Category Archives: Employment Brand

Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback? (Take 2)

Posted on by
7

“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”

– Howard Marks

Recently I wrote an article over at Fistful of Talent, and subsequently posted on LinkedIn, that caused some people to lose their minds.  I asked what I thought was a simple question: Would you be willing to pay for interview feedback?  Not just normal, thanks, but no thanks, interview feedback, but really in depth career development type of feedback from the organization that interviewed you.  You can read the comments here – they range from threats to outright hilarity! Needless to say, there is a lot of passion on this topic.

Here’s what I know:

– Most companies do a terrible job at delivery any type of feedback after interviews. Terrible.

– Most candidates only want two things from an interview.

1.  To Be Hired

2. If not hired, to know a little about why they didn’t get hired

Simple, right?  But, this still almost never happens!  Most large companies, now, automate the entire process with email form letters.  Even those lucky enough to get a live call, still get a watered-down, vanilla version of anything close to something that we would consider helpful.

When I asked if someone was willing to pay for interview feedback, it wasn’t for the normal lame crap that 99% of companies give.  It was for something new. Something better. Something of value.  It would also be something completely voluntary.  You could not pay and still get little to no feedback that you get now — Dear John, Thanks, but no thanks. The majority of the commentators felt like receiving feedback after an interview was a ‘right’ – legal and/or G*d given.  The reality is, it’s neither.

The paid interview feedback would be more in-depth, have more substance and would focus on you and how to help you get better at interviewing.  It would also get into why you didn’t get the job.  The LinkedIn commentators said this was rife with legal issues.  Organizations would not be allowed to do this by their legal staff because they would get sued by interviewees over the reasons.  This is a typical HR response.  If you say ‘legal’ people stop talking about an idea.  They teach that in HR school so we don’t have to change or be challenged by new ideas!

The reality is, as an HR Pro, I’m never going give someone ammunition to sue my organization.  If I didn’t hire someone for an illegal reason, let’s say because they were a woman, no person in their right mind would come out and say that.  Okay, first, I would never do that. Second, if I did, I would focus the feedback on other opportunity areas the candidate had that would help them in their next interview or career. No one would ever come out and say to an interviewee, “Yeah, you didn’t get the job because you’re a chick!”

This is not a legal or risk issue.  It’s about finally finding a way to deliver great interview feedback to candidates.  It’s about delivering a truly great candidate experience.  So many HR Pros and organizations espouse this desire to deliver a great candidate experience, but still don’t do the one thing that candidates really want.  Just give me feedback!

So, do you think I’m still crazy for wanting to charge interviewees for feedback?

 

 

Is Gen Z Going To Be Worse Than Millenials?

Posted on by
6

Is Generation Z (those born between the years 1995 – 2009, of which I own 3) going to be worse than the Millenials?  I guess to answer that question you first have to put this into some perspective.  First, you would have to think of the Millenials as a wasted, or under performing, generation.  Then, you would have to believe that Gen Z will probably follow down a similar path.

Short answer? Yes.

Gen Z will be worse than the Millenials.  Just as the Millenials were worse than Gen X, and Gen X and than the Baby Boomers.  That’s how this goes.  The youngest generation is always the worse!  By generation, you get better with age, or at least your view on generations get better.  It’s a simple concept.  When a generation is nothing more than whiny, snot nosed, rude kids, they’re all a train wreck.  Then they get older, more mature, actually do something with their lives, and amazingly become a generation of substance.

So, yes, Gen Z will be worse.  As will Gen Alpha, which comes after Gen Z and those kids are 3 and 4 years old and already a waste of space on this planet!

Does that make you feel better Millenials?  You’re no longer the worse generation to grace Earth.  Now, it’s Gen Z.  Congratulations, you can now start writing blog posts and books about how to communicate with these crazy Gen Z kids.  Know one understands them, it’s totes cray. With all their selfies and their hashtaggy things, they are going to way worse than those trophy sucker Millenials!

