Recruitment as Paralysis

Image: Mark Easdown (thank you)

I sometimes think LinkedIn is a paradox. It has enormous generative potential but uses only a fraction of it. What could be cutting edge exploration of ideas becomes a matching service for employers and employees through advertising revenue. It feels a little like using a Ferrari to go to the corner shop. More show than function.

Risk is a function of progress. Whether that is an idea shared or a person recruited. The safe options have evidence, either as best practice or a resumé. They are easy to validate because they are grounded in the past. So we end up hiring history, not the future.

The future is a challenge, mainly because it hasn't happened yet, and the critical variables make it impossible to forecast. Of course, we can forecast the emergent trends, but the "butterfly's wing" variables, the ones that turn a weather front into a storm or a storm to a calm, appear at the last minute, unannounced and unheralded.

The header image is from Mark Easdown.…