Would You Pay A Candidate To Interview?

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Tim Sackett

Last week I got my ass handed to me for daring to consider that those who interview with a company, should pay for interview feedback. Not just normal interview feedback, like thanks, but no thanks, but something really good and developmental. Most people think that idea is bad. Interview feedback should be free. It’s not that I really want to charge people who interview a fee to get feedback, it’s just I think we could do so much better in terms of candidate experience, but we have to get out of our current mindset to shake things up a bit.

This all leads me to the next idea (hat tip to Orrin Konheim @okonhOwp) what if companies paid interviewees for their time?

Cool, right!?

We’ve built this entire industry on shared value. Organizations have jobs, candidates want jobs, let’s all do this for free. What happens when the equation isn’t equal? What if candidates didn’t want your jobs? Could you get more people to come out an interview if you paid them? How much would it be worth? It’s a really cool concept to play around with, if we can get out of our box for a bit.

Let’s say you’re having a really, really hard time getting Software Developer candidates to even consider your jobs and your organization. It’s a super tough market, and you just don’t have a sexy brand. You also don’t have the time to build a sexy brand, you need the talent now! How much would it take to entice great candidates to give you an hour? $100? $500? $1,000? What if I told you I could have your CIO interviewing 5 top Software Developers tomorrow for 5 hours for $5,000? Would you do it?

I hear the backlash of questions and concerns already forming in your head!

– People would just take the money, but not really want the job!

– How would you know these people were serious?

– Why would you pay to have someone interview when others will for free?

– Did you get hit on your head as a child?

– This might be the dumbest idea since your idea last week.

When we think about really having a great candidate experience, shouldn’t compensation be a apart of the conversation. For most interviews you’re asking someone to take time off work, losing salary, time off, putting themselves at risk of their employer finding out, etc. At the very least, you would think that we might offer up some kind of compensation for their time. I’m not talking about interview expenses, but real cold hard cash, we appreciate your time and value it!

If you started paying candidates to interview, do you think you would get and have better or worse interviews?

When you put value to something, i.e., an interview, people tend to treat it as such. Now that interview that they might go, might not go, becomes something they have to prepare for, because, well, someone is paying me to do this. To interview. I’m guessing if you paid your candidates to interview, you would get a higher level of candidate, and have a higher level of success in hiring. It’s just a theory, wish I had the recruiting budget to test it out!

Talent Acquisition’s Digital Disruption

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Tim Sackett

I’m headed out to Park City, UT on June 1st to be part of HireVue’s first ever Digital Disruption 2014. Semi-User Conference, Semi HR Tech Trends Conference, one of the more intriguing agendas filled with practitioners from across industry. The keynote will be the famous Moneyball guy Billy Beane – remember the Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill movie about baseball and selection metrics, that Billy Beane. He was really the first guy to bring selection metrics to the forefront of what we in Talent Acquisition now use daily. He did it to get the best baseball team possible, using the smallest payroll possible, to stay competitive in a world of competition willing to spend whatever it took. Sound familiar to your own industry!?

I’m looking forward to seeing him talk, again. The first time I ever saw Billy speak was the day after the Oscars when Moneyball, and it’s actors, were up for a number of awards. He had great stories from that, plus his normal presentation on metrics. That was a few years ago. Things have evolved, as has the emphasis of everyone now using the same metrics. So, now what? What do you do when those who have more money than you, now are also using your metrics as well? My guess is you get back to strategy and culture, and make sure you follow it, like crazy! It should be very interesting.

On a side note, ERE recently released their annual ‘State of Recruiting‘ study. You know what they found out? You don’t like to be called ‘Recruiting’. In fact, the majority of you prefer to be called ‘Talent Acquisition’. Did you know that? It’s uncomfortable to me. I like to shorten everything. I like to simplify. So, going from one word to describe something, to two words to describe something, seems totally ridiculous! I can’t tell you how much of a pet peeve this is to me. It’s like when someone named “David” or “Michael” demands you call them by their full name instead of “Dave” and “Mike”. I hate those guys! What do you mean you want me to use two syllables when I can only use one! I demand efficiency!

