Category Archives: Career Advice

Lessons from Curveballs

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This holiday season, I’m stepping away from my usual writing to bring you some of the top-read posts from 2023. Enjoy!

The Ball Will Always Find You!

There is a baseball metaphor about the ball finding you. Basically, if you are unprepared or you are scared, that’s precisely when the ball will find you! The moment you least want the ball to come to you is when the ball is hit at you. I’ve heard coaches say this statement my entire life being around baseball.

Life works like this as well.

The one time when you go into the office, and you’re not really prepared for your job or function is the day you’ll be called into an emergency meeting with the CEO! The one question you don’t prepare to be asked will be the one that will be asked.

So, how do you prepare yourself for being unprepared?

1. Acknowledge it when it comes.

So often, we want to try and fake our way through something we weren’t prepared for, but it shows. We aren’t really fooling anyone but ourselves. So, acknowledge it. You know, that’s a great question you asked. I’m not prepared to answer that at this moment, but let me do some research and come back to you with a thorough answer.

2. Redirect the conversation to what you do know.

This isn’t perfect because a savvy executive will come back to the original question, but 60% of the time, it works every time! “That’s a great question. What I focused on were these factors, which, in my estimation, is what we need. I believe…”

3. Answer another question like you’re answering their question.

This is risky, but politicians use this tactic all the time, and it mostly works because the person asking the question is sure you answered their question or not, and they don’t want to sound dumb by asking it again, thinking you answered it! Tim, can you give me some insight into how much we’ll be over budget in TA by the end of the year? “Sure, first, it’s amazing the progress we’ve made. At the beginning of the year, we had no idea we’d be 75% over our planned hiring, and the team has been amazing in reaching that goal. In the second half of the year, we see hiring beginning to slow, and we are anticipating that in Q1 of 2024, we’ll be back up to normal.” Then you just shut up or ask if anyone else has any other questions! Bonus points if you actually go back at them during your answer with some verbal ques like, “You understand, right?” Of course, they’ll be nodding yes! At that point, they will never follow up with another question!

4. Bluff.

Answer the question, even though you don’t really know the answer, and hope and pray they also don’t know the answer! I’ve seen way too many people in my career try and look like a fool. I find that very few executives ask a question they don’t have some semblance of an answer to already. They are just checking to see if you’re on your game and have the answer. So, I do not recommend bluffing. This is usually a low-performer behavior that is probably getting fired soon anyway, and they’re desperate!

5. Open the conversation up to the broader audience or the person who asked the question.

This strategy works really well if you have a strong relationship and trust with the person or people you’re speaking with. In this tactic, you basically acknowledge you don’t know but come back and see if anyone knows or has a strong opinion. You are still driving the conversation and asking questions, which puts you in an authority position, so you don’t look weak by not knowing the answer to the question being asked. “That’s a great question. I actually don’t know the answer, but I’m wondering if anyone else in the room does. Or does anyone have a feeling on what this might look like?” At this point, you could offer up an educated guess as to what you believe it to be if no one else has anything and agree to come back with some more specific information.

Professionally, the ball is going to find you whether you are ready for it or not. We all hope that we will be prepared and ready, but that’s not always the case. Your next reaction is critical to how others will end up viewing you. The more confident you are in your ability and performance, the easier it is to say you just don’t know. Unfortunately, so many times throughout our careers, we get caught off guard, and it might be during a time when our confidence isn’t super high, and that opens us up to trying to make something up on the fly and opening ourselves up to being viewed as a fool.

Posted on  by Tim Sackett

Zoo-Zapped Dreams

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Once upon a time, I had my heart set on being a teacher. All through my early twenties, that was the future I saw for myself. But then reality kicked in when I dove into teaching and realized it wasn’t the act of teaching that didn’t fit; it was the political chaos within the public education setup. One incident made it obvious.

There was this amazing exhibit at the local museum, perfectly syncing with my lesson plan by chance. I thought, “What luck! The kids would love this.” So, I proposed ditching our routine zoo visit for this exhibit.

