58% of College Students Are Willing to Lie

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Tim Sackett

According to a recent study by NetImpact – What Workers Want in 2012 58% of College Students (1,726 total in the study) would take a 15% pay cut to work for an organization who’s values matched their own. In another study, I’m willing to coach the Los Angles Lakers for less than half what they are paying their current coach (1 total in this study)!

These studies are silly – it’s hypothetical, college kids still believe in things – like fairness and equal opportunity and you’ll always be able to drink 12 beers and get up the next morning and run 3 miles. Let’s wait for all 1,726 college students who took the study to get a job and then 5 years from now when they are employed we’ll go to them and force them to make a choice –

1. You keep your current salary and stay with your current job

2. You take a 15% pay cut and move to Employer A which happens to have the same values as you, under the current leadership team

I will bet my entire life savings that less than 58% of those people would choose to leave their current employers (no matter what job they have) and take a 15% pay cut! In fact I would be fairly confident to say only about 10% would take us up on our offer, and they were already looking or getting pushed out. So, what does the study really say? That college students being asked silly hypothetical questions for a study about how they will act in the future, are willing to lie.

Why do I think these studies are silly? Because solid, well meaning, HR Pros will go out and start recruiting folks to their organization who have the same values that “they” have. “They” being the key word. Who is “they”? Well, Tim, we went to our leadership and our managers and our employees and we did value assessment and we found that 73% of our folks valued honesty and integrity over 67% that valued hard work and a fun work place. Oh, you’ve got it figured out…

Here’s what I’m thinking – values are hard to hire – but you think they aren’t. I can hire for skills, I can hire for past performance, etc. When it comes to values and morals, I’m really throwing myself down the rabbit hole. Hiring for values and morals puts the selectors values and morals into play way too much. If Peggy is your main screener – you better damn hope Peggy shares the exact values and morals you’re trying to hire for – or you’re going to be in for a surprise down the road.

I’m not saying don’t do it – I’m saying you better weight it appropriately with some other criteria. I seem to be in the minority who still believes having the fire power to do the job, and some past performance to back it up, is still fairly important when selecting candidates. And if Humility doesn’t seem to be a part of their value chain, I think I might be able to work around that – if they can perform!

3 Reasons Good Recruiters are Good at Recruiting

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I was reminded this past week that recruiting is very hard. No, it’s not hard to post a job on your careers page and wait for a resume, that you won’t screen, and just pass along to the hiring manager -that’s not hard. Recruiting is hard – when it comes down to finding talent that really doesn’t want to be found and has no desire to go to work for your bad culture and crappy manager who turns over people constantly – that’s when recruiting is hard!

I think there are 3 main differences that separate good recruiting from bad recruiting. They are:

1. Good recruiters have the ability to change your mind about an opportunity, before money is even discussed. Bad recruiters lead with the money. Good recruiters believe in their organizations, believe in the position, and believe in the hiring manager as a great leader. Then they make you a believer!

2. Good recruiters know your rejections before you know them and address them as such. Relocation is probably the toughest one that comes to mind – next to relocation and a spouse who doesn’t want to relocate (that’s like Kryptonite to a Recruiter!). Getting someone to relocate for a new position, new company – when they are a great talent with a great organization – takes a recruiter with an exceptional ability to connect the dots for the candidates. This becomes the – this is why you need to be here, right now kind of moment that great recruiters come up with instead of just hanging up the phone and calling someone else.

3. Good recruiters know how to dig, and love to get dirty. Let’s face it, you mining the Monster database isn’t recruiting – I can easily find a $10/hr admin type who can do that and they’ll actually be more engaged doing it! Good recruiters love the search – yeah, it can be frustrating and heartbreaking, but when you uncover that hidden gem – it very much is worth the work!

The last four or five years have given us an environment where newer recruiters just coming into the industry, didn’t have to be good – they had to be present. Being present isn’t a qualification, necessarily, to becoming a good recruiter. High unemployment and low jobs, gives you an abundance to candidates and usually qualified candidates as well. This doesn’t make you a good recruiter – it makes you a good screener. In many industries we are now seeing the value of good recruiters come back, as certain job markets are opening up in a big way and candidates, even bad ones, are no longer advertising themselves as available.

