By John Sumser
Influence comes partly from the person and partly from the position. It’s the intersection of audience and content. More interesting and subtle than sheer power or prestige, influence is measured by its wake. Celebrity is not enough; in many cases, celebrity actually gets in the way.
While it’s not necessarily a question of how long you’ve been in the game, there’s a degree of accrued wisdom that seems to be a part of the deal. It’s always coupled with some level of network effect. The combination of knowing what and knowing who gives an influencer the ability to shape context and results.
Elaine Orler is a case in point. The Vice-President of Talent Acquisition at Knowledge Infusion combines deep insight and experience in Recruiting with the integration expertise required to architect enterprise level software solutions.
Orler patiently developed her reputation and expertise while meticulously developing a network and reputation. The result is a nearly unrivaled position of influence in the Talent Acquisition market. If you want out of the box software architecture and street fighting tactics, turn to Elaine.
Elaine’s gift is the ability to see broad solutions in the incremental details of the data.
She began her career making sure that the resumes were scanned properly. She spent a decade of trench level design of strategy and tactics at Qualcomm and Gateway Computers, fighting for scarce high tech resources in the dot com craze. Since then, she’s been spreading her wings as the consultant of choice for deep talent acquisition and retention approaches.
Elaine loves to tell stories about the truths that can be discovered in the data.
During one of her early assignments, she was trying to recruit recently graduated engineers to San Diego in quantities. The competition was perk-heavy, options rich Silicon Valley. At the time, not even San Diego’s climate could compete with the sexiness / perceived opportunity of a gig in Silicon Valley. She lost a huge percentage of the deals after the offer was made.
Undeterred, Elaine started betting that the bloom would come off of the dot com rose. Once an engineer landed in the Valley and experienced the realities of high housing costs and commute time, San Diego’s pace and climate would become more appealing.
She began methodically tracking the losses and following up with new offers about a year out from the initial defeat. It was easy pickings. And, the engineers she recruited after a year or so in the Valley stayed longer and were more satisfied.
That’s the essence of Orler’s expertise. Think of her mulling over reams of data looking for trends and opportunities. Focused on the combination of acquisition and retention, she has an engineer’s approach to cultivating and building the talent base of a company.
Because she routinely demonstrates the utility and importance of data driven decision making, Elaine Orler executes a very interesting kind of influence on the industry. Results persuade people more completely than hype. Orler knows how to coax the results out of a system.