“Can’t do that,” my principal said. “It had to be approved a year in advance, but you can do it next year.” “It won’t be here next year; it’s a traveling exhibit, only available this year,” I explained. “Sorry, won’t happen,” she replied. “What if I got parents to do this after school or on a weekend, and it wouldn’t cost anything?” I pleaded. “Nope, can’t let you do it. Don’t waste your energy on this,” she could see my rising frustration with something that made no sense. Guess where we ended up? The zoo. Same old tour, the same old caged animals, and the same lack of engagement.

Right then, it hit me hard—this system cared more about following rigid rules than genuinely educating kids. My dream of being an educator got a reality check.

But hold on, my dream didn’t vanish; it shifted. See, many think an unrealized dream equals failure. Nope. It’s about adapting when life throws a curveball.

The real grind isn’t just the pursuit; it’s in reimagining when things hit a dead-end. Time for a pivot!

We glamorize chasing a dream endlessly, but the truth is, sometimes dreams need an adjustment. And that’s okay. It’s not defeat; it’s evolution.

Let’s embrace the idea that dreams are adjustable. It’s about celebrating the courage to pivot, not just the pursuit. Chase your dreams fiercely, but know it’s equally admirable to adjust them when life asks you to. Adjustments don’t belittle dreams; they shape them, making the journey all the more vibrant.

Love vs. Victory

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With Christmas approaching and New Year’s following shortly, it often seems like everyone’s just gliding through these final days. You know what tends to happen at year-end, right? People start assessing their lives and careers. It’s the classic: “2023 was rough. What am I doing with my life? 2024 is my year! I need a job I love!”

I run a recruiting agency, but my focus isn’t on “love”; it’s on clinching victories and having success. It’s a battleground of winners and losers. Tracking down the top-notch talent usually means they’re already working elsewhere when you spot them. You’ve got to win them over.

When you snag remarkable talent, it’s a win for one organization and a loss for another. It’s a straightforward win-lose situation.

Being an outstanding recruiter is all about a drive to win. Sure, loving this game (and I’m one of those who does) is great, but it’s not the make-or-break factor for success. What matters is the hunger for victory.

The best recruitment firms are consistently on the winning side. They rack up wins at a rate that overshadows their losses, like Stephen Curry hitting threes. Losing should sting, and winning should feel like that unforgettable first kiss.

Love isn’t what decides winning or losing. Some of the toughest rivals I’ve encountered weren’t crazy about what they were doing well; they were just determined to win.

Too often as recruiting leaders we feel we need to find people who love recruiting. All leaders fall into this trap, trying to get their teams to fall in love with the work they do. The belief that ‘love’ will drive great performance. Which might work, but getting someone to ‘love’ work, is really hard, and rare.

Getting someone who only wants to win, that’s much easier to find and feed.

I’m not in the love business; it’s messy and emotional. I’m in the business of winning. It’s clear-cut – it’s either a win or a loss.

The Ingredients of Success

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I still remember an NPR interview snippet that caught my attention a few years ago. The topic? Success. Initially, it seemed straightforward—talent equals success, right? Wrong. The interviewee outlined four crucial components:

  • Talent
  • Persistence
  • Patience
  • Luck

You don’t have to have all four at the same time to be successful, but you’ll probably have all four in some kind of combination if you are successful.

Personally, I admire the relentless, persistent hustlers—the ones who refuse to take no for an answer. Persistence is their superpower, a key ingredient in the recipe for success.

Patience, though, isn’t a close friend of persistence. They rarely coexist. Yet, as I think of the successful individuals in my life, they all have great patience. Having patience doesn’t mean you’re willing to sit around and wait to be successful, it’s about understanding that success often demands time—put that on a coffee mug (we’re going to have a whole collection)!

Now, luck. Successful people never want to admit luck is involved. I’m a self-made person. I did it on my own. I’m not lucky! Luck is a bad word to successful people, it discounts the hard work, the effort and the time you put into becoming successful. But, again, each successful person I know can point to a time, or a person, or a meeting, or some chance circumstance that can only be categorized as luck.

