Category Archives: Social Recruiting

More Resumes vs. Enough Resumes

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I work in a world of resumes, where resumes equal solid quality candidates.  I recently met with a client who needed ‘more resumes’, they didn’t have enough quality candidates.  Seems like a simple equation, I just go back to the office and crank up the Resumatic 2000 and BAM, you’ve got ‘more’ resumes.  But those in recruiting know, it’s never that simple.

I started digging into what was really going on, because the fact is, you only need 1 resume to fill a position.

My line of questions in order:

Are you not getting any resumes? Well, you see we have a very involved process.  It’s hard for resumes to get through this process.

Oh, so you have a ‘too many’ resume problem, so you set up many filters to get just those that fit your need best?  Not exactly.  We have one process for all positions. Some positions we have too many resumes, some positions we don’t have any resumes coming through.

Why don’t you change your process for those positions you’re not getting resumes?  We can’t. It’s illegal. EEOC.

It’s not illegal to change your process based on need and position.  It’s illegal to discriminate against candidates. (that wasn’t really a question, but I couldn’t help myself from saying it!)  Well, our “EEOC Lady” (exact quote) won’t allow us to change the process.

What does the hiring manager think?  He loves the process!  He created it.

How many positions do you have open? 70.

He likes having 70 positions open? Doesn’t that cause a business issue?  He just wants us to get more resumes, but keep the process the same.

You see there really isn’t an issue with getting more resumes.  The problem is, is when you already have enough resumes but you put barriers in place that cause those resumes not to be enough.  You have enough resumes, more resumes isn’t going to solve your problem.  Your process is the problem.  Your filters are the problem.  Me giving you more resumes isn’t going to help you, it’s just going to cause a bigger problem.

But that’s what they did.  Just go get more staffing vendors to work with.  If ten can’t get us ‘enough’ resumes, get twenty.  Twenty isn’t working, let’s try 75.  Still not good?  Why not one thousand!?  It won’t matter, you still have a you problem.  You are unwilling to change.  More isn’t going to help.  You have enough.  You need to fix you.  You don’t have a resume problem, you have a ‘You Problem’.  That is actually harder to fix!

 

The #1 way to tell someone they Suck!

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Every Monday morning we have a recruiter meeting at HRU.  The purpose of the meeting is for our recruiting department to share with each other what they are working on, what they’ve accomplished the prior week, and give in updates that the full group might need to know.  Something came up this morning that I wanted to share.  Like most recruiting departments/companies/etc. we have our “Repeat Offenders”  – these are the people who just won’t give up.  At one point, a recruiter probably called them, and maybe even interviewed them, possibly even hired them – but now, they won’t leave you alone – they call, they email, they LinkedIn, send Facebook Friend requests, etc. Basically, they become a stalker!

This morning, one of the recruiters says “Mr. Jones (I’ve changed the name to protect the guilty) won’t stop bugging me, he emails his resume to me ‘every’ day!”  We all know Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones use to work for us at a client, and it didn’t turn out so well.  Now, Mr. Jones wants us to find him his next assignment.  The problem with Mr. Jones isn’t skill related, it’s personality related – he’s annoying.  He was annoying to the client and to his work group peers, he is annoying to us, and I’m pretty sure he was annoying to his ex-wife – thus the “ex”!

So, the BIG question. How do you get Mr. Jones to stop bugging you?  This happens to every single recruiter I know eventually.

Here are the steps I use:

1. Tell Them!

That’s it – no more steps.  Here’s our problem as recruiters – we never want to burn a bridge.  “Well, Tim, you don’t know where he might go, who might hire him, I don’t want to ruin my reputation”  We have to think about our “Candidate Experience”! Bullshit.  You’re being conflict avoidant, and if you look at your last performance review, I bet under “opportunities” is probably says something about avoiding conflict or not confronting issues head on.  I had a very good HR mentor once tell me – “it’s best to deliver them that gift, then to allow them to walk around not knowing”.  Once you start being straightforward you’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “No one has ever told me that!”  That’s the problem – no one ever tells them the truth, thus they keep doing the wrong thing, instead of trying to fix what is wrong.

How do you get an annoying candidate to stop bugging you?  You tell them exactly, very specifically, very calmly, with no ill intent – “I want to give you a gift.  You might not see it as a gift right now, but I hope in time you’ll understand it to be a very valuable gift.  I (don’t use “we” or “us” or “the company – you’re avoiding again by using those) – I think you have a very bad personality flaw that comes across annoying to me, and from the feedback I have received, to those you work with.  If this does not change, I won’t be finding you any job in the future, and you’ll probably struggle to find one on your own as well.”  OUCH! That hurt right?  But, read it again, was there anything mean or untrue in the statement? If this person actually listens to the statement and acts on it, will they be better for it?  You can change the reason for whatever issue the person might have – maybe it’s hygiene, maybe it’s a crazy laugh, who knows – but the basic message stays the same.  You need to change, or I never want to speak to you again.

