Category Archives: Candidate Experience

Moneyball Rules: Offering More Experienced Workers Less Money!

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For years I’ve been trying to get people to understand this Moneyball concept as it relates to hiring, but few really listen. I know you saw the movie, Moneyball, where a major league baseball general manager finds success by signing and drafting ‘undervalued’ players. The players are undervalued for a number of reasons, it doesn’t matter, what matters he was able to get talent on at a discount rate!

Don’t you want to hire employees at a discount rate!?

Hired.com recently came out with a survey that once again demonstrates the most undervalued talent in any market are older workers, 50 years old and up. Apparently, once you become 50 years old, you start becoming worthless! Don’t kill the messenger, “you” are the ones saying this:

Basically, our average salary offer increases every single year of age. It makes sense because as you age, you gain more experience, more experience is more valuable. Or is it?

The chart, also, shows that once a worker turns 50 years old or so, employers (but not you…) start offering those workers less money, even though they have more experience!

Why!?

This has nothing to with wages! This is pure age bias shown towards younger workers. We believe, even older hiring managers, that once someone gets to a certain age, and Hired.com shows us that age to be 50 years old, older workers start losing their effectiveness even as they gain experience.

Somehow, in our minds, that 35-year-old, with three screaming kids and soccer practice four nights a week, is more effective than the 50-year-old with no kids at home, who is willing to work wherever and whenever you need them.

So, now you can play Moneyball!

You already know that most employers in the world hate old people. Thus, there are tons of gray hairs limping around out there willing to take all of your crappy low-ball offers, and they’re probably more loyal for those low wages then any younger worker you have on staff.

Yeah, for capitalism! You get great talent at low rates. Who needs H1B’s when we have old people!

“Well, Tim, it’s not about age bias! It’s about fit and culture and inclusi… I mean, we hire the best available candidate for the job!”

I’m sure you do.

Your reality is as hiring gets tighter, you can continue to overpay for younger talent with less experience, or you can pay a cheaper wage for more experience. Sooner or later, someone is going to ask the right questions. Are you going to have the right answer?

 

Ugh! I Did a Video Interview and I Sucked! @Hirevue Edition

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First, let me say I’m a giant advocate for video interviewing. I think it’s brilliant and I absolutely love the technology and truly believe it’s only a matter of time until every single pre-screen organizations do are most likely done via video.

All that being said, I had never done a video interview, personally, until a few weeks ago.

No, I’m not looking for another job! I got asked to apply for a Board position with the new organization the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP). Being someone who probably spends too much time advocating for TA Pros, I couldn’t say no.

Part of the interview process was doing a video interview because the committee selecting the board members were located all over the world. Having candidates do a video interview would make it more effective from a time and cost perspective, plus this is for a TA Pro association. If we don’t use TA tech, how can we lead others in these efforts!?

Thankfully, Hirevue donated the use of their software to the selection committee to help with this process. I’ve known Hirevue for years when they were just a small up-and-coming vendor in a small 10X10 booth in the back of the vendor hall at SHRM national! The first time I saw the technology, I was a fan. I’ve demoed them a number times as they’ve improved and grown the system beyond just video interviewing. I don’t think there’s an analyst in HR or TA that has shown Hirevue more love than I!

So, doing a video interview with Hirevue should have been super easy for me!

I wanted to write about this because it wasn’t super easy for me. I sucked! It’s hard. It’s awkward. And, I still think it’s brilliant!

What you don’t get about video interviewing, unless you actually do one for real (real, meaning you actually want what you’re interviewing for, not some fake demo interview to see how it works) is that it’s hard talking to a camera and getting no facial or body language cues from your interviewers!

Normally, when you interview, you get asked a question and you start talking. Based on the non-verbal clues you get from those interviewing you, you continually auto-adjust. Your tone. The length of your answer. Your tempo. Etc. When you answer a question to the camera, you get none of this, and it’s a heck of a lot more difficult than you think!

I was even given the questions beforehand so I could prepare my answers, which might have made it worse since then you feel like you should memorize your answers. Regardless, the entire thing comes off like a bad monolog by a D-level actor!

