John Sullivan's excellent article in ERE yesterday, Best Practices in Recruiting: 2008 ERE Award Winners, detailing this year's ERE award winners is one more indication of how far recruiting has evolved in the last decade.

 

In the 90's it was unheard of for firms to support their "best practices" with data...and then share that information. (There typical approach to "professional awards" programs was run by EMA but its focus was always on the creative nature of the marketing and never even considered that "results" might be relevant...let alone essential.)

 

Even when the pressures to share emerging new practices in the late 90's grew as a result of the stunning changes brought about by the internet, the handful of leading, highly-competitive firms capable of examining recruiting as a business process never considered sharing what they did on a professional level. Instead they reveled in their isolation and claimed that their practices were proprietary. That claim only went so far as all "technique" is easily made transparent.

 

The true difference in recruiting success lies not in ever changing "wows" but, instead resides in the company's recruiting leadership, its ability to analyze its processes and its willingness to experiment and change..and that requires being open. ERE's awards are a testament to that openness.

 

Today's staffing marketplace is marked by the growth of many communities of practice- all seemingly willing to share... as well as compete. ERE deserves much credit in evolving its own business model in keeping with this approach and attitude.