Monthly Archives: January 2022

The (Fight) Recruiting Club Rules

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Great talent and great hiring are about getting the best candidates to respond to you. It’s our reality as talent acquisition professionals that we have candidates who apply to our jobs, some of which might be great. We also have to go out and find great talent and find ways to get them to respond to our overtures.

It’s the number one job of every talent acquisition professional. I would argue it might be the only job of talent acquisition. Get great talent to interact with you!

The first rule of Flight Recruiting Club is you need to get candidates to respond!

The second rule of Recruiting Club is you need to keep trying to get talent to respond to you until they actually respond. Wait for a second, Tim! Do you mean we have to reach out to a candidate more than once!? I mean, if they don’t respond to me after my first outreach, that’s their loss! No, it’s your loss! You need that talent!

The third rule of Recruiting Club is you need to interact with candidates in the medium they are most comfortable with. I like it when you text me, most people do. It gets a high response rate. Some folks like email, phone calls, Facebook messenger, hand-written notes, etc. Find all the mediums the candidates like, not your favorite!

The fourth rule of Recruiting Club is it’s not about you. It’s about them! “I’ve got a great career opportunity for you!” How do you know what I want? Stop acting as you know me when you don’t. How about you first to get to know me a little. I mean, a girl deserves at least a drink before you ask her to get married!

The fifth rule of Recruiting Club is subject lines matter. Throw away any subject line that is about you. Spend twelve seconds, actually researching your target, and make a subject line that is about them! I like Michigan State University. If you sent me a subject line that says, “Go Green!” I’m way more likely to respond!

The sixth rule of Recruiting Club is don’t spam people you want to respond to. What’s spam? “HI TIM,” is spam! Your crappy ATS mass email where every word of the email is the same accepts that awful capital letter salutation at the beginning! That’s not personalization, that’s spam!

The seventh rule of Recruiting Club is to be a real person in your outreach. Once you let them know that you know who they are, have a personality, and let them know who you are. Of course, this interaction is about your organization, but the top recruiting professionals make personal connections first with great talent and then introduce them to the organization. “Hey Tim, I see you’re a Sparty fan! I’m a Big Ten person myself as I went to…”

The eighth rule of Recruiting Club is you make “all” candidates fall in love with you until you need to dump them. Great recruiting is like dating. I want you. I want you. I want you. Until I don’t want you any longer. Don’t hate the players, hate the game.

The ninth rule of Recruiting Club is new recruiters always find Unicorns! “Oh, that person won’t be interested in what I have, I mean they work at Google! We aren’t Google…” New recruiters don’t have pre-programmed recruiting biases. They just reach out and offer, rinse, repeat. They “stumble” into great talent because they don’t know any better. We have to work constantly to stop knowing better!

The tenth rule of Recruiting Club is you need to be on the edge to get most candidates to respond. If you’re vanilla in your communication, you’ll get a low and steady amount of replies, and no one will ever, ever complain about your style. If your Strawberry, you’ll get more responses, and every once in a while, someone is going to complain about you. Great talent acquisition lives right on the edge. Not over it, on it.

What’s the first rule of Recruiting Club?

The Death of Average

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“The world needs ditch diggers, too.”

You’ve heard this saying, right? We say it in regards to explaining that we all can’t be high performers. We all can’t be the best. I’ve said a million times that I would take an army of “B” players, just folks who show up to work and actually do the job they are paid to do!

The reality is, it’s now rare to find anyone who just wants to be “average”. I grew up in a world where the majority were completely fine with just doing their job, going home and living their life, rinse and repeat. Now, everyone wants to be extraordinary.

The problem is, if everyone is extraordinary, we all just are the same. If we are all the same, aren’t we all just average at that point? We are. You just raised the bar. This notion of abundance is a falsy, a dream. If everyone becomes high performing, that becomes the new mean, and someone will step up and become a higher performer. Welcome to life, kids.

Does the world still need ditch diggers?

I’m not sure, to be honest. It feels like we can build a robot or a machine or software to do most average stuff. Do we really need Starbuck baristas anymore? No! Robots are already making better coffee without the attitude, and if you want “attitude” we can make a button to push and the bot will give you attitude!

The current employment crisis will only speed up this evolution of eliminating the average. Say goodbye to some disinterested kid at the front counter at every fast food place. Say goodbye to grocery checkout clerks. Bank tellers. Truck drivers. I could do this all day.

If you can do your job and be average and no one says anything to you, know it’s just a matter of time until some sort of technology replaces you. That’s why no one is giving you any grief, it’s not worth pushing you for more when they know you’re going to be replaced!

