Category Archives: influence

Airlines and Credit Card Applications

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I’ve been flying a ton lately and have had to experience quite a few airlines. I usually only fly Delta when given a chance. Honestly, I’ve flown all the others, and I find them to be superior in the things that matter to me. Delta gets me to where I’m going when they say they do. The Delta flights I’m on also seem safe and clean. The Delta employees I’ve run into actually come across as professional and friendly.

At the end of the day, most air travel has basically become akin to taking a ride on a Greyhound bus. I say this knowing most people have never ridden on a Greyhound bus. A real trip from one city to the next where you had to go to the bus station to catch the bus. It’s not glamorous. It’s slow and tedious. I once took a Greyhound bus trip from Grand Rapids, MI, to Omaha, NE, to see the girl I love. I believe that specific bus is still en route to Omaha. I started that trip over thirty years ago!

The one thing you notice when you fly a lot, which seems rather out of place, is the pitch to buy the airline credit card. What I’ve witnessed recently is the pressure on getting an airline credit card is directly correlated to the level of the airline you are own. Let me give you some examples:

  • Delta: They make a brief announcement over the intercom of some great offer of free flier miles if you go to some website and get the credit card. That’s it. One mention takes less than a minute. (For transparency’s sake: I have a Delta Skymiles credit card, but they got me via email, not flight announcement).
  • American Airlines and United: They also make the credit card announcement, but they also have their flight attendants walk up and down with actual applications for the credit card. Like, here you go, fill this out right now. It’s almost as if the flight attendants themselves are getting some sort of kickback. Or they should be!
  • Southwest: Much longer pitch, as is the Southwest way. They give way too much freedom to flight attendants and the intercom! I have to believe that standup comics actually get jobs at Southwest as flight attendants simply because it offers them a captured audience for their sh*tty jokes. You know, it’s some flight attendant up there telling a story about how their grandma got the card and came to see them for the holidays. I can’t remember if they also have the brochures/credit card applications that they hand out, but I’m guessing they do. There’s no way they don’t.
  • Spirit/Frontier: Okay, let’s be honest. I don’t fly these airlines. I would take the Greyhound bus before subjecting myself to this Carnival of the airways. But I can imagine what these pitches must be like, given all of the other cheap policies they have in place. Something like, “Yo! If we don’t get ten of you to sign up for this card, this plane isn’t leaving the gate!” They get their ten and then go, “Okay, only five more before we can take off from the tarmac!”
  • Korean Air: Nope. None of it. They just took care of me and made my flight the most pleasant experience ever.

Why do airlines shove their credit cards down our throats after we pay an exceptionally high amount for a ticket? Because it makes them a ton of money! It’s pretty simple economics. We have a captured audience. We are going to assume at least part of the audience are fans because they chose to fly with us. Of course, they want our credit card!

It’s actually somewhat surprising they aren’t pitching more things for us to buy. A new Away suitcase with a special Delta Airlines luggage tag that acts as a tracker as well! (I love my Away bag!) Some arrival limo service that’s easier than Uber and picks you up directly at your gate. Girl Scout cookies. I mean, who wouldn’t kill an entire box of Thin Mints on a flight from Detroit to Dallas? How much for the Girl Scout cookies? $20! Sold! Airport money is different than any other kind of money.

It’s all lazy marketing. We have a captured audience who paid for one thing. Why don’t we jam something else down their throats and see if we can make the flight experience even more miserable? The best is when your flight is delayed, and you hear the pitch. “Hey, why don’t you sell fewer credit cards and just get me to my destination on time!?”

I feel for the flight attendants forced to do this as part of their job. I hope they are getting kickbacks for each one they land. They should!

So, that’s my rant. Airline credit card applications in the air. Stop it. Be better.

Also, if you click here and use the code #SackettMiles you can get 90,000 Delta Skymiles!

I identify as Age-fluid!

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I would love to take credit for coming up with “Age-fluid,” but I’m stealing it from Chip Conley, who I saw speak at Transform a few weeks back. Chip was talking about age diversity and how only 14% of the F500 actually measure age diversity and how this is becoming a major issue in corporate America.

