types of training in sourcing/recruitment are available to you and have you taken advantage of? Andrew: I feel very lucky to have worked for some great corporations here in the Silicon Valley who make a great investment in the training of their staffing professionals. I have been able to take advantage of online, seminar, and video conference training. I always strive to continue and develop my skills. Six Degrees: What recruitment software tools do you use in your day to day recruitment activities & do they translate effectively within all of the different countries where you recruit? Andrew: In house ATS and the internet (Blogs, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, boolean searches, job boards, patent searches, alumni groups etc.) Some of the tools we use here in the U.S. do not translate to finding great talent directly as with other parts of the world. For example with a more private sensitive country like Japan, it is harder to do a Linkedin search to source good talent. Many people are very reluctant to put their information on the web. It is more about the referral process and face to face interaction which takes more time. Although the up and coming engineering talent often will have their own blogs or web site. They are more keen to engage in this but one will have to be able to at times understand Japanese as it may not be in English. Six Degrees: What tools (technology or old school file folder, for example) did you first encounter early in your recruitment career? Andrew: When I first started recruiting, I used a Japanese phone book and in house database at the agency I worked for in Japan. The first three months I worked at the company, I was cold calling (cold calling was still going on strong in that market at the time) 8 hours a day then spending the rest of my day meeting candidates at coffee shops and at the office. The tools were very limited and I also attended many conferences to meet candidates and various hang out locations. Since in Japanese culture many people go out to drink after work with co-workers, I often would go to a local bar or club to meet potential candidates. In fact, some of the people I met at these local hang outs I placed into different companies. Six Degrees: How did your expectations of being a recruiter compare to the actual, first time you got on the phone or in the cubicle? In your opinion, how do people's assumptions about our vocation differ from reality? Andrew: The only expectation of being a recruiter was from my sister who first started in the business when I was in college. However at the time I didn't pay attention to her line of work and just remember her always doing research for her company. I didn't find it exciting at the time and before joining the agency in Japan and was a little hesitate but had no other job option. Six Degrees: Worst mistake, biggest goof, lousiest practice you thought would fly but didn’t…and how that was a learning experience? Andrew: My biggest mistake when I first began recruiting was my pre-qualifying skills. It was so tough in the Japanese market to bring someone in from a cold call that I remember often times not doing a good job pre-qualifying. I learned right away how to be smarter with my efforts versus working harder. Six Degrees: “Best practice” you are most proud of developing (now or in the past) in your recruiting career? Andrew: One of my strengths is my customer service and relationship building skills. I believe one of the best practices I tried to leave with each opportunity is treating each candidate as if they are the only person I am dealing with. I have been commented on this often and have conducted many informal training on my style. Although very busy I always try to make each person feel specifically special trying to at least leave them with the good image of the company even if they didn't get the job. Recommendations For Andrew Heywood “I have known Andrew for many years. He takes great pride in matching people with the right job and takes a personal interest in their continued success and career development. I have seen many people walk up and thank Andrew for helping them years earlier.” March 18, 2009 Paul Peissner, Alliance Manager - Business Development Specialist, BMC Software “Andrew has contributed enormously for building the engineering team for Google. He has realized great trust among line managers as a Recruiter who can actually deliver. Andrew has a very challenging assignment to hire world's top notch engineers with Japanese language qualification. Regardless of the challenge, with the three years that Andrew has worked for Google, Andrew has achieved to build a great engineering team in which the team he built is making enormous contribution to the core product development. Andrew is greatly experienced Recruiter where he can manage the entire recruiting life cycle. He has great sustainability in the way he manages candidate and client relation. He also has great interpersonal skills in the way he knows how to gain and maintain trust with candidates. I have worked very closely with Andrew at Google for two years and I highly recommend him as professional recruiter.” September 2, 2008 Tim Hayashi, Recruiter at Google Inc. “Andrew is such a pleasure to work with. He is a sincere, genuine, hard worker who will go above and beyond what the job entails. I enjoyed working with Andrew on my team. He's one of the most polite people I have ever met and has a kind, gentle heart. Andrew is a superstar performer and I'm glad that we were able to work together.” February 11, 2008 Gina Pak (gpak@longview-inc.com), Recruiter/Coordinator, Google “It was great working with Andrew. He always has a positive attitude and develops a great rapport with his work colleagues. Andrews works hard to get things done in time. I highly recommend him to anyone!” February 11, 2008 Dennis Ho, Recruiter at Google “Andrew is an excellent recruiter who knows how to close the deal. He finds the candidate, gets them through the process, and gets them to accept the offer in an efficient and timely manner. He understands the importance of making the sale.” February 11, 2008 Christopher Cheung, Internet Sourcer, GOOGLE “Andrew is an amazing recruiter. He is soft spoken but articulate. I’ve worked with Andrew at Google in different groups but we often worked together to source/recruit Japanese professionals for both Mountain View and Tokyo Google offices. Andrew gave me some great tips and resources on finding Japanese candidates. We often shared ideas and brainstormed on ways to find the Japanese Google talent. He is very smart, resourceful, responsive and friendly. I had a great time working with him and he is one of the successful recruiters that I know of at Google. You can never go wrong hiring Andrew!” February 10, 2008 Ritu Singh, Partner Solutions Organization Sourcer, Google “Andrew is a friendly and passionate recruiter. He speaks Japanese and has good skill to recruit software engineers internationally. He works hard to hire good software engineers in Japan as well as those in U.S. who would like to work for products targeted at Japanese market.” February 9, 2008 Junji Takagi, Software Engineer, Google “Andrew is hiring lots of Japanese software engineers in US and in Japan. He works with a certain amount of teamwork and helps me often.” January 31, 2008 Jun Inada, Engineering Recruiter in Tokyo, Google Japan…; Added by Dave Mendoza at 2:51am on March 30, 2009

