In a slump? Maybe you need a celebrity Global Creative Director

I was close to dropping this post into the 'Job Titles of the Future' bucket, but then I realized that the idea of a 'creative director' isn't really all that new or novel. Ad agencies, publishers, marketing companies and the like have had and will continue to have a 'Creative Director' role for some time now. But what is new, and who knows if it will eventually move past stunt hiring and into the mainstream, are organizations of all kinds tapping celebrities known for their ideas and personalities as more than just spokespersons, but as 'Global Creative Directors'.Gaga-inspired camera glasses

I'll give you three recent examples of this trend, (please, if you know of more, share them in the comments), and then offer a take on why these seem to be happening more and more, and if there is indeed anything that our 'normal' organizations can take from these hires.

1. Polaroid (surprisingly still around), hires singer Lady Gaga as Creative Director for a new line of products, and later unveils the results of their first collaboration, some new Polaroid gadgets at CES in 2011.

2. BlackBerry, (I really want to be able to come back to you BlackBerry), hires singer Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director. Keys will collaborate with BlackBerry to work "with app developers, content creators, retailers, carriers and the entertainment community to further shape and enhance the BlackBerry 10 platform, and inspire creative use through its remarkable capabilities and functionality."

3. Anheuser-Busch names actor/singer/producer Justin Timberlake as the Creative Director for their Bud Light Platinum brand, seeing JT as a talent that "is one of the greatest creative minds in the entertainment industry, and his insights will help us further define Bud Light Platinum’s identity in the lifestyle space". 

The cynical (and probably fair) reaction to all three of the above examples would be to simply assume that these 'creative director' arrangements are really just the hundreds of years old celebrity pitchman or woman gimmick just spun a little differently to make the arrangement seem a little deeper than the the typically surface-level celebrity relationships with brands.  After all, what does Alicia Keys know about modern smartphone technology, or Gaga about the technical and competitive challenges in the consumer photography market?

So why the push to re-brand or re-frame these celebrities as 'creative directors' and not just as spokespeople? 

Perhaps, (admittedly giving the companies a huge benefit of the doubt here), that these organizations have realized that talent, great ideas, inspiration, and innovation can come from all kinds of sources, and in these examples, from non-traditional ones. Perhaps, these organizations have embraced the idea that incredibly talented people from alternate, adjacent, or even unrelated fields might have something to offer, some new perspective, or fresh eyes, that can actually be of value to their businesses.

Perhaps, that being really, really, successful at something, might just be a sign of a person that could be really successful at lots of things, even if their background and resume would be one that would never 'pass' the initial assessment for any of the organization's open jobs.

These companies are all looking for something, some kind of a lift, some new energy. They are taking a chance certainly, but at least they are doing more than holding yet another staff meeting with the same assembled cast of characters and asking, 'So, anyone have any ideas?'

Job Titles of the Future #1 - Wikipedian in Residence

Here is a quick hit for a cold, cold Tuesday morning in beautiful Western New York - check out this excerpt from a recent piece in the New York Times Arts Beat blog titled 'Gerald R. Ford Library Hires 'Wikipedian in Residence'':

Gerald R. Ford may have governed during a time of economic stagnation, but his library has just laid claim to a cutting-edge distinction: becoming the first presidential depository to employ an official “Wikipedian in residence.”

Michael Barera, a master’s student at the University of Michigan’s School of Information who has been editing Wikipedia articles for five years, started the job last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. He is charged with improving the Wikipedia presence of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, which is housed at the university’s Ann Arbor campus.

More details about the actual role and duties of a 'Wikipedian in Residence' can be found in this piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

A Wikipedian in residence is a Wikipedia editor who has an on-site placement at an institution. It turns out there are many such Wikipedians at archives and museums around the world, including the National Archives, but there has never before been one at a presidential library.

If you dig a little deeper into these pieces you discover the real reason that the Ford museum and some other institutions have taken the step to hire staff to focus explicitly on maintaining, augmenting, and often, correcting information and articles about them on Wikipedia. Namely, that's were they are seeing the majority of web searchers, potential visitors, and heck, maybe even job candidates are landing when they are doing research.

