“Employers need to start rethinking their recruiting process, notably in using sophisticated social network search tools to go spear-fishing for high potential talent, rather than waiting for applications to come across the transom. And, managers need to look for the skills that really matter today in high potential young talent, attributes like cognitive load capacity, adaptability and social media skills. That one kid with the high GPA and stellar SAT scores may just be a drudge who took a lot of prep classes –while that other kid making clever and obscene videos may have superior communications and social networking skills, a huge online following and an innate ability to redesign your company’s entire future. Employers need to start looking for these new skills, and stop hiring in the rear-view mirror. They need to find raw, adaptable, resilient people who can be molded and mentored for jobs that don’t even have titles yet.”
Mike Malone on Forbes.com
Millenials may just hold the key to unlocking the potential within OSS. The communications and social networking skills as well as the born-with-a-computer mindset may put the connections together that overcome the complexity, time delays, budget overruns and related under-delivery by OSS projects around the world.