Author Archives: Tim Sackett

What do Americans Really Think About Labor Unions?

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So, if you’re in HR, like me, you’re probably sitting back waiting with anticipation for the Supreme Court of the United States to deliver a very important ruling around labor unions in the case Janus vs. AFSCME. It’s a case challenging the practice of public sector unions charging “agency fees” to employees who decline to join the union but who still benefit from the deals it bargains. The fees are typically similar to, but a bit lower than, union dues.

I’ve long said, on this blog, I think labor unions, in America, are virtually useless and ineffective for modern workers. I say this because in modern American hiring practices if you’re a bad employer with bad employment practices, you won’t get talent (hourly or salary) and you’ll go into death a spiral as a company.

Workers today, don’t need protection like they once did in America. But, that’s just my stupid opinion, and as soon as I say that someone always sends me an article or tells me of some bad company or industry where workers still do need protections. I get it! It’s not all or nothing, but you can’t tell me that unions today or doing the same work of the unions of our grandparents and great-grandparents!

Because of this Janus case, APM Research did a recent study to find out what Americans really think about this issue of should an employee be forced to pay union dues, or at least their fair share, or like the 28 states already have laws on the books, should employees be Right-for-Work which allows them to decide if they pay dues or not to work in those jobs?

Here’s what APM Research find? 

-Americans are evenly split in their preference for “fair share” (mandating some dues of all union workers) as opposed to “right-to-work” (where each worker covered by union contract may opt out of paying dues) policy regarding unionization.

– Democrats are in support of “fair share” more often, and Republicans are in support of “right to work” more often. No surprise!

– Surprisingly, lower educated workers (those you would think would be in support of unions) actually are more in support of right-to-work. Why? Probably because lower educated workers tend to make less money and if you make $15 per hour, a union taking “$X” out of that small $15 per hour doesn’t feel good at all! Basically, low-income workers, who are under a union contract, don’t see enough value in those dues to see it worth their while in paying.

– “Fair Share” is favored by about 60 percent of those who have direct union experience themselves or through a household member, and those living in North Eastern states. So, those with actual union experience more often see value in paying those dues.

– Stronger unions are preferred by at least two-thirds of women. Which clearly speaks to the historic employment injustices that most women still feel today.

– A majority of Americans (62%) indicate that “stronger” unions would be better for the country; only one-quarter indicate a preference for “weaker” unions.

Like with any study, you have to look at the sample. APM asked 1,000 American adults, so not huge, but it should be enough to representable, but we don’t know the demographic data behind the sample.

The crazy part about all of this is only 12% of full-time workers in America are covered by unions! So, if you ask 1,000 workers about unions, only 120 of them are even in union jobs. So, we, as Americans, have very strong views about unions, positive and negative, without much experience in actually working in or with unions in our careers.

Keep an eye out for the Janus decision! I’m sure the HR world will light up with opinions on what it means for the future work environment for millions of workers nationwide.

Career Confessions from Gen Z: If You’re Being Talked About, No Matter What, It’s Probably Good!?

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A hot topic on social media this week has been IHOP’s recent announcement of a temporary name change to IHOb, or International House of Burgers, in an attempt to increase sales for lunch and dinner. While I don’t particularly know of anyone that really loves IHOP, many of my peers have taken to social media, especially Twitter, to voice their opposition to IHOP’s decision. Many people are saying that it was a dumb branding move and IHOP should stick to pancakes, or that if IHOP wanted to make a change to its menu, it should’ve done something else.

While I may not have a fond view of IHOP (who wants to go to a chain breakfast place anyway??), I still think IHOP did something right here: millions of people are now talking about them. I mean here I am writing a damn blog post about them! It’s interesting as someone who is studying advertising to see something like this happen first hand. This really solidifies the notion that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

One thing that I have noticed about my generation is that we love to talk about things we hate. This may be true of everyone, but I’ve noticed it a lot amongst my peers. Rather than talk about things that we enjoy, Gen-Zer’s LOVE to go on and on about things they despise. For example, there was a video from Dr. Phil that got popular last year where a teenage girl, named Danielle Bregoli, got angry with the audience and said: “catch me outside, how bout dat”.

