I can say without fear of contradiction that those of us who attended our first birthday drink on Wednesday night would have all had much bigger and messier nights, but for me last night’s gathering was everything I might have hoped it would be. Good company and a bit of impassioned discussion and debate over a few beers.
Have to say though that for me there were, for me, a couple of stand out elements to the night (to add to Mr Harrison’s recollection :)
Awards: Now after I was criticised last year for daring to comment on this blog about what I saw, in my very personal opinion, were some very strange judging decisions that saw a hardly viewed at all dancing faeces on youtube scooping best work of the year at the last RADs, RBI undertook a period of consultation and have reviewed not just the overriding format, but also clearly given consideration to the skillset they need to have within the invited panel. With the increasing prevalence of digital execution and creativity within recruitment activity it’s absolutely crucial that this is reflected in the judges background – because, as recently discussed on this blog in regards to some other curious award decisions in the NORAs, there actually are some fundamental elements in digital execution that should make something good or not so good. Elements that are all too often are clearly ignored / not appreciated / forgotten in the judging process.
Anyway - both Sinead and John (Buffey) had recently completed a gruelling couple of days (and to be honest I never realised what hard work it was trawling through the great and the not so great this industry produces) participating in the RADs judging. Now a large element of any creativity judging is, of course, subjective, but I was heartened that both were so positive about the rigorousness of the process this year and in agreement that the panel had indeed, for them, sorted the wheat from the chaff. It’s great to hear that two people steeped in digital delivery being given a clear opportunity to inform and educate a judging panel so that a healthy debate about appropriateness and effectiveness rather than “spin” can ensue – exactly how it should be. I’m looking forward to January (thanks for the invite Gemma ;). Of course if it’s all pants then John’s the skinny blond fella and Sinead the raven haired Celt sitting next to the dance floor.
Second life: of course this was always going to raise it’s head – but when you get some passionate visionary types together (not necessarily including myself in that grouping) it actually becomes clear where this kind of environment can indeed add value to the recruitment process and employer branding activity. For me, with the current “let’s be really honest about how many people are really on it and using it” user levels as they are, then online careers fairs are more about the PR than delivery, and that PR ship has now surely well and truly departed – but when you really consider how you might engage with an audience through establishing some best-practice skills evaluation with potential training benefits offshoots within this virtual world then you start to get the idea of just where the real potential lies. Exciting – no, really!
The next big thing: now it wasn’t that we sat about talking about what might be “the next big thing” – that would just be silly – but instead I had a very interesting conversation with a gentlemen about what he and his team have been doing of late. Am not going to name check – not my place to steal anyone’s thunder (and was getting a little lubricated at that point so not sure how secret squirrel they are about it all), but my god I think they’re onto something. Something that just could, leveraged as effectively as they seem to be in a position to do, actually change the face of recruitment (certainly within some sectors) rather than, as most other solutions seem to do, just doing the same old same old more “efficiently” / cheaper.
When it would seem most solutions providers or media companies in this environment has been busy banging their drums or going for short term growth and looking for the moderately big short to medium term pay off, it’s wonderful to speak with people who are actually playing a long game and going about their business quite modestly but with some great visionary plans to revolutionise all elements, from income models to candidate evaluation. If you don’t do a lot of business with them – I don’t / haven’t – then you might be forgiven for thinking (as did I) that their primary market offer is what they’re about. How wrong. They’ve far from been sitting back content to build enough unique users to then be bought up by some big media operation desperate to jump on a passing digital ship.
So when, as so often happens, someone asks “what’s going to the big noise in recruitment over the next couple of years”, then just be honest and say “in a rapidly shifting market it’s not that clear” – because the wonderful thing about working in the digital world is that most often innovation comes from places you really wouldn’t have thought to look.
And John (Whitehurst) – get well soon mate (assuming that you are indeed ill and not just in hiding in case the TMP avatars were on the prowl ;-).
Sorry i missed the night ... hope you all had fun.
Next time can we run a party in second life at the same time ?
For those of us who can not deal with the real world.
Posted by: John Whitehurst | 30/11/2007 at 10:40 AM