Category Archives: Interview

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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I’m a sports geek and recently the sports talk shows and Twitter have been blowing up over The Mt. Rushmore of the NBA.  This happened because Lebron James came out and said he wants to be on the Mt. Rushmore of the NBA when his career is done.  His current NBA Mt. Rushmore is: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Oscar Robinson.  The reality is, is had no bearing on anything, but people love to argue the concept!  Why Oscar? What about Russell or Wilt?! Wouldn’t you put Lebron on it right now!? It’s a never ending argument that sports geeks, like me, love to have.

The Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about my own world and the Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers.  People can start the argument with just the title! Why not just HR? Aren’t those two separate mountains!?  I don’t think so. While there are thousands of bloggers in the space, I don’t differentiate the two, because to me Talent is part of the HR function, not a separate thing (although I do think it will be out of HR in the future!).

So, here is my Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers:

– Kris Dunn – Mostly HR, writes every freaking day for the past 5+ years at the HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, has great opinions on topics, ties in pop culture, sports, politics, etc. He entertains and educates. First and foremost he is and has been an actual practitioner in the field – he has gotten his hands dirty cleaning up after an employee picnic, had to do I-9 audits, design hiring processes, facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment meetings. KD knows your world and knows how to give you information to help you get better at what you do.

 – Jessica Merrill-Miller – Jessica is one of the few HR blogger types who has actually made this a paying career.  Also a one-time real HR person, over the past few years she now only blogs and consults, but is a content machine with great opinions, and super helpful advice to HR pros, candidates and leadership alike.  JMM loves this stuff!  In fact, I would put money down that if you made JMM chose between Blogging4Jobs.com (her website) and her husband, it would be a quick divorce! You feel her passion when you read her stuff and go to her site.  Everyone wants to make money blogging, but no one puts in the time and effort that JMM does.

 – Glen Cathey – Many will know Glen by his site Boolean Blackbelt.  Glen gets recruiting and sourcing at a completely different level than 99.9% of people in this industry, and that isn’t an exaggeration!  While some will be intimidated by his writing – it can get technical – the information he provides is more valuable than a Master’s degree in HR.  Also, he does have a beginners guide to get people started, and he loves to use screen shots of what he’s doing to help visual learners.  Of all the people I read, Glen puts the most effort into his posts. Super detailed, great research, it’s like my own personal training guide on how to find talent better and faster – and he just keeps delivering!  Glen is also a working Talent pro – so he’s giving you real, live up-to-date stuff. Not something he did 10 years ago and is still trying to sell as relevant.

 – Laurie Ruettimann – While LFR is currently on blogging hiatus, or sabbatical, or vacation, it really doesn’t matter – she’s the queen of HR blogging.  No one is more opinionated and spot on, usually, with those opinions.  That’s why I love her writing – she can make me laugh and not like her all in the same post.  That’s what a great blogger does, she challenges the way you think.  LFR is the also the only HR/Talent blogger I know who can talk about her bathroom habits and have a thousand people comment. She’s got a great audience and the HR folks love to read her take on things.  She the prototypical anti-HR lady, who was an HR lady, lady.  She’s a CHRO, who decided not to be a CHRO.  For those who need a LFR fix – she has a Tumbler, or you can read her years of content still up at The Cynical Girl.  

People always want to know who I read – it’s these four consistently.  I also read all the folks at Fistful, I think they’re all great as well.  Who would be on your Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers?

 

Bad Hires Worse

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I wrote this 2 years ago.  It still rings true.  I still need to be reminded of this.  I still run into examples of this monthly. Enjoy.

If I could take all of my HR education, My SPHR and 20 years of experience and boil it down to this one piece of advice, it would be this:

Bad Hires Worse.

In HR we love to talk about our hiring and screening processes, and how we “only” hire the best talent, but in the end we, more times than not, leave the final decision on who to hire to the person who will be responsible to supervise the person being hired – the Hiring Manager.   I don’t know about all of you, but in my stops across corporate America, all of my hiring managers haven’t been “A” players, many have been “B” players and a good handful of “C” players.  Yet, in almost all of those stops, we (I) didn’t stop bad hiring managers from hiring when the need came.  Sure I would try to influence more with my struggling managers, be more involved – but they still ultimately had to make a decision that they had to live with.