The world will always need people who are willing to work, show up ready to work, and find some personal satisfaction of a job well done. Somehow that has become a lost art.

Average is Over

Average is over primarily because most people lack the self-insigt to understand and comprehend they are average. We are developing a world of people who believe they are above average at the very least, when most are performing below average work. This is a “participation medal” type of issue. At some point in our lives, we all got a participation token of some sort. This is a blurred lens of not understanding the person next to you is actually way better than you, either through hard work or flat out better talent.

A recent study by Goodhire found that 83% of Americans feel they don’t need a boss. The reality is, about 1-5% of Americans can perform average to above average work without some sort of supervision following up and ensuring performance is being met. So what Goodhire found out is that around 80% of Americans are stupid! Or, as I said above, this confirms the lack of self-insight. Very few people have the self-motivation to get up every day and manage themselves to success, let alone to just being average.

If you are an actual high performer in your life or any job, this is the best news you will ever hear! You are basically surrounded by morons who think they’re great, but struggle to turn off Netflix when real work must be done. People who believe because they replied to an email at 9pm at night, they are extraordinary. People you will walk over on your career ascent because they are average and don’t even know it.

The masses are killing average, but don’t be fooled, average didn’t go anywhere it’s just hiding in a new wrapper of “above average” inside of dumb people.

What if your Candidate Experience was more like hailing a ride on Uber? #HRFamous

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On episode 92 of the HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee, and Kris Dunn come together to discuss how HR and recruiting could be more like Uber, then shift to the promise of legal immigration in the U.S. to help fight worker-shortage issues.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights

1:30 – Tim recently went and sat on the floor at an MSU game. He said he doesn’t know how to go to a basketball game ever again.

9:45 – Bruce Springsteen recently sold his music catalog for $500 million. Tim asks the group what artist/group they would buy a catalog from. JLee chose Mariah Carey. KD chose Nirvana.

13:00 – Tim mentions that Taylor Swift’s catalog got sold, but she is now re-recording all of her catalog to get back at the owners. Tim chose Michael Jackson over Prince.

15:15 – JLee saw Yao Ming in her office once and was blown away by how big he was and how it impacts every part of his life.

16:30 – Tim mentions an article about how Uber made its users OK with waiting. He relates to a candidate experience perspective and asks how HR pros and recruiters could put something in place to make waiting better.

18:00 – KD thinks that hiring managers need to commit to a day that they will make their decision and communicate that date. It’s the equivalent of arrival time for Uber!

20:00 – Tim says that ATS status updates are too high-level and unspecific.

24:00 – JLee has the idea to do “hiring manager ratings” just like “driver ratings” that are on rideshare apps. Tim iterates off that and comes up with “number of interviews/hires” just like “number of rides.”

25:15 – In 2021, the U.S. population grew by 0.1%. This is the lowest amount since 1918 when the influenza pandemic and World War I were happening. Tim thinks this is a major demographic issue where we aren’t replacing as fast as we are losing people.

27:30 – Tim asks the crew how revamping immigration could help fight against this problem. JLee and Tim discuss making it easier for people to immigrate by focusing on the process.

31:00 – KD mentions how 300,000 visas sound minuscule for what is actually needed to help with the lack of workers in this country.

How Great Leaders Handle Crisis!

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We’ve had a lot of crises over the past couple of years. Everyone would agree with this.

It’s been popular since the beginning of time to judge people based on their best moment. Stand up tall, when others are small and you are destined for greatness in history. No matter when you did before or after.

Rudy Giuliani, by most, is considered a great leader of our time for his leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He was in charge when the towers came down. He said and did the right things during that time. He will be forever remembered for that time in his legacy.

The reality is, leaders are not best judged in times of crisis.

Great leaders should not be judged by how they reacted in a once-in-a-lifetime event, but by how they act every day. On good days, average days, bad days, and very rarely on crisis days. The problem is we aren’t paying attention to normal days. We don’t see the greatest. So, we judge them on the few times we see them, which are either celebrations or catastrophes.

Crisis management is incredibly difficult for leadership teams at organizations. You try with all of your might to put your own situation aside, but it’s always there in the background, while you try and do what’s best for all involved. The hardest thing a leader will ever do is make the decision that some will have to lose their job, so the majority can keep their job. Even putting your own name on that list of cuts, isn’t as difficult.

Nobody wants to be judged by his or her worst moment. In crisis management, we tend to have a lot of worst moments because we are often making quick decisions with the limited information that in hindsight looks foolish.

