I’ve been asked to be the lead for my company’s thinking on portal strategy and vision. I’m pleased to do so and excited about the direction. If you want to know more, drop me a line at systematicviewpoints(at)gmail(dot)com.
I came back from a week at a client in San Francisco this week. The last time I was there was just about two years ago, and that was the trip that provided the spark for me to begin blogging. I’m struck by how much has changed for me in that time.
Nine months ago I was laid off from my previous job in a huge RIF. I’d been at that company for 9 years, and was with the company before that for almost 15 years. I wasn’t accustomed to involuntary termination. Being at the gate of ‘a certain age’ I was concerned about maintaining positive career momentum.
I landed after three months - in retrospect, a very short time. I left the in-house world to join a management consulting firm. Since then I’ve completed two strategy engagements and I’m about to begin a third. I have to say that I’m as pleased as can be.
I used to run the enterprise portal environments that I now create strategy for, and I like it this way. In the corporate world there was little time for strategy - we were almost completely tactical. I wanted to get out of development and production cycles and demands. Mostly, I wanted get in front of the portals and drive the business solutions they enable. My current job is exactly that.
I now work with folks who are visionary, passionate and remarkably down to earth. My clients and my boss seem to value what I bring to them. I’m a hell of a lucky man.
The Taleo blog reports on a report from Money Magazine on the best jobs in America for people looking for change in their careers. They present 4 meta categories that resemble daytime television programming: Young & Restless, Returning Parent (they really mean “Mom” but that wouldn’t be very PC), From the Military to the private sector, and my favorite - Over 50. I have thoughts about the selections, especially (ahem) the Over 50 category but the real issue for me is the coarse-grained categorization. Given the tensions of the journalistic format I can understand the desire to make this snappy.
What really surprises me is that this same broad brush is picked up by Taleo:
“For recruiters, this is a nice piece of research to help target a specific candidate pool. Looking for Sales Reps? Find moms looking to return to the workplace. Need a Field Service Engineer? Identify someone retiring from the military, and so on.”
“Proactive, targeted candidate sourcing and the use of automated solutions can go a long way towards filling open positions with talented employees who will stay with your organization.” Link.
That’s targeting? This is the opposite of what Enterprise 2.0 promises. We shouldn’t use our tools for incredibly broad generalizations that slot candidates based on generalized demographics. These are important categorizations but by themselves they have no more depth than a sound bite. Being in the over 50 category and coming off my fresh experience in the market I’m offended when I’m contacted for positions that have no bearing on my experience or career trajectory but are the result of some sloppy match based on a single data point about me. At least no one suggested (yet) that I should consider teaching, pension administration or medical records coding - all great choices for an Old Guy, apparently.
Thomas should send Taleo his copy of the Cluetrain Manifesto.
Today I accepted an offer to be a principal consultant focused on enterprise portal strategy and design. I’m excited about this, the firm has a strong usability and design focus and I like the people there very much. I won’t start for another month, partly because I’ll be going to Tuscany for a week and a half of cycle touring. Hopefully this firm will look kindly on blogging, in which case my mask of anonymity may finally be removed.
Google liked me enough to ask me if I’d move to California instead of working in New York. They claim the NY office just isn’t ready for my skills yet. Tempting, yes…but it just isn’t in the cards.
It appears I did well in my first interview with Google. While the NY recruiting committee hasn’t met yet, I’m assured that it’s a green light and the next round is likely to be be a trip to Mountain View to meet the home office people. Although their process can be pretty lengthy and I’m just at the beginning, that’s very exciting.
I’d been with my last employer for almost a decade so I had no presence as a candidate online. Within hours of posting for two jobs on two major boards I received solicitations from recruiters with offers that were more or less on point to my experience,
It’s interesting to be on the consumer side of an industry or service that one has experienced as a provider. I’ve had that experience in the medical/dental/veterinary space, I always end up talking shop with my doctors and now I can’t talk to recruiters without wanting to stick my nose into their process.
I heard today that I’ll be interviewing with Google. Their hiring practices are well documented, NDAs notwithstanding, so that should be an interesting process. I’m talking with a group in my current company (or is it former? I’m still on payroll so current is appropriate) about a strategic sector-level role involving our custoner-facing online experience. I’m looking into someting at SAP, and have a few other targets to follow up on. And I have no excuse to not paint my kid’s bedrooms now.
After more than a decade of legal wrangling, George Harrison was found guilty in 1981 of “subconscious plagiarism” for using music strikingly similar to the Chiffons’ 1963 hit, “He’s So Fine” in his own 1970 hit song, “My Sweet Lord”.
Am I in hot water? I see Jason Corsello’s post The End of Job Boards As We Know It? and I’m struggling to recall if I saw that last week or not…(probably yes to be honest, you’re in my RSS reader). Jason, honest mistake! Let’s call it a meme and move on? Please don’t sue me… 
In any case, I still wonder what’s the driver. I don’t think it’s just the new-pretty-shiny factor, there must be a dissatisfaction with the status quo. See the comments on Jason’s blog to get some sense of that.
Chuck Allen over at HR-XML asks if this is going to be “The year of blog-centric recruiting“, noting Guy Kawasaki’s mention of SimplyHired’s announcing a service called