This is important to talk about because I think if your organization is going to use video interviewing, you need to put every single one of your hiring managers, and yourself, through one of these interviews, then allow everyone to watch each other! You and your team need this perspective to understand, what you see on video might not be the best representation of that individual.

While younger generations will probably be more comfortable videoing themselves, we still have a great number in the workforce that will come across awkward. Hiring managers using this technology have to understand this, not everyone will rock the video interview.

I will say, using the Hirevue platform was super simple and easy, anyone could do it. It’s almost too easy!

For the record, I got the position. You are now looking at, err reading, about the next Board member to the Association for Talent Acquisition Professionals. So, apparently, I sucked a little less than some other folks! But, I’m super excited, along with the other board members, to begin growing and working with ATAP! I can’t tell you how long I’ve desired and hoped for an association like SHRM, but for Talent Acquisition.

Check us out and join! My goal is that organizations around the world will seek out ATAP members when they look to hire great TA Pros and Leaders for their openings.

Here’s how to JOIN the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals!

Why do we still hate hiring older workers?

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Over two years ago I wrote a post for Halogen’s Talent Space blog titled: The Gray Wave: Why Companies Refuse to Hire Older Workers. It was very popular when it launched and it still gets great traffic because apparently there are a ton of older people Googling things like “why won’t companies hire older people?”

In the past two years, little has changed within organizations when it comes to hiring an aging workforce. A study in 2015 actually showed that recruiters, in a corporate environment, actually had lower call rates to older female candidates, than to younger female candidates.

Why? Why would a corporate recruiter prefer, consciously or subconsciously, to call a younger candidate over an older candidate? Age alone would tell us that the older candidate probably has more experience, thus, probably should be the first one they would call. But that doesn’t happen.

This is happening because this is exactly what organizations want to happen. 

I know. I know. This isn’t “your” organization. You hire old people all the time. It’s all those ‘other’ organizations. Stop it. It’s you. Now, I’ll give you that you’re fighting against centuries of organizational dynamics to change this, but demographics are going to force this upon you whether you like it or not.

Organizationally, we’ve been trained to hire this way. The oldest employees moved up the career ladder to the top of the organization. Below them on the next rung of management are people slightly younger than them. It continues in this fashion until you get to the entry level employees in your organization that is the youngest.

Sure, once in a great wild, a young buck will rise up and leap over a generation or two into leadership. But, for the most part, we march along, waiting our turn, waiting for retirements and death. This sounds very traditional but if you were to run your demographics for age only by position, you would see this very clearly in almost every single organization, industry, and location around the world.

To be fair, organizationally this started because it was experienced based. The carpenter with 20 years of experience is much better, usually than the carpenter with ten years of experience, and the apprentice has even less experience. It made sense hundreds of years ago.

What this means is that you hire younger, because the hiring manager you’re recruiting for wants someone younger than them to manage. Most hiring managers are intimidated by managing someone who is older than they are, for numerous reasons. Very few would ever admit this fact because it’s akin to saying your racist, but if you run the numbers in your organization you’ll see very few older employees being managed by people who are younger than them.

So, how do we change this?

You have to get your leaders to see the problem, agree that it’s a problem, and be a part of changing the problem.

Your organization needs talent. You have hiring managers turning down talent for reasons that make no sense. If you call them out, you burn your relationship. So, this becomes really hard to change at the individual level.

If your organization values experience and hiring an aging workforce, I would begin tracking this by department and publicly posting this for all to see. When I was at Applebee’s we wanted more female leaders and we made this a measure that executives owned and were measured on, and it got changed very quickly. There is no difference here. It’s a simple bias, just like not hiring females.

Hiring managers who refuses to hire older workers has nothing to do with older workers, and everything to do with a hiring manager who can’t see their own bias.

 

The Damaging Problem of Chasing Satisfaction as a Performance Metric

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I was recently asked to dig into talent acquisition metrics, determining which metrics drive success, which are window dressing, which are just CYA, etc. Two metrics kept coming up from TA leaders are being very important, candidate satisfaction (candidate experience) and hiring manager satisfaction.

I don’t disagree that both of these metrics are important to an effective talent acquisition strategy. You want candidates to be satisfied with the experience they have going through your recruitment process, and you want your hiring managers to be satisfied with the quality of recruitment they get from your team.