As we are all going through some level of crisis management currently, I wanted to share Professor Scott Galloway’s three steps of crisis management from his NYU class he teaches on the same subject:

  1. Top Guy or Gal Takes Responsibility
  2. Acknowledge the Issue
  3. Overcorrect

Overcorrect is the key. Well, I’m not sure if we should do this, let’s just wait a little while longer and see what happens. NO! Overcorrect. Make the safest choice possible. Make the best choice possible for your people. Act swiftly.

If we watch, we will see great leadership moments in any crisis. Some of these moments will be by great leaders doing great leader stuff. Some of these moments will be done by idiots who just happen to be in the right place and make the right decision. Don’t confuse a moment of leadership competence with being a great leader.

Great leaders don’t just show up for a crisis, they show up every day.

Sackadomas returns to Chad and Cheese with 2022 Predictions!

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Each year I go on the Chad and Cheese podcast and the three of us give our Recruiting Technology predictions for the year. We are rarely accurate, but every once in a while we’ll get one right. What it really turns into is what we wish would happen! This 2022 episode is a great one and you can check it out everywhere you listen to podcasts …

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/predictions-2022-w-sackadomus/id1211760335?i=1000547172102

Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman put on a great podcast throughout the year without me as well, you should definitely check it out and give them a follow!

You Are No Longer Fit For Duty…in Recruiting!

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I’ve been hearing a lot of “Fit-for-duty” stuff in the news lately and it got me thinking. Are any of us really fit for duty for the jobs we have!?

Fit-For-Duty, according to OSHA, means that an individual is in a physical, mental, and emotional state which enables the employee to perform the essential tasks of his or her work assignment in a manner that does not threaten the safety or health of yourself, your co-workers, your company’s property, or the public at large.

That’s a lot, right!? I mean, on a day-to-day basis I might make one or two of three of those, but being physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared each day!? Get out of here!

As recruiters being physically ready probably isn’t our biggest hurdle. I mean, let’s face it, we sit in front of a computer. If we can physically type and make some calls, it’s not the most demanding job from a physical standpoint. Also, mentally, is recruiting really challenging anyone day-to-day? We aren’t trying to figure out how to put puppies on the moon, we are just trying to talk someone into accepting a job we have open.

Are recruiters fit for duty?

The problem is the emotional side of fit for duty. You see, Recruiters face rejection all day, every day. An average recruiter will face more rejection in one week than an ugly, short dude gets on Tinder all year. That’s to say, it’s a lot!

The recruiter also has to constantly placate dumb hiring managers that believe they are way better than they are and that believe they know how to recruit talent better than the recruiters they work with. On top of that, we have the serial repeat candidates who are awful but can’t take “no” for an answer. So, each week we spend hours with candidates whose own mother wouldn’t give them a job, but somehow they believe they should be the next executive VP at our company!

Let’s not forget our HR brothers and sisters who secretly, and not so secretly hate us, because they ain’t us! It’s hard being this sexy, smart, and cool. We get it, but let’s just be friends! And still, somehow we take the blame for our organization’s lack of talent when we have psychopath leaders who turnover people like there’s an endless supply of warm bodies just craving our average pay, average benefits, and average, cold, work location.

Emotionally, there’s no way, most recruiters are fit for duty!

And, yet, we show up, pick up the phones, and keep finding fresh suckers every day to fill the jobs of our organizations.

When is a Recruiter no longer fit for duty?

Here’s the real deal, because, for all the joking above, there is actually a time when a recruiter is no longer fit for duty in your company. The time they are no longer fit for duty is the exact time they stop believing.

That moment when they stop believing your company is a good company.

That moment when they stop believing that the job they are working on is a good job.

The moment when they stop believing that the hiring manager they are working with has the ability to be someone good to work for.

Now, I get it, we all have a bad hiring manager here and there. a bad job here and there, but overall, the majority is good. The moment we no longer believe this is the exact moment you can no longer recruit for your company.

You are no longer fit for duty, because “believing” can’t be faked. It shows up. It shows up in the bad candidates you let go on to the next step. How you sell your company to the world. How you allow a partner to make a bad decision and just walk away.

As a recruiter, you are no longer fit for duty the moment you stop believing. That is the moment you must leave. Maybe not the company, but certainly your job as a recruiter.

I think a lot of CEOs would like to believe this is a fit for duty criteria for every role in their company, but that just isn’t true. I don’t need Ted in IT to believe in the company, I just need to make sure he keeps the network up. Do I want him to believe? Heck, yes! But, I desperately must have my recruiters who believe!