Good recruiting is invaluable to a good HR shop – and bad recruiting is the quickest way for your HR shop to lose credibility with your leadership. So, what can you do? Don’t allow bad recruiting to live in your barn! Good Recruiting is hard, and it shouldn’t look easy and it doesn’t work 40 hours per week, 8 to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday. But, bad recruiting is betting on the fact that you don’t know the difference, or you are to lazy to do anything about it.

Can You Hear Facebook coming LinkedIn?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Tim Sackett

This is old news but – last week Facebook announced that Facebook Jobs is coming! You can almost hear the Jaws theme music playing in the background, can’t you!? CareerBuilder, Dice, LinkedIn, etc. – all the job boards – you can bet are taking note. 900 Million users – everyone from your Grandma to your Mom to your cousin Mary – from Brain Surgeons to Alligator Wrestlers – Facebook has got them.

My good friend Lance Haun wrote about his over at TLNT last week – What Is Facebook Thinking? Do We Really Need Another Job Board? From Lance’s post:

“The strength is obvious: imagine you’re applying for a job at XYZ company and you find out that a friend’s family member works there. Or what if some sort of robust search capability were added to the site? Or what if Facebook could recommend certain career options based on your activity beyond career-related postings?

The problem is that it would also come at the expense of privacy and the sort of digital wall that many people have put up to differentiate between their Facebook life and their LinkedIn life. Yet, the sheer numbers potential is attractive in it’s own right.”

This is the argument that LinkedIn has been hoping you will buy! And so far you have been! LinkedIn is for Professional, Facebook is for Personal. It’s a 2008 argument. Most people don’t want to live two lives – they would prefer to live one, but they feel they can’t be themselves professionally – they need to be this watered down version of themselves – at least when not at a conference – then anything goes. Let’s get real for a second – everyone is on Facebook – Your Mom, Your co-workers, Your boss, the owner of your company, your HR Manager, your ex-boyfriends, your current boyfriend – everyone. Your not hiding anything – even with your ‘privacy’ settings. It’s time to stop living the double life and be yourself.

Here’s what is really exciting about Facebook Jobs – We finally get access to everyone! Well, almost everyone – at least 7 times more than LinkedIn – and all those ‘Passive’ candidates! Even if Facebook only goes for the quick cash grab and does postings for a fee – it’s still better than just posting on a Job Board or LinkedIn. People like to look, lurk and see what’s open – it’s human nature. Facebook is the perfect place for this. Just like when LinkedIn started and HR Pros were actually encouraging their employees to get on, to ‘network’ (don’t we look stupid now!) – no one will consider a person on Facebook to necessarily be job hunting. It’s the perfect safe environment for this to happen. Plus, it easily allows people to engage their personal networks when they see something interesting that someone in their personal network would have interest in.

LinkedIn should be nervous – good talent is already leaving or ignoring them at this point – recruiters have taken it over – it’s become spammy. Facebook is an open frontier – the best recruiters are already finding ways within Facebook to network and source. Facebook Jobs – or whatever they decide to do – could be a big game changer for recruiters.

4 Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Jenny Foss (@JobJenny) had a good article over at Forbes recently, 4 Non-Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview, where she gave some tried and true job seeker advice out for post interview contact. If was what you would expect from a Forbes article: Ask about next steps, send a thank you note, connect via LinkedIn, etc. Safe stuff. Not knowing Jenny, I looked her up on her blog – JobJenny.com and after learning a little about her – I think she probably wanted to write the 4 Most Annoying Ways – but didn’t want to throw her Forbes gig out the window – so I’m here to try and do it for her. Let’s face it – Forbes isn’t asking me to write any time soon!