I know I’m not the only one – it happens every single day.  Everyday we allow bad hiring managers to make talent decisions in our organizations, just as we are making plans to move the bad manager off the bus.   It’s not an easy change to make in your organization.  It’s something that has to come from the top.  But, if you are serious about making a positive impact to talent in your organization you can not allow bad managers to make talent decisions.  They have to know, through performance management, that: 1. You’re bad (and need fixing or moving); 2. You no longer have the ability to make hiring decisions.  That is when you hit your High Potential manager succession list and tap on some shoulders.  “Hey, Mrs. Hi-Po, guess what we need your help with some interviewing and selection decisions.”  It sends a clear and direct message to your organization – we won’t hire worse.

Remember, this isn’t just an operational issue – it happens at all levels, in all departments.  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is look in the mirror at our own departments.  If you have bad talent in HR, don’t allow them to hire (“but it’s different we’re in HR, we know better!” – No you don’t – stop it).   Bad hires worse – over and over and over.  Bad needs to hire worse, they’re desperate, they’ll do anything to protect themselves, they make bad decisions – they are Bad.  We/HR own this.  We have the ability and influence to stop it.  No executive is going to tell you “No” when you suggest we stop allowing our bad managers the ability to make hiring decisions – they’ll probably hug you.

It’s a regret I have – something I will change.  If it happens again, I won’t allow it.  I vow from this day forward, I will never allow a bad hiring manager to make a hiring decision – at least not without a fight!

Job Seekers Still Mostly Offline!

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I was sent some research recently from Whale Path, a business research company, that was looking at how employers really find their employees.  What they found might surprise many within the Talent Acquisition space.  Their research found that a majority of employees under the medium U.S. wage scale (around $50k per year) actually found their jobs offline!

Does this jive with your hiring?

Here are some of the actual stats from their research:

– Only 7% of jobs paying $25 per hour or less are filled through online sources

– Personal referrals account for 46% of hires for positions paying less than U.S. median income, up from 41% in 2008

– Craigslist was cited by more than half of businesses as a low-cost resource for finding employees.

We tend to believe everyone is online.  We then believe since they are online, they must be looking for jobs online.  Do you know why you believe this?You’ve been told to believe this, over, and over, and over, through great marketing by companies who are selling online hiring solutions.  We see Monster.com and CareerBuilder ads on the Superbowl.  We are bombarded with emails daily about easy, fast ,cheap hiring solutions.  We see constant media reports about the growth of LinkedIn.  We are told everyone will be searching for a job on their phone, you MUST have a mobile solution. Yet, we don’t actually know anyone personally who applied and got a job on their phone.  We are conditioned to believe everyone must be searching for a job online.  Marketing is so strong, you don’t even know it’s happening to you.

But they aren’t.  At least millions and millions and millions of our potential employees aren’t searching for job online.

They’re finding jobs like your grandparents found jobs.  They are networking, they’re letting their friends and family know they’re looking, they’re letting the members of their church and synagogue know they’re looking, they’re letting their bowling buddies know they’re looking.  Eventually, someone refers them to a job, and they get hired.  We tend to thing we’re all just trying to hire professionals for $100K jobs, but we aren’t.  Most of the hiring done in the U.S. is for positions under $50K, and most of your budget is being spent on tools that don’t attract these individuals.  Individuals that don’t need a resume, they just need to fill out an application, because they have people who will vouch for their skills.

Interesting research, much of it we don’t normally focus on.  What are you spending your hiring budget on today?

The Bigger You Are, The Smaller You Need To Act

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Do you know why most restaurants fail?  They don’t do anything really, really well.  There are a number of new burger chains popping up all over the country who are doing great.  These chains have decided to have only a few menu items, but do each of those items better than anywhere else. You can get a burger, fries, shake and a soda. That’s it.  Small, focused, the best you’ll ever taste – each item.

I work with a lot of big companies, and the hiring managers love me!  You know why?

I’m small (okay, I walked into that one!).  My company is small.  When you’re small you do a number of things that most big companies don’t do.  Here’s a short list:

  • You take full responsibility (no one else around to blame)
  • You’re responsive to everything (or you go out of business)
  • You’re in the know of what needs to be done
  • You say ‘Yes’ to almost everything
  • You treat the business like it’s your own

I meet with a lot of HR executives who work for big companies and almost 100% have the same issue.  They feel like their department doesn’t have the credibility and influence it should.  They are concerned that their department’s reputation is that of a roadblock and not of a valued partner.  They don’t know how to get the organization to view them differently.

It’s really easy.