Take a good long look in the mirror today. Are you fit for duty?

My favorite quote of 2021! #Yellowstone

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I love titles and quotes. As a writer (oh, aren’t you special!), a great quote or title often lays the foundation for whatever it is I’m writing. When I wrote my book (oh, brother here we go…) I actually came up with my chapter titles before I even wrote the chapters!

I’m a big fan of the hit TV series Yellowstone, but for some reason, I always call it “Sundance”, a strange mental block! One of the best characters on the show is “Rip Wheeler”, played by Cole Hauser. If you haven’t checked out the show, it’s must-see TV for sure. And my top quote of last year comes from Rip.

I’ll set the stage. Rip is dating the daughter (Beth) of the lead character, John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner. Beth is a wild one and constantly causing trouble and Rip seems to be wise beyond his years. She’s getting ready to stir it up once again and he says:

“Life is hard, you don’t need to help it.”

Rip is a man of few words as well! But this is freaking awesome because it’s so true! It’s even a better quote if you say it with a cowboy accent.

How many people do you know in your life that seem to purposely try and make life harder!? On a daily basis, I see folks trying to make their lives harder.

Most people are struggling on the daily to just get through life and then will go out of their way to get upset over stuff they have no control over. Or push issues that are none of their business or they have nothing to do with.

I get it, I’m passionate about a lot of stuff, but at some point, we need to understand that life is hard and we can make it harder or we can use that energy to make it a bit easier on ourselves and others. I’m the first to admit that I’ve made it harder on myself and others way too often so in 2022 one of my resolutions is to try and not make life so hard. Both for myself and others.

Thanks for the advice, Rip! Now go back to being your sexy self!

What is your “Save” strategy for 2022?

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I’m calling 2022 the “Great Retention“! Primarily because I was sick of hearing “Great Resignation” when it wasn’t really the great resignation, it was more reshuffling. A ton of openings allowed workers to upgrade jobs and salaries in 2021, so yes, folks “resigned” but then immediately accepted a job somewhere else they felt was better for their life choices.

We are facing some major challenges in 2022 and beyond. Most of which can be traced back to simple demographics. The reality is, we are going to see more jobs than workers for a long time. This means a few things:

  1. Yes, we can be and must be getter at acquiring talent.
  2. We need to be more flexible with our workforces, if we want to keep and attract talent.
  3. We need the government to open up immigration in new and innovative ways, for both skilled and unskilled workers.

How are you going to Save talent in 2022?

Your recruiting strategy can not only be to actually go recruit more talent in 2022. There must be a simultaneous strategy to retain talent and save talent. What’s the difference between retaining and saving?

Retaining talent is about a systematic, ongoing strategy to improve and change pieces within your work world that helps create an environment where your current employees want to stay longer with your company.

Saving talent is about having a systematic strategy that is designed to talk someone out of leaving your company for another opportunity. A save strategy goes into effect the moment you believe someone is going to leave you. That might be when they put their notice in, or maybe you start to hear about someone interviewing, etc. The reality is, there’s a good chance they are looking to leave your employment.

What does a save strategy look like?

Most save strategies are designed around critically hard-to-fill and/or revenue-focused roles. Roles that will have the most impact by keeping well-performing talent versus having to go out and try to hire new talent.

When you engage a save strategy, there must be concrete steps you take to try and talk the employee out of leaving. This might, and usually, includes multiple people, including senior executives up to the CEO. In a traditional notice situation, you have two weeks or so to work your strategy. While the person is in your employ you can have them travel, meet, and pretty much pay them to do what you need before they leave.

Traditionally, let’s face it, most of us waste these two weeks. We let the employee dictate what they will do and not do. This usually ends up being pretty much useless as the current employee just makes sure people know what they have going on before they leave.

What if you designed those two weeks around trying to do whatever it would take to keep that employee with your company? You might have them meet with the leadership team and discuss why they are leaving and what it would take to keep them. You might have them go try a different job they are interested in to see if they would be opening to transfer to another role or location.

I’ve worked with organizations that when a certain level of an employee put their notice in, they were immediately scheduled for a flight out to meet with the company executive team to discuss why they decided to leave and what the executive team could do to keep them. The success rate was 40%. Not perfect, but instead of hiring ten new employees for every ten that put their notice in, we only had to hire six! That made a huge difference for a stretched TA team!

The best recruit you’ll ever make is the one you don’t have to!