This video blew up and has created a career for this 15-year-old as a rapper (apparently) and an internet personality. Many people have voiced their negative opinions about this girl, but she always seems to stay relevant and does something that keeps her name in the conversation. Although many people voice their negative feelings towards her, they’re still talking about her!

This post has been as a result of me figuring out something: to be popular among young people, you don’t have to be well-liked.

I don’t know if IHOP’s sales are going to increase from this marketing campaign, but their name is in the conversation. If that was IHOP’s goal, they achieved it! I have found that more often than not, something that is disliked is going to be mentioned online before something that is well liked. Although I hate this, it’s just a matter of life! People love complaining!

So if you want to become popular amongst the youth, maybe hire a girl to throw a fit on national TV or change your name to something stupid. Just do anything that we will love to hate.

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @AltruLabs – Humanize Your Employment Brand

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Today on The Weekly Dose I review the employment branding technology Altru Labs. Altru Labs is an employment branding platform that will transform the way you create content, market your company’s employer brand and personalize the candidate experience.

How?

That’s the cool part! Mostly through your own employees, like a brand ambassador program, but different!

It’s kind of like Quora for your own company. Quora basically is a platform where people ask questions, and people who know answers will answer back. Altru Labs, through video, lets candidates ask questions and your employees answer using Altru’s simple mobile video app.

These videos are then embedded into your career site and searchable, so candidates can come onto your career site and discover almost anything they want about you, your jobs, your culture, etc.

On the talent acquisition side of Altru Labs, you have a great dashboard where you can actually funnel certain questions to certain employees who you think will be great at answering. Candidates can also pull all answers for a certain employee to see all of their content.

On the content side, you can share your employee videos on your career site, directly on a job description posting in your ATS, or through direct social promotion of your recruiters and employee ambassadors.

What I like about Altru Labs:

– Mobile-first design so you are using the power of every smartphone each of your employees is carrying with them as a potential employment branding distribution tool through short-range video.

– While it’s designed, originally, for recruiting talent, this is a mobile video sharing platform that can be used across your enterprise in L&D, HR, inter-team communications and knowledge share, etc. The usage is almost unlimited because of the ease of use and ability to search and share content.

– This truly gives you a tool to highlight your best employee advocates in a way candidates will love. Want to know what it’s really like to work at your company, at that location, in that position, for that manager? Yeah, that specific!!!

Very new technology on the market that has the potential to grow very quickly. Some very large brands, with employment marketing and branding teams, are already testing. The pricing model is currently designed for TA, but soon you’ll see this evolve as organizations will see other uses across the enterprise.

If you are looking to really energize your employment brand and/or employee ambassador program this is a must demo!

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.

I wanted to be Anthony Bourdain.

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I didn’t anticipate that Anthony Bourdain’s suicide last week would have any impact on me. I loved watching his show. I love to cook, but I don’t consider myself a foodie. I love to travel, but I don’t consider myself worldly.

Anthony allowed me to be a foodie and worldly from the comfort of my own home, but even that wasn’t what I really loved about watching his show. He had this quality that I envied. The quality where you would find yourself saying, “when I grow up, I want to be like him”, except I’m grown and I still want to be like him.

Anthony went to some great places in the world, and he went to some shit holes. What I loved about Anthony was no matter where he went, he found beauty. Usually, the beauty he found was in the people he met. A simple meal, great conversation, moments. That was the true beauty of his show.

He was able to show me what was really important in life. Not that I didn’t know, but it’s rare for a personality to do it in such a way where you felt like you were sitting at the table with him. In fact, you felt at any time he could be at your table and the show would work just as well.

It didn’t have to be some exotic, out of the way, locale. When he came to Detroit, he said he wanted to be from Detroit. Come on! No one really wants to be from Detroit! Anthony did. He was a rare creature that wanted to be from everywhere because he saw the beauty in everywhere.

It wasn’t naïve. He also saw the shit. He saw the awfulness, which made him appreciate the beauty in all places. That’s what I envied most I think. It’s easy to beauty in beautiful places, it’s hard to see beauty in the worst places.

