Author Archives: Tim Sackett

The Newest Leadership Concept that will take 2019 by Storm: “Sunshining”!

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Have you heard of “Sunshining“? I’m guessing most of us haven’t. I came from Reed Hastings the CEO at Netflix. Netflix has a really transparent work environment and Reed and his executive team has started telling employees exactly why someone has been fired. They call these talks “Sunshining”!

It’s not just about explaining why someone got fired, it could be about almost anything. This radical transparency is part of Netflix’s unique culture and employee experience. If you have a question about anything, you’re encouraged to ask out in the open, and leadership is encouraged to welcome these discussions, even those that might be taboo in most company cultures:

In one “sunshining” scene described by the Journal, former talent chief Tawni Nazario-Cranz was asked by Hastings in front of dozens of executives why she paid for some of her team’s makeup and hair styling ahead of a company launch event. Nazario-Cranz said that if a manager took employees to a golf outing it wouldn’t be questioned, which led to a debate about “gender equity,” one person in attendance told the paper.

Employees are also encouraged to review each other and share feedback with their teams. There are”real-time 360″ lunches and dinners for feedback and criticism, with one former executive saying the pressure to participate was the “hardest part about the culture.”

 

Can you imagine sitting down in front of a department of employees and saying, “Hey, everyone, you all know Tim, your boss, well, I just fired Tim because Tim quite frankly wasn’t getting the results we hired him to get. Tim is right here, right now. Let’s discuss!”

 

Um, what!?! “Yeah, hey guys, let me wipe the tears away from my eyes, I’m still in a bit of shock, I guess I’m most concerned with how I’m going to pay my mortgage and tell my partner I just got fired, but what would you like to know?”

 

Holy crap! That could not happen, ever! Unless you had this culture of ongoing performance feedback and accountability where it was 100% out in the open that this was happening and there was no ill will. Even then, I’m still skeptical! I mean, I’m willing to sit down as a fired employee and talk to the troops if Reed is giving a giant parachute! “Oh, yeah, hey guys, I just lost my job, but I’m fine, I’m thinking of taking a couple of years off to pet puppies or something!”

 

Do you think your company culture could handle this right now?

 

I’m doubtful, primarily because this isn’t something you can just turn on and the next day start doing it. This is a fairly radical cultural shift to even open up and be that transparent across the organization. I think most of us would tell ourselves we would love to work in that type of environment until the mirror is turned on ourselves!

 

That’s a tough leadership environment to be a part of for sure!

 

What didn’t make it through Netflix’s leadership team? 

 

Having employees see each other’s salary! Reed wanted to open this up, the rest of the leadership shot this down:

 

Starting last year, Netflix allowed any executive above the director level to see the salaries of all employees, a decision that, like most of those detailed by the Journal, received mixed reviews from the people interviewed. In the case of employee pay, some said it led to awkwardness, while others said it encouraged people making less money to try and get raises. However, Netflix executives recently shot down an effort by Hastings to allow any employee to see the pay of any colleague, regardless of rank, the paper said.

 

I think that’s a giant step of any organization, but it’s probably the one step that needs to happen to fix gender pay inequality for good!

Where are you spending your HR Technology Marketing budget?

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I saw the graph below the other day and it got me thinking about where should we be spending our budget to get in front of the right buyer?

If you’re in HR or Recruiting you can’t help but take notice of how and where vendors are trying to catch your eyeballs!

The classic play is by Ultimate Software, Oracle, and Workday when you watch a Professional Golf Association (PGA) event. All the big HCM payers sponsor pro golfers. In fact, Ultimate Software is a grand slam, err hole in one, when Patrick Reed (see pic above) won the 2018 Masters! You can’t buy that kind of promotion! Literally! You never know if your person will win or not!

But, is Ultimate and the rest making the right call? Do you think 64-year-old white dudes are the ones making the call on enterprise HCM buys? I tend to believe that probably not the demographic of an HR technology buyer, but it is probably the demographic of the decider, right now.

