This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 29

Remember: Recruiting Brainfood for ever green, deep dive curated recruiting + HR content.

Sponsored by our friends at Personio

H.U.G - The HR Happening, Oct12-13th - London, Dublin, Munich, Madrid, Stockholm & Online.

2 days, 50+ speakers (including the likes of Josh Bersin, Katarina Berg, Perry Timms), 9000+ attendees - it's the biggest multi-location HR event in Europe this year! Delegates will get a full programme in both English and German, with a focus on knowledge share with peers, market insights from analysts and personal development for HR / TA leaders. Register for online or in-person attendance in sites hosted by Personio in London, Dublin, Munich, Madrid, Amsterdam and Stockholm

I will be at the London event - so come and say hello: register your interest here!

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Open Kitchen: 5 Year Anniversary of Recruiting Brainfood

Yesterday I sent Issue 260 of Recruiting Brainfood and some basic arithmetic (260/52 = 5?) told me that it must have been the 5th year anniversary of the original brainfood channel. Thanks everyone for your extraordinary kind messages - public and private - on the milestone - they have been lovely messages to read.

This is probably a good moment to share insight on what I've learned in audience building. I might do a mini series on this, so if you're interested in this topic, let me know in comments below.

First up, how the nature of information exchange in audience building is fundamentally different from what we recruiters are used to, and how this needs to lead to major adjustments in how we think about ROI....

1. Time adjust your ROI

Have you noticed that most audience building initiatives fail? There is a great premise, an enthusiastic launch and several good issues or episodes then.... it stops. The creator loses energy, capacity, motivation or confidence and the initiative is actively killed off or - more usually - just abandoned. In Netflix terms, it's like that great new show you've got into and where you're looking forward to Season 2, only to find that the studio has decided to cancel it. Devastating stuff.

The main problem is usually that the creator has put together too tight a time scale to measure ROI.

As recruiters, the content we generally produce are job ads. As such we've trained ourselves to think of ROI in terms of job ad performance - 'we should know if it works after 30 days'. However job ads are not a great model for audience building, as the exchange between recruiter and job seeker is purely transactional - the recruiter posts a job ad, the job seeker applies to it or not and the relationship generally terminates upon exchange.

When building audience the exchange is not transactional but relational. The relationship continues to build through successive exchanges. Indeed, the more value that is provided by the recruiter (creator) the greater the attention exchanged by the subscriber, which in turn should drive more value being delivered. The relationship does not terminate after exchange, but grows through continuous exchanges.

In the ideal case, virtuous circle emerges where both parties get an increasingly quantum from the exchange, with each exchange further deepening the relationship. Likely, if you posted publicly advocating for Recruiting Brainfood today, we've together built a high value, high attention relationship that we both hope will continue and not terminate.

2. Extend time frame of ROI (beyond reasonableness)

When I was about to launch Recruiting Brainfood, I consulted with my friend and super podcaster Matt Alder, who had just celebrated something like his 200th podcast episode, and I asked him about how he kept going. He gave me advice which I will impart with you today - commit doing a years worth of X before you even look at ROI. In Netflix terms, this is committing to a multi-year, 5 season story arc and to hell with what the studio execs think.

We need to do this because audience building might be fundamentally an unreasonable thing to do. If you check too early on whether it is 'worth it', you will almost always conclude that the answer must be 'no'. In order to build audience you will need to extend the time frame for ROI - way out, beyond reasonableness. So much so, that chances are you will not be able to do this under the auspices of an employer, who will - quite legitimately - ask you for ROI earlier; nor will you be able to do it if making money was a motivator - chances are you won't make any, and even if you do make some, it will not be enough to keep a roof over your head.