The problem happens when you don’t know the point when positive satisfaction turns into negative satisfaction.

A good example is in healthcare. Currently, in the healthcare world, patient satisfaction is a huge deal. Many hospitals are losing their minds to try and figure out how to continue to raise patient satisfaction. You can see the logic. Healthcare is an extremely competitive environment. If a patient isn’t satisfied with their care, they can easily decide to spend those dollars at another healthcare facility. Probably sounds a lot like most of our businesses, doesn’t it? (customer satisfaction, client satisfaction, etc.)

The problem is, nurses and doctors aren’t employed to keep patients satisfied. They’re employed to get patients healthy and save their life. In that process, many times, a patient’s satisfaction is meaningless. The doctor and the nurse are the experts, and before I care about your satisfaction, I care about your wellbeing.

But, as healthcare organizations continue to be run more and more like a business, doctors, and nurses and constantly pressured to put patient satisfaction above wellbeing. As long as Mary loves us, just give her what she wants, even if that isn’t the best treatment.

Now, take this back to candidate satisfaction and hiring manager satisfaction. There’s a tipping point. It’s important that you have a consistent candidate experience that is fair. This will be satisfactory for many candidates, but for some it might not be. As you continue to push resources into increasing satisfaction of those who aren’t, you begin to see a negative return on resources. 100% satisfaction, should never be your goal.

Hiring managers aren’t much different. Most of your hiring managers will be great people to work with and you’ll prove to be a great resource for them in filling their openings. They’ll be satisfied with the job you do. Some will never be satisfied, and many times those who are unsatisfied are usually causing their own dissatisfaction. Again, 100% satisfaction, should never be your goal. Because if it’s obtainable, it’s probably not valuable in this circumstance.

My job in talent acquisition is not to make everyone feel satisfied. My job is to increase the talent in the organization. To do this, it might actually mean I make some folks unsatisfied. That’s okay. I’m the expert in talent acquisition. I need to do what is best for the organization. I’m always unsatisfied with our marketing folks, but guess what, they never asked me if I’m satisfied or not.

This Job Sounds To Good To Be True!

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When I was 18 years old I packed up my 1979 Ford Mustang and drove 20 straight hours from Grand Rapids, MI to Laramie, WY to go to college at the University of Wyoming. My air conditioning didn’t work, the radio didn’t work well and I had a Rand McNally Atlas (look it up kids) to guide my way.

It took me roughly 4 months to blow through every single dollar I had, then I took that same trip back to Michigan to find a job. One college semester done, and I was dead broke, and I didn’t have parents who were going to pay my way to college. I needed to find a job!

When you’re 18 and have completed one semester of college you tend to think you’re pretty freaking smart, or maybe that was just my personality. My mom did buy me a new suit, dress shoes and a Topcoat (again, look it up, kids). She was a boomer who never went to college, was successful and firmly believed you only needed to look the part to get the part.

Well, I looked a part, but I’m not sure what part that was!

I started applying for ‘management’ positions. I mean I had a suit! Not sure what I would wear on day 2, but certainly, that was a secondary issue. No one gave me the time a day. My previous work experience up to this point was running concessions for the world’s largest movie theater, at the time! That didn’t seem to have much pull with anyone, except one company!

I still remember the call! They were impressed with my ‘qualifications’, could I come an interview? Of course! They were looking for “Territory Managers”, people who wanted to make unlimited income. That sounded like me!

I showed up for the interview in my suit, new shoes, and topcoat. I was excited. I was a bit nervous. When I got to the location there were others in the waiting room. I was dressed way better than everyone else, that had to help me right!?

I got called into a small office. I was asked a few questions by a guy who seemed way to excited to be doing his job. But he must have liked me, he offered me the job, on the spot! Thanks for the suit, Mom!

He then asked if I could start right away? Well, of course, just show me to my office and I’ll get right to work managing that territory of mine!

He then took me to a much larger room where there were chairs against the wall, probably 40, and the entire rest of the room was open. About 30 of the chairs were filled, most by the less-dressed folks, I already discounted in the waiting room. Apparently, they also got hired.