I like this model. It doesn’t let you off the hook. You still have to do it all. You can’t just say, “well, I didn’t get it because I wasn’t lucky enough”. That’s not true, be patient. “I didn’t get it because I wasn’t talented enough.” No, keep at it. Luck finds those more rapidly who are talented, persistent, and patient.

Looking back, sure my career journey has been fortunate, but it took grinding thirty years to stumble upon that stroke of luck.

The Role of HR as Coaches

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There’s an article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker discussing the importance of “Coaching.” Gawande, a writer and surgeon, talked about coaches as not just teachers but as observers, judges, and guides. From the article:

The concept of a coach is slippery. Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They’re not your boss—in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the coach—but they can be bossy. They don’t even have to be good at the sport. The famous Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi couldn’t do a split if his life depended on it. Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide.

Gawande, A. (2011, October 3). Personal Best. The New Yorker.

In my HR role, I’ve always believed that HR can act as coaches across our organizations. But there’s often pushback, like “You can’t coach me in Marketing, Operations, or Accounting.” Exactly—I’m not here to teach you those things; I hired you for that. Building a coaching culture starts with hiring people open to being coached.

More from the article:

Good coaches know how to break down performance into its critical individual components. In sports, coaches focus on mechanics, conditioning, and strategy, and have ways to break each of those down, in turn. The U.C.L.A. basketball coach John Wooden, at the first squad meeting each season, even had his players practice putting their socks on. He demonstrated just how to do it: he carefully rolled each sock over his toes, up his foot, around the heel, and pulled it up snug, then went back to his toes and smoothed out the material along the sock’s length, making sure there were no wrinkles or creases. He had two purposes in doing this. First, wrinkles cause blisters. Blisters cost games. Second, he wanted his players to learn how crucial seemingly trivial details could be. “Details create success” was the creed of a coach who won ten N.C.A.A. men’s basketball championships.

Gawande, A. (2011, October 3). Personal Best. The New Yorker.

In working with adult professionals, coaching isn’t about teaching new stuff but helping them analyze and improve what they already do well. Instead of fixating on weaknesses, HR can help make employees’ strengths even stronger.

Coaching has become popular lately, with various types like leadership or life coaching. But coaching for professionals is less common. I believe in HR professionals acting as more hands-on coaches, working daily to improve skills that directly impact the business, not focusing on personal challenges.

One big challenge for HR transitioning into coaching roles is that many employees lack self-awareness, just like us! A great coach helps someone see things in themselves they didn’t notice before.

If HR can build this self-awareness in organizations, it could lead to some amazing changes.

The Reason You Got Ghosted After Your Interview

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Dear Timmy,

I recently applied for a position that I’m perfect for! A recruiter from the company contacted me and scheduled me for an interview with the manager. I went, the interview was a little over an hour, and it went great! I immediately followed up with an email to the recruiter and the manager thanking them, but since then, I’ve heard nothing, and it’s been weeks. I’ve sent follow-up emails to both the recruiter and the manager, and I’ve gotten no reply.

What should I do? Why do companies do this to candidates? I would rather they just tell me they aren’t interested than have them say nothing at all!

The Ghost Candidate

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Dear Ghost,

There are a number of reasons that recruiters and hiring managers ghost candidates, and none of them are good!

Here’s a short list of some of these reasons:

– They hated you and hope you go away when they ghost you because the conflict is uncomfortable.

– They like you, but not as much as another candidate. They’re trying to talk into the job but want to leave you on the back burner, but they’re idiots and don’t know how to do this properly.

– They decided to promote someone internally, and they don’t care about candidate experience enough to tell you they went in another direction.

– They have a completely broken recruitment process and might still be going through it believing you’re just as happy as a pig in shi…

– They think they communicated to you electronically to bug off through their ATS, but they haven’t audited the process to know this isn’t working.

– The recruiter got fired, and no one picked up the process.

