I won’t go so far as to suggest that effect would be intentional at this point, but nothing I have seen yet says otherwise.

The individuals we invited are all senior-level experts with lots of experience and a tremendous understanding of, and respect for, our industry. We greatly value their feedback and hope to work closely with them in any way possible in the future for the betterment of the online recruiting industry. At the same time, We should all remember there are many stakeholders in the recruiting industry other than job board owners and operators whose opinions and concerns must be heard and considered — such as hundreds of thousands of employers and an even greater number of job seekers.

Everyone of the invitees received the same notice at the same time. Based on the responses we have received, I would be surprised if, for various reasons, we have more than 6-8 attendees at the meeting. Peter Weddle informed me today that he plans to attend representing IAEWS — of which DirectEmployers Association is also a member.

Unfortunately, I am scheduled to speak at another employment conference March 15 and will not be able to attend the IAEWS Spring Member Congress in San Diego. I will be available in the future to discuss the .jobs project at an IAEWS Member Congress if invited to do so by Peter Weddle.

Also unclear to me is how many of the 30 are attending. It appears from this discussion that at least a couple of very logical attendees are unable to attend due to conflicts so perhaps the notice they received wasn’t terribly long either.

Finally, do you plan to open this up for discussion at the next IAEWS meeting? If not, why not? It seems to me that would be the perfect forum at which to be transparent with the largest number of industry leaders rather than in Indianapolis in January.

You don’t invite 30 industry leaders to a meeting where you offer to answer “any and all questions” if your intent is to not be transparent in all you do or plan to do. As I said, we greatly value their feedback and will make every effort to work with them in the future.

Anyone who feels they should have been included is welcome to attend the meeting and we have gone as far as to add a second day (Friday, January 29) if that is more convenient for anyone. The meetings each day will start at 11:00am and end no later than 4:00pm. If others plan to attend, all I ask is that you send an email to me stating which day you will attend so we can plan our lunch and conference room schedule. My email address is: bill@directemployers.org.

I will respond to your email with a list of local lodging possibilities and other details to make your visit as easy as possible.

As for your vacation plans, Indianapolis isn’t at the top of your list in January? :-)

One thing I can assure you though – having seen the invitee list, it is definitely not stacked with DirectEmployers business partners in any way.

John, you caught folks attention with the title but seems to me given all the discussions over the years that your article simply misdirects. -which leads to the responses you’ve seen so far.

The first statement Bill made about the purpose was to “answer any and all questions”. That is different than your “show and tell” theme. Let’s hold Bill to his promise and see what kind of a conversation we can have. I have a conflict that day and if I can’t resolve it plan to go at a different time.

The whole .jobs thing is a big mess. The premise upon which it was created was that employers would have an easy way to communicate to candidates the location of their job postings. Job boards were explicitly excluded from the offering, until this secretive scheme was hatched. If I’m wrong and it was all on the up-and-up, why so little transparency?