The one thing that all HR and Talent Pros can connect with is having to deal with stalker candidates who are relentless at contacting you after an interview. The ironic part of this, is they are most likely following someone’s bad advice – usually a parent (If you don’t call them, they won’t know you’re “really” interested), or a grandparent (Back in my day we would go back the next day and knock on their door again to tell them how interested in the job we were) telling them what they needed to do. Even worse – many times they are following the advice of a Pseudo HR Pro who is shoveling out free career advice like they actually know what they’re talking about – until you realize they haven’t actually worked in HR since the 1970’s. For those of us in the trenches – having to deal with overly aggressive candidates following up can be the biggest pain of our day.

So, here are 4 Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview (if you’re a candidate, stop doing this!):

1. Use Your Inside Connection in my company to get feedback. Nothing screams cheesy more than doing this! Hey, my uncle works in tech support, I’ll just have him contact Tim in HR to see how I did. When this happens to me – I go overboard to the connection on how bad they did, so much so we are actually rethinking your employment because of your relationship.

2. Send me a Thank you note to my Home. Yes, this has happened to me – and yes it was way creepy. The last thing I want to deal with when I walk into the door of my home is some crazy candidate from work. No, it does not show initiative – it shows your propensity to be a stalker.

3. Ask me to be Facebook friends. Look, I don’t even want to be work friends if we hire you, and I certainly don’t want you picking around my Facebook page. I would rather you tattoo a picture of my on your chest and put it on a billboard before befriending you on Facebook. Don’t do this!

4. Leave me a voicemail everyday for 2 weeks. Again, this doesn’t show initiative, it shows desperation – Like the veteran running-back who run into the end-zone and tosses the football to the umpire – act like you’ve been there. You can follow up once – a quick “thank you” and a “I’m definitely interested” is all that it takes.

I can’t even begin to tell you some of the crazy ways that candidates have tried to stay in touch and get noticed over the years – but most bordered on insanity and just helped me screen them out as a possible selection. The ones who seem not interested, are the ones I usually had to stalk myself! (Seem familiar ladies!?) I would tell you to just use common sense – but that seems to be thrown out the window on most folks – so I’ll say less is more and be respectful of the hiring managers time.

Dating Your Job

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’m at SHRM12 all week and the pleasure of sitting through Malcolm Gladwell‘s keynote this morning! He is by far my favorite author and he was really the only must see for me here at SHRM12 – yes, I have a complete man-crush! I didn’t stand in line to get his autograph at the SHRM book store, but only because I hate lines! Gladwell spent most of his time analyzing why generations are different, he’s a great story teller, and gave great examples of why my generation – GenX – is completely different than the millenials – which we all know – but he really went deeper into the subject.

One example that he gave stuck with me, when he used the concept of dating to explain one of the main differences between these two generations. As a GenXer you just didn’t go on many dates – you were lucky to go on a few per year – because once you met someone and you liked each other – it immediately became exclusive – it’s what we did. Millenials network and date much differently and are willing to go on many more dates and continue dating, finding more than one person they might connect with. Because of how millenials network, they open themselves up to many opportunities to date. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal – based on how my dating life went! I met my wife the first week of college – we will celebrate 20 years of marriage in July! (so, basically, I had 1 date in college – luckily it was a VERY good date!)

Here’s where I think we run into problems with this type of mentality -with how millenials network – their job! I get a feeling way too many are just dating their jobs as well. Many hiring managers are in the GenX age group – which causes them to want employees who view their job like they view their job – it’s a marriage – not a date! Gladwell pointed this out as a difference that was neither good or bad – just a difference that we as organizations will have to work through.

As an HR Pro I think the big hurdle we have to help our organizations overcome is this concept of being married to your job. It’s easier said then done. Try telling a hiring manager that it’s alright for a candidate to have 4 jobs in 4 years – they don’t buy it – heck, I’m not sure I fully buy it – it’s a tough paradigm shift to make. I do think we have the ability, though, to influence this paradigm with our hiring managers – and to get the best talent we must be willing to look through our own filters to help our organizations. Having multiple positions can be a huge benefit – it’s not always a sign of a “job jumper” – especially over the past few years. We have to provide better tools for our hiring managers to get them to feel comfortable with the skill sets and talent the candidate brings, and less uncomfortable with job longevity of candidates.

