090601 Conventional Wisdom

On June 1, 2009, in All, JohnSumser.com, by John Sumser

Conventional Wisdom

(June 01, 2009) If you’ve been following along, there’s a gentle undercurrent about Disruption in my writing these days. The ravages of Moore’s Law ultimately find their way into every pocket of our culture.

Moore’s law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years. The trend was first observed by Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore in a 1965 paper] It has continued for almost half a century and in 2005 was not expected to stop for another decade at least

Almost every measure of the capabilities of digital electronic devices is strongly linked to Moore’s law: processing speed, memory capacity, sensors and even the number and size of pixels in digital cameras. All of these are improving at (roughly) exponential rates as well. This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy.[8] Moore’s law describes this driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The consequences of Moore’s Law are everywhere. Major industries, from electronics design to banking have been reshaped by the combination of Moore’s Law and the expansion of digital communications. Advertising, news and the rest of the old industrial media are reeling from the impact. There is virtually nothing left.

Disruption is what happens when Moore’s Law meets your world.

You’ve seen it and you now the symptoms. First, the seasoned folks all swear that their business simply can’t be digitized. Then the digitization starts in earnest. New players emerge, like Apple in music or Google in news and advertising. Whole new approaches to doing the same old thing arrive.

Take a moment and think about the news industry. For nearly a century, owning a newspaper was reactions a license to print money. When the disruption came, the incumbents simply couldn’t figure out what to do. Those country club memberships and six figure salaries were absolutely necessary (to everyone but the disruptors). Imagine what it’s like to watch your world crumble while you’re unable to save it.

That’s what’s coming to HR and Recruiting.

How do you think it will get here?

One thing is for sure. Anything that resembles conventional wisdom is out the window.

About the author

John Sumser

John Sumser is the founder, principal author and editor-in-chief of the HRExaminer Online Magazine. John explores the people, technology, ideas and careers of senior leaders in Human Resources and Human Capital. John is the also principal of Two Color Hat where he routinely advises Human Resources, Recruiting Departments and Talent Management teams with product analysis, market segmentation, positioning, strategy and branding guidance.

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  • Heather Bussing

    “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” Isaac Asimov

    My experience is that conventional wisdom is simply the former and rarely the latter.

  • Rob McIntosh

    Maybe my thoughts on this will be seen as heresy by my recruiting brethren but you pose a question that indicates a paradigm shift in our industry, so it is only fair that I respond in a way that eludes to what I think that paradigm shift could be.

    In the last 10 years the only real shift I have seen in recruiting is one where candidates can now find a broad array of opportunities on the web, and in turn a broad array of candidates can be found on the web. Besides, that any change has been incremental steps in some areas but no universal ground swell in a sea of change for our industry.

    So what could be a dramatic a shift in our industry that equals or surpasses the last big change? I think the next big paradigm shift will be the middle man/woman gets removed out of the recruiting equation. Who are the middle men/woman…………we are!

    If you look at most source of hire metrics (CareerXroads, HCI, etc) you will find that about 80% of hires actually come from the active channels (candidates that come to you – Careers web site, Job Postings, etc).

    Technology innovation is moving at such a rapid pace with advancements in our industry that we will soon (next 5 years maybe) have the ability for hiring managers be able to receive a shortlist of names that meet the key requirements of their open opportunities based on technology solutions and filters (ability to stack rank candidates based of skill/need/want match). In turn, candidates will be able to receive a targeted list of opportunities that meet their needs based of a higher level of transparency companies provide around (benefits, culture, flexibility, career path, etc). We are already starting to see elements of these solutions right now with feeds and alerts for candidates sent to their inbox/Cell phone/etc. Some ATS and CRM solutions and their product road maps help provide a level of depth around the skills and competencies required to help automate the short list of candidates that a hiring manager is most interested in. Once these two technologies more effectively converge, we will see a shift to a similar approach we see on Ebay and Google where both buyers and sellers are brought together on a cohesive platform.

    I am not saying all recruiters are dinosaurs but I believe there will be less of us, and the ones that do remain, will become more relationship development managers who focus their time on community development, outreach and building relationships with key talent ahead of demand (akin to Business Development).

    The day a candidate can go online and put in their key requirements into a search on what will make them think about a career move based upon their skills, competencies and inertest, and in turn a hiring manager can run a search against candidates (and potentially bio’s of people outside the ATS, like LinkedIn, etc) that meet their required needs as well, then the last step in the paradigm shift is a mutually beneficial arrangement that does not require a recruiter to play a part in this specific part of the process. But until a time comes where technology can more effectively gauge the requirements and interest of both Company and candidates, then this shift is some time off.

    Before you throw stones or burn me at the stake if you must, pause for a moment and ask yourself the question, if technology could effectively perform this function, could science fiction become reality freeing up a large part of our time to become relationship development experts?

  • http://www.johnsumser.com John Sumser

    I think you are on target, Rob. And, I think the time is getting closer. Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment.

    The hard part we have in forecasting the disruption is that we know the process too well. The new way will be much cheaper and candidates and hiring managers will do more work, not less. We have a hard time seeing the vulnerabilities because we know too much.

    It’s easier to look across the aisle at HR and imagine that much of the administrivia will be self administered and outsourced. New employees are going to arrive for onboarding with a full complement of benefit and compensation materials that they carry from their last job. The core data, which already really belongs to them is about to become their responsibility to manage.

    Except for training and a wee bit of OD, HR is going away fast. Think bank tellers, reporters, record company executives, secretaries, humans answering the phone, ad sales people and buggy whip manufacturers (oops I almost said auto execs).

    The only thing that vaguely resembles job security is the willingness to see the friction that creates your job and try to beat technology at the task of disintermediation. That means, find out why you ought to be declared redundant.

    I’m not sure who’s going to burn you at the stake.I hope to encourage you to be more agressive in your forecast.

  • http://find-attract.com Joshua Kahn

    I know who the folks will be who will burn you at the stake. The exact same folks who’ll be left out in the cold when those changes come to pass. I’m in agreement with what you’ve said Rob, with one caveat described at the end.

    It just simply makes sense that the things that can be automated, with no discernible decrease in quality, will be. That’s what technology is for no?

    What we’re largely talking about here, I think, is the attraction of active candidates. I’m not so sure that the wooing of passive candidates (despite what you may think of that concept) can be automated in the same way. This to me fits into the relationship building, relationship maintenance part of the future scenario you paint.

    We’re already at a point where sourcing has gotten easy. Easy because people are smarter about how to source, but also because a larger portion of the general populous live their lives in a way makes them very findable. I’m encountering this now in daily workload, its not the finding that’s hard, its finding the right ones that is the challenge. Said another way, the filtering.

    I think the role of communities is going to be as much about helping people filter out of the application process as it is to filter in. Two sides of the same coin I guess. We’ve just never had to consider the “filter out” side. But again, this focuses on the attraction side of the picture to those looking.

    Its funny, recruiting used to be a lot more about being a relationship development expert didn’t it? Its almost like technology has distracted us across the decades from continuing to develop that capability. I wonder, will there be enough benefit on the back end to justify the ~30 year distraction? I believe so. The benefits are seen in the removal of anything that’s an obstacle to the right fit. Be they time, geography, or awareness.

    As it stands the main obstacle to developing good relationships with top talent is mostly good relationship building skills. One of the few things that won’t be supplanted by technology.

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