I would love to tell you that ghosting candidates are a rare thing, but it’s not! It happens all the time! There is never a reason to ghost a candidate, ever! Sometimes I believe candidates get ghosted by recruiters because hiring managers don’t give feedback, but that still isn’t an excuse I would accept. At least tell the candidate that!

Look, I’ve ghosted people. At conference cocktail parties, I’ve been known to ghost my way right back up to my room and go to sleep! When it comes to candidates, I don’t ghost! I would rather tell them the truth so they don’t keep coming back around unless I want them to come back around.

I think most recruiters ghost candidates because they’re in over their heads with the amount of work they have, and they mean to get back to people but just don’t have the time. When you’re in firefighting mode, you tend to only communicate with the candidates you want, not the ones you don’t. Is this good practice? Heck, no! But when you’re fighting fires, you do what you have to do to stay alive.

What would I do if I was you? 

Here are a few ideas to try if you really want to know the truth:

1. Send a handwritten letter to the CEO of the company briefly explaining your experience and what outcome you would like.

2. Go on Twitter, and in 140 characters, send a shot across the bow! “XYZ Co. I interviewed two weeks ago and still haven’t heard anything! Can you help me!?” (t will work on Facebook as well!)

3. Write a post about your experience on LinkedIn and tag the recruiter and the recruiter’s boss.

4. Take the hint and go find a company that truly values you and your talent! If the organization and this manager treat candidates like this, imagine how you’ll be treated as an employee.

The Employment Lessons from the Tucker Carlson Termination

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This won’t be a political post. This post is about what we can all learn from a high-profile termination. Here are my rambling thoughts on the subject:

  • You will be fired if you make a mistake at work that costs your company $750,000,000. No matter how big and important you think, you are. You will also probably be sued by your employer in an attempt to recoup any money that can, although it’s probably pennies in comparison to your screw-up. Just know if you F’up that bad, someone will come knocking on your office door. It might not be immediate, but it’s going to happen!
  • Suppose you want to criticize your bosses, your company, etc. Don’t do that on a device that is being paid for by your company. It’s a work product, and it will be discoverable. We get so casual in our messaging nowadays, and it’s dangerous. Generative AI will make this problem much worse. At some point in the near future, companies will have AI looking at every single communication that is happening on every device it controls, and stuff is going to bubble up to the powers that be much faster. Start practicing having real conversations again on the phone or in person, especially if you want to bash your boss.
  • Let us hope this is just the beginning of companies and private citizens coming after news outlets that have gone unchecked for far too long in sharing half-truths and flat-out lies. There are thousands of examples of “journalists” ruining companies and individuals only to be wrong, and besides a back-page retraction, these journalists and news outlets almost never face the consequences. It doesn’t matter where you sit on the political spectrum. It’s hard to trust most news today because every story seems to have a spin.
  • If you get a message from a co-worker wanting to “bitch” about other co-workers or bosses, don’t respond back. Call that person, or go see them in person and let them vent. You’ll be doing this person a favor in not making it worse than it is already for them. And you’ll protect yourself by not leaving any trail that you even engaged.
  • From an HR perspective, the time I’ve seen high performers screw up the most is when they believe they are “untouchable.” When they think they are at the top of their game and can’t be easily replaced. This “comfort” becomes their weakness. The best time to coach a high performer is when they get all the praise for being a high performer. This is when you have a chance to reach them and warn them. It’s the don’t-let-this-go-to-your-head talk.
  • If your company or bosses ever want you to lie, you need to document that immediately. A great way to document that is to write up in an email exactly what happened, what date and time, and who was involved and send that to yourself, a confidant, and HR. Unfortunately, you probably need to quit your job and get out of that environment as fast as possible. If it’s verbal and can’t be proven, you don’t have a case, most likely. But you still don’t want to be caught in that circumstance or culture. Your career and life aren’t worth it.