It’s hard for recruiters to understand this, because 99% have been taught to be nice, thoughtful people – not to be rude.  This sounds a bit rude.  In reality, I think it’s rude to string a person along and not care enough about them to actually tell them what is wrong and to help them.  Stop telling candidates your blow off lines and start telling candidates the truth.  At the very least, you’ll have more time on your hands to talk to the candidates you really want to speak to!

It’s Criminal Not To Recruit Your Competition’s Talent!

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If I get 100 Talent Acquisition Pros in a room (no this isn’t going to be a dead lawyer joke) and ask them if it is ‘ethical’ to recruit each others employees, about half will say ‘No’. In fact, there are even a number who will say, “we have an agreement to not recruit from each other”! I’ve heard this, out in the open, with no restraint. It’s normal practice in the corporate world. It’s very common to hear inside Talent Acquisition departments say they don’t ‘actively’ recruit from each other because they’ve been told not to by their executives. That type of conversation will soon be a thing of the past, although, I doubt highly the activity will be!

From SHRM on the highly publicized lawsuit of many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies who ‘conspired’ to not recruit employees from each other:

“From 2005 to 2009, the leaders of Northern California’s largest and most powerful companies agreed to reduce competition for workers by entering into an interconnected web of secret, bilateral agreements not to solicit—‘cold call’—each other’s workforces,” the plaintiffs allege.

“By shielding their employees from waves of recruiting, defendants not only avoided individual raises, they also avoided having to make across-the-board pre-emptive increases to compensation,” the plaintiffs claim.

Agreements among the companies to refrain from the common recruiting practice of cold-calling each other’s employees deprived workers of information regarding pay packages that they could have used to find higher-paying work or to negotiate for higher salaries with their existing employers, according to the lawsuit.”

That’s right Talent Acquisition Pros it’s actually illegal to say you won’t actively recruit from your competition because you’ve agreed between each other not do it.   I get it, I get why you do this.  Having a hot job market and constantly taking talent and losing to each other seems like a never ending treadmill of work, but that’s the life of a Recruiter.  You know there are ways to stop this from happening.  Pay better.  Engage better.  Develop talent better. Have a vision that is real and share it.  It’s the age old business conundrum, do you want to pay on the front side or the back side.  Reactionary companies end up paying on the back side – more money in wages to attract talent because they turnover people who leave for better companies, more wages, etc.  It eventually catches up.

Other companies pay up front and keep their talent by paying at market or above, then constantly evaluating the market and changing pay whenever it’s needed without having employees ask, or have to leave to get paid fairly.  They develop talent from within and spend the money to do it right, giving themselves an internal pipeline.  They make sure to only allow people into leadership positions who are engaging and visionary.  It’s a lot of work, and costs money, but in the end it’s still cheaper and you have a better company.

I would actually love to see legislation that makes it illegal if you’re a corporate recruiter and you don’t make cold calls to recruit!  You saying you’re a ‘Recruiter’ but you don’t actually recruit!   That’s the real criminal activity going on!

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

7 Words Mathematically Proven To Get You More Hires!

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Wired recently worked with OkCupid and Match.com to find out which words were used on the most popular dating profiles on their sites.  Millions of data points were done for this data analysis and they came up with the most popular 1000 words.  What they came up with were the exact words to use in your profile descriptions to get the most clicks.  I’m going to take this one step further and say if these words attract singles to another single, I’m quite certain they would attract a job seeker to a job.  My theory being singles are also job seekers.  Okay, I hear you, just because some words might attract one person to another person doesn’t mean those same words will attract a person to a job – but it might.

It is my belief that we can totally re-write Job Descriptions in a way that is a lot less HR’ish, and much more real, which will make more people want to work in the jobs you have.  My good friend, Kris Dunn, is a master at this over at Kinetix (click through to see some of KD’s work). Here is another one I put together when I was hiring a Recruiter for my staff.   The positive is, it lets us in HR get our ‘creative on’.

Let ‘s give it a shot. I’ll give you 7 categories of words that were mathematically proven to get more dates hires:

1. Active Words: Yoga, Surfing, Surf, hiking, athlete, etc. These words were popular because people want to be associated with things that are good for them. Do you highlight active things you do at your organization in your job descriptions?

2. Pop Culture Words: 30 Rock, The Great Gatsby, Homeland, Arrested Development, The Matrix, The Big Bang Theory, The Hunger Games, etc.  People want to work with an organization that has a personality.  Pop culture references in your JD give you a personality.

