A presentation inspired by conversations with friends Michael Kelemen, John Sumser and Don Ramer.

1. the recursive nature of recruiting blogs a presentation by amitai givertz

2. ‘ from huh?’ to ‘ah-ha!’ [and back again] www.blogversity.com/recruitomatic

3. To understand what RECURSION is…

4. … you first have to understand what RECURSION is.

5. … is a recursive procedure A procedure that is applied once, and then applied to the result of that application, and so on…

6. Get it?

8. COMM UNITIES Bubbles EXPAND and CONTRACT with interest Bubbles ABSORB each other and become SELF-ABSORBED Bubbles INTERCONNECT and yet are SELF-CONTAINED BLOGGING are like bubbles…

9. when the recruitosphere… ...like any other bubble online… … collides with something or has been active too long it breaks into smaller bubbles. a neat recursive effect. big-group-blogs turn into small-group-blogs and blog communities turn into blogs about blogging. eventually what once was the center of gravity becomes a black hole [infinite recursion] another interesting recursive effect. cool. [the recruiting bubble]

10. recruiting bloggers operate in their own personal bubble and/ or bubbles of professional and/or corporate interest... recruiting bloggers represent diverse interests, some vested… … some political … some social Some blogs are serious... … and some undefined, unclear. RECRUITOPIA … others are whimsical if are we are gorging on food for thought then why are we forever hungry, frothing at the mouth and babbling? ‘ thought leadership’ bubbles subject matter bubbles … some theoretical bubbles of association trends and technology bubbles

11. Recruiting.com ERE Blog Network RecruitingBlogs.com The Recruiting Network RECRUITING BLOG COMMUNITY um, who’d i miss? … covering the same range of topics, recurring themes and personal agendas. THE RECRUITING FLY lists 275 individual recruiting and related employment blogs…

12. Who reads recruiting blogs anyway? With what regularity? How is ‘audience’ defined, readership measured and influence observed? Are recruiting blogs nothing more than user-generated content being published for self-consumption and/or self-promotion? More or less? I S • I T • R E C U R S I O N ?

13. The recurring questions: why and why not? The money-shot answer: huh? RECURSION IN LANGUAGE RECURSION IN PROCESS RECURSION IN BLOGGING

14. TOWER OF BABEL GENESIS 11 [5] But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. [6] The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. [7] Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. WHAT’S THIS? I WONDER: is the architecture of CONFUSION modeled on a recursive design by coincidence or is the TOWER a metaphor for a hierarchy of knowledge, understanding and wisdom? ZUT ALORS! JE NE SAIS PAS! Doh! It’s Chomsky's hierarchy of grammars, dummy!

15. Linguist Noam Chomsky theorized that the unlimited extension of a language such as English is possible only by the recursive device of embedding sentences in sentences like this one: The much blogged about war for talent which goes on unabated makes competing for skilled workers like top-notch recruiters tough because the demand for those people exceeds the supply . The war for talent makes competing for skilled workers tough.

16. Like other bloggers perhaps, when we are not blogging about ourselves and how we feel, Recruitopians blog about things and processes that are by their very nature recursive…

17. JOB HUNTING RECURSIVE PROCESSES changing jobs and the process of finding a new one is a recursive process made up of lots of little recursive processes for example: the first step in the process is to update your resume and the last step in the process is to update it again if you have been involved in a job search recently you may have experienced the recursive nature of systematic voice- and email tag

18. CHASING TALENT RECURSIVE PROCESSES recruiters use terminology that is reminiscent of recursion. we say things like ‘full-cycle recruiting’ to describe complex processes like full-cycle recruiting the ‘recruitment/retention continuum’ is recursive by definition. words like ‘backfill’ to describe replacing someone who leaves has a certain recursive ring to it, don’t you think? we use recursive techniques like ‘targeted selection’ to recruit people who match a candidate profile itself modeled after the ‘model hire’

19. RECRUITING’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET… IN RECRUITING RECURSION IS DEFINED AS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN EXPECTING BETTER RESULTS INSANE, ISN’T IT?

20. SO, WHO CARES ABOUT • THE RECURSIVE NATURE OF RECRUITING BLOGS • ANYWAY? WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? [huh?]