I’ll say, this isn’t a rip on Ultimate, or any other vendor, Ultimate also sponsors the NBA Miami Heat and the Ultimate logo is on the Heat’s jersey. So, they are also covering the younger side of the sports watching base as well! Infor also got in the business with the Brooklyn Nets this past year. Of course, Golden State plays in Oracle Arena.

When I think of the best possible ways to get your brand and logo in front of the buyers of HR and Recruiting technology I first think of the demographics. Most of HR and Recruiting is female dominated. Women, statistically, like to watch the NFL and College Football, then pro and college basketball, followed by baseball and soccer.

The NFL is super expensive, so that’s a really hard get. MLS soccer might be the most accessible and cheapest opportunity to get!

I like to believe, depending on your market, that major college sports are always a big draw, and the Olympics are always giant, especially the summer Olympics. They didn’t have ‘Gaming’ on this chart, but eSports is growing like crazy and that would be another segment to take a look at in terms of relatively inexpensive ways to get your brand in front of a younger buying group and build brand awareness.

Where should you be spending your HR Tech Marketing budget? 

This changes quite a bit whether you’re selling to enterprise versus selling to large, mid, or small sized organizations. Why? Enterprise purchases happen through an RFP process for the most part, so those marketing dollars are really spent on brand awareness. Just get invited to the RFP, and then win from there. Some large-sized organizations will RFP some stuff, but not all purchases. Almost no RFPs are done on mid and small sized organizations.

I think almost every HR Technology company discounts the impact that individual contributors and mid-managers have on the buying process!

I’ve worked in and ran large to small HR/TA organizations and the one common component was the people doing the day to day work were usually the ones bringing ideas and options to leadership around technology. “Hey, Tim, I was just on a webcast and XYZ company is using this new tool to hire more college kids, blah, blah, blah. We need to demo this!”

Of course, the ultimate decision to hit the budget is made by some sort of leader, but rarely do I find leaders are the ones bringing possible technology solutions to their teams. And if they do, it’s almost always via a question like, “hey, have you guys heard of XYZ product?” Which opens the gates to discussions, which leads to other possible tools, which leads to demos, etc.

I tend to believe those organizations that focus on selling to users get better traction and higher adoptions of their products, that those who do nothing but try and get in front of executives. I said this consistently for 2-3 years if you’re trying to sell a TA product and you’re not at SHRM Talent, you have no idea how to sell. There will be 3,000 TA Pros and Leaders at the conference, and the ratio of companies in the expo is super low as compared to other conferences!

Why? The feeling is individual TA contributors, TA managers, TA directors, don’t have enough juice to buy, so why go? It’s a mistake. Some of the fastest growing TA technologies on the planet are going grassroots and making fans out of the users, who are then pushing them up the chain to the decision makers. When the entire industry is just trying to talk to executives, maybe you should be talking to users!

 

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @Jobiak_ai – Are your jobs on Google for Jobs?

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Today on The Weekly Dose I’m excited to talk about a great new recruiting technology called Jobiak. Jobiak is a technology that ensures your jobs make it on Google for Jobs. What’s Google for Jobs? Catch Up! I’ve been talking about for this for over a year! 

Google for Jobs is fundamentally changing the way candidates search for jobs. Two decades ago we trained candidates to go to job boards to search for jobs. A decade ago we trained them to go to job aggregators like Indeed and SimplyHired. Now, we are retraining candidates to just stay on the Google for their job search!

Jobiak is a technology built to ensure your jobs show up on Google, and more importantly, show up as high as they can by more closely helping you match the algorithm in how you write your job postings. Jobiak can also, right now today, show you if your jobs are even on Google for Jobs with their Google Job Check widget! Surprise, around 80% of jobs still aren’t showing up!

