July 7, 2005
“They Like Us! They Really Like Us!”
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
A survey released this morning claims that 83% of Canadian hiring managers “cited involvement in industry or trade associations as beneficial to an employee’s career.”
There have been many similar studies in the past. It’s easy to say that association involvement is important when hiring because it offers a simple way to distinguish resumes from one another in the initial weeding-out phase.
The problem is that some association folks may read studies like this, pat themselves on the back, and decide that what they’ve always done is still relevant, after all. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because it’s not necessarily true.
In an email exchange with Shawn Lea, Seth Godin noted that while he has belonged to associations in the past (joining primarily out of fear of being left behind), he only belongs to online communities now.
Which leads to two questions:
1) What’s the difference?
2) At what point did those association memberships cease being a necessity for staying in the game?
(EDIT: He actually said he joined for “fear of being left out,” which is a different thing altogether, although the questions remain the same.)
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