The guy who hired me came in next to ‘congratulate’ us on this great opportunity on selling home cleaning systems to the American public, something the American public desperately needed to pay $1200 for. This would be the best value buy of their lives, and we were lucky enough to be able to offer it to them!

I just got roped into selling vacuums door to door.

For the next 4 hours we were trained on how to sell these vacuums, showed how to get into the homes of the buyer. I got down on my hands and knees in my new suit and broke apart the vacuum home cleaning system to show the ‘Miss’s of the house’ how easy it was to use.

At around 1 pm they unlocked the doors and let us leave the building to get something to eat. I drove home. Called my former boss at the theater and asked if I could come back to work. He said yes. I then began saving to go back to the University of Wyoming to get my degree.

99.9% of the time, the job that sounds to good to be true, is.

Officially Announcing My Candidacy for the 2020 Presidential Election #ACatInEveryPot

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Apparently, we will now campaign for four years to become the President of the United States for four years. Makes sense. I like the Canadian system of campaigning way better than what we have here! 90 days or less and we’re done! Doesn’t that sound like a smart law?

Until then, I’ll have to live with what we have. So, since I’m a U.S. born citizen, over the age of 35, and I would prefer to run under a third party as neither the Republicans or Democrats come close to meeting my needs, I’m officially running under the HR Party!

If I know anything, I know HR loves a good party!

Here is my platform, as of right now, but there’s a good chance I will change often depending at which conference I’m at and what part of the country I’m in at the time:

  • The only way you can now vote for any office is to first fill out a change of address form, completely (even if you haven’t recently changed your address), in black or navy blue ink, and you also must have completed your annual open enrollment.
  • Wine and Chocolate will no longer be taxed, and companies selling these products in the United States must sell them at cost. That should get me at least 51% of the popular vote!
  • By law, you will now not be allowed to talk to anyone before 9am on Monday mornings at your workplace.
  • If you miss an interview due to “car trouble” you will be publicly hanged. This is the single most overused excuse for missing an interview, get more creative or die.
  • If you are a no-call, no-show for an interview, or your first day of work, you will be deported to Siberia or Fargo (they’re basically the same).
  • Grammatical errors on resumes will now cost you a hand. You can pick which hand. I actually think this is dumb, but I need to pander to my electorate.
  • By law, you will no longer be able to call in sick for work on Mondays or Fridays. Because we know you’re lying.
  • Organizations caught paying less to women, for the same position, same skills, will be forced to fire every man that works for them.
  • All colleges will now cost the exact same amount. $10,000 per year for full tuition and books. Living expenses depends on where you can get in – i.e., it costs more to go to college in New York then Omaha. Private or Public. You still have to get accepted based on their admission policies.
  • Cats and dogs will now be allowed in all workplaces where there is not a health concern. No, you can’t bring your pot belly pig, or your snake, or your fish. Cats and dogs, we’re in America.
  • You will not be able to manage other people until you have worked for a minimum of five years in real jobs. No, going to school that mommy paid for and working four hours per week in the library doesn’t count as work.
  • We will now have CEO pay be directly paid in proportion to that of the average worker salary of the companies they lead. That proportion will be 25 times the salary of your employees. If your average salary is $45,000 for employees, the CEO can make $1,125,000. Don’t worry the 95% of white guys in those roles will be just fine. The extra corporate profit will be paid to the shareholders and employees in equal amounts.

I think that’s enough to get started. The HR Party will be huge! What do you think HR Pros? What platform items would you add?

 

Talent Acquisition Is Dead!

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So, I wrote this little eBook called, “Talent Acquisition is Dead: Talent Attraction Takes Root“, just click through to read the entire book. It’s built on the concept that for decades, truly the entire history of hiring employees to work for companies, we’ve only ever worried about acquiring talent.

When you think about acquiring something, like assets (“Employee are our most valuable asset!”), the process you go through to acquire something is very different than the process you go through ‘attracting’ something. I believe we are entering a new era in human resources where we no longer look to acquire, we now look to attract!

The concept of acquiring talent is one-sided. I want to acquire something, I go out and acquire it. Hiring people for your organization is not a one-sided affair, but we’ve treated it like that for the history of talent acquisition. The best talent does not like to be acquired. They want to be attracted!

So, how do you attract talent?