Sure, the Ford museum has a website, they are on Facebook too. They have control (mostly with Facebook) of how their message gets conveyed on those platforms. But they've figured out the important medium for how people learn about them is Wikipedia and by hiring a 'Wikipedian in Residence', they've taken a step toward better managing those messages.

There you go - your first installment of 'Job Titles of the Future' - Wikipedian in Residence.

Have one for your organization yet?

What technical talent thinks about your job descriptions

I wanted to point out a super piece last week on the Smashing Magazine blog, (a site about and for Web Designers), titled 'The Difference Between Good and Bad Job Requirements', that provides a great look into what technical, (and often hard to find) talent thinks about the typical job descriptions they encounter online.

Long story short - it is clear that the Web Designer that authored the post, and almost all of the 50+ commenters, don't have very many positive things to say about how most design job descriptions are presented.  Their chief complaints - most job postings contain a ridiculously long laundry list of technical skills and acronyms that are just not relevant for the job being posted, and are almost impossible for a single individual to possess with any level of mastery.  Additionally, most job ads focused to a large degree, (if not exclusively), about what things a candidate should have already done, not what things they will actually do on the new job, and how they might grow and develop professionally. Lastly, the piece takes a few shots at job ads that in trying to paint a realistic picture of their workplace culture, perhaps go too far with statements like, 'Candidate will need to perform effectively in a demanding environment and show resiliency to stress.'  

Wow, where can I sign up?

There are several excellent pieces of advice for writing more effective technical job ads from the author as well as from many of the commenters, but the best line from the piece, and one that has applicability to recruting advertising for any field is this comment, when assessing a job ad that was much more positive and effective:

What they do is so much more than just telling you what you should have already done by now. They’re telling you what you could become working for them.

That is a key point, one I think we overlook all the time.  It continues to assume it is an employer's market, and while that may be true in some regions and fields, it certainly is not true in others, certainly for any roles you are having a hard time in filling.

Some final words of advice from the piece that I think are worth remembering in our continuing quest to attract the best talent for our organizations: 

We all understand it’ll be hard work and that we’re supposed to be good at it. So try not to tell us what your ideal employee is. Try to tell us what a great designer we could become should we want to join your team.

It's not always about you, the employer.  Sometimes, and maybe more often than you think, it is about them.

Have a great week everyone!

Can there be a middle class if there are no middle class jobs?

If there was one term we heard more than any other here in the USA during the recent Presidential election contest it had to be 'middle class.'  

The 'middle class', sometimes depending on what group is doing the defining, consists of that large swath of average, normal, or 'regular' people - neither rich nor in poverty, and that have typically worked in a wide range of jobs that provided solid but not spectacular earnings, some potential for growth, were fairly stable, and crucially, were generally accessible to just about everyone who was willing to put in the effort.

In the election both sides talked a lot about the middle class, mostly coupled with words like 'save', 'strengthen', or 'protect'. While the opposition parties advanced different proposals and philosophies that they felt would be in the best interests of the middle class, there was at least consensus across the board that the welfare of the middle class is of significant importance to the health of the nation overall.

But no matter what political philosophy you take up with, one emerging reality about the overall job market seems to be this - that the recovery from the 2009 recession, (such as it is), has not extended to many of these 'middle class' type jobs. 

The below chart showing how 'routine' job levels have been impacted by recent economic recessions is from a piece by Economics professors Henry Siu and Nir Jaimovich titled 'Jobless recoveries and the disappearance of routine occupations' that paints a really grim future for the middle class and many of the professions that have typically been held by middle class workers.

Take a look at the data, with some additional comments/analysis to follow.

From the author's analysis of the data in the above chart:

Figure 1 highlights our simple point; it plots per capita employment in routine occupations (in log levels) from 1967 to the end of 2011. Since about 1990, there is an obvious 28 log point decline in routine employment.

What is equally clear is that this fall has not happened gradually over time but that the decline is concentrated in economic downturns. 92% of the 28 log point fall occurred within a 12 month window of NBER-dated recessions

Equally important to identifying the dramatic loss of these historically middle class 'routine' jobs is the researcher's conclusion that once lost, these jobs do not ever come back - as firms elect to offshore, automate, or increase technology investments to maintain overall output using a reduced number of employees.

Jobs on the 'high end' like software engineers, analysts, and economists, (lucky for the authors, I guess), as well as ones on the lower income levels like in retail and hospitality, have shown to be resilient, and nearly recession-proof. But the 'middle' and by extension the middle class - well not so much.

