Category Archives: Communication

Can Corporate Recruiters Poach?

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Before we get right in and answer this question, let’s all get on the same page.  What is Poaching?  Wiki defines it as:

“Poaching has traditionally been defined as the illegal hunting, killing or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.”

It can also be a cooking term, like Poached Eggs or Poached Salmon, but that’s not what we’re talking about.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t like the term ‘Poaching’ when it is used regarding talent acquisition.  Business Insider loves to use this in titles when they are talking about normal recruiting activity (Here, Here, and Here to share just a few).  There’s nothing illegal about ‘recruiting’ someone from another firm. Nothing!

Google has a talented group of Software Developers. Facebook needs Software Developers. Facebook recruits Google developers to come work for them.  That’s Recruiting at its most basic.  Nothing illegal about that.  That’s actually the basis of our capitalist society.  Free market economy.

So, why is it that we use the word “Poach” when describing something that is just basic business?

It’s because when an employee leaves you for your competition it pisses you off!  You feel robbed.  You feel like it should be illegal.  “Wait!  I spent so much time and effort to get you hear and now you’re just leaving me, for her!!!”

But, it’s not illegal.  It’s not ‘poaching’.  It’s business.  You either do it well, or you use words like ‘poach’.

Can Corporate Recruiters ‘poach’?

Let me put it to you this way.  If I was running your corporate talent acquisition department, and we had a recruiter who felt like they shouldn’t ‘poach’ from the competition, I would ask that recruiter to go work for the competition! At that point, that’s basically what they are doing anyway!

I feel so strongly about this, I truly believe a really good corporate recruiting function can cripple your competition. Truly!  If your corporate recruiters take the best talent from your competition and bring them to your team, your competition isn’t long for this world.  “Oh, yeah, but that’s poaching, Tim.” No, that’s Capitalism. That’s free market. It’s what our country is built on.

So, what I’m trying to say is this, if you don’t poach your competition’s talent you’re not American!

 

The 5 Most Common “I Missed My Interview” Excuses

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There’s one thing that happens to all recruiters when the job market shifts from employer driven to candidate driven: candidates accept interviews, then don’t show or cancel at the last minute.  Many times the candidates come up with the lamest excuses on why they have to cancel. Rarely, will they just come out and say, “Hey, I just don’t like you guys that much!”  It’s the one thing, no matter how good of  a closer you are, as a recruiter, you have to deal with almost daily in our business.

Since I’ve been in the business of recruiting for twenty years I’ve heard all the cancellation excuses. I’ve become numb to the entire process. Great HR Pros have to.  While it is upsetting to have someone cancel, it’s not surprising.  Our reality is we offer a potential candidate an opportunity and the best of us make it sound very enticing. Many times once the candidate comes back to earth, they realize for whatever reason, the opportunity isn’t for them.  Being that most people are super conflict avoidant, they won’t just tell it to you straight, that make up little white lies that seem believable.  Believable only to themselves, that is!

Here are the 5 most common “I missed my interview” excuses from candidates:

1. My Grandfather died! Really!  Really. Really…  In twenty years of recruiting I’ve had more candidates have someone die in their family than I believe is statistically possible, and I’m not just talking agency hires, this is corporate as well!  At a point, I want to laugh out loud on the phone when they call in and say it.  Not that I think death is funny, but it would be comical to them if they were sitting in my seat, knowing how many ‘death’ calls I take annually!  Also, grandparents are the most common death, because it seems to make most sense. This is all a good excuse because most people believe they won’t get a call back from the recruiter because they won’t want to deal with the death issue!

2. I got into a car accident! But, I’m okay, just can’t make the interview.  This one is a good short term excuse, but it still sets them up for a follow up call to reschedule.  Still, it’s used a lot!  Besides my staffing agency business, I also want to open up a body shop and funeral home all right next to each…

3. My kid got sick, I can’t go to the interview.  Another very believable and understanding excuse, but, again, it sets them up for the reschedule.  The problem with any of these types of excuses is they seem great when you’re leaving a message, but then you have to put up with a recruiter leaving thirty voice mails asking you to reschedule the email.

4. My employer needs me to travel out of state!  We work in tech so we actually get this one a lot.  This also comes with a built in reschedule excuse, “Can’t reschedule now, not sure how long I’m going to be, gotta go, big emergency, the data center is down!”  Ugh.  This one is tough to combat from a recruiter perspective.

