Syelo Ventures #005

At Syelo our job is to stay at the bleeding edge of the talent industry. As curators of opinions, perspectives, trends, and tooling we have a front row seat of the industry & landscape as it evolves in real time. One thing is for sure, in 5 years there will be less recruiters than there are today. 

So how do we as professionals future-proof ourselves? How do we ensure that we are the class of professionals that survives the bumpy road to evolution? 

One word: Cooperatives. 

What is a Cooperative? A cooperative (often referred to as a co-op) is a type of organization that is owned and operated by its members, who work together to achieve shared goals & profits. By coming together co-ops create economic power through shared voice and purchasing power. 

Co-ops were created as a response to the social and economic challenges faced by workers, farmers, and consumers, particularly during the Industrial Revolution. The origin of cooperatives is often linked to the need for people to join forces to improve their conditions and gain access to resources or services they could not afford or access individually. These organizations grew out of the need to address economic exploitation and were founded on principles of solidarity, mutual aid, and democracy. 

Today we are living in a new Industrial Revolution brought on by AI. Workers are expected to do more with less, they are expected to forgo remote employment to be in an office, wages have stayed stagnant as inflation and the cost of living has increased drastically and to add further fuel to the fire artificial intelligence has begun automating away the jobs of the working class professional. 

The rise of AI and automation presents a unique set of challenges for Talent Leaders.  Rather than being passive recipients of technological change, recruiters can actively shape how technology impacts their work and ensure that it enhances their roles rather than replaces them. 

Today Syelo becomes The Syelo Co-Op. When we began this community 2 years ago we wanted to create a place where the best talent leaders in the world could come together to share, grow, and network but our mission has grown so much more beyond that. As we saw the tooling that was being funded/built in the space we quickly realized that without a collective voice venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs they backed would do everything in their power to replace us. By putting technology back into the hands of the people (us) we write the future narrative of Talent Acquisition. By coming together we can collectively face these challenges with greater strength, adaptability, and security. 

The Syelo Co-Op is for us, by us.