Big HR departments have to act like they are small HR departments.  While their is a business necessity to have specialist in large HR shops, everyone must act like they are generalist.  Leaders have to make sure that it’s known that lack of response, lack of solutions, lack taking full responsibility to ensure someone gets the answer they need will not be tolerated, at any level, within their HR shop.

Hiring managers, executives, individual contributors, etc. only want to hear one thing when they call HR – “Yes, we’ll take care of it, right now”. Not an endless loop of we can’t do it, I’m not the person, I’ll try and find out, I don’t know, call such and such, etc.  Small shops don’t have this luxury. If they would say these things, they’d be out of job, because they wouldn’t be needed.

The key to great HR in a big HR shop is to act small.  Yet most big HR shops work really, really hard on trying to be big.  When you act small you get very good at pinpointing what is really important and getting that accomplished.  You do this because you just can’t do everything, you don’t have the resources.  By doing a few things really, really well, your organization knows what they can’t count on you to deliver.  Large HR shops try to do everything, and usually do it all really average, or below average.  They are trying to do too much.  Don’t get bigger, get smaller – smaller on your focus, smaller on your deliverables, smaller on your accomplishments, but make those things world class.

How To Pay A Headhunting Fee in 15 Easy Steps

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I hear statements like this all the time: ‘Ugh, I don’t want to pay a headhunting fee!’ I know this is because corporate HR folks think that it’s really hard to do, but I’m hear to show you that it isn’t hard!  In fact, in 15 easy steps, I’ll show you how you can do this all the time!

Here are the 15 Easy Steps in Paying a Headhunting Fee:

1. Post all of your jobs and wait for applications/resumes to come into your email and/or ATS.

2. Weed out as many candidates as possible for stuff that doesn’t really matter, like: too many jobs, not enough time at a job, going to the ‘wrong’ school or not high enough GPA, working for a company that was too big or too small, making a grammatical error on the resume, not living in the ‘right’ area, etc.

3. Email the few candidates you have left with a message about their interest level and make them fill out stuff like applications and questionnaires to be considered for the next step.

4. Wait for email replies.

5. Send the 2 that reply as your ‘best candidates’ onto the hiring manager. 7 others reply after, ignore these, they weren’t quick enough to be the ‘best’ candidates.

6. Don’t follow up with the hiring manager on the two candidates you sent.  If she is interested, she’ll get back to you.

7. Don’t respond to candidates following up looking for feedback on next steps, you want to keep the power position in this arrangement.

8. Send another email to hiring manager after two weeks looking for feedback on original candidates you sent.  Hiring manager won’t like the two, wants more candidates.  You go out and see who else has posted for the position in the past week (forget about those other 7 who first applied, they are old by now).  Send 5 additional emails to the new candidates. 1 replies. Send to hiring manager.

9. Let Hiring Managers return calls go to voice mail, you know they just want to complain about the quality and lack of candidates. Call her back end of business tomorrow. She’s already gone for the day.

10. Hiring manager comes to your office. Crap. They caught you. You tell the manager you’ve been working non-stop on their opening, the three candidates are the best you can come up with.

11. Hiring manager goes back to their office. I call your hiring manager.  She tells me she can’t get any good candidates.

12. Hiring Manager sets up their own interviews.  Three days later, if not sooner, I send your hiring manager 5 candidates all capable of doing the job.  I call your hiring manager to highlight two of the candidates who I feel would be the best fit for your organization.

13. Hiring manager picks a favorite from the great interviews they just had.  I’ve pre-closed both on an offer, so I’m what they call in the business, a ‘sure-thing’.

14. Hiring manager calls you and tells you they found a candidate through an outside source.

15. You process my invoice.

See, it’s really not that hard to pay a headhunting fee, in fact, you practically don’t have to do much of anything!   Just keep doing what you’re doing.

 

5 Top Regrets of People Leaving a Job

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Being in my line of work, I get to hear from a ton of people who have left jobs.  One of the questions I like to ask people is to give me one thing they regret about leaving a certain position or company.  You might think that most people would find this hard to answer, but I’m always surprised at how quickly people can answer this question, and the fact that no one ever answers it with “I have no regrets.”  I use this question to help me understand a candidates level of self-insight.  If a person can look back on a job, and say you know what, the company might have sucked, but I could have done ‘this’ better, that’s someone who gets it.