Topic: Fifteen (15) Open Positions | Open to Splits: jwallace@bearITstaff.com | Joseph Wallace, VP of Technology / Principal Engineer |: ong Windows 2000/2003/XP system administration skills; experience with Active Directory and security hardening of Windows systems • Additional experience with RedHat Linux EN4 & EN5 and/or Solaris 8 & 10 desired. • Knowledge of server virtualization technologies desired. • Knowledge of Centrify Direct Control or Vintela VAS, and VMware desired. • Knowledge of advanced application server configuration including performance tuning, clustering, etc. • Basic knowledge of relational databases desired (Sybase, MySQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL). • Basic knowledge of networking concepts and protocols (SNMP, TCP/IP, ftp, NFS/Samba, etc.) • Experience with Symantec/McAfee Antivirus Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 2. Title: Software Integrator (Active TS/SCI Needed) Skills: SW integration, Systems Integration Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Job Description: Experienced SW integration and test, ability to write and modify Unix scripts (Bourne, C, Korn, others) and Windows scripts; excellent troubleshooting skills; familiarity with Unix and Windows; additional familiarity and understanding of Web Services, Oracle, and Sybase a plus. Knowledge of the SIGINT domain and SIGINT COTS/GOTS is a plus (GALE, SOAP, CETS, NCCT, S3B, and ONEROOF). Responsibilities include the integration of software products and applications. Preparing COTS/GOTS packaging for builds, coordination of the builds with the partner and answering the partner's questions. This person must also provide build, integration and partner status to IPT leads as well as work with the other IPTs/Working Groups as necessary. This is a hands-on position with integration and lead responsibilities and also includes maintaining integration documentation. Compensation is commensurate with experience. Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3. Title: Database Engineer (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: The DCGS-A program is developing a Service Oriented Architecture bringing together over 15 Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server and MySQL databases running on Linux and Windows. DCGS-A needs talented, experienced database engineers who can take an idea, run with it, and see it all the way through to completion. Our database engineers support the following activities: • Support data integration efforts • Develop security hardening, auditing, and maintenance scripts • Analyze performance at the OS, database, and SQL level, including trace file analysis • Assist application developers with database problems • Upgrade and apply patches to databases • Minimum of 6 years of experience developing, administering and troubleshooting Oracle or MS SQL Server databases Minimum of 2 years of experience working with Oracle in a Linux or Unix environment, including shell scripting and analysis of CPU, memory, and disk bottlenecks. Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 4. Title: Software / Systems Integrator (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: • System administration knowledge of Unix, Linux and/or PC based platforms; knowledge of server virtualization technologies • Integration and Troubleshooting of COTS/GOTS packages and custom designed software on a variety of workstations, networks and communications equipment. Experience with the integration and troubleshooting of large-scale systems including: o Integration of J2EE/Web Services applications in the following web technologies: BEA Web Logic, WebSphere, JBoss, HTML, JSP, JavaScript, and Web services. o Troubleshooting applications involving a wide variety of programming & scripting languages (C, C++, Java, Perl, UNIX shell scripting and Visual Basic). o Integration of automated solutions for packaging and deploying software (InstallShield, Altiris, Wise, WLST, etc.). • Basic knowledge of relational databases desired (Oracle, Sybase, MySQL and/or Microsoft SQL). • Basic knowledge of networking concepts and protocols (SNMP, TCP/IP, ftp, NFS/Samba, etc.) • Knowledge of advanced application server configuration desirable, including performance tuning, clustering, etc. • Experience with collaboration tools (IBM Sametime, InfoWorkSpace, NetMeeting, Psi Jabber, Wildfire EIM server, Trillian IRC client, Outlook) • Attention to detail and excellent troubleshooting techniques • Ability to support short-term travel (1-2 weeks) is a plus (not necessarily a requirement). Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5. Title: Software Security Engineer (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-Time / Permanent Position Description: The candidate will be responsible for: 1. Evaluating the system impact of all security related vulnerability analysis for the creation of Software Change Requests & Software Problem Reports (SCRs/SPRs) for all product lines across the Windows, Solaris, and Linux operating systems. 2. Ensuring the SCRs/SPRs are implemented as scheduled. 3. Ensuring applicable documentation is updated and/or applicable information is disseminated to the Information Assurance group. 4. Providing weekly status reports, as applicable, to various managers. Other responsibilities will include: • Maintain database of security assessment information (working with Information Assurance group) • Assist in identification of test bench needs to facilitate security development and verification • Assist in the mentoring of engineering personnel on security awareness in software design, implementation and testing Technologies involved (willingness to learn): • Networking and operating systems security (Windows 2003, XP, and Vista, Solaris 8 and 10, RHEL 4 and RHEL5, VMWare, Group Policies, Firewall/DMZ, Intrusion Detection Systems, JEDI, system auditing and collection tools (Event Tracker), anti-virus products, file integrity tools (tripwire/aide/WhatChanged), etc…) • Application Security (Java/J2EE, C++, .Net, Database, Web Services, etc…) • Scripting languages used for implementing security settings and tools: (Unix Shells, Perl, VBScript, etc…) • Security assessment tools (CIS, DISA Gold, Retina, SECSCAN, nmap, etc…) • Others (PKI, LDAP, DNS, Active Directory, Authentication & Authorization, Single Sign-on, Security Patch Management, etc…) Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 5. Title: Senior Technology Professionals (Active TS/SCI Needed) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Job Description: We have a number of opportunities for senior technologists at one of our client sites in Baltimore, Maryland. We are looking for mature, seasoned, senior technology professionals who are able to work within a large, mature organization. Candidates must have software or systems engineering background, and be familiar with service oriented architecture (SOA) and/or large scale systems integration principles. The candidate must be familiar with working with developed software, and integrating commercial off-the-shelf software packages. Experience with traditional system / software development life cycles as well as Agile development methodologies is vital. Exposure to and understanding of all aspects or specific aspects of the development life cycle (e.g., engineering, design/development, test/integration) is important. Use of automated design, development, and test tools is also desired. The candidate must be able to work across all parts of the organization, develop a strategy and plan for the adoption and integration of the new test methodology, and coordinate the implementation with senior management and organizational leaders. Critical Skills: (Any or all) • Requirements Analysis and Design, data mapping, etc.; • Design Tools (e.g., Rational RSM, ALER, etc.); • DODAF Artifacts development; • Service Oriented Architecture and familiarity with Java implementations; • Familiarity with heterogeneous data environments, data adaptors, and working external content providers; • Architecture experience with distributed systems; • Java development experience; • Various Java Frameworks (e.g., J2EE, JBoss, etc.); • Web services, portals / portlets, SOA integration experience; • Automated test tool experience (planning and execution) at both the user keystroke and interface/WSDL levels; • Test execution; • Test script development; and • Systems / architecture design of large scale distributed systems. Specific Opportunities: • Integration & Test Lead • Software Development Lead • Software Architect • ILS Deputy / SI ILS Lead • Integration & Test Engineers • Systems Engineers • Proposal Team Support. • Technical Volume Team Support Corporate benefits include: • 401K; • Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution; • AFLAC; • 20 Paid Time Off Days; and • 10 paid holidays. Interested candidates MUST possess an active TS/SCI clearance. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 6. Title: Senior System Architect/Engineer (Ability to obtain TS/SCI Clearance) Location: Conshohocken, PA (zip code 19428) Job Description: THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED. 6/29/09 Joseph Wallace We have an immediate need for a Senior System Architect/Engineer to work at our Conshohocken, PA customer facility. In this position, you will be responsible for providing system architecture and engineering support to the GCCS-I3 program, and directly to the GCCS-I3 Lead Engineer. Your duties will include researching current and future technologies to advise on GCCS-I3 future architecture decisions, and be able to brief government agencies (including DISA, DIA, JDISS) on technical aspects of GCCS-I3. Your duties will also include system architecture, design and development of prototypes, translation of functional requirements into technical requirements, peer reviews of design/code, and general assistance to developers with design, development, testing, delivery, and support. The following are the Basic Qualifications for this position: Candidates must be US Citizens who are eligible to obtain a Top Secret/SCI security clearance. A Bachelor Degree and a minimum of 8-11 years experience in design and architecture, as well as Java, JavaScript, JSP, XML/XSLT, JMS, J2EE, EJB, web service, and relational databases is required. Candidates must have extensive knowledge in software design and development concepts, practices, and procedures utilizing Java/Web/Web Service Technologies, and excellent personal interaction and communication skills. Semantic Web technologies (RDF/RDFS++/OWL-Lite), RESTful web services, and WebLogic is a plus. Experience with automated test frameworks and JUnit are also a plus. U.S. Citizenship is required. Clearance Level: Ability to obtain and retain a Top Secret/SCI security clearance. Travel Requirements: 25% of time, to locations such as Washington, DC, and San Diego Corporate benefits include medical and dental with minimal employee subsidies, 401k, AFLAC, 20 Paid Time Off days in addition to 10 holidays. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 7. Title: Software / Systems Architect (Active Secret Clearance Needed, TS/TSCI Desirable) Location: Baltimore, MD Position Type: Full-time / Permanent Position Description: We have a number of opportunities for senior technologists at one of our client sites in Baltimore, Maryland. We are looking for mature, seasoned, senior technology professionals who are able to work within a large, dynamic organization. Candidates must have a software or systems engineering background, and be familiar with service oriented architecture (SOA) and/or large scale systems integration principles. The candidate must be familiar with working with developed software, and integrating commercial off-the-shelf software packages. Experience with traditional system / software development life cycles as well as Agile development methodologies is vital. Exposure to and understanding of all aspects or specific aspects of the development life cycle (e.g., engineering, design/development, test/integration) is important. Use of automated design, development, and test tools is also desired. The candidate must be able to work across all parts of the organization, develop a strategy and plan for the adoption and integration of the new technologies, processes, and tools, and coordinate the implementation with senior management and organizational leaders. Interested candidates MUST possess an active Secret clearance, TS/SCI desirable Critical Skills: (Any or all) • Requirements Analysis and Design, data mapping, etc. • Design Tools (e.g., Rational RSM, ALER, etc.) • DODAF Artifacts • Service Oriented Architecture and familiarity with Java implementations • Familiarity with heterogeneous data environments, data adaptors, and working with external content providers • Architecture experience with distributed systems • Java development experience • Various Java Frameworks (e.g., J2EE, JBoss, etc.) • Web services, portals / portlets, SOA integration experience • Systems architecture and design of large scale, distributed systems Corporate benefits include: 401K, Family medical and dental with minimal employee contribution, AFLAC, 20 Paid Time Off Days in addition to 10 holidays. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8. Debugger Developer Enhance, test and debug GDB-based debugger for an advanced, highly dense multi-core architecture. Qualifications • 1-3 years experience with GDB internals, especially with the server side of the GNU debugger • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 9. Cluster Management Software Developer Design, implement, test and debug a highly reliable, distributed system. Qualifications • 3-5 years experience developing applications with a background on system software and/or distributed systems • Familiarity with BSD sockets API or distributed systems • Proven experience designing scalable and reliable software, and with parallel file systems • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 10. Control and Monitoring Software Developer - Contractor Design and implement a comprehensive suite of control and analysis tools whose aim is to monitor and maintain the proper health of a large-scale computing system. Qualifications • Proven full software development life cycle experience • 3-5 years experience developing complete applications in C/C++ • Proven experience developing C/C++ database applications using a major DB API: MySQL, PostgreSQL, dBase, DB2, SQLite, eSQL, etc. • Proven experience developing GUI interfaces in C/C++ with a major GUI package: wxWidgets, Qt, GTK+, MFC, etc. • Proven experience writing applications from algorithms and/or numerical recipes • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 11. Software Technical Support Engineer In this position you will focus on diagnosing, reproducing and fixing software issues. Additionally, you will be responsible for developing tools as needed to improve software development process. Responsibilities You will: • Serve as the first level of customer interaction for software bugs • Create reproducible test cases, file bug reports, and initiate delivery of fixes • Design and develop software tools (applications and scripts) to improve software development process Qualifications • Background in programming using C/C++ programming languages • Background in script languages: BASH, Python, Perl, etc. • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 12. Software Integration Engineer In this position you will integrate system software with a unique large-scale supercomputer hardware at customer sites. This includes installing system software stack, being principal point of contact with the customer, assisting the customer with programming techniques, performance enhancements, problem identification and resolution. Qualifications • System software installation experience • Extensive experience with scripting languages • Background in programming using C/C++ programming languages • Understanding of very low-level interactions between hardware and software • 1-3 years of operating system or numerical analysis experience • Ability to respond to changing customer priorities • Experience maintaining clear and detailed logs of system status, errors and hardware/software changes • Ability to travel to customer sites • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 13. Software Testing Software Tester Design, implement and execute test plans for various components of system software. Qualifications • 1-3 years experience with white and/or gray box testing. Additional experience in other areas of software testing is considered a plus. • Proven experience understanding product requirements and functionality, in order to design appropriate test plans and test cases to verify features and functionalities • Proven experience reading, understanding and analyzing other developers' code (primarily C/C++) • Ability to identify bugs through systematic testing • Proven experience with scripting languages and other automation tools • BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering • C/C++ and Linux/Unix experience • Computer architecture oriented • Strong analytical and problem solving skills • Good written and verbal communication skills • Ability to work in a fast-paced, schedule-driven environment • Flexibility and willingness to adapt easily to evolving requirements • Ability to work independently to solve difficult problems and implement solutions ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 14. System Administration Junior System Administrator Manage Linux, servers, multi-user compute notes, and Windows on personal workstations. Primary duties • Install and update hardware and software, perform routine maintenance • Evaluate, test and