In the end, we don’t get enough of the moments that Anthony was creating. Some good food, some great company, with real conversations where we listen to the beauty and the pain. Where we take the time to have a two-hour meal and just enjoy each other.

Years ago, one of my most favorite people in the world past away, Leo Buscaglia (the Love Doctor). It was another death that impacted me more than I thought it would. I just knew I would desperately miss him.

An interesting thing happened, though, in that I didn’t miss him. I carried him with me. When I re-read his books, I heard his voice reading them to me. I could watch his talks on YouTube. I have a feeling I won’t miss Anthony as much as I think, because I’ll watch endless re-runs of his show, and it will feel like he’s still here with me.

I’m happy to have found Anthony Bourdain, along with millions of others. My life is better for having known him, even if he didn’t know me. He taught me how to be a better traveler. A better person in a small way. I so appreciate this.

I mourn for his friends and family that knew him intimately. For his daughter, that will spend a lifetime wondering why, and never being able to find an answer. I hope his death will save others, and maybe inspire all of us to sit down with friends more often and break bread and share a glass.

Regardless, I still want to be Anthony Bourdain…

The ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ Internship Program!

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I’m a kid of the 80’s! Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Pretty in Pink, St. Elmos.

There was one other movie from that era that stuck with me called “Can’t Buy Me Love”, starring a very young Mc Dreamy, Patrick Dempsey, and a very young, Amanda Peterson. Of course this was a favorite of mine because well let’s just I indentified with the main character!

Quick story line – Patrick Dempsey plays a nerd-type, nobody in high school who just wants to be one of the popular kids. Basically, the same plot line for every teen movie ever. He mows lawns and saves all of this money. He asks Amanda Peterson’s cheerleader character to be his girlfriend and he’ll pay her, believing that’s all it will take to make him popular.

She does it. She does the makeover on him. It works. It works too well. She really falls for him. He gets cocky. His world falls apart. He gets the girl in the end! God, I miss the 80’s!!!

The concept of ‘buying’ popularity is both brilliant and stupid. In high school, popularity is a valuable currency. If you have it, it’s awesome. If you don’t have it, you want it, but it’s not something that is very transferable. The key is association! If you’re in with the popular crowd or the right people or person, you can catch their popularity exhaust.

So, what’s the “Can’t Buy Me Love” Internship Program? 

Here’s what I’m thinking. If I was a college student, right now in the world, I would pay the right person, at the right company, to be their intern for the summer!

Stay with me.

Two kids graduate from a B-level college, both with a degree in business, both will similar GPAs. Kid #1 did summer internships with local organizations, mid-sized companies, good brands locally, solid stuff, nice resume. Kid #2 also did summer internships, but her internships were with Apple, Amazon, and Google.

Which kid are you going to hire? Which kid will get a job faster? Which kid will get the better offer?

Kid #2 – will get better everything!

So, it would be to the advantage of every kid to get the best internships possible! But, we know getting the best internships possible are super competitive and hard to get.

Next question: What is an internship, really?

An internship is an experience someone obtains that will help them obtain the next experience. That internship is basically validated by the organization, and more specifically, by the person who manages the intern.

How much would it cost me to get a manager/director/vice president at a major brand to let me ‘shadow’ them for the summer? $2,000? $5,000? Let’s say it’s for 10 weeks, and I’ll do anything this person wants me to do to help them, and I’ll show up every day and stay as long as they want.

Whatever it would cost, that money would be coming back to me 10X or 20X over my career when I hit the market looking for a job with “Giant Brand Experience” on my resume as an intern, with a reference from my ‘internship’ supervisor to back it up.

The “Can’t Buy Me Love” Internship Program!

But, instead of can’t buy me love, it’s really I Can Buy Me A Great Resume! Don’t hate the game, love the hustle! It comes down to how much are you willing to invest in your future? You were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on that education. Don’t you think it’s worth a few thousand dollars more to separate your resume from the pack?

Food for thought, kids.

The Talent Fix – My new book is now available to purchase! If your organization is having trouble hiring, this is a must buy! 

Talent Fix Review: My mom says it’s her favorite book that I’ve written!!! (I’ve only written one book!)

Purchase The Talent Fix now! 

