This week’s brainfood is supported by our buddies, SmartRecruiters. SmartRecruiters Talent Acquisition Suite provides everything needed to attract, select, and hire great talent. Time to upgrade your ATS? Get a demo today

Tons of good stuff here, include ‘desire paths’, instituting digital commutes and - most importantly - inviting fewer people to your zoom meetings. Smart, useful, well referenced. H/T to brainfooder Joanne Lockwood for the share in the fb group (and get well soon Jo!)

Hard to argue with eloquence like this 👆. Brilliant essay by the brilliant John Sumser. Have a read if you’re interested in digital transformation and the necessary emergence of a new role.

Beautifully presented interactive infographic on the ‘state of the developer ecosystem by JetBrain. 20,000 is a a decent cohort but regional variance on programming language use is not captured, which would provide a massive skew on the data. Still, this represents a delightful one pager where tech recruiters can quickly grasp the popularity of the skills they have been tasked to recruit. H/T to Denys Dinkevych for the share

Have you ever been asked this question👆? If you haven’t, its only a matter of time, so this post from Alistair Fraser is a super useful overview of the challenges, mistakes-to-avoid, tools you can use - if you ever have to answer the question. Have a read here

The challenge of accuracy / relevancy isn’t ever going to go away until we have find a non-textual way to describe work human beings do. So members have been hammering this tool in the fb group, but I give LinkedIn all the credit for trying 👏 with the data they have. Think about time-over-tasks and you might be able to quantify human work rather than interpret it. A conversation for another time 😉. H/T brainfooder Marcel van der Meer for the share of this tool though, which I still think, is pretty cool.

No DE&I measures in this compilation? Disappointing but debate for another moment. As it is, this remains a useful primer / reminder for those who are reviewing how to measure recruitment performance in your business. HT to Denys Dinkevych for the share

Interesting conjecture in this post, which describes the inadvertent consequences of technophilia in tech hiring, specifically the requirement for Product Managers to come from an Engineering background. No question that the primacy of engineers in tech companies has a dampening impact of efforts to diversify - and may have consequences for business performance too. H/T brainfooder Bas van de Haterd for the share in the fb group

The move to substack has really freed up Kevin Wheeler to expand on his writing. We all benefit from this, as we can see from this excellent post speculating on what a future structure of TA might look like. The challenge remains that organisations are designed with two often competing purposes in mind 1) for optimising performance the depart vs 2) provide career development for the individual. Those two things don’t align. H/T Bas van de Haterd for share in the fb group

Excellent thinking from Nicolas Colin - regulation intended to prevent worker exploitation is using an obsolete model of that work, which may in fact harm the workers it aims to protect - as well frustrate the growth of the entrepreneurial economy.

Related: California threw out Prop22 last week, in a reversal of the decision to classify Uber / Lyft drivers as employees, which inadvertently hammered all other kinds of non-permanent work, as well as leading to Uber / Lyft from ceasing operations in the state. One for a future Brainfood Live, I think

We talked about gender variation in self promotion a few weeks ago so this language tool proved timely - basically helps you generate synonyms to deliver stronger impact. Full app, maybe useful. H/T brainfooder Gareth Jones for the share in the fb group

How far away are we from fully automated factories? Soon, it seems according to Chinese phone manufacturer Xiaomi. This video promo might give you a bit more of flavour than the article. The assembly line is coming to an end and future isn’t going to wait around for us to get comfortable with it. H/T to brainfooder Bas van de Haterd and Martyn Redstone for the share in the fb group

Great call to action for TA to get serious about building the on-demand workforce into their talent delivery plans. If we don’t do it, somebody else will - have a read

In a work and income insecure world, it is imperative that all members of the community think of ways of mitigating their risk by diversify their income opportunities. The Brainfood Hall of Fame is a free to register / free to advertise talent directory for Recruiters & HR. Nearly 1000 of you have already signed up - if you haven’t already, I recommend you do so forthwith here

Joining the Brainfood Tribune this week are community members Jan Tegze, the author of Full Stack Recruiter, Career coach Joanna McCatty and Tech Recruiter Teddy Dimitrova - read theirs and the growing library of personal stories, here

If you are a brainfooder, I invite you to share your story with the community. Email me at [email protected]

This is the collection of the best recruiting / HR podcasts in our space. We’re up to 100 now - some new discoveries for me too. Check out the list here. If you want to add a podcast to this list, access the google sheet here and add to the bottom of the spreadsheet

Great interview by Matt Alder who speaks with Atlassian CPO Tami Rosen about the future of distributed workforces. Have a listen here

Carmen Hudson has been such a wonderful supporter of the brainfood, it’s great to hear her on air sharing her insight. This is one is personal and all the more appreciated for that. Have a listen.

Lars Schmidt nailing it with another great 1-2-1 interview with HR leaders. The relaunched Redefining HR podcast series is top notch chat, top notch production. Have a listen