install hardware and software updates. Write or modify simple shell scripts. • Coordinate procedures with software engineers to minimize impact on their work environment. Maintain current knowledge of system administration best practices. Under supervision from Senior System Administrator, implement and maintain best practices in backup, user administration and security. • Monitor availability of external resource and act as first contact for outages. As time permits, assist Senior System Administrator in upgrading systems, system performance and procedures. • Other duties as assigned Required skills • 3-5 years experience in Linux/Windows administration, preferably on multi-user systems • 2-3 years experience with/knowledge of RPM-based package management • Bachelor's degree in Data Processing or equivalent, plus experience in a business/commercial environment • Background in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, preferably system administration • Familiarity with shell scripting and at least one other scripting language • Experience with installing and updating anti-virus software • Hardware knowledge sufficient to do first-level troubleshooting, installation of new devices, memory upgrades, etc. • Familiarity with networking hardware and terminology • Ability to work with end users of varying skill levels • Customer service skills • Organizational capability • Detail oriented and good at executing tasks on schedule despite distractions Desired skills • C, C++, and/or Python programming skills • Ability to create spec files and source rpms • Knowledge of additional Linux distributions • Experience providing reliable services to demanding clientele • Experience with imaging and image distribution • Database administration +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 15. Technical Writing Technical Writer - Contractor The primary deliverable for the position is technical manuals based on oral and written content from systems software engineers. The programming manuals will be used as the primary reference manual for our customers who are also very technical high-performance application programmers. These manuals are also intended to be used by the administrators of the system software, and therefore will also address ordinary day to day tasks and troubleshooting methods. Responsibilities In this position, you will be delivering a variety of documents such as application notes, user guides, and developer manuals ranging in size from 1-100+ pages. Your responsibilities will include but not be limited to: • Interacting with engineers, managers and teams working on advanced system software development under challenging release schedules • Responsible for the technical writing on a user-focused documentation of software products • Defining and applying required styles correctly and editing for clarity • Defining and following guidelines and formatting instructions • Participating in document reviews and inspections • Making revisions and edits as needed • Other related technical writing functions Qualifications • Demonstrable experience (+3 years) as a technical writer • Evidence of technical writing education credentials • Ability to write clearly and concisely, and create manuals from engineering specifications • Proficiency with computer and/or publishing tools • Be able to generate and modify text, tables and illustrations • Having experience with software end-users is a plus ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++…; Added by Joseph Wallace, VP of Technology at 1:20am on June 30, 2009

Topic: Recruitment 4.0: Crowdsourcing, Gamification, Recruitment as a Profit Center, … and the Death of Recruitment Agencies!: sting 3.0. But what direction are we heading in? Is it a coherent journey? Is there a clear destination/end goal? 4.0. What on earth could that include? How’s this? Recruitment transitions from being a “cost center” into a “profit center”’! The collapse and insolvency of many recruitment agencies. Job boards stuttering and collapsing … and repurposing themselves Companies hiring “through the sky” through external referrals and crowdsourcing Exclusive/VIP/premium paid in-community content and paid mobile apps Gamification shapes recruiting strategies and generates stickiness and virality Companies rated globally by crowd opinions Before anyone screams “unrealistic” or “utter fantasy” or cries B.S., let’s be clear that Recruitment 4.0 moves into the territory of vision. This is some years off. But by calculated hypotheses it is clear there will be a 4.0 and that it is a natural progression of 3.0 and builds sensibly on its foundations. Let’s recap the different versions of recruiting. Recruitment 1.0 encompasses traditional recruiting over a huge timeline, including good old-fashioned fax machines, print advertising, (post, spray ,and pray), and Rolodexes moving into traditional ATSs. Recruiters more focused on processes than end results. The basic any-bum-on-any-seat philosophy. Recruitment 2.0 saw the move onto online and using technology for recruitment purposes, including the advent of online job boards & online CV searches. While the technology moved forward, the traditional methodology of 1.0 was prevalent, including online post, spray, and pray candidate attraction (aka the recruitment lottery of let’s hope the right-ish person looks at the online advertisement, at the right time and feels willing to go to the effort to apply). Both Recruitment 1.0 and 2.0 were/are fundamentally focused on the active job seekers, (applying to vacancies, on agency books, and those watching job boards like a possessed predator). Recruitment 3.0 is a huge leap as it moves recruitment out of its comfort zone. The beating heart of 3.0 is the non-active/passive individual and a focus on “best talent” and building predictable talent pipelines. In addition, the philosophy of “everyone is a potential candidate so engage them” is central. 3.0 takes us into building engaged, two-way, free-conversation based, transparent communities. This is anchored by things like employment branding, marketing, and PR. 3.0 is not only concerned with building communities but mapping key competitors and seducing cream-of-the-crop talent with your brand and in-house opportunities. What is Recruitment 4.0? Recruitment 3.0 is all consumed and focused on building communities. 4.0 is all about the value of those communities, both real and perceived. Recruitment has traditionally been a cost center. It sucks money from the profit line like Count Dracula on a feeding frenzy in Transylvania, especially if agency fees are involved, coupled with advertising/job board fees etc. Add this up and it can be an overwhelming drain on resources. Remember that many of the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies are addicted to agency hiring and mass job board advertising like an alcoholic drawn to drink. Why highlight the Fortune and FTSE companies? Primarily they should have the advantage and resources to wean off agency addiction, source passive candidates far more easily than small to medium companies, (but funnily enough it is the small- and medium-sized companies who are far more fleet of foot and innovative). Recruitment 4.0 sees recruiting move from being a cost center (a loss-making division) to being a profit center. Reflect on that statement. It’s huge and revolutionary. Recruitment being a profit center. “Impossible,” you cry. Perhaps not if you reflect and apply some visionary foresight. Recruitment 4.0 is some years off. But not as far as some may think. Consider the world we live in. Value is defined differently. Companies like Zynga, Facebook, and LinkedIn have massive valuations, well above their profitability margins. Their reach and potential reach and the size of their mass following — an engaged following. Our generation is living in the information age. The power lies in networks. Networks are data. Data is power. And data is money. We all want data. Especially recruiters and marketers/salespeople. So how does a community, (or let’s crudely call it data) = value = monetization = recruitment becoming a profit center? There are several facets to recruitment moving to a profit center. Reduction of recruiting costs to a minimum, (agency usage close to zero, less need for mass job board advertising, reduction in number of in-house recruiters employed). This depends on building and nurturing a “qualitative” community, a strong employment brand, vibrant social networks, mapped competitors, and putting in place a predictable talent pipeline for key hiring channels. The community itself evolves into a self-service community, where recruitment can be executed by crowdsourcing, and by hiring managers becoming more engaged into pipeline generation and hiring. Everyone can use LinkedIn. Why not hiring managers? Value in the community is identified by both internal and external advertisers/marketers that allows for revenue for recruitment. A sense of increased value is attached to belonging/being part of that community, hence VIP/exclusive areas/content that people are happy to pay for. Gamification principles create more engagement and sense of belonging and stickiness to sites, hence driving potential of more opportunities for monetization. Actual games/cartoons/content that people subscribe to have repeat value. Let’s look at some of those in a little more depth. Traditional advertising is failing. The days of successful, targeted TV and print advertising are long behind us. Ways to communicate, once limited and restricted, are now numerous and disperse. Looking at TV, the former medium of choice for mass communication, now diminished, as people are now hungry for choice and happily spread their viewing over a diverse and numerous multitude of TV channels. If an advertiser manages to define a great TV slot to advertise to reach their target audience they are thwarted by the fact that people can now record and Tivo, hence skipping ads. TV advertising then is a busted flush. Print advertising? Again, some national newspapers and magazines are spiraling downward from their heyday readerships. People tend toward reading the latest news online 24/7 or from niche web sites. They don’t want to wait the next day for old news. Print has had to be more salacious and do what it can to get the best scoops to get whatever sales possible. Online, people not only digest news, but have the benefit of posting comments and engaging in discussions. So traditional messaging vehicles are struggling. This coincides with a time when recruiter networks are expanding. Combine a recruitment database (with some companies having in excess of ½ million – million names), with social media networks, a targeted mass of names, email addresses, with perceived affinity to a business or product, and a growing realization awakens that this has a marketable value. A marketing department does not have this scale, (or quality), of information on its database. Recruiting does. Now the first step is for recruiting to cross charge its marketing division to advertise to its database and community. Why not? Many marketing departments don’t see or understand the value of recruiting databases. They’re a potential goldmine of information and data … and potential business opportunities. Taking this a step further, why not allow specific external companies the opportunity to advertise to your community? (Mindful of data protection and ensuring a community buys into contact by third-party advertisers). You remain in charge of the names and not divulging data, but certain advertising is safe to your community and could be revenue-generating for recruiting. As this thought sinks in, revenue potential opens up. The Death of Recruitment Agencies At the same time, savvy companies will be seeing their recruiting costs decreasing. As companies build their databases of talent, via sourcing, identification through LinkedIn, talent mapping, and coupled with their valued online communities, the need and reliance on recruiting agencies, both contingent and retained, will dramatically lessen. This will also coincide with less of a need for corporate in-house recruiters. Hiring managers are more than adept at searching on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is greatly expanding its offering and making recruiting easier for everyone. Initiatives like ‘Genome’ from LinkedIn will radically lesson the need for dedicated in-house recruiters in the future. Coupled with your community recruiting on your company’s behalf (crowdsourcing of talent), the need for recruiters will lessen and hence accelerate cost reduction. The very future of recruitment agencies depends on their ability to adapt to the new realities that companies are waking up to the need to break out of the active candidate pool and identify and attract passive candidates. If we take as an approximation that of the 100% of candidates qualified for your job, only 10% are active with agencies and job boards, then it’s the 90% who are more attractive to companies, and the agencies need to identify, attract, and present those candidates. Contingent recruitment agencies, especially the large ones, are in the business of competing to be the first to present the CV of that 10% active pool, all trying to Bolt out the blocks. Unless they start to adapt by attracting and mapping out the 90% non-active and building their own communities, their model will face extinction. Now is not the time to rush and buy shares in traditional contingent operators as a long-term investment. Even worse, the business model of traditional retained search and selection companies, as we reflect on it in this modern age, is founded on the delusions of lunacy. A client pays a 30% fee for first-year guaranteed compensation (or even just basic salary only), split into thirds, a third for commencement of the project and a third for presentation of a shortlist — the risk all loaded on the fee-paying client. Certainly, cost models will change toward loaded placement fees. The irony is that search firm marketing is based on its peerless reputation as the ultimate Rolodex of all the golden names in the industry. Their network is the goldmine that we are seduced to unlock. If their databases are that peerless and they have done hundreds of similar searches, why then does it take four to five weeks for a shortlist? Perhaps that question is not raised enough. The zealots will cry that the search agency is peerless in assessment and interviewing. But is that not we do in house? Why am I paying two-thirds of a fee without a placement? It’s even more laughable when the shortlist of contacts is most likely generated by a fresh graduate on $40,000 a year in the back room of the search agency, who then passes all their lead generation to the search consultant. Alternatively, a growing trend is using a new breed of company that is engaged in market mapping, talent pooling, and recruitment research solutions — hence providing a company with a mapped market of qualified talent, with contact details and candidate profiles that the recruiter then follows up on. Not every company can afford internal sourcers, and this is the next best thing, and significantly cheaper/more cost effective than a full search. However you cut it, the future is not bright for contingent and retained search and selection unless they adapt to changing new business realities. Not many currently have that foresight as they focus on short-termism. Hopefully agency CEOs have strong managers in their crow’s nest who are prepared to shout “iceberg ahead” before disaster strikes. Job Boards Faltering Coupled with the death/decline of agencies will be the faltering and restructuring of the large job boards. As companies build their own recruitment databases and even more importantly their own communities, they can use creative ways to sourcetalent. Communities themselves will evolve around certain disciplines/careers/industries and hence negate the use for paid job boards. Why pay for a large job board in the active pool when we can reach passive candidates in a free community? Job boards will have to look at community-building themselves and earn their revenue through product placement advertising rather than paid-for job advertisements. Companies have always embraced the concept of internal referrals. Why not the reverse? External referrals — even better through crowdsourcing using their communities. Naysayers will point to the rewards attributed to internal referrals, generally through monetary bonuses, and hence the difficulty of applying this externally as companies don’t want to pay for talent they would have got anyway. But recent times have showed the power of recognition and “public reward” through games like Foursquare. People love the status of being the Mayor of a local curry house. Why not take