3. Music Words: (FYI – some of these could also be considered Pop Culture) – Radiohead, Nirvana, live music, guitar, instruments, etc .Does your organization have a musical preference? Why not?  Maybe you’re a little country, maybe you’re a little rock and roll, either way, it’s alright to let candidates know!

4. Calm Words: Ocean, meditation, beach, trust, respect, enjoy, planning, dedication, openness, etc. Words that project a feeling of safety and security. In today’s employment marketplace, don’t discount the value of your jobs based on how calm and secure the work is.  Anxiety is at an all-time high.  Having the ability to say “we’ve never laid off in our history!” could pay you huge dividends.

5. Food Words: Chocolate, cooking, foodie, pizza, sushi, breakfast, etc. Food is a gathering and sharing point in most cultures.  If you do food related things in your work environment it brings all of your people together. Everyone eats. Not everyone will do Yoga or want to watch movies.  Chili cook-offs, company happy hours, Donut Fridays, etc.

6. Descriptive Words: Creative, motivated, confident, driven, passion, awareness, etc. Most HR pros see JDs as a means to an end.  They’re a legal necessity.  We should be looking at them as mini-commercials for our jobs.  I would love to see a company go full video JD – nothing written, just watch our Job Description. 60 seconds of someone telling you what this job is.

7. Spontaneous Words: Tattoos, F*ck, wasted, kissing, puppies, sucking, lucky, etc.  Words that most people would never expect to see in a JD.  This word has absolutely no usefulness in a JD – that’s exactly why we put it in there.  It might not attract an older conservative candidate, but it might be just what a newer generation is looking for.

I’ve never met a senior executive that had a problem with any job description I wanted to write – not matter how bland or how crazy.  That being the case, why do we continue to write JDs that put people to sleep?

 

 

 

How Technology Saved Recruiting

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This is a rebuttal post to an article on Forbes.com by Liz Ryan titled “How Technology Killed Recruiting“.  For those of you who don’t Liz she is a media personality who use to work in HR back in 1997 for Fortune 500 companies, which might speak to her viewpoints about recruiting and technology.  Liz writes a ton of HR and Recruiting type articles for publications that wouldn’t give me the time of day (Forbes, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, etc.), so clearly she is respected.  That is why I decided to react to her article.  She has a huge stage and gets thousands of clicks, so I was perplexed at this attack on corporate recruiting that really has no true basis in 2014.

Liz feels that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have killed recruiting.  She feels all corporate recruiters do is set a never-ending string of hoops for applicants to jump through, until they are eventually lost in the black hole of a corporate recruiting abyss.  I do think this thought process has merit, 10-15 years ago.  When ATS software first came onto the market they were clearly selling to the corporate HR marketplace.  I can clearly remember sitting in process meetings with ATS vendors and having them show us (corporate HR) how they could make our life easier.  Need more screening of applicants? No problem we can put them through the ropes and only the best will get through!  Then they show you a process flow chart with 67 steps and the rest was history – Liz’s story above.

Today, ATS vendors look at the process completely different (Note: I don’t sell ATS software now, or ever! But I have purchased and implemented 5 systems in my career.).  Now, corporate HR needs the ATS to provide talent fast.  It’s about fewer clicks – how does an applicant let you know they have interest in “1” step, not 67.  Once the talent is ‘sourced’, corporate recruiting can then take them through as many filters as needed to ensure a great hire is made.  This is fairly common practice in the last 10 years of ATS implementations.  Can you still find companies that don’t get this? Yes.  But it’s not the norm in corporate recruiting with today’s ATS. Dare I say ATS vendors asked to set up a 67 step process would probably back out of the deal and refer that customer to their competition, because that will not be a customer you will ever make happy!

Here is why Liz and those who support her argument still carry around this notion of an ATS being a ‘black hole’ for your resume (BTW – I’m wondering when the last time Liz even applied for a job online?).  Candidates make excuses when they are not chosen.  “I applied! And I was perfect for ‘that’ job! But I never heard back.”  I know this because I’ve been the leader of corporate recruiting departments in the last 10 years.  I’ve heard this exact line coming from the cousin of our CEO.  I then had to show our CEO, in fact, three carefully crafted communications that his cousin received from our ATS system as the hiring processes proceeded over two weeks.

Technology hasn’t killed recruiting.  Technology has decreased the time it takes HR to recruit great talent. Technology has increased our retention rates and decreased new hire turnover by giving us better data on which to base our hiring decisions.  Technology has allowed recruiting to be brand ambassadors to our organizations. Technology has allowed most corporate recruiting departments to do ten times more, with the exact same staff it had 10 years ago.  Technology has allowed our employees to be an integral part of our recruiting function by automating employee referral programs. Technology has increased applicant response times by showing us exactly who in our organizations is holding up the process.  Technology has allowed us to fish in candidate pools that, previously, were never possible. Technology moved recruitment out of HR and into one of the most valuable functions an organization can have.