Now, if you would talk to my wife, she would tell you I’ve identified as “age-fluid” most of my life. I’m 53, but my humor is mostly that of a 12-year-old boy! Also, I refuse to believe that I still can’t do most of the stuff I could 20 years ago. While my body feels like it’s 80 some days, I still think I hang on the court with folks half my age.

For hundreds of years, we’ve known of this phenomenon where you have a mental age and a physical age. I’ve already said my “mental” age is way lower than my physical age, but it’s important to truly understand the impact this has on the diversity of our organizations. Because we also see the opposite. I’ve met many young people who were wise beyond their years and seemed to have an “old soul.”

Most organizations and hiring managers are biased toward those of a higher age. I don’t think that is shocking to anyone. Old people are still the ones we can be biased against, and no one thinks it’s wrong. We make jokes in meetings about someone’s advanced age all the time, and no one thinks anything of it. But in reality, this is no difference from someone making an old person’s joke than if they were making a similar joke against someone’s gender or ethnicity.

I actually love the concept of being Age-fluid.

If someone in our society can be gender-fluid and decide from day to day which gender they believe they are, then I can decide what age I believe I am. I mean there are advantages to every age. Being young is cool, but it also sucks because you don’t know what you don’t know. Being old can suck physically, but usually you’re also more confident in where you’re at in life. You know who you are and you’ve come to grips with it. Being a child is magical, but you don’t understand that.

Today I feel like I’m 36.

Why 36?

Hmmm…well, at 36, you can still feel great physically, but you also have enough time on this rock to have a bit of learning. I won’t call it wisdom, but you’ve made enough mistakes to mostly know how not to make them again. Doesn’t mean you won’t, but you know the path you’re going down and how it will most likely end.

At 36, you aren’t looking at the end yet. You also aren’t looking back at the “good old days.” You feel like you still have more life ahead of you, than behind you, and you’re still young enough to truly feel like you haven’t written the script for your life yet. You still have promise, and you’ve made a bunch of progress on where you want to go.

Yeah, today, I’m 36. I’m also about 12 for a few seconds at at time, depending on what memes my other 12-year-old friends are sending me!

What age do you want to identify as today and why? Hit me in the comments.

How do you “practice” HR?

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We are constantly told that if we want to be good at anything in life, we must practice. It starts when we are kids, and we want to be our heroes. If you want to be good at sports, or dance, or computer games, you must practice. Not just “play” but specific steps that lead to success in the endeavor we’ve chosen.

Tyler Cowen released his book “Talent” in 2022 and I really like this quote from it:

“What is it you do to practice that is analogous to how a pianist practice scales?”

What do you do each day to practice your profession?

What I find when I ask HR and TA professionals this question, and we really dig in, is there “practice” is showing up and doing the job. That is akin to an NBA player just showing up and playing games but never putting in time and effort outside of the game to increase or maintain their basketball skill level. They wouldn’t be successful for long.

Just showing up and doing the job isn’t practice. That’s the job.

Are we talking about practice…

YES!

Let me tell you how I practice my skill in HR and TA:

  • I write on this blog that has nothing to do with my paying job.
  • I design and present content for roughly 20+ webinars every year.
  • I design and present content to present live on stage for around 20 different talks every year.
  • I consciously reach out and schedule calls with experts in our industry to “talk shop” each month that has nothing to do with my paying job.
  • I network on sites like LinkedIn to expand my professional network and ask and answer as many questions as I can.
  • I will do upwards of 100 tech demos per year in the technology that impacts my industry.
  • I will attend upwards of 12 HR and TA professional conferences.

Okay, I’m a complete freak around personal development, primarily because I actually really like this stuff. That makes it easier to do, for sure.

But, I rarely get into a professional dilemma where I don’t feel prepared to handle the situation. I believe that is because I’ve “practiced” a whole bunch!

I get asked frequently, “How did you learn this stuff?”

Practice.

Honestly, my hope is one day, I’ll take this love of practice in my professional life and turn it into some other sort of practice in my personal life. Like, someday, I’ll roll out of bed and be like, “okay, today is the day I stop being an out-of-shape dough ball and get back into shape like I was in college!

I mean, if I can put this level of practice into my professional life, it stands to believe I could put that same level of practice into any part of my life.

Do you want to be “Great” at your Career?

I find almost 100% of people I would ask this question to will say, “Yes, of course!”