this principle into recruiting and reward referrals from crowdsourcing: Public recognition and rewards in the community, (badges, leaderboards), on a sliding scale to reach actualization of ”real” rewards, be it monetary bonus, vacation, or a PC or iPad? External Referrals through Crowdsourcing Recruitment can learn a lot from crowdsourcing. This term was arguably defined by Jeff Howe in the June 2006 issue of Wiredmagazine. Howe states: Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. This can take the form of peer-production (when the job is performed collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the use of the open call format and the large network of potential laborers. Howe further drives this home by stating that “it’s only crowdsourcing once a company takes that design, fabricates [it] in mass quantity and sell[s] it.” In laymen’s language, a company posts a problem online; a vast number of individuals offer their opinions and ideas as to how to solve it; the winning idea is rewarded in some form; and the end result is the company adopting the idea for its own benefit. Some great examples of the power of crowdsourcing exist on Wikipedia: (the following are all directly quoted from Wikipedia). In 2005, Amazon.com launched the Amazon Mechanical Turk, a platform on which crowdsourcing tasks called “HITs” (Human Intelligence Tasks”) can be created and publicized and people can execute the tasks and be paid for doing so. Dubbed “Artificial Intelligence,” it was named after The Turk, an 18th century chess-playing “machine.” Cisco Systems Inc. held an I-Prize contest in which teams using collaborative technologies created innovative business plans. The winners in 2008 were a three-person team, Anna Gossen from Munich, her husband Niels Gossen, and her brother, Sergey Bessonnitsyn, that created a business plan demonstrating how IP technology could be used to increase energy efficiency. More than 2,500 people from 104 countries entered the competition. The winning team won $250,000. The Democratic National Committee launched FlipperTV in November 2007 and McCainpedia in May 2008 to crowdsource video gathered by Democratic trackers and research compiled by DNC staff in the hands of the public to do with as they choose — whether for a blog post, to create a YouTube video, etc. Facebook has used crowdsourcing since 2008 to create different language versions of its site. The company claims this method offers the advantage of providing site versions that are more compatible with local cultures. General Electric organized a multimillion dollar challenge to find new, breakthrough ideas to create cleaner, more efficient and economically viable grid technologies, and to accelerate the adoption of smart grid technologies. The winner will be announced on Nov. 16, 2020. The Vancouver Police Department has put up a website entitled Hockey Riot 2011, informing people about the VPD′s investigations into the 2011 Stanley Cup Riot. It also asks people to contribute any pictures or video that they may have taken during the riot, with the goal of identifying people who may have participated in the rioting. The site also reminds people to not use social media to take justice into their own hands, instead leaving it to the police. As of July 1, 2011, 101 arrests have been made. IBM collected more than 37,000 ideas for potential areas for innovation from brainstorming sessions with its customers, employees, and their family members in 2006. L’Oreal used viewer-created advertising messages of Current TV to pool new and fresh advertising ideas. Pepsi launched a marketing campaign in early 2007 which allowed consumers to design the look of a Pepsi can. The winners would receive a $10,000 prize, and their artwork would be featured on 500 million Pepsi cans around the United States. Unilever has recently decided to drop its ad agency of 16 years, Lowe, and has turned to the crowdsourcing platform IdeaBounty to find creative ideas for its next TV campaign. Unilever has worked with Lowe on the snack-food brand Peperami since 1993, but has decided to submit its brief out to the public, rather than a small team of creatives. Ironically, Wikipedia is itself a successful example of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing, as a concept, lends itself perfectly to recruiting. Posing the question to your community, “We are looking for a dynamic Product Manager, with x/y/z experience … any ideas/recommendations?” will soon become a normal sourcing/name generating activity for recruiters. The key is how to incentivize/inspire/motivate the crowd to do your recruiting. LinkedIn gets it. It’s already making headway toward this goal, aiding a company’s ability to use employee networks and matching up people who are connected to our employees who closely match our job specifications. But what about the wider crowd? That’s where attention will turn next. Premium Paid Content Recruitment 3.0 recognized that recruitment is fundamentally boring. People tend to only visit corporate careers pages when they are looking for work. There is no engaging “repeat visit” content that drags them back for more. Many companies are using social media as a replacement job board and listing jobs with hyperlinks back to the job site. It’s hardly the most engaging content. Recruitment 3.0 involves building “engaged” communities. The key is compelling, rich content, creating a destination that people want to go to on a frequent basis. That is not a list of jobs. Remember again that recruiting is not about “bums on seats”; it also encompasses nurturing a strong employment brand proposition, attracting and seducing those not familiar with your brand, and taking them on a journey to either apply to work for your company or be an active brand ambassador in your community. As communities build up in 3.0, underpinned by engaging content, and when those communities reach a critical mass, the next step is starting to grant VIP access and exclusive content to community members. If communities are engaged, they will be, by definition, happy to pay to be part of the VIP area, and we will see the monetization of these communities and a potential revenue stream for recruiters. Aggregating all your social media feeds — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube content, and your blog — is the first step. This could and should be aggregated both on your corporate careers site and your mobile phone app (for those who want to be part of the community on the move). A one-stop shop for people to engage and follow your company encourages repeat visitors. This content on the social media sites needs to feel personalized and humanized, giving exclusive access behind the scenes of your company and the individuals behind it. But what else? Understand the public pulse. There is no better place than the Apple Store. This shows what content keeps people coming back and is most popular to download. And guess what that is: News & Information (knowledge and exclusive access news) Games (fun games but also including quizzes) Comics & books (The appeal of an ongoing story that people want to follow) Photography/photos/videos (uploading and sharing) This content often focuses on getting people involved, something to do with your friends, and brings that “global community” together. Each of these is “sticky” and keeps people coming back. Why can’t recruiters use these same concepts as part of their community building but adapt them for their own companies? Recruitment Embraces Concepts of Gamification Gamification is the latest buzzword. What’s funny is that some well-known commentators are rushing to speak about this subject but end up mirroring granddad at the disco trying to throw “cool” shapes to the latest bangin’ tune but instead look rather doddery and completely out of touch. People love to be entertained. Gaming is huge. Not just “serious” video console games like the Call of Duty’s, FIFAs, and Battlefields, or the PC games like World of Warcraft, but the spread of casual gaming whether on Facebook or on mobile shows the power of people of all ages wanting interactive entertainment. Gaming educates us about the dynamics of engagement. (Some would take this further to addiction.) What a great game does is ingrain itself into the conscious and subconscious of the player. You think about it and love the roller coaster of emotions that the game takes you through. You may