21. WHO CARES? We should

22. THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY Huh?

23. To understand the recursive nature of recruiting blogs is to open up the possibilities of understanding how ‘buyers’ and ‘sellers’ are seen by each other in on- and offline communities and transactions. It can help us communicate a shared vision for things like ‘trust,’ ‘transparency,’ ‘fair-dealing,’ ‘authenticity,’ ‘reputation,’ and other practices that are hard to manage in our business. That’s the theory. When you are selling ideas, that’s the practice too. REFLECTIVE PRACTICE if you can see through the other guy’s eyes you can sell what the other guy buys

24. ECHO CHAMBER BABBLE TURNS THE AUDIENCE OFF, MUTES THE CONVERSATION Huh?

25. “ ...in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” [Herbert Simon] Economy The Attention

26. WHO CARES? You should

27. EXPRESSING SUBJECTIVE VIEWS AS OBJECTIVE FACTS IS A CONMAN’S TRICK Huh?

28. Just because self-referential bloggers state the obvious in their work doesn’t mean they are innocent of deliberately obscuring the truth when it suits them • I know • I just did it

29. WE ARE PERPETUATING BABBLE AND CALLING IT FREE SPEECH Huh?

30. “ The downside of all this ‘democracy,’ which the Washington Post's Robert Samuelson described as the ‘greatest outburst of mass exhibitionism in human history’ is the integrity of our political discourse.” [ If this is true, isn’t the same true for other types of social intercourse like recruiting and our Recruitopian conversation?] “ The YouTubification of politics is a threat to civic culture. It infantilizes the political process, silencing public discourse and leaving the future of government up to thirty-second video clips shot by camcorder-wielding amateurs with political agendas.” … The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture From Andrew Keen’s polemic…

31. WHY ARE 97.8% OF BLOG POSTS 86.2% BULL-CRAP? fertile minds feed the feeds and social media… grazing the internet for food for thought and blog fodder… ruminating on half-digested content and/or indigestible subject matter… wasting time producing more waste, dung to feed hungry, fertile minds… … and on and on and on and on and on it goes, herd behavior • THE • RECURSIVE • NATURE • OF • RECRUITING • BLOGS [go on. log on. chew it over]

32. [as a dog RETURNETH to his vomit, so a fool RETURNETH to his folly. Proverbs 26:11] From blogrolls to buttons and everything in between: drip feeding the recruitoshere RECURSION ON A ROLL

33. looking on the bright side... … RECURSION and REFLECTIVE PRACTICE can be illuminating

34. IT IS A CREATIVE PROCESS Recognizing patterns that emerge from processes that in their recursive nature may be flawed helps us find new ways of thinking about how to interrupt the pattern, innovate If the goal is to elevate the role of social media to enfranchise a wider audience of people who would otherwise benefit from access to networks of ideas and resources [the good] – but who would otherwise be turned off by the bad and the ugly it follows we should try to do something differently next time round

35. [it is well understood in highbrow circles that any bloggy presentation that does not quote albert einstein lacks credibility. even though on the face of it this quote would suggest we interrupt recursive thinking to better address the issues of the good, the bad and the ugly, it is • in of itself • a recursive device. just wanted to clear that up, okay?] “ The problems we face today cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.”

36. “ Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” [george orwell in recursive mode? ] Clearly then, we need to take a first step in understanding how to define the problem and then how to set about fixing it…

37. ALWAYS START WITH THE END IN MIND… STEVEN COVEY

38. To understand what RECURSION is…

39. … you first have to understand what RECURSION is.

40. ‘ from huh?’ to ‘ah-ha!’ [and back again] just kidding

41. The Recursive Nature of Recruiting Blogs A presentation inspired by my conversations with Michael Kelemen, John Sumser and Don Ramer recruiting industry on Amitai Givertz’s Recruitomatic Blog . I am a contributing editor on Recruiting.com and sit on the Advisory Board for Kennedy Information's Recruiting Trends . I also publish On the Radar , a daily post on RecruitingBlogs.com In addition to running my business – AMG Management Advisors -- and juggling a weekly schedule of recruiter training, I collaborate on various projects that encompass social and relationship networking and advocacy for open source business models. To learn more about my work visit http://amitaigivertz.com or feel free to email me at [email_address] . THE RECURSIVE NATURE OF RECRUITING BLOGS My name is Amitai Givertz. I contribute to the online conversations about the