Career Confession of Gen Z: Flexible Work Hours Are Key to Recruiting Gen Z

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You may notice that I mention my Mom in a lot of my posts because I have the best Mom in the world. It’s just a fact. She has an agreement with my Dad that he’s not allowed to talk about her in his posts without permission, but I don’t have that agreement so, sorry Mom!

One thing that my Mom has always been super big on is sleep. Ever since my brothers and I were little, she made sure we got more than the recommended amount and now I can’t survive without 7-8 hours of sleep a night!

One thing that I have noticed during my time abroad here in Spain and during my time in Japan (I was in an exchange program in middle school) is that sleep is not as important here.  My 6-year-old host sister gets about 8 hours of sleep every night where I would get 11-12 when I was her age. My host parents maybe get 4 or 5. There is just a different culture around sleep in other countries.

Another thing that has stuck out to me is the late start times in Spain. The streets are usually dead before 9 a.m. and most shops don’t open until 10 or 11. People go out to bars and clubs at 1 or 2 and stay out until 4 or 5 and then, get up for work the next day!

Something that I enjoy about college is that you get to make your schedule around what times fit best for your own personal preferences. For me, I learn best in the mid-morning to mid-afternoon, but many of my friends learn best at night.

This is another thing where I don’t know which system is better. I don’t know if America’s “early bird gets the worm” is necessarily better than Spain’s later start times, but I do know that every person is different. Something that is really important to me is sleep and I know that in my 20s, I don’t want to have to go to bed at 9 or 10 pm in order to get the amount of sleep I need because my job starts super early in the morning.

This brings up something that I know I will look for in a job when I get out along with many of my fellow Gen-Z’ers: flexible start and end times.

I think it’s important to allow your employees to work at the times that are best for them. I have seen flex time discussed as a benefit for people with families but it also benefits those people that don’t work best in a traditional “9-5” setting. Maybe 11-7 works best for those night owls. I know that there is no part of me that will ever want to work a 7-3 like some people do. (Editor Dad note: Don’t you love how Cam believes ‘working’ 8 hours is 9-5, and now 8-5 with an hour lunch!)

Right before I wrote this post, I called my Mom to talk about how many hours of sleep we got as kids. When I told her what I was writing about, the first thing she said is “well Dad has his meetings first thing in the morning, so he can’t always let people do that”. I get it. I get that it doesn’t work for every company and every situation, but I think that flexibility is important to implement in as many ways as possible.

Let your employees get enough sleep and do their best work by allowing them some flexibility to sleep and work at the times that are best for them. So, if you want your Gen-Z employees to be competent the day after the Super Bowl or the Game of Thrones finale, it’s a good idea to let them sleep in a little bit. 

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Sometimes “Proof” is just another word for letting people suffer!

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I’m a formally trained and educated human resource professional. I’m a leader in my organization. I understand risk really well.

What I see far too often, and it seems like it’s happening more frequently, not less, in organizations are we (HR pros and leaders) are looking for defining proof before we are willing to do something about something that is wrong.

Malcolm Gladwell on this podcast Revisionist History said this quote:

“Sometimes “Proof” is just another word for letting people suffer.”

Think about that for a moment.

Many times we know something is going on is wrong, but we don’t have ‘proof’. We don’t have real proof of this wrongdoing, but we know with every part of our being that someone is being wronged. So, we do nothing. We let people suffer because we lack proof.

Proof is what most HR pros and leaders will hang their hat on. A great HR pro and leader won’t do anything without proof! We are trained and educated to have proof. Without proof, legally, we put ourselves in a risky position.

Here is my challenge to you.

Stop letting people suffer due to lack of proof. You have employees who are suffering and you are hiding behind lack of proof as a reason and it’s wrong.

Yes, you don’t have proof, and, yes, this might come back and bite you, but at some point, we have a foundational requirement to help others who are suffering, even if it gets us in trouble.

I’m willing to be fired for trying to do the right thing. I’m not willing to work in a career that allows people to suffer because I can’t ‘prove’ something. Hundreds of athletes get molested by a doctor because we don’t have proof. A hiring manager is racist but we don’t have proof. A co-worker is harassing another employee but we don’t have proof. Your CEO is a misogynist but you don’t have proof.

