Category Archives: Job Seeker Advice

2015 Top Post: Resumes Objectives Sent From G*D

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I’m on vacation this week, so you’re getting a best of week from The Project. These are the most read posts of 2015 to this point. Enjoy! 

This is an actual resume objective from an actual candidate’s resume that was submitted for a position at my company (HRU Technical Resources) this past week:

Objective: (As written, no corrections)
1. Move out of my apartment after 4 years of living there.
2. Buy house
3. Buy ring, find girlfriend, marry her.
4. Continue investing for retirement
5. Go to florida on vacation
6. Make documentaries
7. Do what I do best. Intovate.

Because this might possibly the best resume objective ever written, I wanted to break all seven of the objectives down:

1. Shows great forward thinking and longevity all in one simple sentence.  I want more, but I’m willing to work to get there.

2. Big goal #1 – set the foundation. Smart!

3. I’m heterosexual, just in case you were wondering.  Plus, I do things a little different.  I want to get the ring before the girl. That way I’ll know for sure the girl will like the ring that I can afford, since it will already be bought. I might even show it to her on the first date, just so we don’t run into problems later down the road.

4. Long term planning. Conservative. Can’t rely on Obama to plan for my retirement.

5. But, I like to party and have fun in the short term.

6. I also have a serious side and a creative side.  I’m the full package.

7. Do what I do best! Intovate! Not spelling. He was so proud of it, I had to look it up and make sure I wasn’t missing something! You know I’m grammatically challenged! Nope Intovate is not a word, but it sure sounds like it should be!

There is a reason that resumes are dying, and this might it.  For certain positions you need a resume, but for most you just need to fill out the application, no resume needed.  Some how, at some point in our history, everyone began to feel like they need a resume. That’s when this happens.

Happy Searching my recruiting friends! Go forth today and Intovate!

 

Career ADHD: Is Employee Tenure Still Important?

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I keep getting told by folks who tend to know way more than me that employees ‘today’ don’t care about staying at a company long term. “Tim you just don’t get it, the younger workforce just wants to spend one to three years at a job than leave for something new and different.” You’re right! I don’t get it.

Payscale recently released survey data showing that the average employee tenure is sitting at 3.68 years.  Which speaks to my smart friends who love to keep replacing talent. I still don’t buy this fact as meaning people don’t want long term employment with one organization.

Here’s what I know about high tenured individuals:

1. People who stay long term with a company tend to make more money over their career.

2. People who stay long term with a company tend to reach the highest level of promotion.

3. People who tend to stay long term with a company tend to have higher career satisfaction.

I don’t have a survey on this. I have twenty years of working in the trenches of HR and witnessing this firsthand. The new CEO hire from outside the company gets all the press, but it actually rarely happens. Most companies promote from within because they have trust in the performance of a long-term, dedicated employee, over an unknown from the outside. Most organizations pick the known over the unknown.

I still believe tenure matters a great deal to the leadership of most organizations.  I believe that a younger workforce still wants to find a great company where they can build a career, but we keep telling them that is realistic in today’s world.

Career ADHD is something we’ve made up to help us explain to our executives why we can no longer retain our employees.  Retention is hard work. It has real, lasting impact to the health and well-being of a company. There are real academic studies that show the organizations with the highest tenure, outperform those organizations with lower tenure.  (here, here, and here)

Employee tenure is important and it matters a great deal to the success of your organization. If you’re telling yourself and your leadership that it doesn’t, that its just ‘kids’ today, we can’t do anything about it, you’re doing your organization a disservice. You can do something about it. Employee retention, at all levels, should be the number 1, 2 and 3 top priorities of your HR shop.

Tim Sackett, Best Life Coach Ever!

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I believe the concept of ‘Life Coach’ is the biggest con anyone has been able to pull off in the history of mankind.  That being said I personally know some folks who love having a life coach (#WhitePeopleProbs).  I do like the concept of ‘Business Coaches’ or ‘Leadership Coaches’, I see those things a bit differently based on what I see in organizations.  Two unique things happen in organizations that make the concept of Business Coach more viable:

1. We promote our best workers to managers.

2. Leaders are put on an island with no one to confide in.

Both ideas above are systematically flawed.  Just because you’re the ‘best’ worker doesn’t make you a good manager.  You might be, but you also might be a colossal failure.  Being in a senior leader’s role, and giving you no one to really be able to be honest, also has bad consequences.   A business coach can help both sides succeed, where normal organizational training fails.