Well, that’s what the entire eBook is about, the ideas and technology used in today’s most innovative companies to attract talent.

What we have learned over the past decade is just doing what everyone else does, does not attract great talent. If everyone has ping pong tables and beer on tap, that is no longer an attraction, and many would argue it was never an attraction, to begin with!

How do you attract someone you would eventually like to marry?  You do many things. You might change your outward appearance. That might help attract, but it might not help retain. A true attraction between two people usually happens when their visions of life are comparable. I like you, you like me, we like living on the coast and want a puppy, one child, we hate mean people, and love the environment. We should spend out lives together!

That’s tricky when it comes to hiring, but that’s exactly what talent attraction is all about. How do we share our stories and find out if we are compatible? In the eBook, I lay out five detailed ideas that will help you attract talent into your organization.

I’m thankful for Appcast in giving me the platform to write this, and the help on the editing and design side. Check out the eBook, “Talent Acquisition is Dead: Talent Attraction Takes Root” and let me know what you think!

Vets, We Love You, but We Still Aren’t Hiring You!

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One of the most politically correct lies that employers spout off constantly is how desperate they are to hire Veterans! There’s a reason for this. In America, we love to honor our Vets! There’s nothing better than propping your brand up against that American flag with a soldier standing right next to it.

The reality is, most Vets are still struggling to find solid careers. Sure, everyone wants to offer them a $15/hr bust-your-ass-job, but Vets are looking for salaried positions with great benefits, in jobs they can work the rest of their career, that won’t destroy their body. Not many employers are offering Vets those jobs!

I’ve been writing about this problem for the past five years and I get a healthy stream of Vets who write me behind the scenes and share their stories and struggles to find solid career level positions. I just recently had an individual who came out of his service with a degree in HR, service of constant promotion, supervised upwards of one hundred soldiers at a time. In that role, he had constant performance management, training, process improvement, etc.

He was applying for an entry-level HR Generalist role. He got turned down because he didn’t have enough experience!

So, why are companies still struggling when it comes to hiring Vets into higher level roles? Here’s what they don’t tell you:

  1. Less than 1% of Americans have ever served in any branch of the military. We fear what we don’t know, and we definitely don’t hire what we don’t know! We only see pictures of Vets holding guns and in combat, but that’s a small part of their every day activities.
  2. Movies have given us a warped sense of what professionals in the military actually do. Today’s modern military is rarely portrayed as it actually is in the movies because it wouldn’t be very exciting. It’s the same reason you don’t see movies about the day to day happenings of a large company. It’s mostly boring! What most military pros do on a daily basis, away from battle zones, is mostly the same stuff you do on a daily basis. It’s HR, logistics, accounting, administration, training, development, etc.
  3. We overvalue work experience within an industry. If someone worked at your competitor for 3 months, you would value that more highly than a military professional doing the same job for 3 years. We so overvalue industry experience it’s not even funny! I’ve worked in four different industries and each time had people tell me, “Oh, Tim, this is the craziest industry you’ll ever be in”, ever time! Guess what? It wasn’t. It’s all the same! Get over yourself!

I recently hired a Vet into my own company. We mostly hire new recruiters and train them up, but it’s definitely a career job. Great recruiters can find work anywhere for the rest of their life, in every industry. It’s mostly a desk job. Recruiting companies love to hire former college athletes. What I’ve found is Vets come with the same motivations and skills, but their work ethic might be a bit stronger!

I constantly have CEOs tell me they just want people who want to work. Yet, when it gets down to their hiring managers, there’s a mental block happening. If these military folks were minority or women we would call this discrimination, but for some reason, we don’t say that with Vets. But, that’s mostly what’s happening.

We love to hide behind the fact we found someone with more ‘industry’ experience, or someone who has done the same job, etc. It’s all excuses. You don’t hire Vets because you don’t think they can handle your jobs. The fact is, they can, they just need you to give them a shot!

Do yourself a favor this Veteran’s Day. Take a chance and hire a Vet into a job you’ve never tried before. Sure, they’ll need some training, but they’ll bring the rest, and you might just find your organizations next great talent pool!