Stay tuned for more SHRM12 learning’s.

Candidate Screener #1 – Baby Car Seats

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Tim Sackett

There are some things I hesitate to write about – and this is one of them. Sometimes, in HR, we allow are hiring managers to do somethings that should get us sent straight to hell. First class ticket – and we deserve it. I have to be careful on how I phrase this one – let’s just say there is this major U.S. company that made Billions of dollars last year, and for a number of years before that. Their product is something almost all of us have used in our lifetime. And let’s just say, that maybe, once in a while (or every time) they interview someone – male or female – they “kindly” escort this person out to their safe, security-gated, parking lot, to their interviewees car. A naive HR Pro would say, “Aren’t our hiring managers nice to do that.” A savvy HR Pro would say, “Why the hell are you doing that?!”

You clicked the link with the title – so you already know why they escort candidates to their car – they want to see if the candidate has kids. Ouch. The feeling is, they don’t want to hire folks with kids, because folks with kids need more time off, and miss work more, and, well, just aren’t as engaged as non-anchor dragging childless employees. Ouch, again. There is an HR person, or two, that will be burning in hell for allowing this to continue.

And let’s continue to say, “hypothetically” that I know a person who has witnessed this type of thing happen – hypothetically. What would you tell the candidate, hypothetically? First, I’d tell them the truth! Look you are about to be judged, in a negative way, on your desire and ability to procreate. That being said, we have a couple of options: 1. You can bail on the opportunity. (Great financial opportunity – you can imagine the culture!); 2. You can clean your car out of all incriminating evidence that you have children, like children, were once a child. Hypothetically – most people are choosing #2. That surprises me a little – but it’s dependent upon the job market, personal situations, etc. A ton of factors go into people making that type of decision – I’m not judging – I’m empathetic to the cause!

Crazy right? It’s 20 and f’ing 12! We (hypothetically) have hiring managers looking for baby seats in the back of a sedan as a legitimate screening criteria for a job. God help us.

If hypothetically the above story is true and I somehow get in a terrible accident because somehow my brake lines were cut, accidentally, just know I died with a car seat in the back of minivan – I’m not hiding it for anyone! Fight the Power!

Calibrating Your Talent for Succession

Posted on June 14, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’ve been a part of one organization that thought it was pretty important to do Talent/Succession Reviews (sure every organization will tell you it’s important, but very few actually do anything about it really!) on a normal basis (that basis being twice per year -whether we wanted to do it or not!). That organization was Applebee’s – before IHOP bought them and gutted it like a homeowner prior to foreclosure – and we called them Calibration Meetings. We were a growing organization, so having an updated succession plan was critical for success. We thought we had a decent process, the meetings took way too long – usually all day, sometimes a day and half, and at the end we had a clear picture of where are top players were in their development, who needed our help, and who we needed to go out and shoot. Perfect.

Here’s what the Calibration Meetings taught me out Talent/Succession reviews:

1. Once you talk about an individual employee for 10 minutes – even the best employee turns into a pile of crap with a million flaws. Put a time limit on how long you spend on a person, focus on the positives they bring to the team (believe me that’s really hard to do).

2. You will find every reason a person shouldn’t be working for you – and you will still struggle to kick them off your bus.

3. If a person is ready for the next level, and you don’t make it happen – they will leave.

4. People appreciate being told where they stand in your succession plan, more than they appreciate the feedback from a performance review. (it’s really the best indicator of their true worth)

5. You must tell everyone where they stand in succession, even the bad ones, for it to really work.

Want some help getting your Talent/Succession Reviews started? – check this out:

Halogen is bringing in the team at Fistful of Talent for a quick, street smart webinar on how to bootstrap a talent review and get started with Succession Planning. Attend “Zombies, Grinders and Superstars: The FOT Talent/Succession Review”.

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A Job Post with Your Name On It!

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I was in a conversation the other day with another Talent Pro and she was asking me for some advice on getting better applicants to apply for her postings. I asked a number of questions but one that really got the conversation moving was:

Do you know who you want to apply for this position?

