Category Archives: IT Staffing

3 Highly Effective Habits of Annoying Candidates

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I’ve noticed a run on ‘Highly Effective’ list posts lately!  It seems like everyone has the inside scoop on how to be highly effective at everything! Highly Effective Leaders. Highly Effective Managers. Highly Effective Productive People. Highly Effective Teacher.  If you want a post worth clicking on, just add an odd number, the words ‘highly effective’ and a title.  It goes a little something like this (hit it!):

– The 5 Highly Effective Habits of Crackheads!

– The 7 Highly Effective Traits of Lazy Employees!

– The 13 Highly Effective Ways To Hug It Out at Work!

Blog post writing 101.  The highly effective way to write a blog post people will click on and spend 57 seconds reading.

I figured I might as well jump on board with some career/job seeker advice with the 3 Highly Effective Habits of Annoying Candidates!

1. They don’t pick up on normal social cues.  This means you don’t know when to shut up or start talking.   Most annoying candidates actually struggle with the when to stop talking piece.  Yes, we want to hear about your job history. No, we don’t care about your boss Marvin who managed you at the Dairy Dip when you were 15.

2. They live in the past. Usually, annoying candidates are annoying because they were annoying employees and like to share annoying stories about how great it was in the past, when they weren’t thought of as annoying.  I guess you can’t blame them. If there was ever a possibility they weren’t annoying, I’d probably try and relive those moments as much as possible.

3. They lack a shred of self-insight.  That’s really the core, right?  If you had any self-insight, you would understand you’re just a little annoying and you would work to control that, but you don’t.  “Maybe some would say spending a solid ten minutes talking about my coin collection in an interview wouldn’t be good, but I think it shows I’m passionate!” No, it doesn’t.

You can see how these highly effective habits start to build on each other.  You don’t stop rambling on about something totally unrelated to the interview because you don’t notice Mary stopped taking notes ten minutes ago and started doodling on her interview notes, but you plow on because you told yourself during interview prep to make sure you got out all of your bad manager stories.

Highly effective annoying candidates are like a Tsunami of a lack of emotional intelligence.  Even if I was completely unqualified for a job I think the feedback afterwards from the interviewers would be: “we really liked him, too bad he doesn’t have any the skills we need.”   Highly effective annoying candidates have the opposite feedback: “if this person was the last person on earth with the skills to save our company, I would rather we go out of business!”

What annoying candidate habits have you witnessed?

Wrong Company, Right Interview

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If you’re in the staffing game enough, you’re bound to have strange stuff happen to you.  I’ve had employees die on the job.  I’ve had employees go postal.  I’ve had employees get caught doing almost everything imaginable, but this past week I got a first!  I like firsts. Firsts are like little HR and Talent trophies you get to show off to your HR and Talent peers when you’re out after work sharing war stories!

It seemed like a normal Thursday.  Phones buzzing, recruiters cruitin’, interviews, offers, no-shows.  Call comes in from a client, “Hey, Bill never showed for his interview!” Ugh, I hate no-shows!  In good job times, no-shows increase at alarming rate.  Candidate gets ‘sold’ on a job, then they get buyers remorse and decide instead of being an adult, they’ll just burn a bridge.  We give Bill a call to see why he hates us so.  Bill answers! (that doesn’t usually happen with no-shows, you just have to yell at their voice mail and belittle to a recording) “Bill, I just got a call from InfoGenTech what the hell!  You no-showed. Please tell me one of your kids is seriously injured!”

Then a funny, first time thing, happened.

Bill says, “Well, I went on the interview, but went to the wrong company!”  What!?  Didn’t the wrong company tell you,”Hey dude, you’re stupid and at the wrong company!”  Nope, they didn’t.  This is the D! (Detroit for all you none “D’ers'”!) This company said, “What position are you supposed to interview for?”  Bill goes, “for aprogrammer position”.  Wrong company front desk person, knowing they also need programmers, quickly calls HR and explains Bill’s situation.  Bill gets on the spot interview with wrong company.  Bill never gets the chance to make it to our client’s interview.

Score one for the D.  The war for talent is alive and well in Detroit!

I’ve had candidates get lost and not be able to find where they are going for interviews.  I’ve had candidates show up at wrong locations.  I’ve never had a candidate go to the wrong location and get stolen by the company!

When people ask me how Michigan is doing, how Detroit is doing, I’ll give them this story.  We are so short on talent, we steal interviews.

Recruiting in the D.  Silicon Valley can kiss our ass!