pull an all-nighter, or get up extra early to get in an hour or so before having to venture off to deal with humdrum reality. Escapism is the new drug of the austere Tens. But what else can we learn? Casual games are the key to the door of mass/mainstream and that elusive community engagement via compelling content that we all seek. Casual games are those that embrace all demographics, are simple, fun, accessible, and from which users get an instant form of gratification. This is different than “serious games” that are deeper experiences and are perhaps less accessible due to the time invested and the barrier of controllers/complexity of purpose. Farmville on Facebook is a classic example of community-building and demonstrates some key buttons in engagement theory (in a social context). Farmvile has been such a success for a number of reasons. First, it recognized the unbridled thrill of “gifting.” When you first visit your farm, you don’t go straight to it but to a page with a list of gifts. Many games ask you to spam mail your buddies to play the game. Farmville cleverly goes further by allowing you to send a gift of an animal or plant/crop to your friends. Of course, when we receive gifts, we also like to give them back, starting the spiral of interaction. Part of this psychology also encourages you to help your friends by reminding them to harvest their fields and to weed their farms. It’s very community-friendly stuff. These gifts also have a perceived value. The whole point of Farmville is to build a busy and profitable farm and maintain it. But to do this, you need to build and grow the farm, which is time-consuming and takes a while to buy plants, crops, and trees, etc. But luckily your saving grace is your friends as they help out by sending all these valuable items for your farm. Hence my farm looks better with more content so I will invite more of my friends to play, give them gifts, and expect/request gifts in return. It’s a clever use of personal psychology and satisfaction of wants. Farmville also gets that the game has to be accessible and simple. There are no extra levels; you just keep on growing the size and scope of your own farm. The only limitation is money. But having lots of friends gets around that. Now the clever part kicks in. The game keeps you coming back. Certain crops you plant require harvesting at certain times. Some crops will die if you don’t come back. Strawberries mean you come back every four hours. That locks in an engagement and repeat visit. “I must log back in at 2 p.m. or my crops will die!” Farmville also cleverly gets the whole concept of one-up-manship and competing to have the bigger farm, the more money, the latest gadgets 00 and that’s where monetization kicks in. Someone can pay to get ahead of their friends, and for many that is a key driver. “I must have the biggest farm and the latest items and be ahead of my mates!” Hence Farmville teaches us there are three things to making social games huge viral successes: getting users to invite their friends (virality); getting users to return frequently (stickiness); and people competing to win/be ahead of their friends (showing off). Interestingly, one of the first to understand these dynamics was the Hotel chain Marriott, which has released a Facebook game designed with the goal of introducing potential employees to life in the hospitality industry.MyMarriottHotel gives players the opportunity to “work” in various hotel roles, including hospitality manager. You can start by working in the hotel kitchens and gain points for excellent customer service and profitability. The game is geared to raising awareness among millennials to job opportunities around the world (cleverly available in five languages). Critically for recruiting, the MyMarriottHotel Facebook game includes at the top of the game a banner shouting “Do It For Real” that hyperlinks to Marriott’s jobs site. Marriott’s goal is to fill 50,000 positions at its hotels around the world, helped by this game raising awareness, (predominantly outside the U.S.). So what is gamification, and how can it be applied to recruiting? Gamification is using game mechanics/methodology to inspire engagement in activities that otherwise would be considered boring or routine. Recruitment certainly sits within that definition. Key concepts of gamification that recruiters can learn from when developing communities and building compelling, repeat visit content, include: The key word when engaging in social media and community-building is remembering the key element, often-forgotten, is social Keeping activities/content simple, fun, and interactive. When people read your blog/social media, is it light, carries pictures, short, informative, stimulating, or even entertaining to read? People want to know what other people are doing, especially their friends. Can people see what their friends have been doing? People love engagement and giving their opinion, be it by rate-this-page, commenting, oropinion polls. These are all interactive elements that engage. As people interact, degrees of personalization and humanization help, such as the uploading of avatars and/or people’s pictures. People prefer engaging with “perceptibly real” other people. Avatars aid that. Are you encouraging sharing content/activities with your community? Are people rewarded or recognized for sharing content? Inspiring members of your community’s “friends” to get involved and get their friends engaged, i.e. virality, sending community growth viral. “Gifting.” Can content be shared amongst friends/can someone get something in return? Keeps em coming back for more. Certain times of the day/week that the community has to be there. Prizes/giveaways ingrain this activity. Some companies do specific content “reveals” at certain times of the week. Live webcasts also encourage set-time attendance. Competition against friends/leader boards. It could be quiz-questions about your company, the most referrals of job seekers, or the most comments made in your blog/social community. Leader boards keep people coming back to chart their progress and see who is on top, and if they are ahead of their friends. “Easter Eggs” — those intentionally hidden features that people can’t find. Especially cool for college sections and can be used to encourage people to find about more about your company and unlock exclusive content. Enabling unique experiences/personalization. Can people create their own unique user account, personalize their landing pages, and personalize their experiences? Progress bars. People are addicted to completion, and progress bars are often used in online shopping as you are guided to place things in the shopping cart and progress to the checkout. Progress bars fit nicely with job application processes of a series of tasks that people will want to complete. “Completism” is a natural human psychological compulsion. User-generated content, and games like LittleBigPlanet have showed us that people love creating their own content and sharing that content with the community. Can your community do the same, involving uploads to your blog/corporate careers site? These concepts can all be applied to corporate career sites, which are purely a repository of information overload and fundamentally dull, and of course tomobile apps. People, bored sitting on the train, plane, and bus, want content to engage them. Some corporate sites already include games and other challenges — almost always in the Careers section — and some companies have added game elements to the recruitment process. Some are asking, “Is this expensive? How can a recruiting department make games? But at minimal cost there is a thriving development community and graduates studying at colleges who would love the opportunity and exposure that creating and publishing a game on a corporate site brings them. Development time on games for mobile is minimal but the key is fun (look at games like Doodle Jump and Flick Football, massively popular but simple to develop). Many recruiters are currently using Empire Avenue as a way of engaging with communities and making new contacts. Some are even using it as a sourcing tool to recruit from. For those who don’t know, Empire Avenue is fundamentally a stock market simulation social network game that encourages users to buy and sell shares of people and websites. Players have their own portfolio in a virtual economy and earn money, called