My guess is people who do this type of business for a living, on the corporate side, felt like they needed two words to keep up with Human Resources. “Well, if they have two words in their department name, we need to words in our name as well!” No one would admit this, but in reality, it’s how this stupid stuff happens. There is actually nothing wrong with calling Recruiting, Recruiting. HR use to be ‘Personnel’, but had to change it because ‘Personnel’ just didn’t encapsulate what ‘we’ really did. Now, even ‘Human Resources’ is coming under fire from progressives because we shouldn’t think of our employees, our people, as ‘Resources’. They are People! So, you get these ridiculous titles like Chief People Officer and VP of People.

I hear you Recruiters. I know you want to be all big and fancy and “Talent Acquisition” seems so much more big and fancy… But you aren’t kidding anyone. You’re still a recruiter. You’re not ‘acquiring talent’, you’re putting asses in seats. Get over yourself, and get back on the phone.

I only bring this up because when I’m in Utah with the HireVue folks, I’ll be rubbing elbows with many ‘Talent Acquisition’ Pros. Talking about all the new cool trends in, well, Talent Acquisition (a little part of me just died). I think what Billy Beane will all remind of, though, is that while technology and analytics can disrupt any industry, you still need to have great vision, solid strategy and the courage to follow through with your plan.

My guess is that hasn’t changed as much as we like to change what we call ourselves!

3 Highly Effective Habits of Annoying Candidates

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Tim Sackett

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

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Tim Sackett

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!

The Organization With the Most Expensive Selection Mistakes is?

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Tim Sackett

The NFL. This Thursday that NFL will perform their annual selection process on ESPN, with their annual draft. Just like you, they have no idea what they’re doing, but act like they figured out the secret sauce to great selection. The big difference between you and the NFL, their mistakes costs them a lot more money! Check out this chart from BI on the NFL Draft Guaranteed Contracts:

This chart basically shows you that the best, or highest, first round pick will get about $22 million guaranteed, while the lower third round picks will get $600k in guaranteed money over the life of their contract.

How would you like that level of possible expense in your selection process!?

All that money, all that time, all that research, and the NFL draft is still basically a crap shoot. The pick people, like you pick people. “Well, we really like Johnny’s football IQ and he just seems so personable! What the hell, let’s pay him $15M!”

What!?!

“Well, we know his ‘past performance’ in college. We know all his ‘performance metrics’. We gave him a personality profile. We ‘feel’ like he’s a safe bet and potential high performer.”

It’s really not that different from you picking a $50,000 per year sales professional. Many organizations put as much into their hiring selections, as the NFL puts into picking their draft selections. Obviously, the NFL has more resources to throw at their process, so they probably have a few more bells and whistles. But, they have no more success than you. The ones who do the best, like you, are not only concerned about the ‘big’ hires/selections – your executive hires, their high first and second round draft picks, but put as much research and resources into each hire. Making a great selection in the 7th round might be as valuable, long term, as making a great first round selection. Just as you making a great entry level sales hire, might be as valuable, or more, to making a really solid Director level hire.

The learning on all of this? You can’t take hires off. There are no ‘throw away’ hires, just as their are no throw away draft picks for great NFL teams.

Profiling Diversity Hires

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Tim Sackett

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?

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Tim Sackett

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

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Tim Sackett

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.

Reasons To Try Stuff

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Tim Sackett

Last week I got a chance to speak at the 5th annual Michigan HR Day on Social Recruiting. The group was great, I had fun, we gave out some Coach Bags and I made some HR ladies uncomfortable. I don’t actually intend to speak and make anyone uncomfortable, that isn’t a long term plan of speaker success. But it usually happens to a small number of folks.

Here’s how it normally goes:

1. I talk about how to use a social networking site like Facebook to recruit great talent. Show them how to do it. Show them how they can get really specific in who they are searching for by skill, gender, location, company name, Likes, etc. All really good information, and the crowd eats it up! Things are going really well for me.