Profiling Diversity Hires

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Entelo, a recruiting technology company, recently launched a product called Entelo Diversity. To be honest, I had to look up what Entelo actually did.  I had heard the name, but I couldn’t have told you if they were an employee engagement company or an ATS – turns out they’re neither! They’re a recruiting play, inasmuch, you have needs that are hard to find, their product claims to help you find those needs (I’ve never used it, so I not telling you it works or doesn’t).  This new product, apparently, helps you find Black People! Or Women. Or Black Women. Or a half Black-Asain Women, who used to be a man. I’m not sure, for sure, I haven’t used it, I’m just going on their press release.

Here’s what I know, that most Talent and HR people lose their freaking minds over.  It’s not a bad thing to have a product or service that can specifically find you a certain kind of diversity.  I know. I know. That makes you really uncomfortable!

“TIM! People will use those products to discriminate!”

They might.  I can’t stop that at your organization.  I can stop that at my organization!

The products just find what you want.  If you need more female recruits for your hiring pool. Bam!  A product like this will help you.  If you need more shades of color within your organization. Bam! A product like this could help you build a rainbow in your organization.  If you have a hiring manager who only wants to hire young white guys in your organization. You need to address that!  But don’t blame a recruiting product.  You own that one!

I hear the same criticism every time I show a new group how to recruit on Facebook.  There are really cool options where you could search on females, 22 years old to 28 years old, who graduated with an engineering degree from Stanford. That’s is awesome, right!?   I need more young female engineers from Standford in my engineering department! But I can also search 31-45 year old white male engineers from Stanford as well.  Oh, well, that’s not so good, right?  Wrong.  What if your entire staff was black female engineers!  While highly unlikely, you would still need to add some diversity to that staff.

This isn’t about tools getting more powerful and precise to what you are looking for.  This is about those using those tools, usually Talent and HR Pros, ensuring that your organization is doing the right things to get the best hiring pools possible.  Too many Talent and HR Pros run away from using these tools, and it only shows their own ignorance for what true diversity and inclusion is.

Smart Talent and HR Pros know what their organizations are lacking, and they’ll work to fill those needs with the best available talent.  Sometimes that means you need to get very specific on the diversity side.  Sometimes it means you don’t.  Great Pros work to always have the correct balance for their organization, their demographic and their stakeholders.

(Editor’s Note: Ha! That’s funny, you all know I don’t have an editor.  Just so we are clear, Entelo did not compensate me for this post, but if they want to send me Diet Mt. Dew, I never turn that down.)

Are you Persuading or Convincing candidates to take your jobs?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have I convinced you to change?

Corporate Recruiters Don’t Fear Agency Recruiters

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Do you believe the title?  It’s common belief, in most Talent and HR circles, that most corporate recruiters fear agency recruiters.  Go ahead and argue if you would like, but it seems a little silly.

The reality is, true recruiting professionals don’t fear amateurs.

It’s like a really great professional Photographer.  They charge money because they offer something someone is willing to pay for.  Professional photographers don’t fear the mom at the soccer game with her $2,000 dollar camera and $5,000 dollar lens.  Who cares that you have the equipment, if you don’t know how to use it!?  Pros don’t fear amateurs.

So, if you are a really good corporate recruiter who knows how to really recruit, agency recruiters don’t scare you, because you know your stuff!  That’s the problem, though, right?  The reason so many people feel the title of this post is true is because we all know so many corporate recruiters, who really don’t know how to recruit.  They aren’t pros, they’re amateurs.  Amateurs fear professionals when it comes to meeting head to head in competition.

The best professionals love it when a talented amateur tries to play at their level.  These types of individuals help to push both parties to do the best work they can.  Or, at least, they should!  A great agency recruiter, should push an average corporate recruiter to want to get better.  An amateur agency recruiter will starve, that’s why you only see amateurs in the agency ranks for a very short period of time.  If they aren’t good, they don’t eat! That is why on average, agency recruiters tend to have more recruiting skills than corporate recruiters.  Agency folks aren’t full salary. How they are compensated forces them to have better skills, on average.

So, how do corporate recruiters ensure they become professionals?  Well, I love Malcom Gladwell, so I’ll steal a little of his 10,000 hour concept.  You must make yourself a true recruiting professional!  You need to invest time and development in yourself, in the recruiting industry, to become a pro.   That means as a corporate recruiter, you focus on recruiting, not becoming an HR Pros. What?!  Most corporate recruiters are corporate recruiters because that’s their path to get into a straight HR position.  Their endgame is not recruiting, it’s HR.  That’s a problem, because they are not fully vested into the recruiting game.  This is an amateur move.