Too Many Recruiting Tools Are Killing Your Recruiting Efforts

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You’ve heard of this concept of the Inverted-U Curve, right? It’s fairly straightforward. In the beginning, you have nothing or very little. As you increase the resources you begin to become more effective. Eventually, as you add more resources you’ll actually reach maximum potential.

In the attempt to go even higher, you keep adding more resources, but you don’t see an increase in effectiveness or output, you actually see a decrease. This is the basic concept of the chart above.

This happens in recruiting too many organizations.

We start out with a bunch of recruiters and some phones. That’s not enough we need to add some other stuff, these recruiters need tools! So, we give them email and an ATS. Then comes the job boards, postings, InMails, etc. Might as well automate background checks and references. We really need to fill the pipeline, here comes sourcing tech!

Wish we had a way to get our messages out to candidates more effectively! CRM, branding technology, data analytics, SMS messaging, etc. Just keep adding more tools! That’ll a fix it!

Except it doesn’t!

What happens to your recruiting team as you add more tools?

  • The complexity of the process increases.
  • Core recruiting skills diminish, or at the very least don’t increase. (Laziness factor)
  • Increased points of failure in communication with each piece of new tech.

What we know is technology doesn’t make you better at recruiting. Technology makes you faster at recruiting, but if you suck at recruiting, technology will only make you suck faster!

Great recruiting starts with your people. Your recruiters. That’s your foundation, not your technology. Technology can help cover up some hickeys of bad recruiters temporary, but eventually, we will all see the real hickeys!

So, before you sign that next contract for some new technology, first take a look at your team. Do you have the right people on your recruiting bus? Do they have the core skills they need? How will I get them the skills they need?

The continued increase in technology will only take you so far. You can either solve this problem on the front side, or eventually, you’ll face it on the back side, but either way, it’s coming. In my experience, it’s easier to solve up front then wait for it to come up when twelve technologies deep into your TA stack!

The 7 Deadly Words You Should Never Say To a Candidate

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Communication is a tricky thing. It’s so easy to turn off another party by simply using just one wrong word, especially when you’re trying to build a relationship with a candidate you potentially want to hire.

I think there are some words and phrases that have a high probability of turning off a candidate to want to come work for your organization. I speak to students a few times a year about interviewing and I tell them something similar, which is what you say can automatically make a hiring manager not want to hire you!

Think about being an interview and the candidate starts to tell you why they’re no longer working for ACME Inc. “Oh, you know it was just a ‘misunderstanding’, I can explain…”

“Misunderstanding” is a killer word to use while interviewing! It wasn’t a misunderstanding! You got fired!

So, what are the 7 Deadly Words you should never use as a recruiters? Don’t use these:

-“Layoff” – It doesn’t matter how you use it. Even, ‘we’ve never had a layoff!’ Layoff isn’t a positive word to someone looking to come to work for you, so why would you even add it to the conversation!

-“Might” – Great candidates want black and white, not gray. “Might” is gray. Well, we might be adding that tech but I don’t know. Instead, use “I’m not sure, let me check for you, because I want to get you the truth.  Add

-“Maybe” – See above.

-“Unstable” – You know what’s unstable? Nothing good, that’s what! If something isn’t good, don’t hide behind a word that makes people guess how bad it might be, because they’ll usually assume it’s worse than it really is!

-“Legally” – “Legally” is never followed by something positive! Legally, we would love to give you a $25K sign-on bonus! It’s always followed by something that makes you uncomfortable. When trying to get someone interested in your organization and job, don’t add “Legally” to the conversation!

-“Temporarily” – This is another unsettling word for candidates. “Temporarily” we’ll have to have you work out of the Nashville office, but no worries, you’ll be Austin soon enough! Um, no.

-“Fluid” – Well, that’s a great question, right now it’s a fluid situation, we’re hoping hiring you will help clarify it! Well, isn’t that comforting… Add: “Up in the air” to this category!

We use many of these words because we don’t want to tell the candidate the truth. We think telling them exactly what’s wrong with our organization, the position, our culture, will drive them away. So, we wordsmith them to death!

The reality is most candidates will actually love the honesty and tend to believe they can be the one to come in and make it better. We all want to be the knight on the white horse. Candidates are no different. Tell them the truth and you’ll end up with better hires and higher retention!