We love to believe this is a Fox News issue. It isn’t. We are being lied to by every news outlet out there. Journalists are no longer held accountable for having real sources and telling the truth. There is a rush to be the first. To grab the headline. And in that rush, mistakes are made and rarely fixed. Damn, the companies and people they destroy. As long as they grabbed headlines, the destruction if justified in their minds. What was once a highly trusted career is now a joke.

The Big Talent Acquisition Disconnect! #BeBetter

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Do you know why talent acquisition sucks?

Yes!

It’s easy to say “yes” because TA is constantly messing stuff up for no real reason. I mean, there are a lot of reasons, but no reason it should continue for this long.

Case in point. Watch this quick TikTok:

@its_just_talia_ I was clowned by another one… but watch until the end 🤡 #jobsearch #layoffs2023 #jobinterview #careertiktok #careertok #NextLevelDish #socialmediamanager #socialmediamarketing #fyp #foryoupage ♬ Hip Hop with impressive piano sound(793766) – Dusty Sky

Okay, let’s break down all the terrible excuses TA will give us on why they would post this job on LinkedIn but not disposition this candidate before doing this!

1. We have a policy to post open jobs publicly for two weeks before we can offer a candidate.

2. The hiring manager wanted to do a last-minute check to see if anyone else was “fresh” on the market before we moved forward with this candidate.

3. We got this candidate via internal referral, and we need to post it first before we can make an offer.

4. We’re lazy AF and conflict-avoidant and don’t give two sh*ts about our candidate experience.

5. This candidate came to us via a third-party agency, and before we pay that fee, we need to see if we can find someone on our own.

6. We watched this candidate’s TikTok videos and decided we didn’t need that drama on the team.

I’m going to guess #4 is the winner based on my experience, but #6 also could be an option!

The reality is there is no excuse for the recruiter and/or hiring manager of this candidate to, at the very least, give them some insight into why they were posting this job on LinkedIn without saying something to her. Not. One. Reason!

You asked a candidate to devote major time and resources to jump through all of your hoops, which she did. You OWE it to her to give her feedback straight. “Look, Talia, thank you for your effort and professionalism. We’ve decided you aren’t the right fit for us based on “X.” That’s it. She might be pissed, but she’ll be less pissed than seeing the job posted again on LinkedIn the next day and not being told she didn’t get the job.

If you and your company do this. Just know you suck. Not your company, you. You personally suck for allowing this to happen to a person. You shouldn’t be allowed to work in HR or TA in any industry and in any capacity. If you’re a hiring manager and you allow this to happen, you should never be allowed to hire anyone every again for the rest of your life. You’re scum. You’re a bad leader. Turn your keys in.

Come on! Better better!

How do you “practice” HR?

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We are constantly told that if we want to be good at anything in life, we must practice. It starts when we are kids, and we want to be our heroes. If you want to be good at sports, or dance, or computer games, you must practice. Not just “play” but specific steps that lead to success in the endeavor we’ve chosen.

Tyler Cowen released his book “Talent” in 2022 and I really like this quote from it:

“What is it you do to practice that is analogous to how a pianist practice scales?”

What do you do each day to practice your profession?

What I find when I ask HR and TA professionals this question, and we really dig in, is there “practice” is showing up and doing the job. That is akin to an NBA player just showing up and playing games but never putting in time and effort outside of the game to increase or maintain their basketball skill level. They wouldn’t be successful for long.

Just showing up and doing the job isn’t practice. That’s the job.

Are we talking about practice…

YES!

Let me tell you how I practice my skill in HR and TA:

  • I write on this blog that has nothing to do with my paying job.
  • I design and present content for roughly 20+ webinars every year.
  • I design and present content to present live on stage for around 20 different talks every year.
  • I consciously reach out and schedule calls with experts in our industry to “talk shop” each month that has nothing to do with my paying job.
  • I network on sites like LinkedIn to expand my professional network and ask and answer as many questions as I can.
  • I will do upwards of 100 tech demos per year in the technology that impacts my industry.
  • I will attend upwards of 12 HR and TA professional conferences.

Okay, I’m a complete freak around personal development, primarily because I actually really like this stuff. That makes it easier to do, for sure.