Your reality is, those who get promoted are usually professional at something.  Become a great recruiting pro and the powers-that-be will take notice, and you’ll find yourself in positions you never thought possible.  True professionals don’t worry about promotions, they worry about becoming a better pro at their craft.

The next time you start feeling yourself pushed by an agency recruiter, don’t curse them for what they do, embrace them for what they push you to become — a better recruiter.

 

Candidates with Hickeys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Mostly Work For Free

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I’m an agency headhunter.  I love this Dilbert comic, it makes me laugh:

Dilbert Headhunter

 

The reality is, headhunting, recruiting, etc. can be a very lucrative job. Like most sales jobs, yes it’s a sales job, if you’re any good, you can make really good money. If you’re not good, you starve.

The truth about headhunting is I’m usually working for free.   I don’t blame my clients for this.  I completely know the deal going in, and if I ‘decide’ to work for free, I’ve made the conscious decision to do it.

Most people don’t know that about this profession.  That 90% of their time is spent working for free.  It’s why so many people leave agency recruiting to go to corporate recruiting.  The jobs are virtually the same, except on the corporate side you get paid each day.  You don’t get paid as well, but you get paid.  On the agency side, you rarely get paid, but if you’re good, those pay days are big.

Those in the industry will read this and think, “well, Tim, you must not be good at what you do, because I would never work for free!”  They feel like they have clients who would never asked them to do that, or they ‘qualify’ each opening before they do would take on the assignment.  Others will say, “that’s why I only work ‘retained’ search”.

Our reality, agency headhunters, is that everyday we are working on something for free.  My best clients will ask me, beg me, for help on a certain position.  We’ll work our butts off getting them great talent.  Then, we’ll get the call, “Hey, Tim, the resumes are great! We decided to go another direction. Thanks, though, we’ll definitely call the next time we have a need!”

Yep, you just worked for free.

The cool thing about a recovery economy is that the leverage of being able to go out and find more great clients is right there.  Clients who won’t want you to work for free.  Who will value the work you do for free, and not want to take advantage of that.  I feel for my brothers and sisters in the headhunting game.  Working for free never feels good, but you smile, you thank them for the opportunity, and we do what we do.

Hopefully, today, that isn’t working for free.

 

 

Social Recruiting + Infinity

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For those who don’t know, I do this little presentation called Social Recruiting MacGyver Style.  I’m doing it in a couple weeks for a thousand HR Pros in Michigan.  I have some fun with it, and poke fun at some of the things we do in our industry with Social Recruiting.  From questions I get, at that presentation, I came up with this concept:

Social Recruiting + Infinity = Bad Recruiting

Here’s the math logic.

How many followers do you in your full social stream? Think all Twitter followers, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook Page followers, etc. Everyone who could possibly be in your network that you could potentially connect with to source.  Big number, right?  Mine is probably in the millions.  The impresses my teenage sons, but that’s about all the ‘klout’ I get from it.

In this social age of recruiting, for the first time, most of us come face to face with the opportunity of limitless.  Social recruiting gives us access, seemingly, to an endless array of candidates.  No one else can handle limitless.  A hospital has a limit on patients. Restaurants have a limit on patrons.  Most things in life have limits.  In recruiting, we have a limit to how many open requisitions we can handle.

But in the social recruiting world, the pursuit of infinity has become that goal.

The question I have to ask those who embarking into this world of social recruiting is, what price are you will pay for this pursuit?

It’s a question most recruiters don’t even consider when they start down the social recruiting path.  When your recruiting pool is ‘everyone’, it changes the way you work. That what social recruiting tends to be like.   Most begin believing they have a new ‘pond’ to fish in, and find out that pond is an ocean, an ocean where you see fish everywhere, but can see the fish you want to catch.

The corollary of infinity (an endless amount of candidates) is zero (so many candidates you can’t even find one).

Social recruiting works really well the smaller you target, not the bigger.  Why is this important to you?  Let’s go back to the math.  We get caught up in the numbers.  The number of followers. The number of people who ‘like’ us. The number of people who click.  When those numbers are worthless, if they are not the people you want.

Social recruiting is not about more numbers.  It’s about using tools to uncover a very specific skill set you are looking for, and networking with that skill set.  Rifle versus shotgun.  Unfortunately, most recruiters start by trying to connect with everyone and anyone and find no one.