She told me “Yes” and then went on to give the specifications of the job description. I said “No”, do you know the Name of the person you want to apply to this position? She laughed – she thought I was joking – I wasn’t. Well, I half-wasn’t. It was a quirky idea, but in the right environment and small to medium community you could really make a splash by actually naming your post after the person who you really want to take the job. Can you imagine!

Wanted “Michael Smith – Chemical Engineer” – please apply today!

The obvious issue at play here is – well – if I knew the name of the person I wanted, why wouldn’t I just call them up and ask if they wanted the job!? GREAT question – why don’t you? It’s actually fairly easy to find names of competitor employees you might want to hire. So, why don’t you call them up and ask them if they want the job you have? You know why? Because it’s F’ing hard to do! That’s why the search industry is a multi-Billion (with a “B”) business.

So, instead of calling them – just make a job posting with their name on it – and go float it around town – through your social channels, on your website, maybe a job board posting, etc. Believe me – it will get back to the person you are looking, and if they are interested – they will come calling. Seems silly, but I bet it would work far more than it wouldn’t. People like to feel wanted. How much more wanted can you get than a company creating a job posting with your “actual” name on it! THIS job is for me! You would say to yourself.

In a tough talent marketplace, sometimes it’s the easy, simple things that make the difference. Sometimes people just want to know they’re wanted. We make this search game so difficult sometimes. I always tell people I have the easiest job in the world. I just have to ask people if they are interested in a job, I have open. Pretty easy! I’m not trying to launch the space shuttle or fix someones heart – I just need to see if they would have interest in making a job change. The rest is just market variables, all of which, are probably pretty similar to the next guy. Many times, it comes down to only one thing – me showing interest in them, and their current company not showing the same level of interest in keeping them.

I say give it shot – what’s the worse that can happen – you get your community talking about your company and how aggressively you’re going after people? That’s not all bad – either way!

Interview Gal

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I love listening to Jim Rome, Sports Radio and TV Sports Talk show host, and one of his classic bits is to go off and some of the crazy types of personalities we see in our every day lives – Slow Pitch Softball Guy, Travel Baseball Dad Coach Guy, Crazy Soccer Mom, etc. We see these people go from normal everyday accountant to something we can’t even recognize anymore! Wait is that Steve from the office?! No, it’s Slow Pitch Softball Guy – acting like a fool and playing like it’s game 7 of the world series when it’s really just a lazy Wednesday night with a bunch of guys trying to get away from the family for a couple of hours and have a beer and play a game!

I see this in our HR lives as well! My favorite is “Interview Gal“! You know her! She’s the lady who comes in to interview for your position – and you realize right away she probably escaped that morning from the mental hospital!

Here’s what Interview Gal likes to say during her interview:

“Why did I leave my last job? I didn’t feel it was right for my soul.”

“Haa haa haa, snort, haa, snort, ha ha!”

“Um, do you have anything else besides water or coffee? I really like tea!”

“Why do I want to work here!? Duh! The money! No, really just kidding – ha ha, snort – I need a position to help me pay my bills.”

“My strengths? I’m strong at a lot, and I’m not really late very much, I mean traffic is crazy around here, but I always try and leave early to get to work on time.”

“Is it hot in here? I’m roasting – must be those hormones!”

“So, I don’t want to bring this up, but if you hire me – I need to leave early every other Tuesday for my group. And one Monday per month I will take off all together – but that should be it. Do you let everyone out early on Fridays?”

I would have an “Interview Guy” but those comments would consist of “Yes” and “No” and “You know” and not much else!

I love HR for the simple fact, almost daily, candidates give me great joy and stories to share with my friends and family. I have a theory that people aren’t necessarily crazy, but the actual exercise of performing an interview makes them crazy! Kind of like when you bring out your video camera and your kids immediately lose their minds trying to crazy stuff in front of the camera. The same things happens to candidates and we (HR) are the cameras!

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: Hiring

Calibrating Your Talent for Succession

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“LinkedIn? Is that the Facebook for Recruiters?”