Now that the debate has moved on, from iphone apps towards a wider embrace of mobile platforms & of mobile as another, although important engagement channel (you can listen below to the latest blog radio show by Bill Boorman), let’s look ahead for a moment to a future that at first glance might seem contradictory but is ultimately stable and sound. A future in which, to borrow a phrase of Natasha Saxberg, the social web has been transformed to a value web.
In this future, the individual engages fully in social media through various means including mobile. The key is that the individual participates and controls his own brand through engagement and active management. Integrity and honesty are the foundation, real names and real pictures the norm; fakes and impostors will be exposed. It’ll be increasingly difficult to maintain a persona – especially as human, face to face contact will become an important ingredient that keeps social media alive, vibrant, connected and honest. Anybody, I can’t see in a video, on a conference, at an event, in flesh and blood will be filtered out.
At the same time, whilst managing his/her profile actively, the individual will control touch points more rigorously. Instead of sharing their personal email address, virtual PO Boxes such as Linkedin’s in-mail will be the initial and often only contact point. An individual might have several of these PO Boxes – one for job hunting, one for house hunting, one for car buying, etc… Depending on where they are in the cycle, individuals will manage these PO Boxes more or less actively. Sometimes all messages will get forwarded to the personal inbox, sometimes they will gather in the PO Box until the individual decides to pick them up.
The same scenario applies with mobile phone numbers. The one true mobile phone number (which, if you think about it, is one of the few consistent parts of our identity as we move address more often than we change mobile number) will be reserved for the selected, trusted few that have direct, unrestricted access to us. The others will get a forwarding number, a cloak, working in the same way as the email scenario described above. In that way, the individual decides on the value of a communication, engagement and activity level. Nobody else does. So whilst the individual is more prominent on the web and seemingly more accessible, true access will be minimised to a small circle of trustees.
By the way, all this technology already exists.
What does that mean for the recruiter? First and foremost – the candidate is in control when and if he/she wants to participate. So the first communication needs to be tailored to their needs. In the same way as we expect covering letters and CVs/resumes to be tailored for the job. Secondly, the so called passive candidates will be much closer to the market, than they are now. Thirdly, recruiting becomes much more human again, driven by representation, understanding, future impact instead of ATS, CV databases and candidates as commodities.
Here is the audio for Bill Boorman’s Mobile Recruiting radio show, on which I was guest:
photo credit: Giulio Menna
Related posts:
Twitter: Topbananas
says
Felix,
I like the thinking, great idea – how will the technology affect candidate experience and future problems candidates will want to avoid. Wonderful forward thinking.
The “Follow me” type phone numbers have been domestically available for well over 10 years. Back in the mid 90s Dixons sold such a service in the high street. It did not do very well.
The failure of Dixon’s product was the technology solved a problem that did not really exist. As the Mobile space develops and the problems hinted to in this blog may well see a return of such technology services targeted at domestic consumers. However maybe a spam filter type service built into the phone OS will be next? The phone is not new, but digital push is new. This is an area I guess will receive regulatory focus and services to prevent spam.
Many people set up a Hotmail account for jobseeking, will jobseeking phone numbers catch on? How about jobseeking twitter and facebook alias?
I look forward to seeing this discussion unfold.
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge, Dave.
I think and hope that people keep Twitter and Facebook real, what I can see, however, is that people will control access to their private information such as email/mobile number, etc.
I don’t necessarily see it as Hotmail accounts, I would think – as with your Linkedin InMail, – the candidate keeps those PO Boxes alive – the level of interaction & engagement, the speed of picking up and responding to messages will differ depending on the candidate’s frame of mind.
Felix
Twitter: williamfischer
says
Since our company is focused on building the tech that in broad strokes helps to realize this vision of the future of recruitment, it would be interesting to get your thoughts on what the necessary stack of technologies that is required to realize it.
Because of the casual, unstructured nature of social media, it’s our belief that the biggest tech hurdles are in the semantic analysis, data structuring, and relevancy algorithms needed to smartly pair hundreds of millions of potential employees who engage in social media with the millions of companies looking to hire. We currently track 60mm+ social “conversations” a day and have built a database of over 20mm online profiles and we’re building tools to facilitate communication and pair them with 3mm job openings. We’re getting better at it, but are always interested in getting the thoughts of others who are engaged in this technical challenge.
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
Hi Bill,
That is a very interesting & wide question. Semantics, data and relevancy are key components, but I would even add technology such as Spinbox, in a way, anything that gives the individual the ability to manage their profile simply and at the same time technology to set the levels of engagement and participation in a simple fashion.
I’d be very interested to meet up and discuss this in more detail.
Felix
Twitter: williamfischer
says
Absolutely right. One of the big battles is the “namespace” one that is being contested by facebook, twitter, google, linkedin and others. For brands and individuals, this will help to establish where their online identity sits. My guess is that individuals will want multiple “identities” (a family/friends one, a professional one, a…..) And this is why “identity management” tools will be important.
I think the right way to think about mobile is to assume that the recruitment process moves to the cloud instead of thinking about 1 specific communication channel. As individuals and companies reveal their employment needs in cloud based data centres, pairing algorithms and communication protocols will emerge. my hunch is that the phone number will not emerge as a “namespace winner” nor will the mobile phone emerge as the preferred comm device in recruitment. Smart phones should be thought of as “smart clients” that allow cloud recruitment to be managed from anywhere.
Dave, the privacy issue is a tricky one, but my guess is that just as internet users default to leaving cookies on, individuals will see benefits to having having public personas, provided that filtering tools are sophisticated enough to eliminate the voice/email/IM Spam that will emerge.
Felix/Dave: Would be great to meet up for a coffee.
Bill
Twitter: Topbananas
says
Bill, great tech – and such a serious amount of information can be discovered about individuals from the public social conversations. I query how the users on Twitter might feel if they were fully aware that a business can record and analysis all their conversations resulting in a detailed profile about their entire life.
I am very sure it is going to be a fantastic marketing tool and such data may change websites registration processes to use Twitter Accounts instead of email. I would like to pop in for a coffee sometime and learn more about these developments.
Twitter: Ray_anne
says
Great post, Felix. I was very closed-minded about mobile, thinking we were already mobile enough… So untrue. Thanks to you and Gordon Lokenberg, I will continue to study this format and watch as it changes the industry.
Twitter: Topbananas
says
Rayanne, My latest Blog post may further help you http://wp.me/pRoNs-2j
It would be great to have a chat. Perhaps you can drop your details? My Twitter handle is @topbananas.
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
Thanks Rayanne! Mobile is most certainly going to change the landscape, but let’s always see it as a part of our on-going activity not as an add-on or as the solution to all things.
Felix
Twitter: Stephenodonn
says
I believe that, within tolerable parameters, candidates go along with the consensus, and adopt whichever medium is agreed to be the way forward. However, and its a big however, if the channel isn’t paying off immediately, it can spark a wave of backlash that’s hard to recover from.
Should an organisation in the mobile recruitment sector lose the trust of candidates by misusing their data, then the mobile channel would find it difficult to recover quickly.
Friendsreunited, for example, was too quick to exploit its database and overcommercialised too soon. It then broke the momentum of trust that had been built, and suffered badly as a result.
Twitter: FelixWetzel
says
Stephen, that’s an interesting point and one for permanent debate – short term profit over long term candidate value. I am with you on this one, it’s about the long term candidate value building. It comes back to the fact that candidates are under represented and are seen as not paying for the service, whereby all the the econometric studies show that only new CVs bring new revenue and only repeat users will increase profitabitiy.