5. I had to have emergency surgery!  Another good excuse that doesn’t have to be as bad as it sounds because they’ll add in the ‘dental’ component. “I had to have an emergency root canal, can’t talk, will call you when I can.”  Can also use it for ankles, knees, etc. Which gives the built in excuse of not being able to walk.  Plus the added benefit of, “I probably shouldn’t change jobs right now, with insurance, with this going on…”

If, and after twenty years in recruiting that’s a huge if, I was a very trusting man, I would have a view of the world that I must be the most unlucky person ever to have all these bad things and unfortunate timings happen to me!  But, since I’ve been in recruiting for twenty years, I get the game.

What’s the most used excuse you get from candidates who no-show or cancel out on interviews?

 

Dad’s Don’t Get Work-Life Balance Empathy

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Max Shireson, the CEO of mongoDB, turned in his resignation this past week.  That announcement in itself isn’t really that big of a deal, CEOs turn in resignations every day.  The reason he turned in his resignation is huge.  I’ll let him tell it in his own words from a letter he sent to mongoDB’s workforce:

“Earlier this summer, Matt Lauer asked Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, whether she could balance the demands of being a mom and being a CEO. The Atlantic asked similar questions of PepsiCo’s female CEO Indra Nooyi. As a male CEO, I have been asked what kind of car I drive and what type of music I like, but never how I balance the demands of being both a dad and a CEO.

While the press haven’t asked me, it is a question that I often ask myself. Here is my situation:

* I have 3 wonderful kids at home, aged 14, 12 and 9, and I love spending time with them: skiing, cooking, playing backgammon, swimming, watching movies or Warriors or Giants games, talking, whatever.

* I am on pace to fly 300,000 miles this year, all the normal CEO travel plus commuting between Palo Alto and New York every 2-3 weeks. During that travel, I have missed a lot of family fun, perhaps more importantly, I was not with my kids when our puppy was hit by a car or when my son had (minor and successful, and  of course unexpected) emergency surgery.

* I have an amazing wife who also has an important career; she is a doctor and professor at Stanford where, in addition to her clinical duties, she runs their training  program for high risk obstetricians and conducts research on on prematurity, surgical techniques, and other topics. She is a fantastic mom, brilliant, beautiful, and  infinitely patient with me. I love her, I am forever in her debt for finding a way to keep the family working despite my crazy travel. I should not continue abusing    that patience.

Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood. Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.”

When we talk about ‘inclusion’ we aren’t really talking about everyone.  That’s the problem.  We wonder how possibly a woman could handle the pressures of being a CEO and being a Mom, but we never wonder, or even care, how a man handles the pressure of being a CEO and a Dad.   It’s expected a man can do both, we question if a woman can do both.  

There is a cultural expectation, wrongly, that as a man I can be CEO and a Dad and perform just fine. As a woman, I’ll have trouble doing both jobs, because the Mom does more than the Dad.  The mom cooks and cleans and nurtures and schedules and kisses booboos and, well, does everything for the family.  The lazy asshole Dad comes home and waits for the Mom to fix him dinner and his drink.  Really!?! Is that where we are in 2014?

I’m a Dad and a President of a company.  I feel for Max.  My wife does a ton, it can’t even be measured.  I don’t expect her to do everything and help out a ton with parenting when and where I can.  I assume if the roles were changed and my wife was a CEO, I would have to pick up more of her home and parenting duties.

This goes beyond just duties, though, this is about emotional connection.  As a Dad, like Max, why should I have less of a connection as a parent than my wife.  Why do we throw that cultural expectation onto our employees, on to our executives?  As a father I frequently feel failure.  Maybe it’s because I missed being able to have lunch with my son at school.  Maybe it’s because my wife has a stronger relationship with my kids than I do.  Maybe it’s because I trying to live up to a cultural expectation that I should be less of a parent.

No one ever wants to talk about how hard a man has it, trying to be a father and work.  It’s not ‘politically’ correct.  Men have it easier. End of story.  That sucks sometimes.

Why Changing How You Recruit Is Really, Really Hard

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Very quickly we are entering candidate driven markets in almost all segments of job categories, in almost all segments of the country.  Obviously, a better economy and increasing retirements from Boomers play a major role in this.  This is causing most companies to recruit differently than they have in a number of years.  I’m hearing the pain from corporate talent acquisition pros daily.  All over the country recruiters are having to actually recruit for the first time in a long time!

Getting recruiters to recruit is really hard.

Let that sink in for a moment.  Getting recruiters to recruit is really hard, when they haven’t really had to recruit for 10 years.