I’ve decided for the 2015 SHRM National Conference I’m going to submit a presentation on how to speak Gen Z.  HR Pros need this valuable information!  I need to come up with a title that completely says Gen Z, but also is very vanilla and safe, so not to scare off the HR ladies in Gen X and beyond.  I think I might go with “#GenZProbs(>_<)” — what do you think?  No, that will never fly with SHRM Gestapo.  It has to say boring, yet strategic.  Safe, yet cutesy.

I don’t know.  My brain doesn’t really work in those contexts!

Let’s crowd source this.  Give me your best Gen Z title for my 2015 SHRM National Preso.  I’ll reward the winner, which will include an inappropriate hug.

The Organization With the Most Expensive Selection Mistakes is?

Posted on by
2

The NFL.  This Thursday that NFL will perform their annual selection process on ESPN, with their annual draft.  Just like you, they have no idea what they’re doing, but act like they figured out the secret sauce to great selection.  The big difference between you and the NFL, their mistakes costs them a lot more money!  Check out this chart from BI on the NFL Draft Guaranteed Contracts:

NFL draft

This chart basically shows you that the best, or highest, first round pick will get about $22 million guaranteed, while the lower third round picks will get $600k in guaranteed money over the life of their contract.

How would you like that level of possible expense in your selection process!?

All that money, all that time, all that research, and the NFL draft is still basically a crap shoot.  The pick people, like you pick people.  “Well, we really like Johnny’s football IQ and he just seems so personable! What the hell, let’s pay him $15M!”

What!?!

“Well, we know his ‘past performance’ in college.  We know all his ‘performance metrics’.  We gave him a personality profile.  We ‘feel’ like he’s a safe bet and potential high performer.”

It’s really not that different from you picking a $50,000 per year sales professional.   Many organizations put as much into their hiring selections, as the NFL puts into picking their draft selections.  Obviously, the NFL has more resources to throw at their process, so they probably have a few more bells and whistles.  But, they have no more success than you.  The ones who do the best, like you, are not only concerned about the ‘big’ hires/selections – your executive hires, their high first and second round draft picks, but put as much research and resources into each hire.  Making a great selection in the 7th round might be as valuable, long term, as making a great first round selection.  Just as you making a great entry level sales hire, might be as valuable, or more, to making a really solid Director level hire.

The learning on all of this?  You can’t take hires off.  There are no ‘throw away’ hires, just as their are no throw away draft picks for great NFL teams.

3 Ways to Kill Comparison Interviews

Posted on by
2

I had a great candidate interview yesterday with a client!  This person is completely money!  Close the search, game over.  Just make the offer and pay me.

Then ‘it’ happens.

Client: “Tim, we loved her!  She is perfect!  I can’t believe you guys found her!”

Me: “Awesome. Pay me!”

Client: “Well, the hiring manager would like to just see one more person so she has a comparison, before making an offer.”

Me: “You’re looking for a female Environmental Safety Engineer with an Electrical Engineering background!  I found you the only person on the planet with that profile!  You want another?!”

Client: “Yeah, we just need something to compare her to.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll send over the recruiter who found her and we’ll tell her to talk like an engineer.”

How many times have you had a hiring manager do this to you?  It sucks!  It’s hard to get them to change their mind.  Usually, what happens is it takes you weeks to find another even remotely qualified candidate, as compared to you rock star, and by then your rock star gets pissed off, or cold feet and tells you to go fly a kite!  Opportunity lost!

Comparison Interviews are garbage.  The only way to stop them, is to combat the mindset before the words even come out of the hiring managers mouth.  Here are three things you can do today to stop hiring managers from wanting to do a comparison interview:

1.  Combat the conversation by setting up another interview with another candidate before they even ask, without asking for permission.  “Hey, Jill, we have that really great candidate you liked on paper coming in Wednesday at 1pm, I also set up another candidate for 3pm who was really the next best we could find. I’ll get the paper resume to you before she shows.”

2. Create a higher sense of urgency.  “Jill, you said she’s a rock star, let’s offer now before someone else has a chance to get her before we can.  I know someone of her quality has other options, we can’t look wishy washy on this, if we want talent like this!”

3. Define what ‘great talent’ is before the interview.  Then, when you see ‘great talent’ there is no need for a comparison.  “Jill we hire great talent, that talent by our definition is great talent.  If we find more great talent, we’ll hire that as well.  What do you want me to make the offer at?”

