meritocracy.net

The Post I Swore I Would Not Write

I've had a lot of conversations about blogging in the last 6 months, in particular with thought-leaders in the space like Jason Davis, Penelope Trunk, and other people who are much smarter than I regarding this topic.

Everyone told me that the key to blogging and getting read is to write often.  I knew right away that wouldn't happen, particularly given the fact that I have 2 young children, a demanding job, a long commute, a personal life that involves a lot of reading and some motorcycling when I can swing it, but I convinced myself that I could at least do 2 posts a week.  When I looked around, I saw a lot of bloggers writing much more than that, but many of the posts were not that substantial.  Because of that, I swore I wouldn't ever write a "Jason's Top Ten" post or something trite along those lines.  I'm not really that concerned with SEO or extending my reach in every way possible.  Mostly I write just for for me.

So now it's been a week or two since my last post, so I'm breaking my own rule, but part of the reason is that I've been commuting from Seattle to Mountain View, CA every week for the last couple of weeks until I relocate permanently down to sunny California.

In no particular order, here is my list of 'top things' from the last 2 weeks, in no particular order.  Lame, I know. 

• Always rent a car using a Visa Credit Card.  By doing so, you gives you car insurance up to the replacement value of the car.  Thelma and Louise come to mind.  This link gives you the skinny.  I know this because recently I've been renting cars like there's no tomorrow and inadvertantly provided Hertz with some free customization to one of their Gold-colored Pontiac Grand Prix's (there is nothing Grand about this make and model of automobile incidentally).  I swiftly and cleanly removed the driver's side mirror from the vehicle while trying to navigate the parking garage in building #43 at Google on Day #2. 
• The food at Google is ridiculous.  Because it's so good.  Here's the deal with this benefit that unless you've worked here you might not understand: Yes, the food is gourmet.  Yes, it's fantastic and there are 12 different cafes on campus serving everything under the sun (I'm enjoying the fresh sushi a lot, and they were also serving Kangaroo one day but I didn't go for that).  But the really great benefit is it allows me eat healthy without having to be organized.  Yes, I can eat like a King and turn myself into a much larger Jason, but I can also easily grab healthy snacks whenever I want and it makes it easy to eat right.  This morning for breakfast I had fresh steel cut oats, an organic banana, some fresh grapes, and these really great healthy protein bars.  At Starbucks, I was never organized enough to pack a fresh lunch, and as a result, always ended up eating at the cafe on the 3rd floor (usually at Taco Del Mar - ugh).  Best of all, at Google it's free.  People of course will draw their own conclusions that it is a 'secret' tactic to make us all work long hours and never leave work.  I call it a brilliant value proposition for today's busy lifestyle, and one that lets one live in congruence with one's values (everyone values being healthy, right?).  Very cool.
• Relocation is a very busy process, and not much fun at all.  I would say it's right up there with college admissions preparation and mortgage loan processing.  Those of you who know me understand that 'attention to detail' and 'planning and organizing' these sorts of things are not my strong suit.  I am renting lots of cars, so Hertz loves me though.  Or did love me, until I wrecked their Grand Prix.
• Spending a significant amount of time at one company really shapes you as a person.  It is remarkable how my 5+ years at Starbucks has shaped my perspective on leadership, talent, business culture, and values.   This is a very positive thing.  I've been reflecting on this topic a lot recently.  There's an interesting dichotomy though:  while you are at a company, it really serves to define a lot of your approach to getting the work done.  Once you leave however, you realize that most of the paradigms, guidelines, and rules were really self imposed.  This is worth thinking about in regards to one's own personal and professional development.
• Bicycling is probably a good thing to start doing at my age.  A good friend of mine is formerly in the bike business and is friends with the Cannondale rep, and was able to score me a smoking deal on the Ferrari (or Corvette since Cannondale is made in the USA) of road bicycles, the SystemSix.  I used to ride road bicycles in my teens and early twenties, and have been pretty big into mountain biking for about the last 10-12 years, so it's cool to think about getting back into riding on the road.  I'm really looking forward to getting on this new bike - the technology is amazing these days - think titanium and aluminum and carbon fiber and complex frame geometry and you'll get the idea. I cannot believe the craftmanship that went into this bicycle.  It's a work of art, and weighs next to nothing.  I have to admit I am a sucker for buying more gear than I need.  I just love well-made stuff. 
• Exercise is critical for success on the job.  I really fell off the workout bandwagon the last 6 months, gained about 8 lbs, but recently have started back in the gym in the mornings.  There are lots of things that can get in the way of regular exercise, but I believe exercise is a force-multiplier when it comes to professional achievement.  Any time you spend exercising is repaid with interest when it comes to focus, quality of work, and getting stuff done.  You cant' afford not to exercise.  It's part of being successful in life. 
• Simplicity forces value creation.  This is a doosie, but I am becoming more and more convinced that the key to successful companies, recruiting organizations, and other people-filled dynamic entities is their approach to simplicity.  As humans, we overcomplicate things which really erodes our chances of success in our efforts to truly create something of value.  As a leader, I think one of the keys to being succesful is to break things down into simple components, and then evaluate those efforts by asking, "what economic value is this creating?"   This separates the activity from productivity.  When I'm not being lame I will probably write a post on this topic to further my thinking. 

