Category Archives: Employment Brand

Everyone Wants a Talent Brand That Candidates Love, But…

Posted on by
3

Everyone wants a talent brand that candidates will love, but almost no Talent Acquisition function is actually willing to love those same candidates back!

You get this, right!?

Do you know why you love certain brands? It’s usually a combination of an experience you had with that brand. You loved their product or service, how they/it made you feel, how you were treated, etc. The brand made you feel like you were apart of it. That it ‘loved’ you, just even a little.

We all want to have these amazing talent brands (employment brands), but part of having that amazing brand is you have to actually truly like the candidates who are reaching out to you. This is the single biggest struggle most organizations have with establishing a real Talent Brand. We want candidates to love us, but we don’t want to love them in return!

In fact, we don’t even really want to be friends with them! Or at least that’s how we act! Most TA shops treat candidates like they’re the enemy. Very similar to how celebrities treat the media. Love us! But, we’re going to act as you annoy us! Um, what!? This is about 90% of TA shops, and they’re completely flabbergasted when the data says candidates think they’re crap!

So, you want a Talent Brand candidates will love? Try doing some of this:

1. Change your internal TA culture to start believing candidates are our friend, not the enemy! Without these wonderful candidates, we don’t have jobs! We need you!

2. Do not allow your recruiters to talk negatively about candidates. This is really hard. It’s the teacher’s lounge mentality. Well, we’re behind locked doors they don’t know what we say. It’s not about what you say, it’s about the mentality of us vs. them you’re allowing in your shop!

3. Treat your candidates like you treat your hiring managers. Unless you also treat your hiring managers like crap, then don’t do that.

4. Invite random candidates in to talk to your team about their experience, especially those who didn’t get hired. This will really open eyes.

5. Don’t allow your team to use the excuse “we don’t have time”. Nothing is more important than communicating with candidates. Nothing. It’s really your only job. Stop doing everything else, except this. Then you’ll have time.

The reality is, it’s much easier to love a brand when you believe they love you back.

What’s Your HR Vision? #Insight18

Posted on by
Reply

Spoke at Saba’s Insight conference this week on How You to Get Your HR Metrics to Connect with Your Executives, and a really great question came up from the audience, and it was foundational.

This HR Pro was like, “Hey, Tim, great information, but how do we even get from doing traditional reporting of metrics to leveling up and providing business intelligence?” Great question, my talk was on how to get them to listen to modern metrics, not about why you should even be using them and how to get your organization to even want to go down this path.

So, on the fly, my answer was this:

The first step to great HR, and delivering great HR business intelligence, is you first have to have a great HR vision. What’s yours? I hope part of that vision is delivering the information the organization needs to be successful. 

Oh wait, you don’t have an HR Vision? Okay, I get it, it’s not surprising, most don’t. You’ll have an organizational vision, but for me, great leadership is when you take the organizational vision and you bring it home to your own department and function in a very real way.

The organization’s vision is we are going to make the world a better place by delivering blah, blah, blah. Okay, nice! How will HR do that? That’s different from what the organization had to do, it’s very specific.

Great HR leadership, great HR execution, starts with a crystal clear understanding of what your HR Team stands for and how what you will do, relates back to helping the organization achieve its mission.  It doesn’t mean you need to spend two months creating a vision. Ugh, be better than that. It will mean sitting down as a leader and deciding who you are, and it will mean sitting down with your team and deciding who they want to be.

You might find that some folks on the team don’t want to be what you want to be, and this could be a roadblock to you as an HR leader and your function to finding success as you define it.

It’s a really cool exercise to go through with your team, and go back each year and analyze your HR measures and determine if that vision is being reached, needs to be tweaked, etc. But, we all need that true north in terms of knowing where we are going and how we will get there.

Being an HR leader is tough, you have to walk the walk within the organization, drink the kool-aid, but you also have to do it internally within your own department, it doesn’t just magically happen. Oh, we’re all in HR, we get it. No, we don’t, we’re just like every other function. We need to know where we are going.

So, ask your team today, what’s our HR vision? Then sit back and see what comes back, you might be surprised!