More hires are lost to comparison interview timing, than to counter offers.  We all think we are going to lose a great candidate to counter offers, but the reality is, they don’t happen often, and recruiters have gotten good about preparing candidates for those.  Recruiters aren’t prepared for comparison interviews and the process dragging on for weeks!  The market is quickly changing from where it has been over the past 10 years.  We went almost a decade where hiring managers could take their time and drag out our process. That behavior now costs you the best talent.

Kill the comparison interview mentality now, or it’s going to kill your talent pool!

 

Apparently, It Is All About The Money!

Posted on by
18

To have highly engaged employees who must do what?

Come on. Come on.  What have you been told for the last 10 or 20 years?

I’ll give you the synopsis:

1. Recognize solid performance

2. Provide challenging and meaningful work

3. Give frequent feedback

4. Give employees a voice in decision making

5. Flexibility

Apparently, that’s all bull shit!  From the folks who teach other companies how to become Great Places To Work, Quantum Workplace, released a study last week that show from your most engaged employee, to your least engaged employee, they really only care about one kind of recognition — MONEY!  Here’s the chart:

engagement pic

Fascinating research, check out their white paper, it’s one of the better ones I’ve read in the past five years!

Also, it looks like your personalized pleather portfolios aren’t the bang for the buck you hoped for either!   That’s alright, neither is the spin you’ve been fed the past 20 years about people getting super psyched for additional responsibility, or the annual holiday party or summer family picnic.  All the crap blows as well.  You know what doesn’t blow?  MONEY! Yeah!  So, I’m really, really the best employee, with great performance?  Great! SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Also, you leaders who think your team just wants some words of praise, motivation and encouragement?  No they don’t.  They want you to hand out $100 bills, and shut your stupid mouth!

So, why have you been told a great big lie the last 20 plus years?

Advising leadership that all they have to do is hand out more money doesn’t really sell well!  Also, most companies are horrible at pay for performance.  They are unwilling to truly pay for great performance, and kick bad performers in the teeth with nothing.  We want to reward greatness with 5% and show those bad performers how serious we are by giving them a 1% increase! Take that bad performers!

What do you think gang?  What’s is your most important form of recognition?  Are you sure?  Or, are you just telling yourself that lie?

 

 

Are you Persuading or Convincing candidates to take your jobs?

Posted on by
1

Convince – To cause someone to believe firmly in the truth of something.

Persuade – To cause someone to do something through reasoning or argument.

So, are you persuading or convincing candidates to take a position with your organization?

I think the majority of us try and convince candidates that our job, our organization is the best decision for them.  We have this belief, wrongly, that we don’t want candidates who don’t want us.  So, we shouldn’t ‘push’ them to take our job.  We’ll try and convince them we are a good choice, but ultimately the candidate needs to make that decision.  We do this because its the easiest on us, as Talent and HR Pros, not because it’s the best way.  It’s the most non-confrontational way to offer up our jobs.  We all like non-confrontational.

Persuasion involves a bit more.  The Talent and HR Pro who can persuade candidates to come with them, is much more valuable to their organization.  Persuasion might make you challenge a candidates beliefs, and get them to think about their career, their life, in a new way.  Ultimately, they still might make the choice not to go with you, but you want to make that decision very, very difficult on them.  They should agonize in saying ‘No’ to you.

Persuasion causes a Talent or HR Pros to become a sales person, a marketer.  To persuade means to get a person to ‘do’ something, not believe something.  I don’t want a candidate to believe my job is the best, but decide not to take it anyway.  I want her to take it! To do it!   Most people ‘believe’ that smoking is bad for them, as they put a cancer stick in their mouth and light it up.  Very few stop smoking.  Believing and doing are two very different things.

With candidates, persuasion can become an organizational dynamic, especially in hard to fill roles.  You have to have everyone on board the persuasion bandwagon!  From the hiring manager to executives to the admins who might speak to this candidate only to set up an interview time.  Everyone has to be ready, at all times, to close the candidate. A number of years ago I was offered a role, that I turned down, and the Chief People Officer of that organization called my on Christmas Eve Day to try and change my mind.  He made it very hard for me to turn down the role. He was very persuasive, to the point that I felt like I could be making a bad career decision to not take it.