You can give new managers all kinds of training, but there comes a time when one-on-one, let’s walk through a specific scenario you are having, just works better for learning and development of that person.   Also, a leader needs to get ideas out of their head to someone they trust will give them good and honest feedback about how freaking crazy they are!   Subordinates won’t do this, and peers might use it against them to position themselves for the next move.

I’m a big fan of Business Coaches.  I think organizations underutilize this approach because it seems expensive.  The reality is, it’s usually a billable hour or two per month, to ensure you have well functioning leadership.  That total cost might be $5000 per year.  I’m really hoping any manager or leader you have brings in exponentially much more profit than $5000 per year!

Which leads me to Tim Sackett, Life Coach.

I could be a life coach.  I have a feeling it would go a little like this:

Mark, Life Coachee: “Hey, Tim great to talk to you, just wanted to dive right into a problem I’m having, is that okay?”

Tim Sackett, Life Coach: “No, it’s not okay. That your problem Mark, you’re always thinking about you!  What about me and my freaking problems!”

Mark: “Uh, sorry. But I thought I’m paying you to help me on my stuff.”

Tim: “No, you’re paying me because I’m smart and have my shit together, and you can’t figure out how to manage your own daily simple life.”

Mark: “I don’t think this is what I expected.”

Tim: “Yes it is. That’s your problem Mark, you think too much.  You’re now paying me to do your thinking.”

Mark: “Okay, I’ll play along and see where this is going.”

Tim: “Mark here’s what ‘we’ are going to do. First, you’re getting your butt up each day and you’re going to work. Second, you’re going to stop whining about your life. Third, you’re going to go home and be an active part of your family life, and stop acting like you should be able to have a family and still act like you’re in college, you’re not.”

Mark: “But you don’t understand, I work in a stressful job!”

Tim: “Shut up, you’re an accountant. Stress is not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight because you don’t have a place to live.  You don’t have stress, you have normal.”

I have a strong feeling my ‘Life Coaching’ sessions would only go one session, and everyone would be fixed, so I’m going to have to figure out that pricing model.  If you want to set up an appointment, just hit me in the comments and we can get that set up immediately, I take PayPal!

 

When Did Attitude Become a Skill?

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I know for sure that this hasn’t always been the case.  My parents and grandparents did not see Positive Attitude as a skill.  It was something you had, or faked, while at work.  You didn’t question it, it was a given.  You either showed up with it, or you got sent home to find it!

I’m now, seriously, hearing from hiring managers who only skill they desire from a candidate is someone with a positive attitude!

No, Tim, I don’t need someone who can do the job. We can show them that part. I just need someone who actually shows up to work and seems to like being here, working, making money, helping the company, our customers and their fellow employees.

By the way, these aren’t $12 an hour jobs.  These are professional, you can make a good living, with benefits and retirement and manage people, level jobs!  Career level jobs!

Here is all anyone really has to do today to get hired by, keep and have a long successful career at most companies:

1. Show up to work, almost every day.

2. Come across to others that you actually like your job and the company you work for.

3. Don’t be an asshole to your boss, coworkers and customers.

4. Be slightly positive about what the future holds for yourself and others.

5. Don’t be creepy.

1 + 2 +3 + 4 + 5 = a great career and multiple employee awards!

Yet, most people in the world can’t even come close to meeting the expectations I’ve listed out above.  Not. Even. Close.

Positive attitude is not a skill. It’s a basic human trait that all of your employees should have.  If they don’t, please give them the gift of finding this ‘skill’ working for another employer.

Also, don’t give me some crap about having a bad day.  Everyone has bad days, weeks, months and years.  It doesn’t change the fact that you need to show up to work and put on a positive front. Look, I don’t care if its real or fake, and no one else does either! Just do it. Here’s a little secret, none of know that your faking being positive, and even if we did, we really don’t care! We like hanging around positive people, more than negative people.