This will take change and here’s a glimpse of what most Talent Acquisition executives are facing right now:

1. We can’t get talent, we need to start doing this differently (Big Change, Uncomfortable).

2. Those who will have to change (Recruiters) immediately voice their displeasure, at a minimum. “Wait! What! You’re going to start measuring our activity!? Oh! You don’t trust us!”

3. Those who will get the benefit of change (Hiring Managers) sit quietly and watch, partially disbelieving anything will really change. Welcome to organizations.

That’s why changing how you recruit is really hard.  Those who have to do the recruiting don’t want change and are letting you know about it.  Those who need you to change don’t believe you can do it, and want you to prove it.    Neither side, seems to be on your side.

Changing how you actually recruit is very easy.  Getting people to change how they actually recruit is really, really hard.

 

The 1 Reason You Can’t Find Talent Right Now

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There’s one big reason you can’t find talent right now.  Here it is:

Simple economics plays a huge role in your ability to hire well.  We all like to think we are super star rock star talent acquisition pros, but the reality is we are mostly just pawns in economic cycles.  Sure you can have a great employment brand, and have great recruiting tools, and even have the most talented recruiters money can buy.  But rarely can’t you beat simple supply and demand.

Want to know why you’re struggling to hire right now?  There aren’t enough candidates for the jobs you need to fill.  It’s really quite simple.

We have an extended recession where almost all employee development and employee growth programs got cut to the bone.  No apprenticeships. No internships.  Old people held onto their jobs because of  the recession, while younger people went and found other ways to make ends meet.  The stock market that was in the tank during the recession came back bigger than ever.  The old people now want to retire, and they are in bulk!

Now you want to hire because business is back!  You have new positions to add. You have old employees leaving you with all of that knowledge, and you haven’t seriously tried to grow an employee in a decade.

It took you 10 years to get to this point.  It’s going to take you more than increased job board ads and new ATS to get you out of this.  Here are few tips to get you through a Candidate Driven Marketplace:

1. Start growing your own now. No, it’s not a short term solution. But you must realize your problem is both short and long.

2. Get comfortable with stealing talent from your competitors and anyone else. Also, they’ll be stealing from you.  Welcome to the show.

3. Upgrade your recruiting staff, yesterday.  Yeah, I like Bonnie to, but she can’t really recruit.

4. You have to get your organization to understand your reality.  Like Hillary said, “It takes a village”.

5. Learn the concept “Total Talent” and get comfortable with it.  The rest of the world already has.  The U.S. is a decade behind.  Total talent is the concept that an organization has many avenues of talent: direct employees, consultants, contract employees, temporary employees, part time, job share, etc. No longer should you even want just ‘direct’ employees.  Smart talent acquisition strategy incorporates all levels of talent, not just one.  Unless your name is Bonnie.

Why Your Employment Brand Really Matters

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There’s really only one reason that you should have any concern over your employment brand and it’s this:

Job at Great Brand = High Self-esteem

Stop for one minute and don’t think like a marketer, but like a normal person. Why does a normal person want to go to work for a great brand? Why would you?

Let me put it another way.  Why do you buy and wear brand name clothing?  It’s not because it’s, necessarily, better made than any other brand.  It’s because it makes you feel good to wear that brand.  People look at you and see that you’re wearing that brand.  It gives you a boost to your self-esteem.

Now, think about the brands you love. For me, I love Nike.  Always have, since I was a kid.  I have a lot of Nike stuff in my life.  When I see someone that works at Nike, I get excited.  I want to know more about how they like it, what its like, etc.  I’ve applied to work at Nike early in my career, and got shot down.  I know working for Nike would have made me feel good about myself and the company I was working for.  I have a belief that others would have been ‘impressed’ I was working for Nike.  Whether if it was true or not, that was my perception.

The only true reason your employment brand is important is because of this.  People want to work an organization that is a boost to their self-esteem.  Even if your brand is neutral in doing that, it’s a negative.  They want to work for a brand ‘they’ feel others will be impressed by for a number of varied reasons: it’s cool (Google/Zappos), it’s important (Universities/Government/FBI), they do good stuff (Hospitals/Teachers), they make a ton of money (Berkshire Hathaway), they are innovative (hot new tech firms), they are professional (law firms/banking/professional services), etc.

Your employment brand, for some segment of your hiring population, needs to raise their self-esteem.  Find out what it is about you that does that, and you’ll have employment branding figured out.

