Digital Marketers and Super Forecasters

Hope you are doing great. In the last few weeks, we have written about the transformative role that Recruiters can play.  In many ways, Recruiters are the front line workers to take the company on the path of innovation.  As many companies converge into Software, hiring for tech talent becomes a critical priority for many companies.  In the history books, there is a question called the Needham question.

“Researcher Joseph Needham’s Grand Question“, also known as “The Needham Question”, is this: why had China and India been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes? … Needham thought the notion that the Chinese script had inhibited scientific thought was “grossly overrated”.

There is no defined answer for this question and there are different answers proposed.  If history books are to write a similar question 100 years from now about the state of Recruitment in 2020s, what will they write  One question could be this – Why did all the other Fortune 1000 companies let the big tech take all the talent (Google and Apple).  Certainly not lack of money or innovation opportunities.  One company recently fought back and the story is quite interesting

I have often written that Recruiters have to reimagine themselves as Digital Marketers and Super Forecasters.  When faced with extremely tight budget constraint, GE leveraged their employees to drive up Job Applicants.  It is estimated that GE got 3 million dollar worth of Social Media campaign effect

Many stories like this are emerging.  Moderna single handedly shifted the cutting edge pharma research from New Jersey to Boston.  How can a 10 year old company out compete 100+ years pharma giants.  What would have taken place to hire top researchers into the company, away from big companies.  All this require studying and careful pondering.

Perhaps we can derive some lateral thinking from John Sarno – back pain specialist.  Sarno originated the term tension myositis syndrome (TMS) to name a psychosomatic condition producing pain, particularly back pain. Although rejected by his mainstream peers, the theory of TMS and Sarno’s treatment of it have been hailed by many lay people as life-changing. A 2017 book on back pain treatments described Sarno as the “rock star of the back world”.