Category Archives: Selection

The Best Recruit No One Is Talking About

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I’m sure my #8ManRotation partners have read this story, but you might not have.  Bleacher Report had an article this week about a stud high school quarterback, Easton Bruere, out of New Mexico, who threw for 4500 yards, 49 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions this year alone and won the state title for his team.  He’s 6’3″, 200 lbs, strong athletic kid.  3.75 GPA and no legal trouble. He has zero college scholarship offers at the D1 level.

Let me give you a personal angle on this story.  Easton’s Dad and Aunt, both attended the University of Wyoming, when I did.  Both his Dad and Aunt were D1 athletes, Dad, Carl, in Football, Aunt, Ginger, in Volleyball and his sister plays college volleyball.  So, this kid also has a D1 pedigree. He comes from a very athletic family.  My wife and Ginger played together at UW for years.

There is great learning from this for all of my recruiting brother and sisters out there!  I can think of two things specifically:

1. As soon as you believe there are no more ‘recruits’, talent, people, left to hire, you’re dead wrong. This kid is in the middle of New Mexico.  Very few D1 football players come out of New Mexico, so most schools just fly over it on their way to Texas or California.  It’s forgotten about, in terms of football talent.

We do this all the time in recruiting talent for our organizations. “We tried that before, didn’t work.” Have you heard that? Okay, try it again. It didn’t work one time, doesn’t mean it’s never going to work.  “We went to that school three years ago and didn’t recruit anyone, so we didn’t go back.” “I tried calling into that company once, but couldn’t get through.”

 2. On the flip side, college coaches will go to the end of earth to find talent.  Was this kid missed? Or, is there something else we just aren’t getting from this article?  You see what we do.  We assume.  We assume if no one wants the kid, there must be something wrong with him. So, we just take it as fact and don’t do our own evaluation.

This is a problem with corporate recruiting as well.  How many resumes have you passed on because the person was unemployed for six months? “Well, if there weren’t hired by someone, there must be something wrong with them.”  Or, maybe you should bring them in and make that determination for yourself. But, you don’t.  You assume.

In recruiting, more than almost any other field, we give ourselves self-fulling prophecies.

I don’t know if this kid deserves a shot. Sure seems like it from the data I see. Because I know the family, I’m rooting for him.  His dad and aunt were highly competitive.  He has the skills, the experience and the genetics.

Remember this story the next time you go to pass on a candidate without a real reason.  Remember this story the next time you decide to pass on a source because previously it was a bust.  We’re all in the talent game. The funny thing about talent is, it can come from anywhere.

Check out Easton’s recruitment on twitter at #EastonBruere.

Stop Trying to be Happy at Work

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In 1942 Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist, was taken to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents.  Three years later, when his camp was liberated, his pregnant wife and parents had already been killed by the Nazis. He survived and in 1946 went on to write the book, “Man’s Search For Meaning“.  In this great book, Frankl writes:

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”

What Frankl knew was that you can’t make happiness out of something outside yourself.  Riding the Waverunner doesn’t make you happy. You decide to be happy while doing that activity, but you could as easily decide to be angry or sad while doing this activity (although Daniel Tosh would disagree!).  Frankl also wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I get asked frequently by HR Pros about how they can make their employees or workplace happier.  I want to tell them about Frankl’s research and what he learned in the concentration camps.  I want to tell them that you can’t make your employees happy.  They have to decide they want to be happy, first. But, I don’t, people don’t want to hear the truth.

Coming up with ‘things’ isn’t going to make your employees happy. You might provide free lunch, which some will really like, but it also might make someone struggling with their weight, very depressed.  You might give extra time off and most of your employees will love it, but those who define themselves by their work will find this a burden.

Ultimately, I think people tend to swing a certain way on the emotional scale.  Some are usually happier than others.  Some relish in being angry or depressed, it’s their comfort zone.  They don’t know how to be any other way.  Instead of working to ‘make’ people happy, spend your time selecting happy people to come work for you.

In the middle of a concentration camp, the most horrific experiences imaginable, Frankl witnessed people who made the decision to be happy. Maybe they were happy to have one more day on earth. Maybe they were happy because, like Frankl, they discovered that the Nazis could take everything from them except their mind.