Here are the Top 5 Regrets people have when leaving a job:

1. “I could have done better.” I like people who can come out and say, I just didn’t do enough.  It’s usually followed with reasons why, lack or resources or tools, etc. But it shows me they have a desire to be successful at anything they do.

2. “I should have made more work friends.”  I talk to a lot of people who have been at a company for years, and after they leave they realize they weren’t really close to anyone.  They realize they miss some of the people, but never really put in the time to establish enough of a relationship to carry it beyond just a working relationship.

3. “I didn’t let the executives know what I was really thinking.”   This happens to so many people. Even when leaving they somehow justify to themselves that it won’t matter, so they never share what they really thought of so many things.  While some of it might not matter, there might have been a great idea or change in there that could have a positive impact to the organization.  Yet, they walk away with it unsaid.

4. “I wish I would have celebrated my accomplishments more.”  You know what happens when you celebrate your accomplishments?  People begin to notice them as accomplishments.  Those things turn into positives for the organizations.  People are drawn to you and want to be a part of what you’re doing.  Celebrations, real celebrations, make a closer bond between you and your coworkers.

5. “I wish I never would have left.”  (or “I left for the wrong reasons.”)I hear so many people say these words – “I loved that job!”  My next question is – “Why did you leave?”  It’s always followed by a reason, promotion, more money, different location, etc.  After they left, they found out how much the job they had, was a really, really good job that they loved.  I always caution people from leaving a job, especially when they tell me they love the job.  Don’t discount loving your job.  It’s hard, really hard, to find jobs you love.

The beginning of the year is always a good time to reflect on your regrets from the prior year.  I know many people who took on new positions in the past year.  I always love to find out how the new gig is going, but I also love to ask about what they regret about leaving, and I’ve never disappointed by the response!

Hire More Pretty People

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This post originally ran in January of 2012, and in one of the most read posts I’ve done.  It as so popular, Kris Dunn, stole the idea, tweaked it, and made it his most downloaded whitepaper in Kinetix history!  You’re Welcome, KD.  After 2 years, I still find this concept has merit! It’s also very close to how Hitler’s Germany started! Enjoy.

What do you think of, in regards to smarts, when I say: “Sexy Blond model type”?

What about: “Strong Athletic Jock?”

What about: “Scrawny nerdy band geek?”

My guess is most people would answer: Dumb, Dumb, Smart – or something to that context.

In HR we call this profiling – and make no mistake – profiling – is done by almost all of our hiring managers.  The problem is everything we might have thought is probably wrong in regards to our expectations of looks and brains.  So, why are ugly people more smart?

They’re Not!

Slate recently published an article that contradicts all of our ugly people are more smart myths and actually shows evidence to the contrary. From the article:

 Now there were two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone’s intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question: Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?

Here the data were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains. Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and scores on standard intelligence tests.

When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.

That’s right HR Pros – Pretty people are smarter.  I can hear hiring managers and creepy executives that only want “cute” secretaries laughing all over the world!

The premise is solid though!  If you go back in our history and culture you see how this type of things evolves:

1. Very smart guy – gets great job or starts great company – makes a ton of money

2. Because of success, Smart guy now has many choices of very pretty females to pursue as a bride.

3. Smart guy and Pretty bride start a family – which results in “Pretty” Smart Children

4. Pretty Smart Children grow up with all the opportunities that come to smart beautiful families.

5. The cycle repeats.

Now – first – this is a historical thing – thus my example of using a male as our “Smart guy” and not “Smart girl” – I’m sure in today’s world this premise has evolved yet again. But we are talking about how we got to this point, not where are we now.  Additionally, we are looking at how your organization can hire better.  So, how do you hire better?  Hire more pretty people.

Seems simple enough. Heck, that is even a hiring process that your hiring managers would support!

5 Things HR Can Learn from Airports

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I know many of you will be getting on an airplane over the next few weeks to fly and see friends and family over the holidays.  Some of you fly all the time, so this will be something you experience often.  Many of you rarely fly, so you get really frustrated because you feel it should work better.  We work in HR everyday.  We get use to the stuff that doesn’t work, but we shouldn’t.  We should be like infrequent fliers, everything that is wrong should bother us greatly.

1. The airport never appears to have anyone who wants to take responsibility for anything.  Every airline is on their own. The security folks only handle their ‘area’ of concern. Food vendors only do their thing.  Does it sound familiar?  It’s your department and/or organization.  Some needs to take charge of stuff no one else wants to take charge of.  HR can fit that role perfectly.  Too many times in our organizations we/HR sees things that need someone to take responsibility. We need to be that person.