Google is a great company, and I really think I'm going to like it here in Northern California. 

Talent Retention Musings

Someone, I think it may have been Confuscious, once said that if you are not recruiting your own people, you are the only company that isn't. 

Lots of people have asked me why I chose to leave Starbucks.  In fact, given my transition to Google, that has been one of the most common questions I've been asked.  It is interesting to be leaving one of the world's most respected and highly successful companies.  In over five years of service to Starbucks, we more than doubled the size of the company.  It's funny when you work at a hyper-growth company - when you think back, you can't really remember how big things were 'back then' so the growth is sometimes hard to measure.  This whole episode in my life makes me really consider the topic of retention of talent, and what the key tenents of successful talent retention really rest on.

It is hard to imagine a greater intangible cost to an organization than turnover of top talent (except for maybe brand erosion), yet I think the majority of companies do not proactively address the issue effectively.    One significant challenge is that when someone leaves a company, the opportunity cost of their departure is never really identified or measured.  If it was quantified, I think more companies would pay much closer attention to this cost of doing business. 

The older I get, the more I think this topic of 'talent retention' is really just about effective leadership.  Given that I've had a fair amount of time off the last two weeks, here are some of my thoughts regarding retaining top talent. 

1. Leaders Must Authentically Value People: 

This is simplistic in theory, but often difficult in practice.  It's been my experience that there are those that model this very well (few) and those that don't model this at all or to an ineffective degree (many).  This is a leadership philosophy that must be authentic.  A leader of people cannot sustainably feign the behavior of truly valuing people.  There are three pitfalls that stand in the way of this:

One natural pitfall that most leaders face is an inherent ambivalence towards talent as one grows in one's career.  I think it is rooted in human nature to become this way, unless one identifies this risk and addresses it mindfully and proactively.  Let me explain.

One of the significant human challenges of leadership is that in highly dynamic corporate environments (such as hyper-growth companies such as Starbucks or Google), teams and people are constantly in motion, so the process is one of continual investment in relationships that, at least from a team-building perspective, are nearly always temporary, and fairly short-lived.  This is highly problematic on a human level, as it's a constant investment-then-cleave cycle.  Just as one builds 'the right team' something changes to upset the apple cart and the rebuilding process starts again.  This can be a catalyst for ambivalence.  In reality, leadership is a state of constant-build, and one has to monitor one's attitudes and sentiments as a leader so the motivation and effort regarding valuing people continues to be sustained in a healthy manner.

I just finished reading the book Resonant Leadership and I think it explores this topic in helpful detail.

The second potential hurdle that leaders face is that many organizations measure productivity for a leader in ways that run counter to a 'servant leader' approach.  This creates an inherent tension between building for the long haul through leadership and people investment or 'getting the work done' that is succinctly measurable in the here and now.  Effective leaders must balance these two goals, and have the courage to slow the production lines (if necessary) in the short term in order to achieve long term gains.   

The final obstacle is simply that human beings tend to think of themselves first, so changing that focus to rest on others is difficult, particularly in light of the stresses inherent in worklife.  This is compounded by the long-term versus short-term ROI dichotomy.