2. “Um, I have a question?” Here it comes. You probably noticed it yourself in the line above. He said ‘gender’ didn’t he? You can’t do that mister! I’m an HR lady. You can’t do that. Then she pulls out her HR lady badge.

3. I say, “Yeah, you can do that”, and pull out my HR Guy badge.

4. She says, “No you can not!” Like my Mom, but scarier. “If you use a program like The Facebook to recruit, you’re going to have ‘disparate impact‘!”

5. I’m a pro, I’ve been here before. So I start asking questions, like, “Do your hiring managers ever see your candidates?” Yes. “What the difference if they see them as a candidate or as an interviewee?” Well. “If you have a hiring manager willing to discriminate, that isn’t a Facebook issue, that’s a manager issue, isn’t it?” Yes. “Do you have any set of demographics you would like to have more of in your organization, like female engineers, let’s just day?” Yes. “What are you really worried about when recruiting on Facebook?” Silence.

We don’t try stuff, because trying stuff could cause change. When I speak about things people haven’t tried, a very small group, no matter where I am, will immediately try to come up with reasons on why they shouldn’t try it. Not why they should. Our initial reaction to change is to find reasons to not change.

It really has nothing to do with recruiting on Facebook. Facebook’s own demographics will show almost a 50/50 gender mix. LinkedIn, admittedly, is heavily male dominated. Do you recruit on LinkedIn? Do you see pictures of potential candidates on LinkedIn? Aren’t you, the HR department, the ones pulling potential candidates, who have been trained not to discriminate when it comes to hiring? So, what’s really the issue? You see, it breaks down very quickly.

We aren’t really concerned about disparate impact or being discriminatory, we concerned about this guy asking me to do something I’m not comfortable with. I just like playing Farmville and watching so funny kitty videos on The Facebook. Do make me feel like I should have to do work on there as well!

The problem we tend to have in HR is that we don’t find reasons to try stuff. We are pros at finding reasons not to try stuff. Find some reasons today to try stuff, you’ll be a better HR Pro because of it.

Tattoo Hiring

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Tim Sackett

A tattoo is basically forever.

I know, I know, you can get them removed by laser now. But most people don’t go into a tattoo proposition thinking I can’t wait to pay a couple of thousand dollars to get this removed! It’s permanent baby. Like a Sharpie, but better!

Most organizations do Tattoo Hiring. They believe we are going to hire this person forever. In fact, go ahead and tattoo the logo on their butt while their in orientation. But the life cycle of most hires is similar to that of your tattoo you got on Spring Break back in 2001.

Tattoo Hires:

1. Day 1 – it’s a little painful, but your so excited to have the person on board.

2. First couple of weeks – pain has gone away, still doesn’t look right, but you can tell you’re going to love them. And you keep showing the new hire to everyone you see, that has yet to see them.

3. Years 1-3 – Tattoo Hire is awesome. You’re proud of your tattoo hire. People comment on what a great hire. You couldn’t be more proud of your tattoo hire!

4. Somewhere past year 3 – the first Tattoo Hire went so well, what the heck, time for another Tattoo Hire! This time we’ll go bigger and better!

5. Into Tattoo Hire #2’s first year – you begin to notice your original Tattoo Hire doesn’t look as good anymore. Isn’t performing as well. You think it might be time to change your original Tattoo Hire. While Tattoo Hire #2 is more awesome than you can imagine!

6. Time to remove Tattoo Hire #1 – You’ve finally made the decision, Tattoo Hire #1 has to go. It’s going to cost you thousands of dollars to remove, but Tattoo Hire #1 just isn’t what you want anymore.

That’s alright you’ve got Tattoo Hire #2! I mean what could go wrong, a Tattoo Hire is forever, right?

Organizations that hire with a Tattoo philosophy are bound to fail. It’s not that you can’t expect, or want, employees to stay with you their entire career. You can. The problem we face is when we don’t set up our organizations to support forever hires. The new tattoo always looks better, because it is usually more defined and brighter and you put more thought into it. An employee is no different. You can’t let a more tenured employee fade. You must keep them vibrant and up to date. Or, many times you will spend a ton of money replacing them.