I randomly did some checking on my own and you would be shocked which brands probably believe their jobs are on Google, but they aren’t! Some ATSs have done a pretty good job with this, some haven’t done a thing! Also, there’s a difference from your job showing up on Google through a job board, and your actual career site job posting up on GFJ! You want your organic Career Site job posting to show up, first and foremost, to drive that traffic directly to your site.

What I like about Jobiak:

– Not only, for a fairly decent cost, will they make sure all of your jobs show up on GFJ, they will also give you insight and tips on how to make your jobs show up higher on the search results. While your job board postings may be showing up on GFJ right now, those same job boards definitely aren’t helping you understand how to write better job postings to take advantage of GFJ’s algorithm.

– Jobiak used an army of developers to build out various algorithms and tested them to ensure when they index your jobs on GFJ your jobs are more likely going to show up higher in the search results than your competitors for candidates searching on requirements that match your postings.

– Jobiak has built-in integrations with many of the most popular ATSs, so you can post jobs directly through Jobiak to GFJ without having to type everything again or do a bunch of cut and pasting. Just click the jobs you want to be index and go.

– A great dashboard that shows your jobs and the actual traffic coming to those jobs on GFJ, plus those that applied etc. I wish my own ATS had this on my ATS dashboard!

Why do I need to care if my jobs are on Google for Jobs?

200 million job searches a month are taking place on Google. Every single one of those searches is first being shown the Google for Jobs search results. Most candidates will eventually only use Google as their primary job search engine. It’s not important for you to make sure your jobs are on GFJ, it’s imperative!

I think you should demo everything I talk about. But truly Jobiak is a technology that you have to demo! GFJ traffic only continues to increase for all organizations who are posting jobs, and for those who don’t have their jobs on GFJ you’re playing the game with one hand tied behind your back. Plus, you can do three jobs for free, so there is absolutely no reason to not test this out!

I’m in the middle of a test right now and will update everyone in about a month on how this working!

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

The Most Used Business Expenses by Vendor! Let’s talk travel policies!

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The pic above is a fun exercise in tracking business expenses over the years to spot trends in employee behavior! Recode started doing this in 2013 and it makes you wonder what this might look like in 2023!

What do employees expense the most? And how it’s changed in such a short time is fascinating to me!

1. Ride Share came out of nowhere in 2015! 

Uber is number one three years running, and while Lyft has risen super fast, no doubt to a lot of the #MeToo issues Uber faced in 2018, I would think we probably won’t see that change much in 2019. When the tracking first started in 2013, Taxis were in the Top 10. Taxis will never be in the Top 10 ever again!

2. Starbucks has become a business travel staple! 

I’m not a coffee drinker and I still have the Starbucks App on my phone with like $38 in credit burning a hole in my pocket! McDonald’s has been in the top 10 each of the last 6 years, and I have to assume, like Starbucks, it’s a quick, available, and easy cup of coffee or quick meal in the hurry of business travel. As airport vendors and other options become more healthy and more readily available it’s easy to see how McDonald’s will fall off the list very soon.

3. Airlines and Hotels won’t go away, but brand loyalty can change quickly!

American Airlines has the most planes, Delta has the most assets, and in business travel, Delta consistently beats out American. I can only assume that’s because Delta treats frequent business travels better. Road Warriors are super brand loyalist! It pays to be loyal when you travel all the time, and this ranking shows me Delta treats road warriors better on average. It’s crazy to me that we don’t see more hotel chains rank higher? Hampton Inn made it a couple of times. Marriott a couple of times. What does that say? Hotel chains can probably do a lot better in pampering road warriors!

4. Amazon and Walmart as business expenses! 

Where do we buy our stuff for business? Basically, two places and Amazon is trying to make it one place! Whether we are traveling or buying stuff at our desk, we basically buy from Walmart and Amazon, I’m guessing because of price and selection. This is the death of retail as we know it, where it’s basically two vendors selling us cheap crap, indistinguishable crap.

So, do these most used vendors speak to your Travel Policy? 