     2.  Make Talent Feel Valued: 

There is a ridiculously deep irony buried in a discussion of 'talent retention' or 'turnover' in that making people feel valued costs nothing.  One doesn't have to spend a single budgetary dollar to make people feel valued.  This relates succinctly back to point #1, but the two elements are distinctly different.  Point #1 happens internally with a leader, and is a critical part of self-awareness.  Point #2 are the demonstrative behaviors and observable actions that demonstrate Point #1. 

Most people feel the most valued when you help them get better at what they do, and assist them with achieving their own best self.  I've always told my management teams that leaders are like coaches in sports, and even the best players (Michael Jordan comes to mind) need feedback to achieve optimal performance.  Mostly, a coach simply observes behavior and gives feedback in order to fine tune performance and results.  Doing this activity alone with a team makes people feel imminently valued by a leader.  This coaching model of leadership relies on direct feedback of observable behavior, which many leaders don't find the time to do. 

Beyond helping people become their own best self, there are a host of other tactical things to make people feel valued that are well-documented in books and other readings.  I submit that all of these additional tactics are ancillary and less important than an investment in people that helps them get better at what they do, which is how to truly value people.

     3.) Monitor the Health of Your Organization by Building Relationships at All Levels: 

If you don't have relationships built with people throughout your organization, you'll never know that talent is satisfied until it is too late.  This is one of the systemic mistakes that I've observed many leaders make -- the mistake of only gauging the health of their organization by what their direct reports tell them.  This is a big mistake.  Everyone matters (see point #1) and if you build solid relationships with people at all levels, then you'll know what is really going on. 

Again, it sometimes difficult to accomplish this relationship building because paradoxically there  is always a lot of work to be done.  Effective leaders must take the time to make these investments. 

Interview with ERE

Elaine Rigoli from ERE fame interviewed me about my decision to depart Starbucks and join Google yesterday.  The interview, although brief, is located here.

More interesting is that I'm taking my kids to Disneyland tomorrow.  Although I'm sure it will be lost on my 1 year old son, my daughter Brooklyn is enamored with Cinderella and Ariel, so it is going to be a cool thing to see her experience the Magic Kingdom through 3-year old eyes.   

One Answer to The Question

There is one question that I get asked more often than any other question by people I meet who are aspiring to be great recruiters.  In fact, I've now come to call it The Question. 

It is a little ironic that the inspiration for this post came from the side of a Starbucks cup this morning.  I ventured out of the house today, despite the Seattle cold, rain and snow-threatening skies, and went to my local Starbucks to get my morning Grande Drip Coffee With Room for Cream.  I personally fill the room with nonfat milk but that is how you order it.  Did you know there are 55,000 different drink variations at your local Starbucks?  That is one of the things they told me before I left. 

So I'm sitting there sipping my coffee, and on the side of the cup is The Way I See It #119.  I actually saved the cup, and am staring at it now.  Have you seen these?  These are little quips or quotations that are designed to make you think, and start a conversation whilst you are sipping on one of those Starbucks beverages.  Number 119 works pretty well I guess.  I always thought we should have slipped in a little subtle employment branding on that cup-side real estate, but I digress.   Maybe The Way I See It #984 will say, "Why I work at Starbucks...or my greatest experience as a Starbucks partner was when..." and then tell a little anecdote about how great the company is.  You can actually read more or respond to these cup-side quotations by going to this link.

The Way I See It #119 says, "As you sip your coffee, think about all the science behind it: in agriculture, processing, roasting, extraction.  Then think of all the science around you:  in your cell phone, your computer, even your food. Shouldn't everyone be educated to understand the science that permeates their lives? -- Dr. David Baltimore, President, California Institute of Technology, and Nobel laueate in Physiology or Medicine."  Which leads me to The Question.

As I mentioned, I get asked The Question by junior recruiters or other people who are new to the recruiting profession on a regular basis:  "What advice do you have for me as I'm starting out on my way to becoming a really great recruiter?"

Because of how prevalent this question is, I've spent a fair amount of time during the last few years of my senior leadership career contemplating The Question, and I've boiled it down to this foundational tenent:  The difference between great recruiters (or recruiting managers) and other recruiters (whether that be average recruiters or 'not-great recruiters' or anything in-between) is how they approach their personal learning.  I believe this is the primary differentiator between The Great Ones and The Others. 