But like my lazy butt sitting on the couch at night watching Netflix, they are willing to put in the practice of being great. They are just showing up to work and doing the job. That usually doesn’t lead to greatness.

Don’t get me wrong. Some folks can show up and be great, just like freak athletes. That is about .001% of our society. So slow your roll. That isn’t you.

I want to be great at my job, but I don’t really do anything other than the job to ensure I’ll be great at it. Doesn’t that sound funny? It goes against everything we know about greatness in our lives.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe I’m great at HR and TA. I think I’m pretty good at certain parts of it, but I know people who are so much better than me at so many parts. When you compare yourself against the top 1% in your profession, you feel small. You feel like you need more practice.

When you compare yourself against Kevin in payroll, that constantly loses his way back to his cube, you feel like you’re a giant. Practice isn’t needed to be greater than Kevin. That’s our problem. Most of us are surrounded by average players, and your slightly above-average performance makes you feel like you no longer need practice.

Pick higher performance targets. Chose to emulate someone who amazes you in your profession. Chase greatness through practice.

The Key Ingredient You Need to be Successful at Work! (and Life)

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Ugh, I hate that I wrote that title. I. AM. NOT. A. LIFE. COACH!

I don’t write about sports as much as I used to. When my sons were in sports, and I was coaching, I bet I wrote some sort of sports analogy about once per week. The thing with this idea is it works in sports, but it really works in almost anything in life.

Okay, here it is:

“Having people around you who want you to win is key to success.”

I’m not going to take credit for this, nor will I give credit to anyone because I have heard something like this for the last twenty years, but I find almost always people forget about this one simple but powerful idea.

We discount how much of our success is tied to being surrounded by people who want us to be successful! Or we give ourselves too much credit for our own success. We think we’re smarter or better when in reality, we are all about the same, but the circumstances we find ourselves in are very different!

I tend to find myself in conversations with parents regarding their high school and college athletes who are working on going to the next level because I’ve had kids and a wife who played sports at a high level. What most parents and kids don’t understand is how important it is to play for a coach who truly wants to see you succeed. Wait!? Don’t all coaches want to see every player they have on the team succeed? Nope. Unfortunately.

In college athletics, when coaches change, they inherit a bunch of kids who they didn’t recruit, so they aren’t fully invested in these kids. While they will need some or most of these kids, in the short term, to be successful, Almost always, they will bring in their own kids and be more invested in them.

We are currently seeing massive transfers in all sports taking place in college athletics, and a large part of that is kids trying to find a coach(s) who truly wants to see them succeed!

It sounds like when leadership changes take place at work, right?!

When a new leader comes into your company or work team, we see the same type of behavior. New leaders want to bring in their own people. Why? Because you need to surround yourself, even as a leader, with people who want to see you win! Individual contributors need this. Leaders need this. Anyone who wants to win needs people around them who want to see them win!

It’s not about just making it. Keeping it going. It’s about seeing you win. That’s key. Don’t think you can exchange that for something less.

This is why it’s key for you to put yourself in a position where you feel everyone around you wants to see you win. If you’re a leader and you have people on your team that you are unsure they want to see you win, you need to get rid of those people. If you are in a job where you have a leader or peers who don’t want you to win, you need to find a new job immediately!

See, this is why I would be a shitty life coach. I never want people to leave their job. It’s not in my DNA. Keep that job. Make it work! Then I write this post and say leave your job immediately if you are not surrounded by people who want to see you win!

I have some very close friends in my life. The one trait I feel for each of them, without an ounce of jealousy, is I want to see them win! My own team at HRU, without a doubt, I want to see each person I work with be massively successful and win all the time! Surround yourself with people who want to see you win!

Timmy Sackett, World’s Worse Life Coach, Out.

What is your measure of success? #HRTechConf

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I’m out at the world’s largest HR Technology Conference this week, learning a ton and having some amazing conversations with peers and practitioners. One, in particular, is sticking with me about how we measure success in HR and Talent Acquisition.

With the increase in the capture of data across our technology stacks, we have more information than ever to give us insights and really give us better robust measures of success. But we tend to hang on to old measures that have little correlation to actual success.