HR Emoji Etiquette

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I never was a huge fan of emojis.  I’m probably just too old, and out of touch to really understand.  My emojis consist of basically two: smiley face 🙂 and winky face ;).  Really, I’ve been able to get through my life with these two emojis.  I’ve never truly felt compelled to go beyond these.  I either liked what you wrote = smiley face, or I wanted you to know I wasn’t seriously going to fire you = winky face.

One of my favorite comedy writers is Jenny Johnson and she recently had an article in GQ Jenny Johnson’s Guide to Emoji Etiquette.  It’s brilliantly funny and it gave me the idea that HR should have its own emoji etiquette, so I decided to give it a run.  Here’s what I came up with:

I’m going to fire Fred in Accounting with the creepy mustache:

 (you’ll notice I like my HR ladies to wear a crown!)

We are a no smoking facility:

(also can be used to land planes)

We offer same sex benefits:

Dear hiring manager, I’m going to look the other way at what you just did:

Diversity and Inclusion meeting will take place today and there will be cookies:

A failed random drug test will get you fired:

We love you, you’re our top choice and we want to make you an offer, but you only have so much time to accept:

Happy hour Friday! Yay! But, be cautious, too much drinking with coworkers can lead to romance, and unwanted pregnancies:

Mary in Payroll is acting like she’s sick so she can go get her hair and nails done. HR doesn’t like this!

 Hit me up with your favorite emojis in the comments!

 

 

3 Ways I Make HR Better

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If you’re sitting in your HR office right now reading this, about to create some new HR stuff – stop – your wasting our time (and by “our” I mean all of us employees in the organization).  “Wow, look who woke up on the wrong side of the week!”

It’s not that I don’t think being creative is important. It is, it’s Hugely important.  Being creative in HR just isn’t important.   I know you think it is, that’s because you want to be creative, so you make yourself believe that’s important.  But the reality is, anything you can do, I can do better.  No, not because I’m better than you.  I mean I probably am, but that isn’t the point.  I can do it better because all I’m going to do is take what you’ve already done, and make it better.

In fact I’ll do a few more things while working on improving your thing:

1. I’ll make it cheaper

2. I’ll make it more simple to use

3. I’ll make it fun to do

See! Stop being creative, and just start making things better.

From an article in Fast Company:

The line between becoming a pioneer and a “me-too” flop can be unclear when you’re in the weeds of development. Uncertainty is an easier destination to arrive at than confidence, especially when the truth is, there’s no such thing as making anything that’s really new. Everything is an evolution of something else. But you can make something better. When in doubt, ask yourself if you’d use your new product instead of the market leader’s. If the answer is yes, keep going. If it’s no, then stop and rethink.

This obviously talks about products, but services and what we offer in HR are very similar.  Is that program you’re developing in HR better than what your competition is developing in HR?  If yes, carry on. If no, make it better.  It isn’t hard. It will take some hard work, but it’s not mentally challenging.  When I see people unwilling to make their HR Shops better, I know one of two things are at play:

1. They’ve given up on the organization, and they need to go, or;

2. They are fundamentally lazy, and need to go.

It’s a painful truth most leaders just don’t want to realize.

Just make it better.

HR Neutrality

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There has been a ton of press around Net Neutrality lately.  Net neutrality is the concept that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication. Companies, like Comcast, stand to make a lot of money based on how federal regulators decide on how to treat net neutrality.  If regulators find in favor of ISPs they can start charging more for faster internet access, basically creating the haves and the have nots of the internet – or the ‘fast lane’ and the ‘slow lane’. 

It’s a basic concept.  Everyone should be treated equal. Big powerful companies and small powerless people.  Or should they?

First and foremost I’m a capitalist.  I like to pay more, and sit in better seats at sporting events.  I pay high taxes so I can live in a better neighborhood and police will actually come to my house when I call.  If I want my internet to come through a firehose instead of a garden hose, I’ll pay for it!

I get it though.  The American Dream is now a ‘dream’ more than ever for most people simply because they’ll never make it a reality.  We are a nation of haves, and have nots, but mostly of have nots.

The concept of neutrality is also something HR Pros take to heart.  We attempt to treat everyone equally.  In many ways this is good. Male/female, old/young, black/white, we have an obligation to treat our employees the same.  But we take it to far.

Net Neutrality doesn’t say some will get the internet, and some will not.  It says some will get the internet faster because they paid to have it faster.  Those who are upset over this issue are upset because they’ll be treated differently.  It’s the same reason HR Pros tend to try and treat all employees the same.  If I treat everyone the same, no one can complain they were treated differently.  Therein lies the problem, your best employees don’t want HR Neutrality!