“Overqualified” is Just another word for Age Discrimination

Posted on by
12

Had a really talented lady reach out to me the other day. 49 years old, college grad, great portfolio of work. She has been interviewing and is being told she is “Overqualified”.

There is some truth about her being called this. She does have more qualifications than the position requires, but she fully understands what the job is and she wants to do that job, with no notion of wanting to do more than that job, unless her performance shows she’s capable of moving up and the company needs her to move up.

“Overqualified” is just another way to say “Hey, I think you’re too old to work for me!”

Tell me I’m wrong! Give me all the reasons someone is “Overqualified” for a job they want to work at and understand what the job specs are?

I’m a Heart Surgeon but it’s a stressful job, so I decided to take a step back and just do some Cardiac Rehab work. Still get to work with heart patients, but it’s a less stressful workload and pays a heck of lot less, you need less education to do that job.

Am I overqualified to do Cardiac Rehab if I have experience as a heart surgeon? Only if you tell me I am! It’s a job I want, and I have the skills and desire to do that job, so I would say I’m quite qualified to do that job, not overqualified.

TA pros and hiring managers say someone is overqualified when they’re too stupid to come up with another reason about why they don’t want to hire someone who has great experience and more years of experience.

“Oh, Tammy, yeah, she’s overqualified to work in that job. I mean she wouldn’t be happy long-term reporting to me, and I mean she has more experience than I have!” Oh, she told you that? “Um, no.”

I constantly run into retired people who aren’t ready to retire and want to keep doing valuable work. They have great skills and knowledge, but 32-year-old Steve won’t hire them because Steve believes they won’t take his direction. That’s a Steve-issue, not the candidate’s issue!

By the way, this isn’t a young-to-middle-aged guy problem, women are just as bad! Turns out we all love to discriminate against old people, equally!

Tech companies are the worse. Creative companies are the second worse.

Tech companies believe only young people know technology. Creative companies think the only people who buy products and services are 26-year-olds on Instagram and Snap.

“Tim, you just don’t get it. I don’t want to hire someone who is going to retire in 5 years!” What’s your average tenure at your company? “4.2 years” Yeah, having someone for 5 years would really suck for you!

I had a hiring manager tell me this once when he interviewed a person who was 52! “I need someone who is going to stay long term!” Um, 13-15 years isn’t long term?! You’re an idiot!

I find telling hiring managers “You’re an idiot!” is super effective in getting through to them, and cutting straight through to their bias. It has worked 100% of the time in my career. It really works across all biases.

So, now tell me, why don’t you hire someone who is ‘overqualified”?

The One Bias We All Agree On!

Posted on by
8

At this point, we’ve been educated enough to know we all have biases. The reason for our biases is different for each of us. We’ve gotten to a point in our society where we judge each other’s biases on a scale of “this is a bias, but its not really a bad bias” to “you’re an awful person because of your bias!”

If you won’t hire someone based on the color of their skin,  then well you’re an awful human being with a really awful bias.

If you won’t hire someone based on the fact they went to the University of Michigan, well, then, you’re just smart! 😉 But still a pretty stupid bias!

This continuum of biases game we play is somewhat comical.

Some new research has come out, though, on a bias we can all finally agree on! No matter what skin color you are, black, white, some combination in between, we agree on this. No matter what religion, what socio-economic background you come from, your religion, your political beliefs, whether or not you actually believe Star Wars or Star Trek is better, we all agree that Fat People are bad.

Um, what!?!

Yeah, Americans can’t stand obese people!

We don’t want to hire them, and when we do, we pay them less and give them the worse jobs.

All of which is fairly comical as well, since most Americans are overweight! 74.1% of Americans are overweight! You see the continuum thing again, right?!

“Oh, God, that dude is giant! Yuck! You know he won’t work! I’m just so happy I’m not ‘that’ fat!” Come down, Sparky! It’s not like you’re winning any Crossfit challenges, either!

It’s gotten so bad in America we hate fat people more than smokers! Secondhand smoke actually kills people. Mikey eating his eighth donut of the day is only killing himself!

Okay, I know you think all of this sounds insensitive. I’m not a skinny dude. I’m built like a fire hydrant, and that’s never good. It is, so I can prove a point. A bias is a bias. There shouldn’t be this continuum of what biases are ‘okay’ and what biases are ‘bad’.  The point being if you find yourself or your hiring managers rating biases, you’ve got a problem.

