Job Titles of the Future #14 - Cultural Intelligence Agent

What kind of organization do you think would benefit from someone who could 'Harness industry trends, insights and resources to help fuel an environment of disruptive growth and innovation?'

Additionally, the person who would excel in this role would also be able to 'Mine the cultural landscape to identify emerging trends and influences in the areas of Music, Gaming, Design, Tech, and Culinary.'

That all sounds really cool and fun and vaguely hipsterish. I am pretty sure I am not qualified.

But to go back to the initial question, what king of organization in what type of industry would you guess is right now looking for someone with these skills? 

Smart guesses would be advertising, media, (especially 'new' media), entertainment, or maybe even old school publishing. How many guesses would you have to make before you arrived at Soft Drinks and Snacks? Because at least in today's specific example, the company that is right now looking for this kind of talent for a role they call a 'Cultural Intelligence Agent' is PepsiCo.

More details from the PepsiCo job listing:

PepsiCo is looking for a Cultural Intelligence Agent with a passion for culture and experience working within or across creative industries including Music, Design, Gaming, Tech &/or Culinary. This role will be responsible for leading a team to harness industry trends, insights and resources to help fuel an environment of disruptive growth and innovation. As an Agent in the Creator Culture Catalyst group, you must demonstrate the ability to become a trusted advisor and thought leader to cross-functional business, brand and innovation leaders. The Agent also will drive and manage cross-functional projects that support creative initiatives and foster innovation

What do knowledge of music, gaming, design, etc. have to do with the ability to create and sell Pepsi?

Well maybe nothing directly. But indirectly, understanding, interpreting, and responding to cultural trends helps you understand people. And understanding people is pretty much the key to success in any business.

Cultural Intelligence Agent sounds like a pretty awesome job. Not quite as fun as Relief Pitcher for the Mets, but still pretty sweet. I hope the folks at PepsiCo see this post and let me know how the recruiting for this position turns out. Because the kind of person who will make a great Cultural Intelligence Agent sounds like a really fun person to know.

What about in your organization? Does understanding culture matter?

Note: Further reading for anyone interested in how culture impact business: Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.

Have a great week!

Where in your job description does it say you're supposed to be happy?

So I got caught up (again) in one of basic cable TV's ubiquitous Law & Order marathons over the weekend and (again) picked up a great little piece of workplace wisdom that I wanted to pass along. 

In the episode, the actual details of which really don't make a difference, one of the Assistant District Attorneys laments to the District Attorney (the Boss), about how it was extremely difficult to prosecute a particular defendant, as that defendant was kind of sympathetic, had a tough life, and really didn't have a lot of good life options that culminated in his commission of some pretty serious crimes.

After securing a 'guilty' verdict against the defendant, the ADA said something to the effect of 'Yes, I think the verdict was the right one, but I have to say that I am not that happy about it.'

To which the DA, the Boss, replied, 'Get over it. Where in your job description does it say that you're supposed to be happy?' 

That's a win right there. And a great reminder for anyone, not just folks like DA's or people in Health Care or in social work -but for anyone with any kind of a job, not just the ones where dealing with less than satisfying outcomes is a part of the job. 

Whether your job is cooking burger, designing bridges, or creating advertising campaigns, (or anything else), there is almost no chance that being 'happy' is a part of your job description. Sure, most employers would like you to be happy in your job, and certainly most workers (and more importantly perhaps, most families and friends of workers), would like you to be happy with your job, but for the most part you actually being 'happy' is not something your boss or her boss or the company customer or shareholders are all that concerned with.

Your happiness with your job, and probably with just about every other part of your life, is mostly only important to you. That doesn't mean it isn't important, I think it is, but the sooner you realize like the ADA in the TV show had to realize, that the machine isn't (primarily) concerned with your happiness the better.

Wow, re-reading this and it seems like kind of a downer post. Fitting it is running on a Monday.

Have a great week! 

Be happy.....

In Soviet Russia, (and America), Job Finds You

For a 'don't believe anything you read on the internet' April Fool's Day, I submit for your consideration a really interesting, (and totally not made up), conclusion about how people in the United States find jobs courtesy of a recently published Economic Letter from our pals at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Let's start with the researcher's money line first, then we will try and unpack it a little bit:

More than three-quarters of workers who switched employers did not report active job search in the previous three months.

Did you take a second to process that statistic? 

Of all the 'new hires' that the researchers examined, 77.6% of them had not reported being in an active job search in the previous three months. And we are not talking about internal job transfer types of moves here, these are employer-to-employer job shifts. So the vast majority of job-to-job transitions do not follow the standard interpretation of a labor market that matches workers who are actively seeking out job openings with the positions that are posted by employers.

So essentially, according to this research, over three-quarters of hiring is coming from direct recruiting/poaching, referrals, and informal networks.

Probably not a great surprise/finding for experienced HR/Talent pros, but a good reminder for folks who are still out there beating down doors in an active job search. Here's a summary of the data from the research, then one last point before we sign off.