It seems like, over the years, Peggy in payroll has gotten a little less Nazi-like when it comes to expense reports. Are you feeling that? Maybe that’s just me, or maybe our accounting departments are eased up a bit.

Business travel is hard enough without getting yelled at by someone in the home office who never gets to travel and believes your business travel experience is like going on one non-stop vacation! I get we need rules and boundaries, but for the most part business travel sucks, and it’s taxing on your personal life. As HR leaders we should be developing travel policies that take this into account.

I find that HR leaders who have to travel a lot get this at a really high level and find great ways to develop travel policies that get what the organization needs without putting heavy burdens on those traveling. Those who don’t travel for business, develop policies that make employees hate HR and Accounting!

What is the one business expense your organization allows that we would find the most interesting or amazing?

Recruiting is not Marketing – Here’s why!

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We love, I love, to say Recruiting is Marketing! I love Recruitment Marketing and the technology behind it, I think it’s brilliant! Recruiting is also not sales!

Why is Recruiting neither Marketing or Sales?

What’s the core function of marketing and sales? To welcome as many people as possible into your funnel so that all of those people will buy your product or service, or give to your charity, etc.

In Recruitment we in the Rejection business!

Can you imagine you walk into a Cadillac dealership? You saw the commercial for the new SUV, you decide you want that SUV. You saw the billboard for that same car, heard the radio commercial, heck you even saw an Ad on Facebook, it’s almost like they’re listening to your brain! You’ve got a pocket full of hundred dollar bills and you walk into the dealership because today you’re driving away in that brand new, beautiful Cadillac SUV!

Dealer – No!

Me – Um, what?! 

Dealer – No, we aren’t selling you that new Cadillac SUV, you’re not a Cadillac “Man”! 

Me – A what!? 

Dealer – Yeah, sorry, you don’t get a Cadillac today, we’re saving those for only certain people! 

It’s funny because we know this would never happen! I could walk into the dealership holding a severed head and the first words out of the salesman’s mouth would be “the trunk on our new sedan could hold a hundred of those heads!”

Recruiting isn’t Marketing or Sales, because true Marketing and Sales is in the business of ‘All’, not one. No one really gets rejected in marketing and sales if you have the means. In Recruiting, you could fit every single thing the organization is requesting and you will still get rejected. Recruiting is in the Rejection business, not the sales and marketing business!

If we/recruiting are in the Sales and Marketing business, we are in a really sick and twisted business! Hey, “Everyone” come and apply to our jobs, because I get really excited when I get to turn you down and say “no”! So, let’s not kid ourselves. Our business is about Rejection. Hey, come on over here and let me tell you what’s wrong with you, and then I’ll make the decision if we want you to be a part of our team or not.

Marketing campaigns sometimes try to fake like they’re being exclusive. “Only ‘you’ are being invited to buy this new SUV! You’ll be the first to own it! No one else!” Until next week when everyone will own it and actually have a better color than you. That’s not true rejection for those who don’t get it first, it’s just a game we play to increase demand.

So, why does this manner? 

If we know we are actually in the Rejection business, and we are, we/recruiters have to have an empathy level that is off the charts if we want to survive. Let me get this straight, you want me to talk as many people as possible into loving our company, then you want me to reject 99.9% of them? Yes!

To be able to do that and not drink yourself to sleep every night takes a really high ego or an endless supply of empathy towards all those great people who just wanted you to pick them, but your organization picked someone else, but they left it on your desk to share the bad news!

This is probably the main reason so many candidates never get dispositioned. We can all just crush only so many souls in a day! It’s easier to ghost candidates than to crush their dreams!

Rejection business is a hard, hard business to be in. Sales and Marketing are easy. Can you imagine how easy your life would be if you were able to give everyone the job!?

 

Turns out, Boring Speakers Talk Longer!

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I just had a discussion with Elaine Orler, the new incoming Chair for the Recruiting Trends and Talent Tech Conference, taking place in February in Las Vegas. I’m pretty excited about it because Elaine, the team at LRP who produces the conference, are really pushing the envelope when it comes to conference content.