There are a bunch of things getting in the way of us successfully determining what should be the measures of success in our functions:

  • We need to measure things that are challenging but not too challenging.
  • We tie our success metrics to annual bonus potential.
  • We don’t really know what success should look like from a benchmarking standpoint.
  • We have legacy measures that everyone is just kind of used to, and the majority of the industry still uses them. So, we should follow the pack.
  • We need measures that we can quickly manipulate of having excuses if things go sideways.

We will never admit the truth above.

From the HR Technology standpoint, your technology vendors assume you are much more sophisticated than we really are. I don’t mean that in a way that is meant to slight our expertise and knowledge. If I had HR and TA leaders rate their own skill competencies, almost always, technology would come in dead last. Most of us have this as an area of massive improvement.

Why does this matter?

Our technology will drive our success measures. Our technology vendors believe we know what success looks like. So, they build our measures, even when they know there are actually better measures of success that they can pull and put together. True, black and white measures that are not subjective and can’t be manipulated.

The first thing that would help with creating real HR measures of success would be to decouple our bonus compensation and measures. Having a person design their own measures of success and tying it to a compensation outcome is a recipe for failure and underperformance. If anything, HR and TA should have their bonus tied to business success outcomes and measure functional success separately. In the long run, a highly successful function should help the business achieve better outcomes.

This one practice frees us up to really dig into our data and our technology and redefine what success looks like around the HR umbrella of functions. To really use our data and our insights to reach new levels and better understand how we can make an impact and improve. We should feel like we can build measures of success and fail at those measures without killing our livelihood. That’s the only way we can hope for true change and worthwhile long-term measures that help us succeed.

What I’m finding is the HR technology community is ready to help us do this. We just have to ask them! We have to ask them to define our success using a data analytics approach and understand the outcomes and insights we can gain from these new measures. This also takes a big of courage because we’ll be leading not following and that’s always a vulnerable spot. But, one I think separates great leaders from average leaders.

Are you “Rainbow Washing” your corporate logo for Pride Month?

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I know you’ve seen this going on in June, but you might not have known what it was called. “Rainbow Washing” or “Pride Washing” is when a corporation turns its logo, for the month of June, from its traditional colors to rainbow colors to show its support of Pride Month.

Here are some examples:

Is there any harm in doing this?

My initial impression was “No”. I’ve got gay people in my life and for far too long most companies were scared to even acknowledge gay people were real, let alone show their support, so for me, this is an amazing time. We have billion-dollar corporations willing to come out publicly and state they support their gay employees and customers in a very public way.

But, we also have the bad marketing side of the world.

We have organizations that will Rainbow Wash their logo for June, to act like they are Prideful of their LGBTQ workforce and customers, but then do nothing else the rest of the year. Wait, how do you pronounce “Cinco De Mayo” or isn’t February the shortest of the months for Black History? I joke, this is classic in most organizations. We say we care, but we do the least amount to show we care.

The worst of this is when the organization says one thing, like, hey, look at our rainbow logo, but then goes and gives political donations to politicians who are actively working to reduce or eliminate gay rights. Yes, this is happening. This is far worse than those acting like they care but doing the minimum to increase sales. This is actively lying to employees and the public through behaviors and dollars working to support the other side.

Do you have to rainbow wash your logo to have Pride?

Nope. In fact, I’m sure the LGBTQ community would prefer you not wash your logo and just actually give a damn through your actions and funding of policies that support their community. But, doing those things and washing your logo is also awesome!

Signs and symbols of support shouldn’t be discounted. They are important. A corporation could be the biggest donor to gay rights but hide the fact they do it, that also isn’t great. “Pride” is about having pride for the LGBTQ community and showing your support in a public way that will show those who don’t support that you do and you’re not afraid to show it. Because for way too much of our history way too many were afraid to show their support.

Can Rainbow Washing go too far?

Well, maybe if it goes down the male genital route, you go too far!

This isn’t real, but it demonstrates how a brand can go over the edge with Pride!

Now, you might love the OG and be Gay, and I’m here for it! Everyone loves those breadsticks and salad!

Rainbow washing goes too far when you are doing it for promotion and marketing and not because you want to show Pride for the LGBTQ community. I know, for 100% fact, that some CMO and Revenue officers have had the discussion, “hey, what happens to our sales if we wash the logo? Oh, it’s up 7%! Should we keep it a rainbow for July!? No! That’s the American Flag washing logo, you idiot! Sales went up 8% last year with Red, White, and Blue!”