2.  The one thing about 90% of air travelers need to do after landing is go to the bathroom and charge something (phone, computer, tablet, etc.).  Airports figured out bathrooms, I’ve never had to wait to use the restroom in an airport.  I almost always have to wait to use an electrical outlet!  Should be an easy fix – go buy 100 power strips and increase the amount of charging points by 5 times.  But no one does this.  HR has this issue. We see things that can be fixed, by doing something simple, instead we don’t fix it, because we want to fix it permanently.  Believing is we fix it ‘temporarily’ we’ll never fix it the right way.  Do the temp fix first.  Tell everyone it’s a temp fix. Then work towards a permanent solution.

3. Airports use to treat everyone the same.  Everyone had to check in at the counter. Everyone had to wait in the same security line.  Airports figured out this doesn’t work for those they need most, frequent fliers.  Now, those who fly often, get treated differently.  They can by pass the TSA line through special pre-check lines.  They check in before they even get to the airport (most people can do this, but frequent fliers learn the tricks!). They have special clubs to sit in and get away from the rest of us.  HR needs to treat employees differently.  The only employees/people who want to be ‘treated’ the same, are those who are low performers.

4. Planes won’t crash is you have a little fun. For years Southwest was the fun airline.  They showed you could still fly planes and and have a little fun.  Others are beginning to follow in that same path.  HR is not known for being ‘fun’. In fact, we are probably known for not having fun.  We like to tell ourselves this comes with the territory of having to fire people. “Tim, this is serious business, there is no room for fun in HR.”   You can have fun in HR.  You need to have fun in HR.  Our organizations need proper role models of how to have fun.  People will still have to be fired, might as well have some fun along the way.

5.  It only costs a little more to go first class.  Actually it costs a ton more, but have you ever really seen an empty first class?  And, no, it’s not all frequent fliers filling those seats.  Some people are willing to pay more for a better flight experience.  You might not be willing, but some are.  Your employees are the same way about a lot of things.  Don’t think you know what is best for them, because it’s best for you.  They might want something totally different.  Well, we (in HR) like having half day Fridays in the summer, so we are willing to work 9 hour days Monday through Friday to get those. Everyone will want this.  Unless your the department that can’t take a half day on Friday because your clients need y0u there at 4pm on Fridays.

Here’s a tip to get you through your holiday travel, if you get stuck in an airport.  You aren’t forced to stay at the airport.  If you have an extremely long layover, grab a taxi and go someplace nice to eat, or even a movie.  It beats waiting 4 or 5 hours fighting over who gets the outlet next.

Candidate Experience Isn’t a Real Product

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I love watching really good comics.  Sarah Silverman has a new special on HBO called “We Are Miracles” it’s brilliantly funny in the way where she makes her self laugh at some of the things she is saying.  I love that.  I find it funnier when the comic finds themselves funny, not fake funny, but naturally tickled at what they are thinking and saying out loud.  There is one part in the special where she talks about a product that is being marketed to women for a certain kind of odor, in areas we don’t talk about on family blogs like this.  She describes how these odor fighting products, marketed directly at women, going after their worst fears, aren’t really products.  We think they are because we see the commercials and someone holding a can in their hands and talking on TV, I mean it has to be real, it’s on TV!

But they aren’t.  There is no real need for this product. Women can use soap and water, like they use on the rest of their body.  As Sarah says, if you do that, your normal washing, and you still sense an odor, you don’t need a ‘perfume’ spray, you need a doctor!

This is exactly how I feel about Candidate Experience.  It’s not a real product.

We think it is because we have really smart folks telling us it is.  These same folks make their living off of consulting to companies who have unrealized fears of a candidate having a bad experience and then those candidates no longer wanting to use or buy their products and services.  This is made up.  This is private parts deodorant.

Here is what Candidate Experience is built upon:

1. At some point an executive had their sister’s kid, a niece or nephew of the executive, apply for a job with the company online.  Your system/process did what is was suppose to do, it weeded out this crappy candidate, sent them the “Dear John” letter, and that was it.  But it wasn’t!

2. Executive hears from her sister that her daughter Mary, a brilliant child, was not selected and not even given an interview, in fact there was no human interaction at all!

3. Executive has to save face with family.  Comes down hard on Talent Acquisition leader about how can we treat our candidates like this!