But, I rarely get into a professional dilemma where I don’t feel prepared to handle the situation. I believe that is because I’ve “practiced” a whole bunch!

I get asked frequently, “How did you learn this stuff?”

Practice.

Honestly, my hope is one day, I’ll take this love of practice in my professional life and turn it into some other sort of practice in my personal life. Like, someday, I’ll roll out of bed and be like, “okay, today is the day I stop being an out-of-shape dough ball and get back into shape like I was in college!

I mean, if I can put this level of practice into my professional life, it stands to believe I could put that same level of practice into any part of my life.

Do you want to be “Great” at your Career?

I find almost 100% of people I would ask this question to will say, “Yes, of course!”

But like my lazy butt sitting on the couch at night watching Netflix, they are willing to put in the practice of being great. They are just showing up to work and doing the job. That usually doesn’t lead to greatness.

Don’t get me wrong. Some folks can show up and be great, just like freak athletes. That is about .001% of our society. So slow your roll. That isn’t you.

I want to be great at my job, but I don’t really do anything other than the job to ensure I’ll be great at it. Doesn’t that sound funny? It goes against everything we know about greatness in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe I’m great at HR and TA. I think I’m pretty good at certain parts of it, but I know people who are so much better than me at so many parts. When you compare yourself against the top 1% in your profession, you feel small. You feel like you need more practice.

When you compare yourself against Kevin in payroll, that constantly loses his way back to his cube, you feel like you’re a giant. Practice isn’t needed to be greater than Kevin. That’s our problem. Most of us are surrounded by average players, and your slightly above-average performance makes you feel like you no longer need practice.

Pick higher performance targets. Chose to emulate someone who amazes you in your profession. Chase greatness through practice.

Your first internship, in your career, should be in sales! No matter your major.

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So, it’s that time of year when we begin to think about our interns for the summer. I love interns because we get to show them what they’ll never do or see again in the real world when they get their first job! I’m only half-joking. Most internships I hear about today (and I hear about a lot) aren’t coming close to teaching young adults what it’s like to really work a job in your company.

Suppose I was Chief of HR for the country like I got to make all the HR decisions and make rules and stuff (wouldn’t that be a fun job!) – Chief Justice of HR! I would force every kid who ever did an internship first to do a sales internship with whichever company they decided to do an internship with. Great, you want to be in HR, or an Accountant, or an Engineer, or a Developer, etc., first, you need to go out on the road or sit on the phone with Jerry, he works in sales for our company.

Why sales?

Too often, I see entry-level grads come into organizations with this strange sense of how the world works based on what it is they do in their chosen profession. Do you want to know how to really impact your chosen profession? Go find out how the sausage is made! The ‘sausage’ in most organizations is sales.

Want to find out how to save the organization money as an Engineer or Accountant so you better understand your customer and what and how they’re buying? Want to be a great designer or developer? Sales will teach you what your priorities should be. Want to find out how to impact employee development and career growth? Go find out how hard it is to sell $1 of the product your company sells every day.

This isn’t some plan to get everyone in the world to think sales is hard and you should pity them. Sales are hard. Great sales pros also make a ton of money. No one usually feels bad for sales. This is truly about getting the new grads coming into your organization to have a better perspective on what’s really important.

If we don’t sell our stuff, you can’t ride down the slide into the lobby on your way to hot yoga.

So, no matter what you do in the organization. You should know how to sell. Well, Tim, I’m going to be a nurse. Hospitals don’t sell. We save lives. Congratulations on becoming a nurse. It’s such a great profession. You’re a moron. Every organization sells. Hospitals compete against other hospitals for high-margin healthcare business. Nonprofits compete for donations and grant dollars. Churches compete for your soul!

Every organization is selling something, and you should know what it is you’re selling and how it’s sold.

We do a disservice to new grads when we make them think that their profession is only about the skills they’re learning for some title they’ll one day have after graduation. Your profession, every profession, is about ensuring crap gets sold.