Rainbow wash your logo. Show support. Give to Gay Rights and Politicians who support Gay RIghts. Show your Pride!

The Human Resource Executive 2022 Top HR Tech Influencers! Do Lists Matter?

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A big list got released yesterday and I wouldn’t be writing about it unless I’m on it, right?! Well, I might write about it if I wasn’t on it. I mean, it feels great to be recognized for something you have passion for and enjoy. Recognition at any level tends to feel good, which is why it’s so powerful.

There are so many people on the 2022 Top HR Tech Influencers that I admire and call friends including my two HR Famous podcast partners – Jessica Lee and Madeline Laurano! They both made the list. Also friends like: Steve Boese, Sarah White, Laurie Ruettimann, Jeanne Achille, Stacy Zapar, Jackye Clayton, Torin Ellis, Kyle Lagunas, George LaRocque, Trish McFarlane, Erin Spencer, Joey Price, Jason Averbook, and so many others.

What the heck is an HR Tech Influencer?

I know, personally, probably 65% of the Top 100 list. So, I can only speak about those individuals, but I’m guessing the rest of the list is fairly similar. First, they are super passionate about HR technology. We are all super nerds for this stuff and when we get together the talk gets deep into nerdy. Second, they all care about making technology and the function of HR, and all the sub-functions of HR, better.

Some do this through working as an actual practitioner in the weeds of day-to-day HR. Some do it by working on the vendor side to improve and create the next generation of technology we will come to rely on. And others work in the analyst space building a bridge between the vendor and practitioner improving the knowledge base about what we buy and why.

Every single one of these folks is a 1%er when it comes to HR Tech knowledge. Meaning, on average, they would know more about HR Tech than 99% of the other folks working in HR. They are the definition of Gladwell’s 10,000 hours. They made themselves into experts and that by itself is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Not many folks in the world could call themselves an expert at anything!

Who has the “real” juice?

Damn! That’s the million-dollar question! And I literally mean, a million dollars! Because vendors and conferences are trying to figure out who has the juice! What’s the juice? It’s that something special that a person has, through a combination of a lot of factors, where they command a large audience of potential buyers. It’s a combination of expertise, personality, access, charisma, honesty, giving back, etc. No two folks have the same factors or create the same juice.

In the HR Tech World, there is one person who has more juice than anyone at the moment. That guy is Josh Bersin. Josh is like the gallon-size bottle of juice and most of the rest of us are like the 6 oz glass of juice in comparison! That’s just a fact. I’m lucky that Josh invited me to be a faculty member in his academy, but I’m not saying this because of that. The reality is he moves the market like no one else in our space.

Vendors are always trying to figure out who has the juice. Who is going to bring buyers into the tent? Honestly, if you can’t afford Josh, it’s probably a combination of a lot of folks on that list, as well as a bunch of folks who aren’t on the list but still have juice (William Tincup, Matt Charney, Kris Dunn, Deb McGrath, Rob Kelly, Hung Lee, Guillermo Gorea, Chris Hoyt, Gerry Crispin, Erica Young, Chris Harvilla, etc.).

Juice has little to do with the social footprint, but you can’t ignore a large audience. Some folks might have a ton of juice on Twitter, but nothing on LinkedIn, or IG. No presence on Twitter, but a great following on Facebook. The key is interaction on whatever platform they are on. Like, are you really on Twitter if you tweet and no one engages?

TL;DR – There’s Josh Bersin, then there is a cliff, and then there are the rest of us at the bottom of that cliff. Also, no one wants to see their real “juice” number, it’s humbling.

Do these lists matter?

So many people will say, No. I get that. But, for the millions of HR pros out in the world, this is a great start if you are trying to educate yourself about technology within HR. So, in that vein, these lists do matter. I got into HR Tech because of a conversation I had with William Tincup seven years ago! I met him through my interactions with other influencers on the list. I became an expert in this space because of that interaction.

Because of lists, like the Top 100 HR Tech Influencers, I have people reach out to me daily with questions they have about the technology in our space. A list like this gives people an avenue to pursue and access expert opinions.

