Unconference - day one

Today, I have been at my first recruiting unconference in London.  It has been really exciting and we have two more days to go!   If you haven't been to an unconference before, essentially, the rules are as follows:

• No Powerpoint (no more sitting through a really dull presentation zzzzzzzzzz)
• No Dress Code (feel comfortable)
• No Name Badges (avoid those people who check your badge and only speak to you if you are 'worthy')
• No Pitching (Hurrah)
• No Presentations (A quick introduction and then the discussion is opened to the delegates - great)
• Freedom to move (If the stream isn't as you had hoped, you are free to move)
• Limited numbers (Only 100 spaces so everyone can be heard)

What this means is that rather than have a long presentation followed by a few questions the sessions incorporate a brief overview followed by lots of questions.  This ensures that there is plenty of time for genuinely in depth, challenging discussions about what we all really want to know!  I will write about the issues raised over the next few weeks but there was one particularly interesting discussion today which I will share right now.

The rather impressive marketing manager from a major job board provided some interesting stats showing that jobseekers still much prefer using job boards to social media as, essentially, we like to use quick and easy routes to finding a new job rather than social media where jobseekers need to be proactive.  

The major point I took from this presentation was the rise of the smartphone in searching for a new role - this particular job board has seen site visits from mobile devices rise 200% from January 2010 - January 2011.  Interestingly, whereas the normal peaks for looking at job boards via computers is 11am - 12 (midday) on smartphones there are also peaks during the morning and afternoon commuting periods and at around 10pm.

However, the quite brilliant Kevin Wheeler doesn't agree that job boards or CV's have any future in recruitment - his view is that very soon social media is the only way that jobseekers will find new roles (as regular readers of this blog will know I share these views).  Interestingly, he also believes that there is no future for internal recruiters and that external recruiters can only survive by taking a more strategic stance and providing Hiring Managers with the tools necessary to carry out tactical recruitment.

Kevin also has some interesting views about the future of the interview which numerous studies have shown is a terrible predictor of career success.  In the computer forensics area organisations such as the security services in the UK use scenarios for assessment and Kevin thinks that this is the future.  He believes that finally this whole area is going to become much more scientific.

When people disagreed with his points, Kevin gave a wonderful analogy using Henry Ford.  Back in the early days of the motor car he said that people loved their horses, felt they were a much better way of travelling than the motor car and they would keep on using their horses!  If they had been interviewed for a focus group their views weren't wrong -  but Ford was just more right!            

Job Boards are dead: long live the Job Board

In a previous blog I mentioned that some have suggested that job boards are dying, or indeed dead.  I have been thinking about this some more this week, especially in my niche areas of recruitment.  We sometimes advertise on a variety of boards including Jobsite, Linkedin, Legal Technology Insider and Forensic Focus - with mixed results.

We do sometimes find people via job boards but compared to, say, five years ago, only a tiny percentage of our people are sourced this way and our levels of advertising have certainly reduced considerably in the last couple of years as a result of this trend.

My view is shifting towards thinking that the day of the job board is over.  Objectively, it is an incredibly haphazard and passive way of finding the very best people - who often are unlikley to be browsing the job boards anyway - and I think this form of recruitment is very much a case of finding the best person 'on' the market rather than the best person 'in' the market.

With the growth of social media the best recruiters (whether external or in-house talent acquisition teams) with the most effective sourcing techniques should have no need to advertise - except for branding reasons - as the details of the right person for the job are now freely available.

This poses an interesting challenge for the jobseeker.  In the new reality your challenge is, I would suggest, to use social media to make sure that you can be easily found for that 'perfect' opportunity even if you are not actively seeking a new role.   Are you doing this?  If so, how?

There is, of course, another perspective.  One of my friends who works for a job board thinks that all of this is pure nonsense!  She says that useless recruiters are doing their best to destroy them with awful adverts - from the cut and pasted job specification (zzzz) to the dreaded, 'Our Client...' (sounds so 1950's), via lots of boring adverts filled with unimaginative text and bad grammar.  Hmmm, she does have a point.....

I discussed this over dinner last weekend with a Computer Forensics Director and he reckons that this talk of social media is all very nice and fluffy (he almost choked on a giant prawn when I told him I was going to an unconference this month) but most people and companies aren't ready to move away from job boards - especially in my niches - and are genuinely puzzled by the business case for networking and social media.  Lets face it, at the majority of organisations in my area, most social media is blocked at work anyway.

He tells me that most people in my sectors aren't looking for the perfect job, don't have time to network as they are too busy and that the only social media they are interested in is catching up with friends/family on Facebook and maybe a flirt with Linkedin or even Twitter until quicky they tire of it and get on with important stuff.

I told him he is a dinosaur to which he replied,"David, this is the real world!"

What do you think?