I was having this very conversation with a member of my extended team at Starbucks right before I left.  Her name is Eden and she is very smart and has great communication skills (which are two prerequisite competencies to be a great recruiter) but she doesn't have much recruiting experience as she is just getting started in her recruiting career.  She asked me The Question, and I tried to share with her this concept of what I call Advanced Personal Learning (APL).  I'm sure this holds true for other professions, but all I know is recruiting so if you aren't in recruiting, YMMV.

So I was sharing with her that as one considers all of the learning one does in one's life, it mostly falls into the schooling years, and then dramatically drops off after one graduates from an institute of higher learning.  Letting this commitment and discipline related to learning diminish after school is one of the biggest mistakes a recruiting professional (and others) can make.  We all worked (at least relatively) hard in school, because that was the purpose:  cram as much learning into those years in order to prepare you for The Next Part of Your Life.  Using my advanced Microsoft Excel skills, I created a nifty graph you can click to illustrate what I'm talking about.

  But if one considers that the world continues to grow in complexity year over year (and I would argue at an exponential rate) a career strategy that does not involve APL is a road to obsolescence.  Many professions have an inherent checks and balances component that keeps people in the game.  For example, members of the medical profession are continuously challenged to learn and grow their personal knowledge and skill base or they will quickly become ineffective (and unemployed) practitioners.  Advances in medicinal technology, diagnosis, treatment and drug therapy, et cetera all require a medical professional to apply APL as part of the way they manage their career.  Software development, lawyers, IT professionals,... the list goes on regarding the types of professions that have these 'checks and balances' to keep their professional careerists focused on personal learning.

One challenge with professions like recruiting (or HR in general) is that the inherent checks and balances are generational in nature.  Indeed, many do not recognize this dynamic until it is too late.  If one is a corporate professional, one might want to think about this statement for a moment.

But recruiting and HR have grown in complexity over the last decade in the exact same manner as medicine or other more technically focused disciplines.  10 years ago, things were a lot less complex in recruiting then they are today (and because of this, the skills required to be a recruiter were different):

• applicant tracking systems were all client / server achitecture (if that) and none were hosted applications or had near the feature set of those today.  Restrac comes to mind.
• technology based assessments were uncommon
• other recruiting tools such as Jobster, H3, LinkedIn, and similar technology extensions did not exist
• few companies had websites and the level of transparency and information that candidates possessed was nothing compared to today
• the candidate population was barely online.  Faxed or hardcopy resumes were the norm
• and the list of changes and additional complexities go on and on and on...

So the answer to The Question is to develop a discipline to apply Advanced Personal Learning so as to become and remain a true subject matter expert in recruiting.   I am always a little surprised how few people recognize this in their careers, or apply any sort of proactive efforts to evolve their skills, given that the world around them is racing ahead in terms of complexity and innovation (yes even in recruiting).  Based on my observations there are few true SMEs in the recruiting profession.  To be truly great at recruiting, one should become an expert in all components of the recruiting lifecycle.  How does one get there?  Apply the discipline of APL.

There are some relatively simple things that recruiting professionals can do to propel their career if they apply a level of discipline to the effort:

• Read Books:  By books I mean business books.  Some recent ones I have read are to the right.  Reading makes you smarter, and uses a different part of your brain than you use at work.  Additionally, all of a recruiters' best customers and business leaders are reading books.  Savvy recruiting professionals should read them to.  My advice:  One should always be reading a good business or skills-related book.  When you are done with the book, give them to your customers to read, and talk about them with others.
• Read Other Stuff:  Blogs.  Periodicals.  Other online resources.  Other periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review, Businessweek Magazine; I like Wired magazine as a fringe example.  My Advice:  One should read 2-4 hours a week if one wants to to be an expert.  Make it part of a daily routine. 
• Network:  I wrote this post a few months ago on the value of networking.  The value of networking cannot be overstated, regardless of the profession you might be in.  My advice:  Crack the code on effective networking, but keep the bar high with regards to the connections you make and the quality of those relationships.  Learn from others, and ask questions of those that have gone before.  One should spend 1/2 hour to 1 hour a week focused on networking outside of one's company.
• Get really clear on what Subject Matter Expertise means:  If you aren't an expert at negotiation, objection handling and understanding negotiation theory, then you aren't a SME.  If you aren't an expert at qualifying the needs of your hiring managers, and asking the tough questions, you aren't a SME.  Sales skills.  Sourcing skills.  Consultation skills.  Communication skills.  Interview skills.  Time management and productivity skills.  The list goes on.  My Advice:  map out everything that goes into the candidate lifecycle (I like to do so with a pie chart or a wheel chart.)  Then pick an area and go deep in your studies and develop expertise.  Find those around you that are great, and learn from them. 