Last, I will leave with this conclusion from the piece, about where long-term job growth has occurred, and where it hasn't:

Thus, all of the per capita employment growth of the past 30 years has either been in ‘non-routine’ occupations located at the high-end of the wage distribution, such as software engineers and economists, or in low-paying jobs, such as service occupations like restaurant waiters and janitors. For this last set of occupations, this has been especially true in the past decade. 

A conclusion, if indeed accurate, (and it seems to be), that makes the recent blustering and posturing in the election about 'saving' the middle class, which mainly consisted of arguments over a point or two difference in marginal tax rates and simply calling the other guy 'wrong', a demonstration of a deep lack of understanding, or willful ignorance of the realities in the job market and the economy.

Saving the middle class is going to be a much more complex and difficult task, no matter which side wins elections.

And yes, this a kind of downer post for a Friday - you have to cut me some slack, I may have just eaten my last Twinkie.

Have a great weekend! 

Buying a car, choosing your next job - more similar than you think

The good folks at Careerbuilder recently released their 2012 Candidate Behavior Study, conducted in partnership with Inavero, and while the big, catchy conclusion from the study was boiled down to essentially read as 'Passive Candidates Don't Exist', I found even a more interesting, (to me anyway), finding from the study's data.

According to the Careebuilder study, job candidates consult nearly 15 resources per job search, including company career sites, Facebook, online job boards, employer review sites (such as Glassdoor.com), professional and personal networks and staffing and recruiting firms – before they even decide to apply to a job. Below is a chart from the study showing how job search research stacks up against other, similarly important and complex purchasing decisions:

Job Searching is complex

While we have been talking for a while, (here just last Monday), about Human Resources and Recruiting looking and acting more like the classic Marketing function, but as I pointed out in my post last week, and the Careerbuilder study reinforces, Marketing is changing dramatically as well, making, especially for HR and Talent pros, the shift to more of a Marketing mindset even more challenging.

From the report on the study's findings:

It used to be that a consumer would go to the store and find something on the shelf for the first time and make the decision to purchase right then and there,” (Careerbuilder's) Barnes explains. “Today, however, thanks to technology that enables us to research and compare products – at any time of day, from anywhere – consumers are doing significant research on products before they even step into a store.

Job candidates, we’re finding, are using this same approach to their job search.” For employers, these findings underscore the need to put as much effort into “marketing” their job opportunities and employment brand as they do their products, services and consumer brand. Candidates are utilizing multiple platforms to interact with employers, search for opportunities and find out what it’s like to work at companies – and they’re doing so increasingly through social media and from their mobile devices.

That means employers need to explore and take advantage of the many and various opportunities to connect with candidates these platforms afford.

Some quick thoughts on what this all might mean for you - the HR and Talent pro that might feel themselves in a position not at all unlike our friends over at a Big Box retailer like Best Buy, who watch shopper after shopper wander around the store, viewing and touching the merch, then immediately pulling out their iPhones to price check all over the internet, read product reviews, and figure out if their might be a better deal out there.

1. You probably don't need to everywhere, but you need to be moving in that direction. If your candidates are hitting up as many as 15 sources of informaton to learn about your company and jobs, then having a wide (and deep) employer brand presence across multiple sources.

2. True source of hire will become almost impossible to pinpoint. The candidate you eventually hired saw your opening via a job alert from Indeed, talked to a friend who used to work at your company, read some reviews on Glassdoor, checked out your Career site, then found someone in their LinkedIn network willing to forward their resume to the hiring manager. So - what was the source of hire?

3. If HR and Recruiting is becoming the new Marketing, then HR pros are even more behind the game. The Careerbuilder report pulls pretty deeply from a Google-led marketing research project called the Zero Moment of Truth, (ZMOT). If you want to speak the language of the modern marketer and job seeker, then you probably need to know what the heck the ZMOT is and how it impacts your employment marketing efforts.

I don't post about too many research reports, (honestly, there are too many to post about anyway), but I did learn a few things from the Careerbuilder research, and I recommend you check it out if you want some new insights into how candidates are searching for jobs, and how you can best adopt and adapt to these changes.

Have a great Monday everyone!