Elaine isn’t the only one, but she’s really pushing it to the next level, Recruiting Trends is going to be amazing this year! I can’t wait to speak at that conference!

I’ve also had similar conversations with Steve Boese, who chairs The HR Technology Conference, who this past year did an HR tech startup Pitchfest in the middle of the expo hall that was amazing! SHRM’s, Letty Kluttz, is pushing a very traditional conference team out of their comfort zone, and you’ll see some new amazing content streams at SHRM Talent and SHRM National this next year, as well!

The LinkedIn Talent Connect team tested “Silent Disco” talks at this year’s event, and it was fascinating to watch and do one! As a speaker, the Silent Disco talk might have been one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in recent years! Shannon Pritchett over at SourceCon also has shorter keynotes and sessions, really trying to get to the meat of the content and less fluff.

So, why all of a sudden are conferences breaking up the traditional conference content flow?

For decades I think we all had a hard time imagining conferences in a new way. Most followed, and still follow, a basic format of: full group morning keynote, followed by hour-long sessions throughout the day, followed by afternoon day-closing keynote. Most of the design was directed by the continuing education community, which is why most conferences started.

You need one credit per session and those sessions need to be at least one hour of ‘training’ or education.

Then TEDx came around and people had 18 minutes to produce some of the most amazing content any of us had ever seen! DisruptHR-like events sprung up and we got to see great content happen in 5 minutes! Many people started wondering, why the heck are we sitting here for one hour listening to people drone on endlessly when they could tell us all of this in half the time!?

There was a recent small study done around this concept. A researcher went to a conference an sat in 50 sessions. Within four minutes he made the decision was this content boring or not. Based on that he also looked at the time the speaker went over or under their time, and his data showed him that boring speakers were more likely to go over their allotted time!

“For every 70 seconds that a speaker droned on (over their allotted time), the odds that their talk had been boring doubled.” 

So, if you ever sat in a boring session and thought, “Oh my, this is so boring and it’s taking forever!” You’re right! The boring stuff does take longer!

As a speaker, all of these changes that conferences are making and testing are really exciting. Here’s what I’ve learned over the past 12 months with some of these new content configurations that are being tested:

– The shorter amount of time you have to speak, the more time it takes to prepare really great content! Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Should be harder the longer you have, but it’s not. If you have a short amount of time, your talk has to be really tight and practiced. If you have a long time, as a speaker, you can wander around and come back to things.

– Shorter segments of live content that are good, are much deeper and less wide. The best short range content goes really deep on one item, not surface level on many items.

– The audience pays closer attention to shorter content. If you have an audience for an hour or more, they tend to come in and out. If you have them for 20 minutes, you are more likely to have them the full time, which means, they’re more likely to call you out if you try and slide some B.S. by them!

– Most non-speaker, speakers, really struggle with short content. Most speakers at a conference aren’t professional speakers, they’re practitioners. They need more time, not less, because they aren’t on stage enough to practice short, tight sets of content. So, they’re more likely to fail doing short sessions.

Get ready for some exciting conferences in 2019! Conference producers are really working to change things up and keep modern attendees engaged with the content at conferences, and I personally love the challenge and the changes! If you’re building our budget for 2019 make sure you try and hit one of the conferences listed above in 2019, you’ll definitely get some amazing takeaways!

Using Email Activity as a Performance Metric!

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So, the other day I was reading this article by Josh Bersin. You know Josh, right? Bersin by Deloitte, big time voice in the HR Industry for decades. Josh might be one of the most recognizable thought leaders in our space. He recently left Deloitte and is back on his own. Josh has forgotten more about HR than I’ve ever known.

I’ve probably met Josh personally 15 times. Sat at dinner with him one night, at an industry event, for about 3 hours and had some really good conversation. Just saw him at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect as I was coming off the live stream and he was coming on, went to say “hello” and he looked at me as if I was about to mug him! LOL! I think he legitimately thought I was coming to ask for his autograph! Turns out, I know Josh, way more than Josh knows me! That’s okay, he’s still brilliant.