Provide the best work environment that you can.  Continue to try and make it better with the resources you have.  Give meaning to the work and the things you do.  Every organization has this, no matter what you do at your company.  Don’t pursue happiness, it’s a fleeting emotion that is impossible to maintain.  Pursue being the best organization you can be.  It doesn’t mean you have to be someone you’re not.  Just be ‘you’, and find others that like ‘you.’

2015 Candidate Bill of Rights

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In November 2010 Monster.com asked me to write a post on a hot topic at that time a “Candidate Bill of Rights“.  Needless to say, I’m not a huge fan of a Candidate Bill of Rights – I’m a Capitalist and believe in a free-market system of HR and Recruiting.  In 2010 (remember those days?) we had candidates coming out of our ears. In 2015, most of us are begging for talent. Welcome to the show kids!

Here were my main point back then – and what they still are today:

Candidates –

You Don’t Have To Apply:

  • If we have a crappy working environment – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t pay appropriately for the market – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give my employees opportunities for growth – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t treat you like a human – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t give you a full job description – you don’t have to apply
  • If we don’t tell you every step of the process – you don’t have to apply

You Don’t Have To Work Here:

  • If we make you wait endlessly without any feedback – you don’t have to work here
  • If we make you an offer that you don’t like – you don’t have to work here
  • If we don’t offer the right work-life balance – you don’t have to work here
  • If we give you a bad Candidate Experience – you don’t have to work here

Candidates – if any of the above is true – you have some decisions to make:

1. Can I live with what I know about the company and the experience they put me through to get this offer?

2. IF SO, do I want to come and work for the company?

3. IF YES – welcome aboard, you’re coming on ‘Eyes Wide Open’

4. IF NO – thanks – good luck – see you next time

You see we all have choices – if you don’t like the way I’m treating you as a candidate, don’t come and work at my company.  I would hope that most HR Pros are smart enough to get this fact – treat candidates like garbage and they’ll stop applying for your jobs, thus making your job all the more difficult.  That might be a bit pie-in-the-sky thinking because I also know way to many HR/Talent Pros that don’t get this!   They have a little bit of power and have decided to torture candidates with painfully long and arduous application and selection processes – that aren’t helpful to their own companies, statistically, and definitely aren’t helpful to the candidates.  During a recession they don’t see much impact from these horrible processes, but eventually the tide turns and face the results of their actions.  Karma is a bitch!

So, do we need a candidate bill of rights – No!  Do you need to spend a ton of time, effort and resources on candidate experience – No, as well!  Don’t go right ditch-left ditch and start over correcting.  Treat candidates like you would want to be treated.  Have a few standards and etiquette, and some manners.  It’s not hard, it’s not expensive and you definitely don’t need to pay a consultant to show you how to do it!

Karma is biting a bunch of hack talent acquisition pros in the butt in 2015.

A Bachelor’s Degree in Recruiting

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When will a college or university have a degree program in recruiting?  We have hundreds of universities and colleges that now offer human resources programs.  Two of my good friends, Matt Stollak, and Marcus Stewart are both professors of HR programs.  I have yet to see one program in Recruiting and Talent Acquisition.

For the most part the degree programs that fill recruiting positions are:

Communications

Business Administration/Marketing

Liberal Arts degrees – history, art, other things you won’t ever get a job in.

Sports Management

Human Resources

The recruiting industry takes all degree programs where people can’t get a job making enough to live on!  An entry level recruiter can usually make around $40,000 to $50,000 in their first year. The best recruiters make six figures.  Not a bad professional, white collar level compensation for a four-year degree program.  Many professions would love to be in that compensation level.

I think we could easily come up with two years’ worth of undergrad classes. Let’s face it, you only need about 60 credits or 20 classes, to have a complete major in most programs. The rest of the classes are the ‘basics’ we all take when attending university in the first two years.

Here are some of my ideas for classes in my Bachelors of Recruiting program:

Recruiting 101 – History of Recruiting

Recruiting 102 – Recruiting Processes and Procedures

Recruiting 103 – Recruiting Communication and Marketing

Recruiting 104 –  Sourcing

Recruiting 105 – Negotiation, Offers, and Recruiting Finance

Recruiting 106 – 100 ways to connect with people – #1 is the Phone!