The researcher's data shows that while 77.6% of hires are coming from employed folks who were not searching for a new job, that still only constitutes about 2% of all employed people. Translated - your recruiting/poaching/referral processes are still only nabbing less than 2% of folks out there, underscoring how hard it can be to identify, engage, convince, and finally hire people out of existing jobs into new ones at your company.

Net-net: At least according to this research, most jobs find people, not the other way around.

Have a great April Fool's!

Job Titles of the Future #12 - Professional Selfie Retoucher

According to Business Insider, the reality TV personality Kim Kardashian spends upwards of $100K to keep a 'professional selfie retoucher' on call, who stands (or sits more likely) at the ready, poised to edit, smooth, crop, and apply just the right Instagram filter (I am a 'Hudson' fan myself), to her selfies and other photos prior to posting them to her millions of social media followers.

If it sounds ridiculous, it is because it is ridiculous. But I think at least half of why it is ridiculous is the kind of silly name this job has been bestowed, and the kind of silly protagonist of the story. Kim Kardashian retaining a professional selfie editor to be on call is comical, but what about an author, sports figure, politician, or CEO engaging consulting services to protect, augment, and improve their online personas? Maybe not so silly.

It must be a really big deal, and a important part of her business strategy, for Kim to be seen in a certain manner in her social media posts and activity. She must have figured out what her fans want and expect, and paying $100K to make sure she delivers on those expectations must be worth it to her in the long run.

But in some ways it is not just reality TV stars or athletes or actors that rely on social media image and presence as a big part of their business strategy. Lots of 'normal' people do to. We are all, as long as we participate in blogs or on social media sites like Twitter and Instagram, placing some importance (and risk) in how our intelligence, professionalism, and value are interpreted via our posts and pictures and, yes, our selfies.

And lots of us try to be really careful about what we post. Not just in that 'I better not post that pic of me and the boys doing tequila shots', but also along the lines of 'Does this picture make me look smart/cool/happening/likable/on 'brand'?' You know you think about that. Everyone does. Think about how much you crop and filter and edit those Instagram and Facebook pics before you load them. It isn't just about you wanting to be the next Ansel Adams.

It's just that you and me and almost everyone else makes these determinations and manipulations of our preferred version of reality for ourselves - it's only people like Kim K. who can dish out $100K to worry about that stuff for her.

There have been PR agencies and image consultants and even 'personal brand coaches' (that title just made me gag a little), around for awhile, so the idea of a 'professional selfie retoucher' may not be all that new or novel, and just may be the logical extension or modernization of these roles for the social media age.

But still, something about it, the on-the-nose way it describes the function seems new to me, and thus I officually welcome 'Professional Selfie Retoucher' as Job Title of the Future #12.

Have a great weekend!

CHART OF THE DAY: Unemployed vs. Job Openings by Industry

Today's Chart of the Day comes to us courtesy of the Economic Policy Institute from a short post titled The Number of Unemployed Exceeds the Number of Available Jobs Across All Sectors.

First the eponymous chart, then as you have come to expect (and demand), some comments from me after the data.

The EPI piece's author uses this data to make an argument that persistently elevated levels of unemployment, that often are, (at least to some extent), attributed to something called 'skills mismatches', where unemployed workers simply do not possess the requisite skills and abilities that employers demand, are in fact not caused by mismatches, and are in fact driven by depressed overall demand for labor.

The logic behind this argument is pretty straightforward. If there were indeed large levels of skills mismatches driving unemployment, then we should see, at least somewhere in the economy, particular industry sectors where demand (available jobs), surpasses supply, (available workers in that industry). But as the data above show, every industry sector currently has more supply (unemployed workers), than demand/jobs.

It is a decent argument, if a little simplistic. It does fail to take into account the many thousands of sub-industries and specific types of jobs that fall into broad categories like manufacturing, construction, or services. It also does not adequately account for the very high likelihood that in certain sectors that workers who have identified themselves as being in that sector, truly have not been willing or able, (possibly because they have been out of work), do keep their skills current and adapted to new demands.

But taken in aggregate there is a decent argument to be made that if current labor market challenges were the result of skills shortages or mismatches, that there would be at least some specific sectors where there are more unemployed workers than job openings, and others where there are more job openings than unemployed workers. But that is, as yet, not the case and still unemployed workers exceed jobs openings across the board.

Whether or not there exists widespread skills shortages or mismatches is usually more of a concern for governments or the largest employers. And the nationwide conditions don't really mean much to the small or mid-sized firm that just wants to get its positions filled. But while all HR/Recruiting is local, (to some extent), no firm no matter how small operates in a vacuum. 

So while these macro-labor market conditions might not move the needle on today's open reqs, they can and likely will impact tomorrow's and next year's and the one after that.

And that is why I find this data interesting and why it rates for this installment of Chart of the Day.