Attitude is not a skill. I refuse to allow it to be!

If You’re Going To Do It, Do It Now!

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I have three sons, two of which are college age-ish (one if college, one on his way).  They can do anything right now!  If they wanted, they could fill a backpack and walk the earth. No one is going to stop them, in fact, many will congratulate them for taking this leap while they’re young.

In just a few years, people won’t say that.  They’ll tell them it’s crazy and you’re going to hurt your career, etc.

I’m 45 years old.  I have a feeling that I’m getting to an age where I no longer can make a change in my career path.

Before you start commenting with things like, “Tim, age is a state of mind”, or “You can do anything you want”, or “Follow you passion”.  Stop it. I’m a grown ass man.  I like to think I’m an adult, although my wife and kids question that frequently. I have adult obligations – mortgage, college tuition, kids to raise, health insurance. I can’t just go off and polish rocks.

We all get to certain points in our life where you can no longer just go do ‘it’. Whatever ‘it’ is for you.   I feel like I’m at a point where I can’t change careers, not because I don’t think I could, but because society doesn’t look well upon 45-year-old dudes looking to change careers. Something is now wrong with me if I wanted to change careers. BTW – I don’t want to change careers, I actually think what I do is pretty cool. Or hip. Or On Fleek. Or whatever the kids are saying.

If I decided to go back and become a nurse, right now, at 45 years old, with all of my responsibilities. People would say something is wrong with me. You know what? I would think there was something wrong with me.

My question is more around what is ‘that’ time when if you’re going to do it, you better do it now?

For traveling the world: I think it’s 18-22 yrs old, or after 60.

For completely changing careers: I think you have to do it around 30-35 years old. Later, and you just look like your reaching. (I think most people won’t agree with this, but it comes from my recruiting background and how hiring managers look at older candidates who have made this move)

For having kids: this one has changed a bit, but before 40 seems safe. Otherwise, you’re just tempting science to give you problems. One caveat, if you’re adopting, I’ll push out this age because those kids just need someone who will love them.

For completely your high school or college education: I’m really open on this one – I would say anytime before death! I’m a huge advocate of lifelong learning!

For having grandkids: After 45 years old for sure. If you have grandkids prior to becoming 45, you did something wrong as a parent.

For getting your nose pierced: 17-28 years old. Yeah, I’m looking at you 37-year-old mom with the kid with a mohawk not wearing his seatbelt in the back of your Ford Mustang.

So, hit me in the comments with your age ranges on when you think it’s no longer socially acceptable to change careers!

 

 

5 Signs You Shouldn’t Make That Offer

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If I have learned anything at all in my HR/Recruiting career it’s that everyone has an opinion on what makes a good hire. If you ask 100 people to give you one thing they focus on when deciding between candidates, you’ll get 100 different answers!

I’ve got some of my own. They might be slightly different than yours, but I know mine work!  So, if you want to make some better selections, take note my young Padawans:

1. Crinkled up money. Male or female if you pull money out of your pocket or purse and it’s crinkled up, you’ll be a bad hire!  There is something fundamentally wrong with people who can’t keep their cash straight. The challenge you have is how do you get a candidate to show you this? Ask to copy their driver’s license, or something like that!

2. Males with more selfies on their Instagram, than all other photos. I don’t even have to explain this.

3. Slow walkers.  If you don’t have some pep in your step, at least for the interview, you’re going to be drag as an employee.

4. My Last Employer was so Awesome! Yeah, that’s great, we aren’t them. Let’s put a little focus back to what we got going on right here, sparky. Putting too much emphasis on a job you love during the interview is annoying. We get it. It was a good gig. You f’d it up and can’t let go. Now we’ll have to listen about it for the next nine months until we fire you.

5. Complaining or being Rude to waitstaff.  I like taking candidates to lunch or dinner, just to see how they treat other people. I want servant leaders, not assholes, working for me. The meal interview is a great selection tool to weed out bad people.

What are your signs not to make an offer?  Share in the comments!