Recruiting 107 – Writing Job Descriptions like a Marketer

Recruiting 201 – Employment Branding

Recruiting 202 – Candidate Experience

Recruiting 203 – Recruiting Technology

Recruiting 204 – Advanced Sourcing

Recruiting 205 – Specialty Recruitment

Recruiting 206 – Recruiting Analytics

Recruiting 207 – The Law & Candidates

Recruiting 301 – Senior Project – solving real-life recruiting problems in real-world companies

Not quite a full class load, but I think we could easily build that out with great content.  So, here’s the big question.  If a university offered a degree in Recruiting, would you look to hire those people into your shop?

I would!  I think many of us would.  Any classes you would add to the above list!

Talent Isn’t Fair

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We have a big problem with this concept in HR.

We want everything to be fair. At the core of what we do, though, is the most unfair dilemma that we can do nothing about. Our people come to us with talent.  It is never equal.  We can try to help our employees leverage the talents they have, but in the end it’s their talent, their desire.

I work my butt off, but Mary makes more sales than me, and she doesn’t put in half the effort I do!  Yep, she has more talent.

I am loyal to this company, and Bill hates this place, but he got promoted! Yep, he has more talent.

I just can’t seem to find a solution to our problem, then Sue finds it after working on it for ten minutes. Talent.

Everything we do in HR and Talent Acquisition comes down to us managing the inequalities of talent in our organizations.

Turns out, talent isn’t fair.

 

 

Will 2015 be the year of the Quotas?

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We still haven’t really made a dent in this diversity/inclusion thing have we?  The numbers don’t lie.  81% of healthcare workers are female, less than 18% of leadership positions in healthcare are filled by females.  The same is true in the service industry, the restaurant industry, etc.  Similar numbers can be said about African Americans and Hispanics in almost every industry.

The world is changing and we keep doing the same thing.

HR shops are trying to change our behaviors and how we think, but they are working against thousands of years of ingrained behaviors.  A few training courses aren’t going to change this level of programming.

People hate quotas in hiring.  They view the word ‘quota’ in the same vane as they view other words that lead to hate speech.

No one wants quotas.

That’s the problem. Quotas work.  Quotas are a measure that organizations can see and do something about.  Oh, we need five more females. We better go hire them. It’s straightforward. It’s simple to understand.

I get what’s wrong with them, we talk about that all the time.  Rarely, do we ever talk about what’s right with quotas.  When I was in HR at Applebee’s I had a ‘diversity quota’ on my leadership staffing.  It was measured as a percent of the overall staff and our diversity in leadership was measured as females, African American, Asian, Hispanic, etc. Basically, the only thing that didn’t count was white guys.

It was frustrating to me because I had very high diversity within my leadership team, but to continue to get high ratings I had to keep hiring diversity, even if it meant that one day I would have 100% diverse leadership. This rating was important to me because I got bonused on this rating. Having a diverse leadership team was very important to Applebees.

What Applebee’s leadership knew was that I was never going to get to 100% diversity.  It wasn’t their goal.  But, they knew to move the needle on diversity we needed to start measuring the color and kinds of faces we were hiring.  Quotas.

It worked.  It showed those working for our organization that we were serious about hiring diversity, so much so, that we were going to ensure this number moved.

Quotas are bad when they are used for bad purposes and good people get hurt by this.  I wasn’t passing over better white guys when hiring leadership at Applebees.  I was searching for better diverse candidates overall and hiring them.  Our leadership makeup needs to reflect our employee makeup. That is better hiring.

Don’t discount quotas in 2015.  If you truly want to move the needle in your organization, measure it.

4 Reasons Corporate Recruiting Should Use Staffing Agencies

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I love those Dos Equis commercials “The Most Interesting Man in the World” where the most interesting man says, “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do I prefer Dos Equis.”  It’s great marketing that doesn’t seem to get old.  It got me to thinking as well.  I started my HR career in recruiting working for the company I’m now running, so in a sense I’ve come full circle.  I started recruiting right out of college for a contingent staffing company, doing technical contract hiring, a tough recruiting gig, but it pays very well if you’re good.

When I left my first job, and the third party recruiting industry, to take my first corporate HR job. I left with a chip on my shoulder that armed me with such great recruiting skills I would NEVER, I mean NEVER, use a recruiting firm to do any of my recruiting. WHY WOULD I?  I mean I had the skills, I had the know-how and I could save my company a ton of money by just doing it on our own.

So, I spent 10 years in corporate HR before returning to third party recruiting in 2009, and you know what? I was young and naïve in my thinking about never using recruiting agencies.  It’s not just about having the skills and know-how; it’s much bigger than that.  I worked for three different large companies, in three different industries in director of recruitment type roles, and in each case, I found situations where I was reaching out to some great third party recruiters for some assistance.