We are coming into a time in our history where persuading, versus convincing, candidates to come work for you, will become a strategic advantage (it actually always has been an advantage, but this becomes more important as great talent is hard to find).  It should no longer be alright to allow candidates to just make the decision if they like you or not, and you just sit back and wait for that decision.  Your organization needs you to turn up the heat, in a positive way, to get candidates to take your jobs.  Persuasion appeals to emotions and fear and creativity.  People make emotional decisions when changing jobs, not rationale.  Are you feeding them documents and spreadsheets, or stories or glory?

Have I convinced you to change?

Should You Know Your Bosses Salary?

Posted on by
1

It’s an age-old question.  Should organizations make their salary information public in-house amongst the employees?  In a era of transparency, it’s really the one thing most people still disagree on.  The higher up the chain you go, unless your in a publicly traded company, than it’s public anyway, the less likely you’re willing to want this data to be public within your organization.  The lower you are in an organization, the more you want this information.

Why?

At its core this notion of wanting to know the salary information of those around you is all about trust.  It really speaks to the human condition, and it’s quite ironic!  The higher you go up in an organization, the less you trust those lower than you.  The lower you are, the more you trust those above you are making the right decisions.  You could argue this. Sure many people at low levels don’t ‘trust’ management.  Yet, they still show up to work each day, and grind it out for $14.23/hr.  Those at the top are making 6,7,8 figure incomes, and jump around from position to position.  Who is more trusting?

Whole Foods company shares salaries of all of their employees within their walls. You can find out the salary of anyone! From Business Insider:

Whole Foods co-CEO John Mackey introduced the policy in 1986, just six years after he co-founded the company. In the book, he explains that his initial goal was to help employees understand why some people were paid more than others. If workers understood what types of performance and achievement earned certain people more money, he figured, perhaps they would be more motivated and successful, too. 

“I’m challenged on salaries all the time,” Mackey explained. “‘How come you are paying this regional president this much, and I’m only making this much?’ I have to say, ‘because that person is more valuable. If you accomplish what this person has accomplished, I’ll pay you that, too.'”

Beyond making compensation data available to all employees, Whole Foods also has its managers post their store’s sales data each day and regional sales data each week. Once a month, Whole Foods sends each store a detailed report on profitability and sales at each of the chain’s locations. In fact, in the late 1990s the widespread availability of so much detailed financial data led the SEC to classify all of the company’s 6,500 employees as “insiders,” according to a 1996 story by Fast Company.

“Oh, Tim, but that only works at a great company like Whole Foods!”  I hear you saying!
Yeah, you’re probably right.  It takes a strong, positive culture to handle this type of information being out in the open.  It takes extremely good leadership to handle the challenges coming in from average and weak performers believing they should get what someone else is getting.  It takes a great Talent Acquisition team to hire the right people who have the maturity to work in an organization that has this much trust in their employees to handle such delicate information.   It takes co-workers trusting one another, that each one is adding value to the corporation, and respecting the value each brings.
So, should you be able to know your bosses salary?  Probably not.

7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves

Posted on by
3

It’s that time of the month!  No, not that time – a better more enjoyable time!  It’s the FOT monthly webinar!   This month FOT will be doing Recruiter Makeovers and giving Recruiters 7 ways they can reinvent themselves as Marketers!  As always it’s FREE and comes with HRCI credit for all those SHRMies.

We know – you’re feeling stale as a recruiter. We get it, that’s why we’re partnering with Jobvite for the May FOT webinar – The Recruiter Makeover – 7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves as Marketers. The world’s full of great products/services that became commodities, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of recruiters in danger of becoming commodities if they don’t change with the times. Odds are you feel the shift under your feet – great candidates are less responsive than ever to average recruiters, which means you have to become a more effective marketer of the brand and opportunities you represent to keep your closing rate high.