Are these lists inclusive of every voice that should be heard? Of course not, that would be impossible. It’s also super hard to get minority and young voices on these lists, based on the demographic of HR Tech nerds in general. But this list does an exceptional job at adding these voices, especially around female voices (which make up the majority of HR pros!). It’s a snapshot of a moment, and the list is ever-evolving. Also, vendors rarely make it on because of conflict of interest with selling, but some of the best minds in HR Tech are working at vendors. But they do matter to a great number of people who are trying to better their HR Tech knowledge.

Shout out to the HR Exec team, including, Elizabeth Clarke and Rebecca McKenna for putting in the work to create and edit this list. It’s a thankless task usually that only comes with criticism.

You can check out the full list right here.

Your LinkedIn Newsletter Sucks, and Other Truths No One Is Telling You!

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Before I get into this rant, let me give a shoutout to Hung Lee. Hung runs the Recruiting Brainfood newsletter out of the UK and it is seriously the best recruiting newsletter on the planet. Also, Hung believes everyone should start a LinkedIn Newsletter, which leads me to believe that maybe he caught the Covid or something and his brain is slipping!

First off, is there a glitch in the Matrix or something? Since the beginning of the year, I’ve seriously received over 50 LinkedIn Newsletter invitations. Somedays I’m getting over 5 per day! What the heck is going on?

Second off, no one needs all these dumb newsletters!

Have you seen some of these!? Most are bad life coaching newsletters or professionals who are working at home and just flat bored with nothing else to do. I have yet to receive one that looked half-interesting. Here’s a sample of the newsletter titles:

  • Leadership and You
  • The Cup’s Half Full Newsletter
  • Leadership Insights
  • The Thoughtful Leader
  • The Top Talent Newsletter

Reading these again just made me fall asleep, where was I again?

Why Shouldn’t You Start A LinkedIn Newsletter?

You shouldn’t primarily because you won’t sustain it and ultimately it makes you look like you’ve got a follow-through problem professionally!

Look, here’s the deal. Most people suck at writing. Some are good, but will just run out of things to say in around ninety days. Either way, all of these newsletters will just sit there with old content. Then one day, someone will find it and their first thought won’t be, “OMG! This newsletter is amazing and changed my life!” It will be, “this is odd, this person hasn’t written in 18 months, I wonder if the Covid got them!?”

To Hung’s belief, yes, everyone has a voice. But this is where Hung I part ways. He believes because you have a voice you should use it. I believe most voices suck! If yours sucks, don’t use it, use something else you’re good at! What the last twelve years of writing have shown me is most people’s writing voice isn’t very good, and no one wants to read it. But you’re bored and you think what the heck, someone might turn their life around by me sharing my “Thoughtful Leadership” thoughts, but they won’t, in fact, you might actually be the catalyst that finally pushes them over the edge! Let that sink in, you LinkedIn Newsletter Murderer!

By the way, this is not an indictment on LinkedIn! That would be like me blaming Taco Bell for fat people. No, Taco Bell is awesome, I love it. My low willpower is to blame, not Taco Bell. I don’t blame LinkedIn for stupid people. LinkedIn just provided a great tool for stupid people to spread their stupid. How did LinkedIn know stupid people wanted to share their stupid?

Another reason you shouldn’t start a LinkedIn Newsletter is that you actually don’t have an opinion. “Racism is bad!” Groundbreaking, thanks. Any other hot takes, Sparky? You actually have to have an opinion. Have a legitimate take on something. Stating the obvious, while probably be cathartic at some level for you, isn’t readable!

This isn’t to say that LinkedIn Newsletters can’t be ultra-popular. One of the Top 5 LI Newsletters is a dude who gives career advice. He has over 750K followers. I’m sure it’s great stuff, like, don’t stink and don’t throw up during an interview. All the ‘real’ stuff job seekers need to know. I haven’t read his newsletter but I’m guessing he had a 13-minute career as a recruiter which makes him highly qualified to now give out this life-changing advice.

I know. I know. You’re going to make so many new sales and clients with your newsletter, plus your Aunt Jenny who’s a retired accountant told you how great she thinks it is. No, you won’t and No, it’s not. Stop it. Stop sending me your damn invites. I hate your Newsletters! They’re awful! Someone needs to tell you the truth!

