Obstacles, Challenges and Innovation: Carpe Diem!

Carpe Diem!

Since the beginning of time, change, improvement and new ideas have been welcomed and even embraced (sometimes even inspired) by leaders in every pocket of our economy. Innovation and change have fueled the greatest economic system in the world called Capitalism.

A couple of clicks on an iPAD over Wi-Fi, through Google, to Wikipedia yields the following definition of innovation: "Innovation is the improving of an existing product, service, system or process and the introduction of something better. The term derives from the Latin innovationem, the noun of action from innovare…and stemming from the Latin innovatus, pp. of innovare 'to renew or change,' from in- 'into' + novus 'new.'" [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation]

Carpe diem is commonly translated in popular culture as "Seize the Day." Many believe the origin of the phrase was a work by the Roman Poet Horace. However, I prefer Robin Williams movie quote from, "Dead Poets Society," in which he plays English professor John Keating: "…carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary." [another thank you for the innovative www.imdb.com]

Fun history lesson, but what's my point? I'll get there, I promise…

I'm thinking specifically about the space in which the large and growing DADO community collectively directs its passion – the process and practices by which companies find top sales athletes, and the ways in which sales professionals propel their candidacy and careers.

The job boards deserve credit for bringing innovation into the job search domain in the mid to late 1990's. These leaders truly innovated.

Monster.com and HotJobs (which are now consolidating) and CareerBuilder had combined revenue in 2009 of over $1 billion USD. These sites register over 50 million unique visitors per month, but this activity is not translating into progress for their primary stakeholders – Corporations emerging from the economic downturn, Hiring Managers, and Job Seekers.

Do you agree as Sales and Organization Leaders that the following challenges exist?

 

• Corporations have fewer people and resources with which to execute the traditional hiring process in the wake of the economic downturn, yet new talented employees are required to propel growth and revenue;
• Hiring Managers need faster access to more relevant candidates but precision (which equates to relevance+speed) is not possible on the job boards;
• Job Seekers need to stand out and grab the attention of Hiring Managers to avoid getting lost in monstrous job boards;
• Hiring Managers and Job Seekers need new content and tools to gauge veracity, reality, culture, and character in order to close the trust gap.

 

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So, here we are again. We are living in an interesting time when change is inevitable. It would be an overstatement to go so far as to suggest that Capitalism is depending on us — the stakes are high enough nonetheless. The economy is posed for a re-bound (the signs are all around us) and innovation is our opportunity and responsibility as stewards of our businesses and the role our businesses play in our respective communities.

Consensus exists within and beyond the DADO community that sustainable growth in the 21^st century requires new approaches and processes that are smarter more relevant and faster. More specifically, companies can no longer afford to pay for, or handle high volumes of irrelevant resume traffic; and Job Seekers are increasingly uninterested in paying to post their resumes, or for the privilege of reading nebulous job posts as a prelude to an obscured employer and interview process.

What does this mean for us? How should we fulfill our responsibility and seize our opportunity? Do the answers lie within social media and social networking? Nielsen reports that 75% of Internet users visit social media and networking sites and that over 20% (and rising fast) of our time on the Internet is spent engaging in various ways on social networking sites. By some estimates, the "big-3" (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) have over 700 million combined users and they are growing rapidly. However, this activity is not easily converted into precision within the job search domain.

Please share your ideas for our collective path forward! We also invite you to learn more about DADO – an innovative Social Recruiting platform that fuses 21^st century technologies (including social media) and behaviors with recruiting best practices. DADO powers Treeline and is Treeline's contribution to the journey of significance which the readers of this blog share. Dado is one step, maybe a leap, forward and will improve by the same behaviors and influences for which it was created to harness: knowledge, technology, social collaborative engagement, and urgency.

To the Sales and Organization leaders reading this blog we offer this call to action – Carpe diem!