So going back to the Starbucks cup:  maybe we should understand the science that permeates our lives, or maybe we shouldn't.  I personally do not need to know how my cellular phone works.  But to be really great at recruiting, one should apply advanced personal learning as a discipline in one's career.

And that is one answer to The Question. 

Why I Ride Fast Motorcycles

People are so interesting. 

It's pretty amusing when I tell people that I ride sport motorcycles at high speeds (like on a racetrack).  When I tell people this, I always try and get really attentive because their reactions are enjoyable to really watch.  These reactions normally fall into about 3 categories:

Category 1:  The Alarmists - these people generally immediately go to the risk and inherent danger of riding motorcycles.  Facial expressions are typically filled with disdain, followed by commentary  using the words "donor cycle" (as in organ donor... clever) or "do I know how dangerous that is?" or my all-time favorite, "My uncle Johnny was killed on a motorcycle in 1978...".  It's odd to me, because I wouldn't criticize their hobbies, as in, "Knitting is a really slow way to make a scarf.  Don't you know that?"  I always ask these people, "Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?" knowing that their answer is always the same.  When I first started to ride motorcycles, I would always try and explain it to them but now I've stopped trying.  The most interesting aspect of their response is this underlying feeling of contempt that oozes out over something that they've never really even tried, and their lack of consideration for whether I might take offense at their critical words. 

Category 2:  The Contrarians - These people are downright shocked that a clean cut corporate guy like myself would do something so... on the fringe.  I suppose I may not fit The Mold, but that's the great thing about motorcycling...you never really know who does it.  We are kind of like a secret society.  The Contrarians generally get really inquisitive about my hobby after that, saying things like, "I never would have guessed you ride a motorcycle..." and "That is so interesting..." and then asking (always) "How fast have you gone?" (175 mph) and "Have you ever crashed?" (only once) and "What kind of a bike do you a ride?" (Honda CBR1000RR).  These are people that don't quite get it, but appreciate that I do something kind of cool and (at least I think) that I wear a leather suit sometimes.  Not everyone wears a leather suit at some point in their life.  Or admits it.

Category 3:  The Other Renegades - These people are either motorcyclists themselves, or if they aren't, completely understand why I would want to do something like ride a motorcycle through a corner with my knee dragging on the ground at 80mph.  These people's faces light up, and we usually end up talking about this and simiar topics for as long as time permits.  These are the skydiving, bungee-jumping, scuba-diving, safari-trekking, mountain-climbing, marathon-running, kayak-paddling, drop-everything-to-go-to-Europe-with-too-little-money-but-way-to-much-time type of people.  I love these people, because they appreciate that life is short.  It is really cool to talk to people who extract a lot of joy out of their lives.

I ride motorcycles for a lot of reasons.  Mostly because it's completely all-engaging.  It's not like driving a car with four wheels where you can get by and only pay attention halfway.  You are in the game when you are on a motorcycle.  There's this inherent tension between the risk of crashing (always present) and the pure exhilaration of seemingly defying physics and carving through a corner or braking so hard going into Turn 1 at Portland International Raceway that you have to slide back in your seat to keep the back wheel on the ground. 

There is really nothing like it that I've found in life.  It's actually one aspect of moving to California that I'm really excited about - being close to some really great racetracks like Laguna Seca but also some of the best weather and motorcycling roads around.

People are so interesting. 

How to Break a New Year's Resolution in 44 hours or less (or yet another post on JobsterGate 2006)

I promised myself right around the holidays that I wouldn't comment on the current events at Jobster but low and behold here I go.   If you are still getting over the New Year's Nog, there's a lot of buzz about it and indeed the blogobuzz has even hit the mainstream news media (an admittedly low bar).

So much for that resolution.  By my math it lasted roughly 44 hours into the new year.  Damn.  It is now starting to remind me of that old kid's game.