 

The 1 Reason Your New Recruiting Process Will Fail

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There is one absolute truth in Recruiting:  You (anyone who works in recruiting) will attempt to ‘Re-Process’ your recruiting process because you feel you can make it more efficient, more effective, more ‘something’.   The ‘old’ process was a failure (mainly because you didn’t design it), and you have to give the process an overhaul to bring it up to today’s standards.  This new process will satisfy your hiring managers, and completely revolutionize how talent is brought into your organization.

Is this true?

It is.  I’ve been you.  The problem is, it won’t work.  The new process, is the old process, with better clip art.  The new process might actually be a ‘better’ process, but it doesn’t matter.  The reason it doesn’t matter is because of something you aren’t even considering.  Why are you ‘re-processing’?   Let’s assume it’s because you need to get “more” out of your recruiting process.  You need more talent, you need more compliance, you need more satisfied hiring managers, you need more retention, you need, more.

That’s really what this is all about.  If your current process was delivering you more, you wouldn’t change.

Do you know why your ‘new’ process won’t work either?  You don’t really want to get more.  You’re afraid of more.  More opens you up to things you could hide from under the old process.

That is why your ‘new’ process will fail.  Deep down, in places you don’t talk about at work, you don’t want the process to succeed.

Having a successful process means you have to open yourself up to failure.  A successful process needs some things to be successful.  Hard metrics, levels of accountability, a line in the sand that says “we own this”.   Those things will demonstrate success, and they will clearly demonstrate failure.  We love demonstrating our success.  No one loves demonstrating our failure.  So, we attempt to ‘re-process’ a process that will ensure our success, and also ensure we don’t fail.  That is impossible.   Success only works as a comparison.  Here is how we succeed, because here is what it looks like if we fail.

Organizationally, failing isn’t the worst thing that can happen, but individually we fear it.  This fear keeps us from designing the process our organization really needs.  A process that will show those doing it right, and those not doing it right.  A process that shows us where we need to improve, specifically.  A process that will lead to some black and white decisions.

That is why your new Recruiting process will fail.  You are not willing to build one that will show your failures.

 

5 Ways Mobile Recruiting is Morphing Candidate Behavior

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From my buddy Kris Dunn at The HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent – The FOT Webinar Series presents the ins and outs of Mobile Recruiting – check it out!

 

I love it (I know you do too…) when companies start talking about how they block specific types of websites to prevent employees from doing certain things.  One of the types of sites companies love to block is career sites.  ”You’re not going to look for a job while you’re working.”

 

You’re right, boss.  We won’t look for a job on your laptop while we’re working for “the man.” But we’ll absolutely wear it out on breaks, lunch and as soon as we leave work with our mobile device.  Heck – we’ll probably do  it at work from our mobile device as well.

 

That reality means you should probably figure out what’s going on with mobile recruiting, right?  That’s why the latest installment of the FOT webinar series is all about candidate behavior on mobile.  Join Ed Newman from iMomentous and Kris on Tuesday, April 1st from 3-4pm EST for Happy Hour Job Search: Driving the Behavior of Mobile Job Seekers, and we’ll hit you with the following:

 

– A complete breakdown of the basic demographics and behaviors of mobile job seekers, with strategies on how to use that data to influence candidate behavior.

 

– Inside information about power users of mobile career sites, including the level of education they’ve achieved, years of work experience and most prevalent zodiac sign (we’re kidding about the last one–but it would be cool if Capricorns were the most mobile savvy, right?).

 

– What behavior and life patterns surrounding mobile use cause employers to see spikes at particular hours of the day from mobile, and how that impacts your mobile recruiting strategy.

 

– The impact of mobile friendly career sites and email campaigns to click through rates from mobile candidates.

 

– Then, we’ll show you how all the factors listed above make providing highly relevant content and calls to action the key to success with mobile candidates.

 
A winning recruiting strategy starts with understanding the candidate you’re seeking. Where is your candidate sitting at the moment they choose to hit “apply?” What are they doing 10 seconds before they land on your site?

 

Odds are they’re on a mobile device.

 

Remember how your parents thought the Internet was a fad? Don’t fall into the same trap with mobile recruiting.  Join Ed Newman and Kris on Tuesday, April 1st from 3-4pm EST for Happy Hour Job Search: Driving the Behavior of Mobile Job Seekers, and we’ll hit you with the best strategies to get the most out your mobile recruiting strategy in 2014 and beyond.