Angus: Recruiters without a spine
We live in a world of fast paced technology innovation, yet there is a large part of the IBM i community who are stagnant and lost in the past. Recruiters are in a unique position to help move our platform forward, yet while companies and programmers continue to use old branding in reference to IBM i, those recruiters tend to follow along. It would seem they would rather have the business – and the money – than take a risk and educate their customers on what is happening in the IBM i world. Twitter is full of #AS400 hashtags proclaiming all the available jobs on that old platform. This indicates a mentality of headhunter, as opposed to professional recruiting.
This week, I discovered an email promoting iSeries from a recruiter. Their page is here. I found they have no Twitter presence (supporting my theory that AS/400 and iSeries programmers don’t use social media). Surprisingly, they have a Facebook page, where I posted a plea for them to step up to IBM i. Here is what I wrote:
Your pages and advertising lead with AS/400 and iSeries. However, the hardware platform was replaced 6 years ago with the IBM i OS running on Power Systems – that is a lifetime in IT. When you use old branding, you are not supporting the future and direction of the platform, you are encouraging some of the community to wallow in the past. You are showing an unprofessional lack of knowledge about what you are selling and you are not supporting all those developers who want to move into the future and not live in that ‘glorious’ past.
What would it take for you to consider changing your marketing direction with an emphasis on the future? One where you lead with IBM i and where you use AS/400 and iSeries for SEO or as a reference to the past only. One where you educate the customer about the IBM i and Power Systems platform – rather than denigrate the platform by allowing the uneducated customer to drive the conversation and us back into the past?
Our platform is incredible. Calling it an old name makes it look old and not so incredible. The community often needs a nudge to head to the future. You, as a team of ‘professionals’ and ‘consultants’, can either consult and be professionals, or headhunt. Until you recruit IBM i resources, you will remain just headhunters…
Please step up to IBM i and its future.
If you visit that Facebook page, surprise, surprise – my comment has now disappeared.
Let’s all call our local recruiters and enlist their help in promoting IBM i and its future. Let’s talk to them about how damaging it is to continue using old branding. Let’s help them understand that the old branding could be used as SEO or ‘past experience’ requirements, but the jobs and recruitment activity should lead with IBM i.
Until recruiters get their own spine and stop headhunting, let’s tap a few on the shoulder and turn them to point in the right direction!