We hate on obese people because we believe it’s a personal choice, not a disease or a condition, something they control. “Yeah, Mikey is just lazy and has no self-control!” The reality is, like drug addicts, food is no different for many, many people. You like cocaine, Mikey likes donuts, you’re both filling a hole.

There are some companies in super-low unemployment markets right now who are actually hiring candidates who test positive for opioids and then paying to put them through treatment and guaranteeing them a job upon completion. Do you think you would do something similar for a candidate that is obese? Hey, Mikey, we’ve got a program, we want to see you healthy before you start work, go through it and we’ll guarantee you a job.

What do you think?

Career Confessions from Gen Z: The 4 Essentials Every Office Should Have!

Posted on by
2

Ever since I was little, I’ve been pretty particular about the spaces that I live in. For my 12th birthday, my parents took me to Ikea and Target and let me “re-do my room” with a New York theme. I can also vividly remember the time when my Mom and I went to tour a college in Upstate New York and we almost left the hotel because we were worried about bed bugs. This particularness caused a lot of stress before going off to college about having to share a room with another teenage boy (a personal nightmare for me).

As I am entering the workforce, I know that this will carry over into the office that I work in. On average, a person will spend about ⅓ of their life at work. That’s longer than most of us will spend at any house we will ever live in! Since I’ve started interning, I’ve noticed some things that have made a big impact on my happiness and productivity at work:

1. Drink Machines: I am drinking water CONSTANTLY and I know that almost everyone sitting around me has a water bottle or cup at their desk. Having a water machine, like a Brita filter attachment or a Bevi machine, is more important to me than having elaborate coffee makers or nice vending machines. (editor’s note – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – I’m a life-long advocate for a Diet Mt. Dew soda fountain in the office!) 

2. No Cubicles: I didn’t anticipate this making such a difference, but I now do not want to work in a cubicle. At Quicken Loans (where I’m interning!), we have little half walls that make rows and columns, but they are short enough to see and talk to the people around you. This creates a much more open environment so I can ask questions without getting up or I can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations!

3. Bathrooms: Read my last post for more of my feelings about bathrooms at work but basically, just make them nice.

4. Updated Decor: I get that office decor is difficult. You’re never going to please everyone’s tastes, it’s expensive etc. BUT you could at least put in a little bit of effort to put some decor on your walls that is from this century. A good rule of thumb: if your decor is older than some of your employees, you probably should get rid of it! There’s nothing sadder to me than being surrounded by gray all the time. Liven it up a little!

Now, I could go on for a while about what else I look for in an office, but these are just the basics. Just put a little effort to meet your employee’s requests, and you’ll probably be on the right track!

Another Editor’s Note (because apparently, I don’t have my own platform to say anything I want): I’ve been telling HR leaders this for a couple of years now. With Gen Z – Design matters! It matters in your employment brand, it matters in your personal workspaces, it matters for younger generations. Perception of working in a great place is influenced by design. Don’t discount it! 

 

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: Kashable – Low Cost Loans for Employees (@GetKashable)

Posted on by
5

Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at the HR Tech, voluntary employee benefit and financing solution for your employees called Kashable. Kashable is basically a simple way for your employees to borrow money, where you as a company are not involved, but can still ensure they get the assistance they need!

Here’s the scenario – Timmy walks into your office. He’s got a problem. His car broke down over the weekend. He needs new brakes. He has no savings and no way to get the money. Without his car, Timmy stops coming to work.

You’ve had this conversation before, haven’t you? In fact, you probably will have it this week!

Here’s the problem. Your company and you in HR don’t want to become a bank. Loaning out money to employees, through your company, always becomes a nightmare. This is why I was so intrigued with a technology like Kashable.

Kashable gives your employees access to low-cost loans based on a percentage of their take-home pay. You as the employer, only facilitate the repayment through payroll deduction, but ultimately you are not responsible for repayment.

Having this option for employees is important! 

Here’s what way too many of our employees do in a cash crisis situation. They choose bad money options! 401K loans, high-interest credit cards, cash advance shops, or they go without something that is critical, like health insurance or a medication, etc. All of which puts them in a worse situation long term than where they started. The problem is, most of our employers have a bad or low credit and don’t have access to cheaper capital alternatives.