Eaves, by investing in other people. This sees your own net worth rise by encouraging friends and community members to invest in you. What is cool is that when all accounts are linked together, including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, and blogs, your net worth rises based on the content you either create or share. What’s cool about this approach is that it combines simplicity with what we do on the web every day: creating and sharing content. Interestingly, Empire Avenue mimics the other sites as it’s also a social network itself. It’s allows opportunities to connect and debate with others by finding affinity groups (“Communities”) within Empire Avenue. Clever engagement mechanisms at play. Concurrently, Google is also on the move with its Google News Badges. We all read the news, and applying the above theory — let’s call it gamification methodology — Google has created “Google Badges.” Google News users in the U.S. can earn different pins for reading the news, starting with bronze and moving up to Ultimate. There are more than 500 badges available to suit all types of interests, such as “stock market,” “Harry Potter,” and U.S. elections. These “Google Badges” follow closely on the heels of Google launching its own social network, Google+, and is increasingly trying to get people to share content via its network of services in a similar fashion to Facebook. This will sound very similar to users of Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based social networking website based on mobile phones. Users “check-in” at venues using a mobile website, text messaging, or a device-specific application, and select from a list of venues that the application locates nearby, e.g. restaurant, library, pub, house, etc. Each check-in awards the user points and sometimes “badges.” The first time a badge is unlocked on Foursquare, be it an easy achievement (like the “Superstar” badge for 50 check-ins), or one that comes as a surprise (“Douchebag Badge,” which is unlocked after checking into venues tagged with “douchebag,” or the “Don’t Stop Believing Badge,” awarded for checking in to three venues tagged “karaoke” in a month), the game keeps people engaged with rewards that makes members want to use the system even more and compete with friends. Especially those who live or work in close vicinity of each other as they compete to be the Mayor of a location. Why is gamification so important? Interestingly, to give more credence to this area, Gartner, in research published in April 2011 stated: By 2015, more than 50 percent of organizations that manage innovation processes will gamify those processes. By 2014, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important as Facebook, eBay, or Amazon, and more than 70 percent of Global 2000 organisations will have at least one gamified application. That’s a big statement. 70 percent of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application. Many commentators see that naturally fitting in the corporate careers site. Perhaps gamification will be taken more seriously among current recruitment leaders moving forward. Global Community Rating of Companies People trust each other and members of their community far more than they do advertising or company communications. Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, talked about the impact of social media. One of his key points was that 78% of consumers trust each other more than they trust advertising — which is why they read blogs and go to chat rooms. There are many examples to back this up, particularly when we go on vacation. The holiday industry has had to get far more authentic and responsible in its communications. No more fantastic ratings of restaurant food when it is tripe; no more “the beach is in walkable distance” … but only for those who are happy to walk for two hours; and no more “great local entertainment” when it is two people playing spoons. Why is that? Many people now check out Trip Advisor and read how people have voted/rated their vacation/hotel en masse and then read through some of the commentary. Real. Authentic. Trustworthy. No hidden agendas, just shared experiences. Companies value their placing on “best companies to work for” and “great places to work” lists. And these are a mix of internal questionnaires of employees’ experience and then a specialist evaluation of policies and internal structures by a panel of experts. Glassdoor is the closest to a trip advisor for recruitment. Its bias is more U.S.-focused and needs to hit that critical mass to be held in the same esteem. As we head to 4.0, those principles behind Glassdoor will see job seekers trust the crowd, and companies will value that authenticity far more than traditional manufactured best-places-to-work lists. Size Doesn’t Matter Some reading this will rightly raise the question of whether this is all this scalable. Cynics will openly proclaim there will always be a need for local agencies to hire receptionists, builders, joiners, hairdressers, admin assistants, and hosts of other roles. Screams will be heard: Job boards will never die! This was all predicted 10 years back and it never happened! How can a small company generate its own community? Many criticisms/protection of vested interests will emerge in this debate. They’re fair points to discuss. Interestingly, when Hard Rock Café wanted to open a new venue in Florence, perhaps the initial reaction of many recruiters was to advise them to go to local “high street” agencies, or place an ad in the local press, even on a job board. The Hard Rock took a different approach and used Facebook to reach out and recruit. It built a community around the new venue opening. Hard Rock needed to hire 120 staff across eight categories from waiting staff, barmen/women, to accounting. It was inundated with responses and was able to interview 600 candidates for the roles and whittle down to the 120 needed for opening. Whatever the size of a company, all the concepts here are relevant. It may be that a company does not have the time to build its own community but will be able to access other communities and groups, be they local or discipline-specific, such as hairdressers, and crowdsource their vacancies. Technological, access to information, and communities know no boundaries. That’s the difference the past 10 years have made and why jobs boards and agencies have to adapt, or else. Conclusion Recruitment 4.0 is a long way off; yet, many of its concepts are resonating today and being built upon and planned. Some early adopters are even implementing some of the component parts. 4.0 is a natural progression from 3.0. It takes the community concept to the next level. While some will be initially shocked at the radicalism involved at suggestions of recruitment transitioning into a profit center, crowdsourcing talent, and entertaining/gamification, with a period of reflection it makes sense as a natural strap-on to 3.0 communities. Many of the recruitment leaders in place today are not ready for 3.0, let alone 4.0. They have been schooled in traditional recruiting techniques that will soon be outdated and detrimental to their business. Many more are worried about process than end results. Where does your leader stand? Imagine those recruiting leaders who can go to their CEO and demonstrate that they have been able to map out competitors, and identify and build relationships with cream-of-the-crop talent. Leaders who have helped shape and who have put in place engaged communities with positive two-way communication social media channels, thus enhancing employment brand attractiveness, (with a positive spinoff for the consumer/product/service brand), and have hence been able to slash expenditures on recruitment and are now coming up with proposals of how to turn recruitment into a profit center. Compare that to your current recruiting leader. Are they shaping your future in this direction? Who do you think your CEO would prefer as a recruiting leader? The one described above or your current one? There is plenty above to chew on and debate. Agree or disagree, what is certain is that exciting times lie ahead for recruitment. And before someone asks, will we see an article on Recruitment 5.0 anytime soon? Not from Autodesk. We’ve got to focus on delivering 3.0 and 4.0 with the great team at Autodesk. There’s lots to do and achieve. …; Added by Rajnish Sinha at 4:58am on November 1, 2011