Sometimes “proof” is just another word for letting people suffer…

Who is suffering in your organization today?

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @Job_Adx Smarter Programmatic Job Ad Spend

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Today on The Weekly Dose I review the programmatic job ad platform JobAdx. JobAdx is one of a handful of new platforms on the market that talent acquisition teams can utilize to run their own digital job advertising.

So, first I probably need to explain a little about what the heck is ‘programmatic’ advertising.“Programmatic” ad buying typically refers to the use of software to purchase digital advertising, as opposed to the traditional process that involves RFPs, human negotiations, and manual insertion orders. It’s using machines to buy ads, basically.

Traditionally, you probably did very little with your own job advertising. You might have actually did some old school newspaper advertising, posted your jobs on job boards, or more than likely you used an agency, who charges a fee/premium, who would advertise your ads on various sites.

JobAdX is an advanced digital advertising technology with Pay Per Applicant model. Instead of running ads where you pay-per-click (each time someone clicks on your ad), this new programmatic technology actually only charges you for those who apply. So, ultimately, this pay-per-applicant will be more expensive than pay-per-click on a per event basis, but cheaper overall because you’re only paying for what you want, applicants.

So, what the heck does it really do? 

That’s really the big question, isn’t it! Basically, a programmatic ad platform puts your job ad in front of candidates where they are all over the internet. Traditionally, you would put one ad on one site (a professional association site, let’s say). Some potential candidates might go to that site, but many would not. But, almost all potential candidates are somewhere on the internet searching and doing things.

The programmatic ad technology finds the individuals you are looking for and puts the ad, in real-time, in front of them at whatever site they happen to be at. A great example is buying shoes. I love shoes. I bought 3 pairs of shoes this week! So, I go to a site to look at shoes. I find a pair I like, but I know my wife will kill me if I buy one more pair of shoes!

So, I leave that site and go to another site like Facebook. And what do you know there is an ad for those same stupid shoes on Facebook! How did Facebook know!?! Facebook didn’t know, the programmatic ad engine did know! Welcome to the future of job advertising!

A nurse has certain behaviors when searching online that will tell the technology, most likely this person in a nurse, which then allows the programmatic job ad platform (JobAdx) to put your nurse job opening in front of this person multiple times, across multiple sites, not just traditional job search sites.

What I like about JobAdx:

– Programmatic job advertising should be used by every TA shop, regardless of your number of hires, especially if you’re struggling to get results via traditional means. The JobAdx platform is simple to use and allows you to control your spend and budget with an “auto-pilot” feature to make it somewhat idiot-proof (which I definitely need!).

– The JobAdx platform has a great dashboard for you to actually see which jobs are performing really well, and which ones are not performing, so you can increase your spend on those you need, and decrease or stop completely on the jobs you no longer need traffic on.

– Advanced technology within JobAdx will ensure that once a candidate applies that candidate will stop seeing your job ads, which is a much better candidate experience.

– There is frequency capping within JobAdx as well, which is basically an automatic set of rules which will stop showing your job ad to a person after so many times. The theory is once someone sees your ad, let’s say six times, they’ve shown you they aren’t interested, so let’s not show them that same ad again, but go show it to others.

The goal of the JobAdx is to empower employers to advertise jobs more dynamically using the power of Real-Time Job Delivery. I’m completely enthralled by the technology and I truly believe every TA shop should be testing programmatic in their own shops. Go check out JobAdx and get a demo, then put a few hundred or thousand dollars you spend on traditional advertising and try it using programmatic.

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.

I’m in Indeed Jail! Help me!!! #FreeTimSackett

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Do you remember when getting stuck in LinkedIn Jail was all the rage!? I do! It was awful! There you were stuck on the outside looking in not being able to use a valuable tool you used every day to help you do your job.

I’m in Indeed Jail!

It’s somewhat like being in LinkedIn Jail, but different. When you got put into LinkedIn Jail, LinkedIn decided that that right thing to do was to let us know why we were in jail, and then, specifically, how do you get yourself out of LinkedIn Jail. Seems like a good business strategy.

How does Indeed get you all of those great candidates?