3. Reduce production costs

The good news is, the unreasonable challenge of building audience informs you on the how and what options you do have. I didn't have time, so needed to make time. There is a reason why Recruiting Brainfood is a curated newsletter and not original writing. There is a reason why Brainfood Live is a video livestream and not a professionally produced podcast. There is a reason why I adopt an 'Open Kitchen' philosophy in TWIR. It is because I commit to doing a years worth of anything before considering ROI and therefore need to control (reduce!) the production costs expended on each issue or each episode or each essay.

There is no intro jingle to the The Recruiting Brainfood podcast. I wish there was. I wish I could clean up the audio quality, have a transcript produced, re-market the best clips. It is only the audio file lifted from the Brainfood Live show and converted into an MP3. But it is 10 minutes worth of effort - low cost of production, so low that it is repeatable every week for a year.

What is the key takeaway here?

If you want to build audience, it is better to do lots of small things (low effort) over a long period of time (unreasonable ROI) at low, repeatable cost than it is to do low number of big things (high effort) over a short period of time (reasonable ROI) at high, unrepeatable cost.

Anyways, too much cost has already been expended on writing this essay, so it is time to exit the kitchen and enter the lounge 👇

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What's in the News?

Multiverse raise $130 million Series C round

Multiverse's offering is so aligned with the zeitgeist - building alternative path for career advancement other than University. Size of raise suggests that this years foray into the US market has been a success and that a great deal of the investment will go towards deepening the relationship with this market. Check out Euan's post on the strategy here

Gem raise $130 million to become the 'Salesforce of HR'

Great to see another one of the our great sponsors continue to make waves in HR Tech. It's only taken 4 years for this company to reach unicorn status - incredible investor confidence in the founder vision and ability to execute. I suspect Gem will prove to be a significant challenger to the incumbents who long dominated the scene. Read about the strategy here

Andela raise $200 million Series E at a $1.5 billion valuation

Launched in Nigeria, Andela has become perhaps Africa's most prominent tech unicorn, at least in the minds of Western organisations who are keen to tap into the offering for remote engineering talent. Another one with perfect timing - getting just ahead of the market as the market transforms. CEO Jeremy Johnson's announcement here

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share, comment below, this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer? (New Segment)

Is no one else going to claim this slot?

Candidate.ID have collected 11, then 24 qualified customer leads in consecutive weeks as a result of using the 'What's On Offer' segment in This Week, In Recruiting. So they are running the offer again (£1999.99 Talent Pipeline Workshop, 100% discounted, so claim it here) unless another vendor comments below and makes an offer to the community.

Repeat: all you need do to get in next week in this space, is comment below with your offer - that's all there really is to it. Otherwise, it is Candidate.ID for the hat trick of free marketing...

If you are a recruitment service provider or recruitment technology vendor have any exclusive offer for the community, comment below with your offer in order to be included in next week's edition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it.

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What's Going On?

Sub1000, Oct 5th - 7th, 10am to 3pm BST

Billed as the UK’s only virtual recruitment event bringing together in-house recruiters & HR professionals from organisations with under 1000 staff. It's the largest category of business in the UK and the perhaps the category which employs most people yet so often under represented in favour of stories from tech startup and / or mega corporations. 3 days worth of talks, workshops and networking - looks great - sign up here

In-House Recruitment Live Manchester, Oct 6th, Victoria Warehouse

London was great but Manchester really is the headline event for IHR. Fantastic line up of speakers for an all day conference + expo. Have a feeling this is going to be good one. No cost on tickets so register here to claim one.

Recruitment Agency Expo, Oct 6th -7th, NEC Birmingham

It's the 10 year anniversary of the largest Recruitment Agency conference in Europe - Recruitment Agency Expo. One of those which is mandatory to attend if you're an agency owner or manager and want to get a grip as to what's going on in industry. Some cool recruitment tech on display also. Free to register so go ahead and do so here

Founder's Focus Ep10 - Up close & personal with Caroline Gleeson, CEO, Occupop, Oct 6th, 12.00pm