Okay, I have to go start my Linkedin Newsletter before I miss out on this gravy train!

6 Surprising Ways GenZ is Changing the Workforce!

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I’m in love with Gen Z! It might be because I’m raising 3 Gen Zers, two in college, one on the way, but it’s also because I love how each generation is shaped by the period of time in which they are raised, and I think Gen Z, specifically, was raised in one of the most unique periods in history!

We’ve had the Millennial “differences” jammed down our throats now for a decade! When it first started, I was fascinated with the differences, now I’m just bored. I think what we learned with the Millennials was that so much of what each Generation has, is truly just based on time in life. Then we have this much smaller percentage of some stuff that truly makes each generation stand out.

Gen Z was raised during the Great Recession. This is a fact, it’s not something we can discount. The generations directly before the Boomers, the Silent Generation, and the Greatest Generation, were raised during the Great Depression, this had a significant impact on how they viewed the world, and how they viewed jobs specifically. Gen Z will have some modern similarities to these generations.

You can not be in your formidable years, have the access to information that Gen Z has always had, and see your family and friends lose jobs, houses, etc., and not then have that come out in your relationship to work in some unique way. There’s been very little out about Gen Z, to this point, but recently there was a fairly substantial study done with over 25,000 Gen Zers. Here’s what it said:

– 97% of Gen Z own a Smartphone, 93% own a Laptop! Gen Z is digital natives. They are the very first digital-native generation. They grew up with a smartphone in their hands before they could even communicate what they wanted or needed in a meaningful way. Gen Z will not ever work well in an environment that doesn’t use technology to solve common problems. “We have always done it this way” makes no sense to them. Not in a frustrating way, but in a truly perplexed way. Kind of like how someone looks at a Caveman exhibit in a museum.

– Gen Z is very price-conscious. Employers will love them because they constantly work to get lower costs of goods and are very adept at doing things on their own when they feel they can produce similar quality for a lower cost. Again, go back to what they saw growing up. They use technology for price comparison, reviews, check availability, etc. Rarely will you be able to sell Gen Z in one meeting, and without competition also being in play.

– Only 1 in 8 Gen Zs gets their information from printed materials. Good job on those printed career fair brochures! You might as well just have a big bonfire at Corporate HQ because your printed job material is almost worthless with Gen Z. Although, they do consume information through a ton of channels including social media (79.7%) – yeah, that Twitter/IG is just a fad…TV/Video, radio, and video streaming services, etc. When we go to recruit Gen Z, we have to be ready to use multiple forms of media to reach them.

– Crazy enough, Gen Z actually loves to read books, not digital.  Again, generationally, Gen Z was raised during the Harry Potter days, etc. Some of the best young adult literature in history was written during their young years, and in hard economic times, a book is a fairly inexpensive entertainment option that takes up a lot of time. No wonder Gen Z is a generation of readers! 77% prefer to read a printed book, rather than digital. So, while we tend to focus employee development on online on-demand types of media, some leaders will find giving a book to Gen Z might be a real connection for them.

– Gen Z demands information. Gen Zers, for the most part, won’t demand to be the boss, but they will demand to be kept in the loop. Why? Because they’ve always been able to find out anything they wanted in seconds, so you playing the power position of keeping information from them will not go over well! When you’ve never not had information, working in a corporate culture that uses information as power, is a stifling environment to be in.

– Gen Z is the most diverse generation in American history. I will tell you my sons are somewhat confused by old people’s obsession with diversity issues. They understand America is far from perfect, but they also have grown up in a generation that is much more accepting than any generation before them, so they find ‘our’ obsession with these topics sometimes overdone. They would prefer to focus on how we are similar, then on how we are different.

Currently, Generation Z is about 40% of our workforce and growing. The largest generation in the workforce, with Millennials being a shrinking second place. Gen Zs are not Millennials, just like Millennials are not Gen X, etc. Each is mostly similar, with some differences. Gen Z will take some getting used to for some leaders, but those who embrace their uniqueness will truly get rewarded!

How long should it take a candidate to decide on a job offer?

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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 the 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 and 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 no one right answer. Each of us has our own internal clock to make those decisions. If you force a candidate to decide immediately upon an 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 as 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?