The Indeed model built a decade ago was freaking brilliant! Basically, the idea was scrap all the jobs from all the career sites so candidates will have one place to go to search for jobs. No one understood Google SEO at the time, so they scraped the jobs, then bought all the SEO and owned the space.

So, any candidate who was searching for a job on Google the first thing that would come up, always, was an Indeed link. They trained entire generations to search for jobs by going to Indeed. Brilliant!

Now, Google came along eventually and woke up to this and said, “Hey, wait, candidates are searching on Google for things like “Jobs near me” and we are sending them to Indeed for things that aren’t even what they are truly looking for. We can do this better!” Hello, Google for Jobs!

Google for Jobs decided “candidates are the most important thing”. Your Indeed sales rep will tell you this as well, although, they didn’t ever say this until Google for Jobs came along! So, Google changes the game, stops indexing Indeed (which is like a death sentence to companies that rely on Google search traffic), and says we can deliver a better job search for candidates.

So, Indeed is basically a dead man walking, but they have this window of time when we still have the entire world trained to go to Indeed and not Google. So, how do you take advantage of this phenomenon? INDEED JAIL!!! Cut off the non-suspecting companies of their free traffic and charge them money before they realize they don’t really need to do this because Google will give them the traffic they need.

So, what’s Indeed Jail?

Indeed Jail is when Indeed makes the decision to stop scrapping your career site and posting your jobs on Indeed. Almost every company at some point in the past decade has enjoyed a lot of free, organic traffic from having their job posting on Indeed. It was an AWESOME business strategy. It basically followed LinkedIn’s strategy, who followed basic drug dealing strategy.

Get people hooked on your product, then take it away and make them pay if they want it. I don’t say that to be mean! It freaking works really, really well! LinkedIn is a multi-Billion dollar company that got bought by Microsoft.

Indeed Jail is when Indeed stops giving you those free hits! Now, they just don’t take it away for no reason. My reason to be cut off, I was told, was because of a magical, mythical division within Indeed called “Search Quality”. My Indeed Rep didn’t shut me off, no! It was “Search Quality” who shut me off, and my Indeed Rep has absolutely nothing to do with Search Quality. In fact, they run almost as a separate company, locked away in an undisclosed, secret location!

My “Search Quality” issue was I’m a staffing company. An example of my issue is we work with a major employer to fill contract positions, not a position they would hire direct. The company gave us a job description for the contract position, which was basically the exact same JD they use to hire direct. Because the direct employer has priority at Indeed, and my posting was ‘too similar” my ‘search quality’ was bad.

Okay, I’m in Jail, Ouch, that hurts! Help me fix it! 

Let me say, I’m paying and have paid money to Indeed for various products, so it’s not like I’m not a customer. So, when you ask someone you’re paying for help, you expect help. But Indeed has no interest in helping you fix your search quality issue because that would mean you would get the product for free again!

I would love to tell you this is a staffing industry only issue, but it’s not. Little by little, and I have specific examples, corporate Talent Acquisition is also getting hit with ‘search quality’ issues and losing their free traffic from Indeed.

How can that be!?

Believe me, the corporate TA leaders I’m talking to are wondering the same thing. In one example, an Ohio-based employer is hiring hundreds of sales-related positions per year. They don’t use any staffing or RPO vendors, all the work is done in-house for direct positions. They have a big growth initiative so they went from maybe 50 openings to 200 openings, and Indeed cut them off! Because of ‘search quality’, and again, their rep would/could not help them.

I have a feeling this isn’t going to end well for Indeed. Right now they’re flying high! Going to hire thousands of more employees, which makes complete sense, because if you shut everyone off of free traffic, you’ll have a lot of TA pros panicking and buying Indeed products. At least until they discover it continues to cost more for less and less traffic as Google no longer indexes Indeed.

I’ve sent emails to the highest reaches of Indeed, pleading for help, and the only response I got back was from my rep offering to sell me more products!

I explained that I want this to be positive! Show me how to fix me, and I’ll show others how to fix themselves! Along the way, it’s a win/win since the more we understand about the Indeed products and services and feel like a vendor is truly helping us, we (as an industry) will support them!