Excited to speak with the awesome Caroline Gleeson, CEO of up and coming ATS provider Occupop. Founder's Focus is the video livestream show where we get up close and personal with business leaders changing the way we work today. We're talking entrepreneurship, the transition from recruiter to rectec, juggling the demands of startup and parenthood and the future of the ATS market. Should be a fun conversation - register here

Age-ism in Hiring & Beyond, Oct 7th, 4pm BST

Glad to see more webinars devoted to the topic of age inclusion. We are all going to be victims of ageism one day, so it is in everyone's interest to elevate this conversation to the top table. Our buddies at Applied at with Dr. Lori Trawinski AARP Public Policy Institute on how best to do it. Register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep128 - The Psychology Behind Unconscious Bias In Hiring, Oct 8th, 2pm BST

We talk about unconscious bias a lot in our business, but do we actually understand the psychological principles that underlying it? Why are bias so pervasive? What makes them un or subconscious? What can we do about it - if anything? We're with Charlotte Mutsaerts, Head of Talent (Lendable), Dr Stephen Smith, Chief Neuroscientist (Sports Psychology), Leila Mortet, Organisational Effectiveness & Talent Partner (Philips) & Evi Antoniou, I/O Psychologist (Bryq). Must watch folks - register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter, comment below with the link and event details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Hiring?

Relayr, Join Talent, Vimcar, HelloBetter, Resource Solutions, Olsam. and more

If you're looking for recruiter, HR, RPO, recruitment tech job - configure your preferences and subscribe to the board here. If you're an employer hiring for any of the above, post it here.

If you want your job posted on the Brainfood Job Board, click on the link above. Selected the 'Featured' tier if you want 10x traffic and applications.

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Who's Moving?

Industry veterans D. Mark Hornung and Margaret Moellenberndt join employer brand specialist exaqeuo, significantly strengthening the talent pool of EB consultants in the firm. Candidate shortage, renewed competition of talent leading, surge in demand to remake the EVP - good times for great consultancies.

Jake Foster joins Gitlab as Director, Global GTM Recruiting, after spending 4 and half years in recruitment leadership roles at Atlassian. I have a feeling Gitlab are going to be one of the near future centres of excellence for TA, especially for the remote only.

Brittany King joins Facebook as Diversity Sourcing Lead, Engineering after spending the past year as People & Talent Manager at Proactive Talent. Brittany has been such an awesome contributor to the community - look forward to seeing her success in this new role!

Steph Smith steps up to Director of Marketing at HubSpot, following the enormous success of the Trends product. There are few people who know about audience building, and converting that audience into revenue, the Steph. Awesome on twitter too - give her a follow here

Chris Long joins workforce intelligence platform Rejig as Head of Partnerships & Alliances. Few a better connected down under and across the globe than Chris. Power move by Rejig

Dustin Robinson announces he is joining freelancer marketplace Malt, after 3 years as with Booking.com. I first met Dustin when he was working with TalentSoft and it's fantastic to see a great talent return to the industry - we have missed you hombre!

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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What are you doing?

Linda Schwaber-Cohen, Head of Marketing at Brighthire is looking for respondents for The State of Tech Hiring survey. How have pay bands changed? What's the real stance on remote work? How do your hiring processes and policies compare to your peers? One for the tech recruiters - 5 minutes of your time in exchange for the report results. Get to it!

Andy Foote has a new newsletter, which basically means you should subscribe here. Few know more about LinkedIn than Andy, so it was always an aberration why he wasn't amongst the first to gain access to the LinkedIn newsletter feature! Help him make up for lost time, and sign up.

Finally, good luck to Pierre-André Fortin, who is running the Marathon des Sables - the Marathon of the Desert - 250KM in 7 days. He should be half way to finish line by now....

If you are doing something new, comment below with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

OK that is about it for today - hope you've enjoyed this issue of This Week, In Recruiting.

Remember, if you want into next week's issue whether it is What's Going On, Who's Story, Who is Available, What's on offer, What you doing etc - just let me know in comments below.

Have a good week everybody

Hung

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.