So, why did I change my philosophy on using recruiting agencies?  A few of the reasons I ran into in corporate HR:

1. Having Skill and Know-How only works if you also have the time.  Sometimes in corporate gigs, you just don’t have the capacity to get as deep into the search as you would like – with all the hats you have to wear as a corporate HR pro.

2. Corporate HR positions don’t give you the luxury of building a talent pipeline in specific skill sets, the same way that search pros can build over time.  As a corporate HR pro, I was responsible for all skill sets in my organization.  Niche search pros can outperform most corporate HR pros on most searches, most of the time. It’s a function of time and network.

3. Many corporate executive teams don’t believe their own HR staffs have the ability to outperform professional recruiters, primarily because we (corporate HR pros) have never given them a reason to think differently about this. Thus, we are “forced” to use search pros for searches where executives like to get involved.

4. Most corporations are not willing to invest in a model – people, technology and process – that puts themselves on a higher playing field than professional recruiting organizations.  I would estimate only 1% of corporations have made this investment currently – and more are not rushing out to follow suit.  Again, this comes from corporate HR not having the ability to show the CFO the ROI on making this change – to have the best talent in the industry you compete in. So, the best talent gets sourced by recruiting pros and corporations pay for it.

I didn’t always use recruiting agencies, but when I did I made sure I got talent I couldn’t get on my own, in the time and space I was allotted in my given circumstances.  When I talk to corporate HR pros now, and I hear in their voice that “failure” of having to use a recruiting agency. I get it. I get the fact of what they are facing in their own corporate environments.  It’s not failure, it’s life in corporate America and it’s hard to change.

Stay thirsty my friends…

4 Things Job Pirates Have

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It’s the holidays, so I’m going to run some “Best of” posts from the library at The Project. Enjoy. 

Dollars for donuts, Fast Company is the best publication out their for anyone in the business world!  They hit a home run in my book recently with the article: An HR Lesson from Steve Jobs – If you want Change Agents, Hire Pirates!  “Why? Because Pirates can operate when rules and safety nets breakdown.”  More from the article:

A pirate can function without a bureaucracy. Pirates support one another and support their leader in the accomplishment of a goal. A pirate can stay creative and on task in a difficult or hostile environment. A pirate can act independently and take intelligent risks, but always within the scope of the greater vision and the needs of the greater team.

Pirates are more likely to embrace change and challenge convention. “Being aggressive, egocentric, or antisocial makes it easier to ponder ideas in solitude or challenge convention,” says Dean Keith Simonton, a University of California psychology professor and an expert on creativity. “Meanwhile, resistance to change or a willingness to give up easily can derail new initiatives.” So Steve’s message was: if you’re bright, but you prefer the size and structure and traditions of the navy, go join IBM. If you’re bright and think different and are willing to go for it as part of a special, unified, and unconventional team, become a pirate.

The article is an excerpt from Steve Jobs book: What Would Steve Jobs Do?: How the Steve Jobs Way Can Inspire Anyone to Think Differently and Win by Peter Sander, and it goes into some of the hiring philosophy that Jobs had while he was at Apple.

So, what did Jobs Pirates have to have?

1. It’s not enough to be brilliant and think differently- a Pirate has to have the passion, drive and vision to deliver to the customer a game-changing product.

2. Will the person you hire, fall in love with your organization and products?

3. A Pirate is a traveler who comes to you with diverse background and experiences.

4. Even though they’re a Pirate they still have to fit into the team and come with or be able to make connections.

“So, in Steve’s book–recruit a team of diverse, well-traveled, and highly skilled pirates, and they’ll follow you anywhere.”

How to Hire a Hustler

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Hustle: (via Marriam-Webster) “to sell or promote energetically and aggressively”.

Hustle: (via Urban Dictionary) “Anything you need to do to make money”.

Hustle: (via Sackett) “Getting sh*t done with a smile”.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on what really makes someone successful.  I know folks who are completely brilliant, in a way most of us can’t even comprehend, both intellectually and creatively. I know why they’re successful. I also know of people who don’t seem to be the smartest, or the most creative, but they are also super successful. Those are the ones that make me wonder, what makes them successful?

They know how to hustle.