The Most Powerful Employee Motivator of All

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I was once fired from a job.  I won’t go into the story because we all have a story and we all frame it to sound like a victim. In hindsight, many years removed, I would have fired me to!

After being fired I could only think about one thing. It consumed me. I wanted to show whomever I went to work for how great I really was.  I didn’t want the ‘fired’ label to follow me, even for a minute.  I wasn’t ‘that’ person. I was better. I wanted…

Redemption!

Redemption is the most powerful employee motivator of all time. None others are even close.

It’s why always laugh when a hiring manager tells me they will never hire someone who has been fired from a job. Really!?  I actually only want people who have been fired from jobs! I want people who have failed, and have a giant chip on their shoulder to show the world they are better than that.

I don’t want to hire crappy people who were fired because they actually have no skill and no personality.  That’s the problem, right? We believe everyone who has been fired to be crappy. “Well, Tim, people don’t get fired if they’re good!” Really? You believe that?

Good people get fired every day. They get fired for making bad decisions. They get fired for pissing off the wrong person. They get fired because they didn’t fit your culture. They get fired because of bad job fit. Good people get fired, maybe as much as bad people get fired. Unfortunately, we lump all of them into the same pool.

Redemption sets the good fires apart from the bad fires.

You can hear redemption speak when interviewing a good fire.  Bad fires don’t speak of redemption, they speak of justification.  Good fires want a second chance to show the world they are right. Bad fires want a second chance to show the world they were wronged. Those are two very different things!

I like redemption motivation.  It sticks around for a long while. Those scars don’t go away easily.

1 Sign That Shows Google Now Controls HR

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It was just a matter of time. The company that vows to do know evil, would eventually take over the function that is the most hated in the world.  Don’t get me wrong, Google didn’t come into your organization and start giving your employees performance reviews, yet.  What Google does is much more stealth.

Remember back in April of this year (2015)? Laszlo Bock, the head of HR for Google, released his book “Work Rules!” He then went on a national book tour and was famously interviewed, everywhere, telling anyone who would listen that you don’t need a college degree to work at Google. In fact, Google has found that your college GPA and transcripts to be ‘worthless’ in terms of making a quality hire.

We all kind of chuckled.  Well, there goes Google, being Google again.

Let’s fast forward to today. Jobvite recently released their 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey.  It’s always an interesting read, with great data and metrics, but one metric stood out, to me, above all others:

“57% of Organizations now report that GPAs are unimportant.”

Do you see what just happened?

If Jobvite would have asked organizations and recruiters in January of this year, this same question, prior to Laszlo’s announcement, how do you think this number would be different?  I’m telling you the number would have been around 5% or less!

GPA are unimportant. Really?

Here’s what Google, I mean Laszlo, forgot to tell everyone about why Google can hire people who have never gone to college.  THEY HIRE FREAKING GENIUSES THAT HAVE BEEN CODING IN THEIR PARENTS BASEMENTS SINCE THEY WERE 12! These kids don’t need college. College would bore them. They know more than the professors teaching them. Google gets to hire the top 1% of people, not just college grads.

You won’t get these geniuses, who don’t need to go to college.  You get half-baked nitwits who need college, a good spanking, a few years to grow up and probably deep therapy.  You are not Google.

Yet, here we are, and you are answering Jobvite’s survey questions and acting like your Google.  Thank you Google.  Thank you for setting HR back a decade.  For not telling the full story, just swaying opinion by making bold statements.  We now get a generation of workers who think they can just jump off their Xbox and into a job paying six figures.  That’s really helpful.  You’re brilliant Laszlo.

Check out Jobvite’s 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey, it’s good stuff, even the stuff that Google brainwashed you to answer.

The Undercover Job Start

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I’ve had quite a few friends start new positions in this past year.  It’s exciting to see so many people get great opportunities after living through the recession!

One common thing happens to all of these folks. It goes something like this:

1.  Social announcement that they got a new position!  Yay! Congrats! When do you start?! We all know the drill.

2. Actual announcement on the first day they start the job.  This happens in a number of forms, social, press release, etc. This is Day 1 on the job, they don’t even know which bathroom they should be using based on their position, and Bam!, you’ve been announced to the world you’re open for business in your new role.