Let me start out by saying that I've been a fan of Jobster since they were but an idea and some PowerPoint decks and a couple of us Seattle recruiting types were sitting in a conference room at Ignition Partners in Bellevue with Phil, Jason, several VC types, and a couple of other people whose names I now can't remember.  We were discussing the merits of technology to provide an improved referral system to be used for recruiting.  Anyone that wants to make recruiting easier or cheaper (or both) using technology in smart ways has my support.  And the ideas Jason and team were presenting were indeed new approaches and innovative. 

I think the whole recent event is an interesting case study, but for different reasons than others have blogged about.  I suggest that we pause and remember that the blogosphere is just another form of media, for better or for worse. 

It is more interesting that the evaluation of Jobster's probability of success was not evaluated in the blogosphere to a great extent prior to the recent kerfuffle.  Not many (if any) posts proclaiming their value proposition as 'new' or 'highly valued'.  Not many (if any) blog posts regarding whether their suite of offerings were creating results for customers or not.  And this is 3 years into the Jobster evolution.

What I have observed are old-fashioned back-channel conversations:  live, person to person dialogues between recruiting minds to get the straight scoop on whether Jobster's offerings were credible and worked as advertised.  I must have had 15-20 of these types of conversations in the last 24 months, given that Jobster referenced Starbucks and me in some of their marketing efforts, particularly early on.  People call me or email me and others I know, and say, "hey, can you spend 15-20 minutes with me and tell me about your experience using the Jobster tools, I'd really like the straight scoop...?"   I got a call like this as recently as this morning. 

There were plenty of back channel conversations happending at ERE in Hollywood, Florida last fall, and at every other event I've attended, particularly given the approach that Jobster has taken to market their services (in many ways as The Next Big Thing).  Lots of whispers, lots of sidebars over coffee, lots of "Wow, they are spending a lot on marketing (but this sure is a great party)..." types of discussions.

Yes, the most recent developments are noteworthy and somewhat significant because the blogosphere is once again creating its own news and it is a case study in transparency and communication.  There's a great post at Copywrite, Ink on the communication component.  In general terms, I do think those (Shannon, Amitai in particular) posting in the blogosphere showed an appropriate point of view in recognizing that the Seattle Post Enquirer Intelligencer 'news' commentary was...er... speculative.

The irony is that in many ways, the recruiting blogosphere has not done a good job of picking up the whispers, which I think would have been a true sign of the power of this (relatively) new media.  I think this day is coming and fast.  This transparency will be good for business, although few startups are likely to listen (see TechCrunch for loads of examples). 

From my perspective, nothing has radically changed at Jobster recently, despite the 'breaking news'.  Jobster is still following the same direction, or what some have called lack of direction, as they were 6 months ago.  Their product offerings are inherently the same as they were 6-12-18 months ago, or at least from what I can tell. 

What is most interesting about this story is that given all the transparency created in the blogosphere, why haven't more people suggested that things might be trending towards 'askew' at Jobster most recently than now?   As a former customer of Jobster's, a relatively tenured recruiting guy in the industry, and a follower of the burgeoning recruitment technology trend, I cannot share with you the primary business problem that Jobster is designed to solve.  That is a significant business problem for Jobster. 

I spoke to this a little in my recent post regarding complexity.  Technology works best when it solves real-world issues; and therein lies a quantifiable ROI.

I would suggest that there are only 5 demand-side business problems that exist regarding talent acquisition (comments welcome):

1. The Scarcity Problem - how to find the talent when it's hard to find (enter search tools, other widgets, headhunters, specialized sites, et cetera)
2. The Abundance Problem - how to find the talent when it's too easy to find applicants (enter online screening, assessments, et cetera).
3. The Compliance Problem - how to do #1 and/or #2 legally, lest the government offer your organization some assistance.
4. The Efficiency Problem (the Mo' Better Problem)- how to do #1, #2, and #3 cheaper and faster. 
5. The Strategy Problem - how to do #1 and #2 today, while building for the future and taking into account risks and opportunities inherent in a dynamic talent marketplace.  In other words, what works today might not work tomorrow, so let us take tactical and strategic steps to be prepared.

There are of course similar supply side business problems that companies like Indeed.com , Emurse.com, and yes even Jobster have taken a swipe at optimizing.  It's not clear how Jobster fits into this matrix either.

This episode suggests to me that we in the blogosphere should do a better job of transparently dialoguing about the whispers as opposed to letting the news break after the fact. 

If we do that, then we will know the recruitosphere is really humming and a benchmark of the blogging world.