The article is titled: “What Emails Reveal About Your Performance At Work”:

After analyzing months of communication patterns using messaging metadata (data about the messages, not the messages themselves), the company can now statistically prove that certain types of communication behavior directly correlates to business performance. In fact, using employee communication data with a Deep Learning Model, Genpact can predict “Rockstar” performers with 74% accuracy. (This process works for emails, slack messages, skype messages, etc.)…

What did they find? The highest performing leaders use simpler words to communicate, they respond faster, and they communicate more often. In other words, they are more engaged, more efficient, and more action-oriented.

Now there’s a ton of data science that comes into play to get to this outcome. I’ve written about the power of Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics using data to help organizations and individuals improve their performance by analyzing how we work, and this is basically doing the same thing.

How do you improve your performance through email?

1. Respond quickly to messages.

2. Use language everyone can understand.

Let’s unpack those two things a bit because it sounds way too simple to actually work!

When you respond quickly to any kind of messaging a person has sent you it triggers a couple of things. One, the person who sent the message feels validated that not only did you get the message, but you thought ‘they’ were important enough for a quick response back. Don’t discount the impact that has on your influence at a larger level.

Two, a quick response shows the people you are communicating back to that you’re on top of your stuff. When you get a response to a message you sent from three days ago, I assume that person is way over their head. Look, I asked if you were interested in doing this thing or not. It’s a seven-second response, just respond, it’s not difficult!

Using simple, straightforward language ensures that everyone on the message can be crystal clear about what the message was about. Nothing was vague or left to interpretation. “No, I will not attend this meeting. Instead, Sandy will be coming as she is the one who has the data you need, and my full support on any decisions that need to be made.” Bam! Done. Simple.

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate what really good performance looks like. Turns out if respond quickly and make sure people understand you, you meet a couple of really important qualifications to becoming a strong leader!

Also, go connect with Josh Bersin and tell him Tim said “Hello!”

Your Weekly Dose of HR Technology: @ZipRecruiter – Connecting the Right People with the Right Jobs!

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Today on the Weekly Dose I take an updated look at ZipRecruiter. Often I’m writing about technology on my site that none of you have ever heard of. I’m 100% sure almost every single person who reads my blog has heard of ZipRecruiter! At the very least you’ve heard their commercials on TV, Radio, Podcasts, etc. They are everywhere!

ZipRecruiter started in 2011 primarily as the job board for hourly, blue-collar types, to help SMBs hire better and faster. They didn’t try to hide who they were, they set out to build a job board, and they did it through advertising everywhere and anywhere. Come hire people fast and cheap. Bam, that’s who we are.

Fast forward to 2018 and a fresh round of over $150M in new capital and ZipRecruiter is now one of the most trafficked sites on the internet! Over 1.5 million businesses have used Zip, and they have received over 430 million applications for jobs listed on the site. And still, the Recruiting Community loves to dump on ZipRecruiter!

On Facebook last month someone posted a comment about ZipRecruiter and some of the biggest recruiting brains on the planet immediately started talking “ish” about Zip. I had one simple question, “Hey, have you used them in the past year, two, three?” Not one of them!

I hesitated writing this post because I actually didn’t want to give Zip publicity! Why? Because it works, and if it works and I’m using it, and you’re not using it, I win!

Privately, I’ve been having this conversation with TA leaders for a year or so:

Tim – “Hey, are you guys using Zip?”

TA Leader – No, we tried them three years ago and they sucked!

Tim – “Okay, you might want to test them again!” 

TA Leader – “Oh, you mean for hourly openings?

Tim – “No, for everything!”