I say that will a love for what they do. Most people can’t hustle. It’s not in their makeup, their DNA.  It’s not a skill you can learn, you are either born a hustler, or you’re not.  Hustling gets a negative connotation. When in reality, it’s not always negative.  I find those people who I’ve worked for that have a hustler’s mentality can be highly professional and highly successful.

The thing is, there is really no replacement for hustle.

Not every organization needs people with that skill, and I don’t think I would want an entire organization of hustlers!  You need some, though, and you need them in the right positions. Hustlers know how to get things done in an organization.  They know how to make people feel like both sides won.  Some of the best hustlers I know in HR are on the labor relations side of the business.  Contract negotiations are usually one big hustle!

I wish someone would come up with an assessment that measured someones hustle level!  Hey, HR Tech, get on that! I’m buying.

Here’s the traits I think you need to find when assessing someone’s hustle level:

1. Are they willing to what it takes to be successful in whatever role it is you’ll be putting them in?

2. Do they have an entrepreneurial spirit?

3. Are they self-driven and ambitious?

4. Do they like competition?

5. Do they enjoy interacting with others?

6. Do they have a high tolerance to handle rejection?

7. Are they coachable and willing to adapt?

I don’t care what kind of department you are running in an organization, you can benefit from having a hustler on your team.  I think you could take most street hustlers off the street, clean them up in a corporate professional way, teach them corporate language, and they would thrive in corporate America!  No formal education. No skills. Just hustle. Let’s face it, most of what we do in corporate America is hustle!

T3 – People Analytics Corp (PAC)

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T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be T3 – send me a note.

Today I’m looking at People Analytics Corporation (PAC) which sounds like it would be a talent or HR data analytics play, but in reality they are an Selection Assessment Technology play. The really cool thing about PAC is they didn’t start out as an assessment play, they grew out of the world’s largest career test, Sokanu.  Sokanu is basically a better, bigger version of one of those high school career assessments you took to find out what you would be good at as a career.  From millions of these assessments being taken, Sokanu discovered they had a giant data set that could be transformed into a very strong selection assessment, and PAC was born.

PAC does what great selection assessment companies should do which is help organizations understand what traits and characteristics define their top talent. Then, use this data to help you go out and hire more of that top talent.  The catch!?  They do this part for free!   They’ll come in and assess your entire organization, by department, function, etc., to build selection assessments based on your best talent.  Let’s be clear, to have great data, you can do this with a department of 10.  The reality is, you need anywhere from 50-100 do get statistically relevant data in a role. So, for the most part PAC is an enterprise play.

PAC’s UI is ridiculous easy to use to develop roles, turn those roles into jobs, and have your company specific assessments linked right to your job postings.  As candidates apply and assess, you use the dashboard to see who are the potential best fits for the jobs you are hiring for.  PAC also has a ‘faking’ compenent score within their assessment technology which shows you which candidates are trying to fake their results and look better.  Within the assessment you also get data returned that shows you ‘red flags’ of where candidates are probably going to come up short.

5 Things I really liked about PAC:

1. You are actually for Free going to come in assessment my organization and give me all that data? For Free!?  Yep.  This all by itself should get you to at least want to demo their product!

2. This isn’t just a personality assessment.  Most assessments are based on one component, usually personality.  PAC is based on five including personality, skills, organizational culture fit, needs and context.  It’s the most comprehensive selection assessment I’ve seen that is tailored to your organization, for the price.

3. The system was super easy for a talent or HR pro to use to develop new roles and pick the competencies and important factors needed by just clicking through, and you can add multiple raters within the organization by just selecting from a drop down menu.

4. Really fast and really accurate (the science behind this is awesome).  The average assessment takes about 12 minutes, and provides some really accurate data that has been proven reliable and valid based on millions completed. You can also compare results of a candidate to an existing employee already in position.

5. There is an employee development component that also comes out of this data for hiring managers to continue to develop the employee after hire, but one that can also be used with your internal staff already employed.

PAC is a new, young company that almost no one really knows about, but their product is one of the best I’ve seen when it comes to employee selection. They won’t be unknown for long! The average cost per assessment is $12-15 each, but it’s all based on volume, you guys know the game.  That is cheap, when you think about all you get on the front side with the analysis you’ll get of your own organization before you even pay for one assessment.  Plus, the assessments you’ll be giving aren’t just some generic assessment, but ones based on your own organization, own roles.

Check them out. I was really blown away by the demo.