This is how Candidate Experience was born.  A niece not getting hired.

The executive not wanting to make this ‘about herself’ comes up with other reasons, and all the sheep follow along.  “We need to treat all candidates like we treat our customers!  We need to make candidates advocates of our products and services.  We need to treat candidates this better than we treat each other because it’s a competitive advantage for talent.”  And we begin to buy into the rhetoric.  We begin to believe that we have an odor, that what we’ve been doing is bad.  Our worst fears, that a candidate who feels they have a bad experience will stop using our products, is so overplayed it’s actually funny when you stop and actually think about it!  You will have candidates who feel they are great, you won’t, they’ll get upset and not like your company.  That is life in Talent Acquisition.  A minute percentage will think this way, and there is nothing you’ll ever be able to do about it!

The reality is, for the vast majority of Talent Acquisition Leaders, what we’ve been doing is just fine.  We treat our candidates like normal humans, we communicate with them if we feel they fit or not, and the process works.  Sure, some of us, have some bad processes, or parts of processes that need to be fixed.  But we don’t have an odor problem.  The biggest lie that is perpetuated in the Human Resource Industry is that Candidate Experience is important.  The reality is candidates have extremely low expectations when it comes to applying for a job.  All they really want and need is to know that you saw their application and/or resume, and do you feel they would be a fit or not.  That’s it!  Treat them like normal humans.  Give them enough respect to communicate with them the next step: 1. Thank you, but no thanks we have some better fitting candidates, try again next time; 2. We’re interested, here is step #2.

It’s not hard.  You don’t need to spend time and money on this.  You don’t have a real problem. I know you think you do, so many people are telling you so, so it must be real.  But it’s not, it’s private parts deodorant!

 

 

Snapchat Video Resumes

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I hear the all the kids love Snapchat!  Okay, I’ve been hearing this for over a year now, but never really found any reason to write about the product.  I even downloaded the App and tried it out.  I still don’t seem to have a need.  I’m an adult.  Unless I’m doing something I shouldn’t, there is no need for me to have a message that self destructs in 1 to 10 seconds.  I guess it might be something to give your managers who love to say inappropriate things to their staff, but then you’re encouraging them to say and do inappropriate things!

Even though I don’t get it, doesn’t mean it’s not a great idea.  It just means I’m old.  I mean the dude who stole the idea developed the idea just turned down a $3 Billion offer to be bought!  I’m sure the kids will keep using it, that was probably a good call.  Kids never give up on an App, and move on to something else every 27 seconds…

The way blogging works is you have to beat the millions of other bloggers to market with your idea.  They then steal your idea and write it up as if it was their own brilliant idea.  So, I’m hear to share with you the next great HR/Talent Acquisition idea for the last 30 days of 2013!  Snapchat Video Resumes!  Please don’t tell HireVue or WePow, they have more money than me and will have no problem implementing this into their existing product offerings!   I checked and Snapchat is the only technology partner HireVue hasn’t signed a partnering agreement with!

Here how it works:

1. You’ve got 10 seconds, so you have to be able to articulate your entire worth to a company in 10 seconds.   For many of you this is about 7 seconds too long.

2. Push the circle on the bottom of the screen.

3. Look into camera and start talking or do whatever it is you’re going to do to show how great of employee you will be.

4. Select who you want to send it to.

5. Send.

6. Wait for Job Offers to coming flying in!

Before you laugh and say this is impossible, you know I found a company that is already doing it.  File this under “Recruiting Professional with Shortest Career Ever“:

Likeable Media, a social media marketing agency in New York, is also finding value in the photo sharing app — as a recruiting tool.

When applicants apply to the company — which hundreds do each month, says Brian Murray, Likeable’s director of talent and culture — Likeable’s automatic resume processor sends an email alerting the applicant his or her materials have been received. It also offers a chance to follow up with Murray in email, over Twitter, or as of four weeks ago, via Snapchat.

“When you’re applying for jobs a lot of the time, you feel like you’re sending something into the black hole of resumes,” he says.

“We’re always looking for ways to give applicants a way to be creative outside of the resume.”

For the past month, applicants have been sending Murray Snapchat messages showing off their creative sides. Likeable has received more than a dozen messages from prospective employees, and roughly a third of them have been brought in for interviews.

Brian Murray, call on line one, it’s SHRM, they are sending out a kill squad.  Let’s just say if your screening process of candidates has a Snapchat element to it, you should be shot!