Your best employees want to be treated differently.  They see Timmy slacking off and not pulling his weight, and they HATE you treat Timmy the same as you treat them.  They want to be treated differently than Timmy.  They want faster internet.  They feel they deserve it.  They feel they deserve to be treated better than you treat your average and below average employees.

So, this begs the question, why is HR Neutrality so prevalent in our industry?  Our leadership doesn’t like either.  Remember, your leaders are leaders because they were once your best employees.  They hate you treat everyone equally as well.  Our employees hate HR Neutrality.  Our leadership hates HR Neutrality.  Yet, we continue to profess HR Neutrality.   Is HR morally better than the rest of our organization?  Or, are we afraid that eliminating HR Neutrality will shine a bigger light upon our own shortcomings as a function?

Either way, I want the faster internet.

4 Ways To Find Great Talent on Glassdoor

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The next biggest recruiting play is not LinkedIn, or CareerBuilder, or Monster.  It’s Glassdoor!  But you wouldn’t know that, because you still see them as a place where former employees and zombies go to bitch about your company and bad managers.  It’s not!

Kris Dunn and I are going to show you, in this month’s FOT webinar, how smart companies are leveraging Glassdoor in their recruiting practices to steal your talent, and it’s not the crappy talent you wish would leave!

Yep, Glassdoor is sponsoring this webinar.  Yep, Kris and I made sure they knew we don’t hold back punches!  That, in and of itself, is cool, because they know we speak the truth, and they aren’t afraid of the truth getting out (BTW – we have a lot of companies not willing to do FOT webinars because of this!).

Let’s face it. HR pros have a long history of being uncomfortable with sites like Glassdoor.com. After all, the only people that use Glassdoor.com and sites like it are disgruntled ex-employees that you fired, right?

Wrong. It was wrong 5 years ago, and it’s horribly wrong today. Rather than view these types of sites as a threat, smart HR and Recruiting pros are learning how to use the reputation/rating sites to manage their employment brand, connect with candidates and make better hires.

The days of the employment brand strategy with scripted photos, smiling faces (just the right amount of diversity!) and PDFs are over.

That’s why we’re going deep on reputation sites like Glassdoor in the July version of the FOT Webinar entitled,“How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor.”  Join Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett from Fistful of Talent at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th, and we’ll hit you with the following:

– How the the yelp-ification of America—the trend towards consumer-based reviews in almost every area of our economy—is changing the way employees and candidates think about job search and employer brands. It’s second nature for your employees to rate a restaurant, a book or a movie online. That means that employees of all types (not just the ones who want to complain) are more willing than ever to participate in your brand through user review.

– Why the explosion of social media and deep coverage of every aspect of our lives through video and photos is changing the willingness of smart companies to increase their transparency.  Every employee and candidate who interacts with your company is a potential reporter, and they expect you to share the good, bad and ugly about working with your firm openly and honestly. Old versions of employment brands won’t cut it—you”re going to have to give up some control to maximize your brand.

– We’ll cover the 5 Biggest Myths about company reputation sites like Glassdoor and tell you which ones are completely BS and which ones you actually perpetrate by not fully engaging on sites like Glassdoor. We’ll hit the usual suspects here: “The only comments are from the bad employees”  and “The salary data out there isn’t factual,” and tell you why things have changed. More importantly, we’ll cover how you actually may make the myths a reality by not fully engaging on reputation sites.  Think about that last sentence: You’ve got to be in the game to influence the game.

– Last but not least, we’ll give you a 4-step playbook on how to engage on reputation sites and become more of a Marketer as an HR/Recruiting Pro.  It’s true—you wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t want to learn more about how to use reputation sites like Glassdoor to maximize your company and your career. We’ll help you get started.

The outside world now has a huge say in how your company/employment brand is perceived, whether you engage or not. FOT thinks you should engage.  Join us for “How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor” at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th and we’ll show you how.

(FOT Note: Glassdoor is sponsoring this FOT webinar. We’re happy to have them as a sponsor and, true to their commitment to transparency, they’re letting us talk about the myths and a lot of other realities HR and Recruiting pros have experienced related to Glassdoor—without restriction. That type of balance makes them a great partner.  Join us and we promise you’ll get a balanced view—no sales pitch—as well as an insider’s guide to how to use sites like Glassdoor to become a better marketer as an HR/Recruiting pro.)