My New Calling: Community

Last Wednesday, I called my wife to tell her the good news. My announcement that I was available for hire had worked. I had a new position and start date. And more importantly, it was a cool position. She gave me the congratulations such a feat deserved but also used it to remind me how very right she was about me getting hired quickly and about how I was way more worried about it than she was.

This is a woman after my own heart. Don’t let my head get too big.

With that, I am excited to announce that I am the brand new Community Director for ERE.net. And I start… well, now. I guess I better get to work.

ERE started as a community of recruiting professionals communicating initially via Morse code and light signals an e-mail listserve, moved to an online forum and then finally morphed into its current format. While this is a new position for ERE, various people along the way have played a valuable role in this community.

I am looking forward to learning from those people and pushing forward aggressively to kick the online community in high gear. Some of those changes are going to be technical. Some of those may be editorial. And certainly outreach is critical to my mission as well.

Late last week, I had the opportunity to touch base with almost everyone on the team. We’ve already started some preliminary discussions around direction and these folks are excited that this focus is happening. This is a huge area of opportunity for ERE.

Most of all, I am looking forward to talking less about me and what I’ve done in the past and more about what I am doing and the takeaways I can share with all of you.

I know I can be cynical at times but community and networking are going to be critical to HR and recruiting this next decade. Bank on it. I wouldn’t be where I am without the support of our community and I know dozens of people who are in the same boat too. It is an exciting time to be tackling these issues.

For everyone who helped me out, a sincere thank you.