What I like about Kashable: 

– Gets the employer out of the loan business and puts it back where it belongs, in the hands of a financial institution that I have validated will do right by employees.

– Kashable reports directly to the credit bureaus, allowing your employees to build positive credit on these smaller amount loans that are paid back through payroll deduction.

– Kashable doesn’t allow employees to take a loan that can’t afford, so they are also teaching them responsible financing. The average amount of a weekly repayment is 5-10% of their takehome, so they don’t put themselves in a worse situation. They also only allow an employee to have one loan at a time.

– Many of your employees have a bad credit and could never get a low-cost loan, but with Kashable because they are employed by you, they will have access to this financing mechanism.

– Gives a credit option to your employees have no credit as well (high school grads, college grads, H1B workers, etc.).

Kashable has data to show that 35-40% of employees who use the service use it to pay down higher interest debt they have. So, already you’re helping to teach them to get away from the nightmare too many of our employee get caught in with high-interest credit.

I’m in love with any kind of technology that helps my employees and helps me and my organization. I’ve been in the bad situation of having to loan my employees money and how that usually ends up bad. I’ve begged my banking partners to give me an option like this, but they never would because they had to follow traditional banking rules. Kashable takes on the loan risk, and they do it because they know your employees are an actual fairly low risk.

Go check them out and do a demo – www.kashable.com

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.

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

Posted on by
2

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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

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

Posted on by
3

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.

How Long Should It Take a Candidate to Make a Decision on a Job Offer?

Posted on by
8

When you make a candidate an offer, how long do you give them to tell you they want the job or not? 24 hours? 3 days? 1 week? Immediately?

For two decades I’ve been in the camp of a candidate should be able to tell you ‘yes’ or ‘no’ immediately, or you (the recruiter and hiring manager) did something wrong in closing! But, I think I’ve changed my stance on this, if “fit” is really important for the position, your culture, etc.

Here’s the deal, if job and/or company fit is really important to your organization. The candidate should take as long as they need to, to make sure that your organization is the one for them. That might mean they need to finish up other interviews, do more research, go through counter-offers, etc.

So, if that takes two or three weeks, so be it. The fit is critical for you and you actually want the candidate to take their time with this decision.

I feel so strongly about this, I think you should actually make candidates wait 72 hours after you offer them the job, to give you an answer! Yes! You won’t accept an acceptance from them until they’ve taken 72 hours to really think about the job, the new boss, the organization, everything!

Why wait 72 hours if they already know!? 

A ‘cooling down’ period will give them some time to get through the infatuation period of getting the offer! It will give them some time to really think about your job, their current job, other jobs they might be considering. This time is important because too often, too many people get that offer and at that moment everything feels so awesome!

After a couple of days they come down from the high of being desired by you and start to think clearly, and all of sudden you’re not as pretty as you looked two days ago, or you’re even more pretty by playing hard to get.

But what if a candidate gets cold feet by this technique? 

That’s a real concern especially with historic unemployment in many markets and fields. If you force a candidate to wait 72 hours there is a good chance someone else might come in an offer them a job!

Yep! That actually would be awesome if that happened, because then you would really know! Do they love you, or did they just fall in love with someone else!? Remember, this isn’t for every organization. This is only for organizations where fit is critical to your organizational culture.

If a candidate gets cold feet by another offer or by waiting 3 days, they don’t really believe your organization is the one for them. They don’t believe what you have is their dream job or organization. Also, if you get cold feet by having them wait, you don’t really believe fit is important!

So, how long should it take a candidate to decide if your job offer is right for them? 

There is not one right answer. Each of us has our own internal clock to make those decisions. If you force a candidate to decide immediately upon offer, that speaks to your culture. If you let candidates decide on their timeline, that also speaks to your culture.

In a perfect world, I still believe if the process works as designed, and everyone pre-closed like they should, both you and a candidate should be able to make a decision when the offer is placed on the table. But, honestly, how often does our process work perfectly?

Hit me in the comments with what you believe is the proper amount of time you should give a candidate to decide whether or not they’ll accept your job offer?