Zip doesn’t get industry love from folks like me because Zip has never played “the game”! Meaning, Zip has never wined and dined the industry thought leaders or analyst. The belief is “hey, our customers are SMB and the vast majority of folks hiring for SMB will never read anything from an industry pundit”. Okay, that’s correct, but come one play the game with us, I love free steak! Instead of playing the game, they run more commercials and have built industry-leading technology behind the scenes!

As their leaders are proud of saying “We do things. We don’t talk about doing things.”

Zip has put a tremendous amount of resources and focus on engaging job seekers to make the experience sticky. That comes from ensuring Zip is matching jobs to candidates that actually match their skills and desires, not keywords. I can’t tell you how often I get sent emails from other sites for Nursing jobs! Why? I used to run TA at a health system and recruited Nurses! That’s bad tech. Zip doesn’t do that!

Zip’s recommendation matching technology is second to none. Netflix-like in the way it continues to improve based on the jobs you engage in and apply to, the more an applicant uses the technology the better the matching algorithm gets in returning great jobs to them the second one comes up on the site.

Google for Jobs (GFJ) also has had a tremendous positive impact on Zip’s candidate traffic. GFJ leveled the playing field for sites like Zip, and SEO is one other thing they are good at and prepared for when the opportunity came around. And Zip plans on using a bunch of that new cash to hammer home some machine learning SEO technology to continue to stay out in front and take advantage of the GFJ changes.

Is ZipRecruiter a silver bullet? No. Nothing in the industry is a silver bullet right now. Can ZipRecruiter be one of those bullets you have to finish the job? 100%. Will ZipRecruiter fill your Java Developer opening in BFE Wisconsin? Probably not, but nothing else will either! Will they drive additional traffic to most of your jobs, for a fairly inexpensive cost? Yes, they will, and that’s what they set out to do all along.

I’m a huge fan of testing annually. You’ll rarely hear me say, “Yeah, that didn’t work three years ago, so we don’t use it!” Really, three years ago? Okay, well, good for you! In TA we need to be a function of constantly testing and trying. You will be amazed at what doesn’t work in January, amazingly will work in July, etc. So, if you haven’t tried ZipRecruiter recently, it might be worth a test!

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

It’s Monday – Here’s How to Fall in Love with Your Job!

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some it’s been a while and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love, it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention, in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is, I don’t love my job. I mean I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7 am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stops caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now, is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job, or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked, but can last forever.

5 Things Great Employers are Doing to Drive World Class Candidate Experience in 2019!

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I’m still struck at how for the most part, we treat candidates like garbage. Historically in Talent Acquisition, we had this really weird power dynamic that took place. We believed we (TA) had jobs to give out or not give out, like prizes, so we would force candidates into our processes and make them jump through hoops.

It’s been a super hard habit for many of us to break! Even with historic low unemployment numbers!

I have some help for you! 

I’m partnering with the folks over at Candidate Rewards to put on a free, live 1-hour webinar titled:

5 Things Great Employers Are Doing to Drive World-Class Candidate Experience in 2019! 

What can you expect to get from this webinar?

– 5 Rock solid strategies and tactics you need to be using to deliver more candidates to your organization!

– 3 Things great organizations never do to candidates, and that you can easily change in your own TA Shop!

– Candidate Experience data that will give you the ammunition you need to change your executive’s mind and give you more budget money to fix your Candidate Experience issues!

– Live Q&A with me on your toughest Candidate Experience questions!

Candidates Experience has been one of the hottest topics over the past five years, and it’s never been hotter when it comes to the hiring environment that we are in right now! Right now is the perfect time for most of us to look at our 2019 strategies around Candidate Experience, because for most of us it’s TA Budget Time!

If you don’t plan, you plan to fail! That’s what we are always told, right!? So, let’s sit down for an hour and discuss how to make 2019 the best year you and your TA team has ever had!

REGISTER NOW for this free webinar! 

I’m looking forward to presenting this information, it’s the first time I’ve ever done a Candidate Experience presentation, and I’m sure my takes will probably be a bit different than most, but you’ll have to let me know!