If you’re still reading, that means you haven’t been average in the past. Join us for this FOT webinar and we’ll give you the roadmap for a career makeover that includes the following goodies:

—The Ugly “Before” Picture – We’ve all seen the “before” pictures used in makeovers and this one is no different. Using your “average joe/jane” recruiter, we’re going to take a snapshot of the recruiter most in need of our makeover. Brace yourself, because “before” pictures in makeover workups all look like mug/prison shots of Lindsay Lohan, right?

—Trendspotting 101 – We can’t start prescribing the skill equivalent of makeup or liposuction for recruiters until we tell you about the trends that are causing the need for the makeover. Candidates have more options and messages flowing to them than ever before. Whether its the emergence of Indeed, Glassdoor, LinkedIn or the social recruiting scene, recruiting is morphing into marketing. We’ll compare and contrast some of the trends to tell you why recruiters are evolving into marketers even as they keep their core recruiting skills strong.

—7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves As Marketers – Makeover time. We’ll hit you with our list of things you can do to reinvent yourself as a marketer who just happens to recruit for a living. You can do this. Don’t believe the naysayers that will say this is hype. Those people are just trying to keep you average.

—Our Top 5 List of Recruiters Who Have Strong Marketing Game – It’s all empty talk until we give you examples, right? The FOT crew will break down our top 5 list of recruiters who have added the marketing toolkit to their games, complete with emphasis of which of our “7 Ways” list they specialize in. Everyone in the world needs role models – even recruiters. We’ll tell you who to connect with and emulate to become a marketer in the recruiting game.

Evolving your game as a recruiter isn’t easy – it takes thought, expertise and time you don’t have, because you’re busy filling positions. Join us for the May FOT Webinar and we’ll show you how to add marketing chops to your personal recruiting brand so you don’t get left behind.

CLICK HERE IF YOU’RE A SMART TALENT PRO!

Candidates with Hickeys

Posted on by
Reply

(I’m on vacation – I originally posted this in Feb. 2010 over at Fistful of Talent. Also going on 16,123 days of never having a Hickey!)

Kris Dunn, our the HR Capitalist, had a blog post “How To Destroy a Lifetime of Trust as an HR Pro in a Single Day…” where he explained how a direct report broke the cardinal rule in HR and shared confidential information, or more specifically tried to use confidential information for personal gain. It wasn’t something illegal, it had nothing to do with their individual functional performance as a Director of HR, but what this person did was destroy the trust they had with their leader (although I could argue that if a HR Pro can’t keep confidential information confidential – you probably do have a performance issue). Good post – go over and read it, if you haven’t.

The post got me thinking though about how a person recovers from this type of transgression. (Also take a look at this WSJ article “How a Black Mark Can Derail a Job Search“.  As a leader, Kris was pained for sure, because this person had “High-Potential” and was an “A” player.  But when certain things happen, professionally, you have to cut ties and move on.  So now, this Hi-Po has a huge Hickey.  Interestingly though, this Hickey can’t be seen when you look at their resume or interview them in person, but it’s a Hickey they can’t get rid of.  So, barring a life-turtleneck how does one cover this puppy up?

It’s interesting because I think that probably the best of us have a hickey or two that we would rather not have our current or future employer know about.  Sometimes they’re big-giant-in-the-back-of-a-Chevy-17-year-old-I-will-love-you-forever hickeys and sometimes they’re just oops-I-lingered-a-little-too-long type of hickeys. Either way, I would rather not expose my hickeys and have to worry about how this will impact the rest of my professional life. And here’s where most people drive themselves crazy.

As HR Pros I think it’s important for us to be able to help our organizations determine the relative value of individuals.  This person was a rock star at ABC company – did something wrong, couldn’t maintain that position any longer with ABC because of said incident, and lost their job – now we have a chance to pick up a Rock Star (and probably for a discount).  The question you have to ask is not could we live with this person if they did the same thing here?  Because that really isn’t the question – you already have that answer – No.  The question is: do we feel this person learned from said wrong doing and is there any risk of them doing it again?  You might come to the conclusion – yes, they’ve learned, and yes, there is potential they might do it again (let’s face it, if they did it once, they’ve shown they can do it, so there’s always a risk) – but it’s a risk we are willing to take.