3. Everyone in the world is contacting you on your first day for a variety of reasons. Some will want to just congratulate you. Some will want to pimp your for business. Some will want dirt on why you left the last place. All will want time you don’t have because YOU JUST STARTED A NEW JOB AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE BATHROOM IS!!!

4. You spend the first week trying to find the bathroom.

5. By week #2, you found the bathroom, your email works on your smartphone, and your new company is already beginning to discount your ideas and opinions. Welcome to the show kid, it moves pretty fast!

That’s why I think you should do away with the current job announcement practices, and do something else.  Here’s my new Sackett Job Announcement Plan for Success (like a Trump policy, but it works):

1. Day 1, will now be called Day A.

2. Day A – E, will be your first days of employment, but no one will actually be told that you started.

3. Day 1 (which is really day 6) will happen on the first day of week #2.  Now, you’re actually ready to announce your new position, and take on the coming storm of emails, phone calls, tweets, etc.

Better, right?

We can call it the Undercover Job Start.  You’ve started, but let’s keep it on the down-low until I find the bathroom and stuff.  It’s like the same job start, but without all the stress.

They do this in the restaurant industry when they open a new restaurant. They ‘soft’ open a week before the actual Grand Opening.  People trickle in. It gives the staff a chance to work out the kinks and fix stuff without having a full restaurant to deal with.  That’s how you want to start your job!

The Top 10 Words You Should Never Use in Your LinkedIn Profile

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I love Fast Company magazine from about five years ago.  Their writers pushed the envelope and challenged me in almost every article to rethink business and leadership. I couldn’t wait for the next copy to come out.

Recently, they’ve fallen off a ton on the quality side.  I blame their need to deliver daily content versus month content. When you have thirty days to put out limited content, you can make it really good. When you do daily content, some will be good, some will be complete crap.

Case in point, Fast Company recently posted an article titled “The 10 Words You Should Never Use In Your LinkedIn Profile” written by Stephanie Vozza.  It’s not really Fast Companies best work. It’s boring. It’s vanilla. They could have done so much better with this!

Here are the ten words Fast Company says you shouldn’t use on your LinkedIn profile:

LinkedIn Top Ten Global Buzzwords for 2014

  1. Motivated
  2. Passionate
  3. Creative
  4. Driven
  5. Extensive experience
  6. Responsible
  7. Strategic
  8. Track record
  9. Organizational
  10. Expert

These are all based on Vozza’s assumption that you shouldn’t use the same words as everyone else if you want your profile to standout. Not bad advice, but it’s not classic Fast Company advice.  It’s not edgy, or snarky, or fun.  It didn’t challenge me to think differently!

The “real” list of 10 Words You Should Never Use in Your LinkedIn Profile:

  1. Parole
  2. Moist
  3. Gingivitis
  4. Erection
  5. Maverick
  6. Disgruntled
  7. Horney
  8. Manscaping
  9. Purge
  10. Juicy

Honorable Mentions:  Any gross medical type terms – pus, mucous, ooze, cyst.  Ginormous. Retarded.  Nugget.

See!  My list is much better!  That is the list that Fast Company would have put out five years ago!

If you use Fast Company’s list, sure no one will notice your profile, but you can still get a job, and people will want to connect with you.  If you use words on my list, there’s not a chance you’ll get a job or connections.  Well, you might get connections, but probably not the ones you really want!

So, how do you make your LinkedIn profile stand out?

  • Have a pretty/handsome picture of yourself.
  • Don’t write your profile like you’re a used car salesman.
  • Tell people about yourself in real terms.
  • Let your personality come through, but make it the best side of your personality.

Here’s the deal. There is no secret sauce in building your profile because LinkedIn has become so diverse in its user base.  You need to write your profile for the type of person and company you want to connect with.  If you want to work for a big traditional, conservative company, you might want to tone down the profile to fit.  If you want to work for some cool, hip, new startup, you better not sound like your want to work for IBM.

Organizations tend to hire what they see in the mirror.  You need to look like they look. Not physically, but in your words and actions.