Ahh, Thanksgiving. Food. Wine. Football. And that whole ‘reasons to be thankful thing’ that my family drops on everyone when it’s time to finally eat. Good times.
In this time of remembrance and thankfulness, I thought it was an opportune time to drop an obligatory Top 5 things I’m thankful for in regards to being a blogger in the recruitment industry. Here goes.
- $26.2 billion. Known by industry nerds as the dollar amount Microsoft (over)paid for LinkedIn last year. Doing so started a chain reaction that saw the likes of Google and Facebook get serious about employment. As my readers know, many of my posts are about these three companies. Had Microsoft not bought LinkedIn, I might still be writing about job board startups in Toledo.
- Decision trees. Nearly every recruiting tech vendor these days says they have artificial intelligence. Yeah, right. Enterprises like IBM, Microsoft, Google and Amazon are doing real AI. Mya, Woo, and Workey are not real AI. They’re marketers who put that lipstick on a decision tree pig.
- Darwin. I quote the famous scientist, who said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” Survival of the fittest is on full display in our industry, like it is in most, and it’s a blast to cover. Job boards aren’t dead, but they’re sure familiar with the defibrillator. Google for Jobs will prove whether or not Indeed can survive this latest asteroid strike.
- Rule of Law. One of the most important Internet battles of our time is being fought right here in the recruitment industry. HiQ, a startup that exists because of the treasure trove of personal data that exists on LinkedIn, is being challenged in court by the professional network, who prefers hiQ’s spiders and bots keep out. Say what you will about America’s justice system, but this David and Goliath fight couldn’t play out just anywhere. This will be a blast to cover heading into next year.
- Human nature. Such a dichotomy, us homo sapiens. For every great achievement, there’s a head-scratcher that makes you go hmmm to balance things out, and our industry is no different. And those stories are usually the most fun to tell. Last year alone, a job board founder went to jail, a start-up thought O’Hire was a good name for a company, and some HR exec actually said “Instagram is the new LinkedIn.” Thanks to humans being human, I’m guaranteed to have blog fodder for life.
There are certainly more things to be thankful for, of course, like the fact that a reputable publisher like ERE continues to let me-be-me and drop content here on a regular basis. Life is good. Five things, however, seems digestible at a time when turkey and trimmings are the only things we should be consuming.