So how does someone come back from a transgression at work? The answer is that they have some help.  Eventually, someone is going to ask the question, “why aren’t you with ABC Company anymore?”  They’ll give you the canned answer they’ve been developing since the moment they lost their job. If you’re a good interviewer, you won’t buy the first answer:  “I mean really?!  So, you decided it was better off not to have a job. Is what you’re telling me?!”,  and you will dig to see the hickey.  Hickeys are funny in that you really can’t take your eyes off of them, but for those who can get by the hickeys, you might just find a great talent who is grateful for the second chance.

But, you also might find someone who just likes being in the back of that Chevy and getting Hickeys. You’re the HR Pro, though, and that’s really why your company pays your salary, to mitigate risk versus the quality of talent your organization needs to succeed.  So, you have to ask yourself, can you live with a Hickey or not?

Attention Employees: Get Healthy, Or You’re Fired.

Posted on by
1

(I’m on vacation, I originally posted this on Fistful of Talent in August of 2009 -way before Obamacare, but still rings true!)

I love companies that have had enough and aren’t going to take it anymore (Network clip). I also love listening to the workers, of said company, complain about how their company is “being intrusive” because they are being “forced” to take care of themselves.  The Wall Street Journal has an article entitled When All Else Fails: Forcing Workers Into Healthy Habits that uncovers the latest employer, AmeriGas Propane Inc., which gave its employees an ultimatum: get their medical checkups or lose their health insurance.  Isn’t that wonderful!?  Here is an employer who loves its people so much, they want to make sure they are going to be healthy and actually survive to collect their paycheck. Talk about employee engagement.

So, what is wrong with this?  Well, let’s just hear from one skeptical AmeriGas employee:

“Dennis Price Sr., a 48-year-old propane-truck driver in the company’s Warrenton, Va., office, says he was “a little shocked” by the idea at first. “I thought it was an invasion of our privacy,” he says. Mr. Price had never gotten his cholesterol checked, and generally avoided doctors.”

Sounds like he’s taking his god-given-all-American right to be unhealthy – nothing wrong yet. What say the unions?

“Labor officials say they object to the idea of mandated health tests. “This is a personal health matter,” says Gerry Shea, assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO. “To bring it into the workplace and tie it to benefits is inappropriate. It’s like Big Brother.”

Sounds like more god-given, all-American wisdom – boy I can smell the apple pie cookin’! What about management?

“Despite these efforts, Mr. Katz (VP of HR) and benefits director Carol Guinan found themselves in April 2007 chewing over some unpalatable numbers. Besides annual health-expense increases of 10% or more, the company, which self-insures its health plan, had paid more than two dozen insurance claims in the previous year for amounts greater than $100,000. Its workers had high rates of diabetes and heart disease.

 

The program, dubbed Operation Save-A-Life, was unveiled in August 2007 and took effect the following January. Each worker received a DVD at home to explain the effort and discuss cost and health statistics. One fact: AmeriGas employees younger than 60 were dying of natural causes at nearly three times the expected rate for that age group based on actuarial data.

 

AmeriGas estimates that more than 90% of its workers have gotten the required exams. Use of cholesterol drugs rose 13.6% in 2008 from a year earlier. For diabetes drugs, the increase was 7.7%, and for asthma medications and blood-pressure medicines, it was 7.4% and 2.5%, respectively.”

Damn management – they always have more to say and have all those fancy numbers!

The article, also, points out two specific examples of the screens catching one employee’s breast cancer, self-admittedly, earlier then she ever would have caught it herself. Also, the screens caught another employee who had liver disease and was able to reverse the effects by early detection.

I know there is a gray area here where companies can go overboard, but in today’s competitive world for talent, you can’t tell me that most companies aren’t trying to do the right thing.  Is making your employees go get a health screen a bad thing?  Probably not. Is firing them because they have high cholesterol after the screen a bad thing? Depends on their performance…  Just kidding… the fact of the matter is we have a broken healthcare system and most employers have to do something to reduce costs. So they can either interview under the precursor “does this person look young and healthy”, or we can allow them some slack to help make their own workforce a bit more healthy.