Crickets!!! Crickets, I say, Chris Hyams!!!

So, what should you do to NOT get yourself in Indeed Jail?  

1. Never pay one dime to Indeed!!!

  • So one thing that has been pretty consistent with everyone I’ve spoken to that got put into Indeed Jail is that they were all (100%) paying customers of Indeed. Almost, like Indeed knew we were willing to pay for traffic, so they put us into jail on purpose! Up until the point of becoming a paid Indeed customer, none of the people I spoke ever had issues with being put in Indeed Jail!

2. Make sure you understand what is ‘bad’ search quality for Indeed. Good luck with this!

3. Enjoy the free traffic while you have it because eventually everyone will be shut off. Drug dealing works because we get addicted. You’re currently addicted to free Indeed traffic. That isn’t a sustainable model for a business.

So, what do you do if you’re already in Indeed Jail? 

1. Understand you’re not alone.

2. Understand that your true reality is you can live without Indeed traffic, and slowly but surely the traffic you get from Google will be greater. So, focus on ensuring your ATS and Jobs are as aligned as possible with the Google Job Schema – it’s super important!

3. Understand if you want more Indeed hits, you better get ready to pay for them from Indeed.

4. Understand Indeed has no vested interested in helping you fix your search quality issue, even if you’re a paid customer because it costs them money.

5. Look at Programmatic Job Advertising tools like: JobAdX, Talroo, Appcast, etc. Increase your posting strategy with sites like ZipRecruiter, CareerBuilder, Monster, LinkedIn, etc.  Invest in your own database with some talent rediscovery tools, use CRM technology, build and nurture your pipelines of talent.

My Offer Still Stands!

Chris Hyams, the President of Indeed, get your team to help fix my stuff and I’ll be your biggest fan in advocating and teaching others how to do right by candidates and by Indeed to make the world a better place. That’s all I ever wanted, for you to just help me. Help a paying customer fix their stuff. But you refused.

#FreeTimSackett

Career Confessions of Gen Z: What Would ‘Siesta’ Look Like in America?

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One of the hardest things for me to get used to during my time abroad is the different schedule. The meals in Spain (and in many other countries) are later, generally, lunch is eaten around 2 and dinner is eaten around 9 or 10. These late eating times are killing me, and I am constantly hungry all morning and late afternoon.

Although I can’t stand the eating schedule, one of my favorite things about Spain so far is the siesta time. If you’ve never heard of it, there is a built-in time after lunch for everyone to rest or take a little nap before they head back to work or do their other afternoon activities. Everyone heads home from work or school, eats a huge meal, and then takes a quick, little nap.

A big cultural difference between Spain and America centers around the schedules and hours that people work. The average American from age 25-54 works about 40 hours a week, while the average Spaniard works about 38.5 hours a week. Although there isn’t a huge difference in this amount, the hours of the day worked is really different. In America, you hear about the “9-5” or as my Dad likes to tell me “now everyone works 8-5”. In Spain, people go to work around 9, come home from about 2-4:30/5 and return to work for another 2 or 3 hours.

In Spain, this break in the middle of the day allows families to spend quality time together in the middle of the day. There were many years of my life where my whole family would maybe have one meal together a week, and my parents made it a priority to eat together as much as possible. There are many important benefits of spending time together as a family, such as building self-esteem and relieving stress.

In a society where depression rates among teens are at an all-time high, I think that a schedule with built-in family time (and nap time!) is a pretty freaking great idea. Every year that I’ve gotten older, I see my family less and less and that sucks! People around my age in Spain get to see their entire family every day!

Now, we can blame my lack of family time on the fact that I live in a different city but I lived at home for the majority of my life and there were many days where I got to see my Dad for maybe 10 minutes. My Dad is pretty great and I want to see him for more than 10 minutes a day! (Editor/Dad note: FYI – I did not add this line!) 

I’m not saying that I think this type of schedule would work in America. This schedule works in Spain because of the culture here, and I don’t believe that this would work well in America, but we can learn a lesson here. In my opinion, sacrificing a little bit of work time to spend time with your family can have some really great benefits. And who doesn’t love a little afternoon nap?!

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.