If people are your most important resource.  Your organizations ability to recruit talent, becomes critical to your organizations success. Technology help do that for recruiting. But I don’t write for Forbes, so what do I know.

 

3 Things Parking Lots Can Teach HR

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I read an article last week and found out Parking Lots have their own industry! Just like Healthcare, Banking, Automotive, etc. Parking lots are big business around the world.  I live in a small town in Michigan, the only time we have a parking problem is one weekend in August when we have the annual Ox Roast.  The carneys come to town, we fire off explosives and we eat Ox. God Bless America!

If you live in a big city, you probably get to deal with the parking lot industry on a daily basis. Like most industries Parking is finding ways to use technology to make themselves more profitable and more efficient.  From PandoDaily:

According to a 2011 IBM survey, drivers globally spend an average of nearly 20 minutes per trip in pursuit of a parking space. Despite this colossal waste of time, the concept of pre-booking parking prior to arriving at a destination is still nascent. Most people continue to drive around searching for a spot, either on-street or off-street, typically unaware of what parking inventory is available to them. In a perfect world, they would not only know what spots are available at any given time, but also be able to compare the price, location and amenities of those available spots, to find the one that suits them best…

Over the next few years, parking will undergo a shift that will be a tipping point for the industry.  Some of the changes we may see include a single source solution that combines off-street and on-street parking availability at the time you need it. Or it may include urban mobility solutions that will focus on getting consumers from point A to point B to point C, whether that involves taking a car, public transit, biking, or walking. Parking facilities will also integrate relatively low-cost technology solutions to streamline and better the customer experience through the smartphone and the connected car. Lastly, demand-based pricing will become a tenet to parking, maximizing revenue by matching driver to the right space at the right time at the right facility.

1. On Demand Talent – Parking lots have figured out that you don’t need all parking spaces all the time.  You usually need them for peak times, and then they stay unfilled for most of the other times. Example: Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm will be at or close to 100% full, while Saturday and Sunday will remain mostly empty.  HR, especially in the US, will eventually have to decide do we really need all these employees all the time, or just during peak times.  Billions of profitable dollars are wasted hanging onto employees that organizations don’t need all the time.  European markets already use far more numbers of contractors to help with this problem. The US market is slow to adopt, mainly do to historical hiring practices.

2. True Pay for Performance. Parking figured out if you want the spot right next to the stairs or elevator, versus one all the way on the back of the parking deck, certain people will pay more for this space.  Organizations should be willing to truly pay more for better, measurable talent.  HR is a major roadblock to this, maintaining a banded compensation system that does not truly reward the best talent.  Not the best talent you have, but the best talent in the market.  Those few employees who can truly make a difference as an individual contributor.

3. Talent Sharing – Parking lots have figured out if they work together in reporting open spaces, their customer base will benefit and ultimately they will benefit.  Why don’t we share employees across like minded work?  Because in HR we are to lazy on how to figure this out.  But if my building is right next door to another company and we both have a need for developers, why couldn’t we share these skills?  It would take work to make it work from a legal, pay and benefits standpoint, but it isn’t something that can’t be done.

 

Bad Hires Worse

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

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

Bad Hires Worse.

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

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

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

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

It’s Tim Sackett Day – Celebrating Kelly Dingee!

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January 23, 2012 my friends made that day forever be known as Tim Sackett Day!  By January 23, 2013 those same friends thought I couldn’t take another day of celebration and honor, and decided to honor another individual but still call it Tim Sackett Day!  So, last year we honored the great Paul Hebert!

Tim Sackett Day is about honoring and giving respect to fellow HR and Talent Pros that we don’t think get enough respect.  They are wicked smart.  Great at their profession.  Helpful towards others.  Really, just good all around people, we think you should know more about.  Yes, everything I’m not!  Laurie’s original goal was to introduce our little HR and Talent social world to people they might not know, but really should.

That’s why I’m excited on this day, January 23, 2014 for Tim Sackett Day, we are honoring Kelly Dingee!  (Pronounced Din Gee like a dirty window, not Dinghy like a small boat or silly person) You might know her as @SourcerKelly on the Twitters, or that super cool chick out of Washington D.C. who is the Recruiting Manager at Staffing Advisors.  I know her as a peer and colleague from Fistful of Talent.

If I grow up to be a lady, I would want to be Kelly!  Great Talent Pro.  Helpful as can be. Funny. Great Mom.

Behind the scenes I tell Kelly this probably 3-4 times per year – ‘I Love Your Writing’.  Kelly teaches me more in a year than anyone else in the industry.  I don’t think I can ever thank her enough for that.  We both are in the staffing game so she speaks my language, and she knows my problems, and she usually has really good ways to solve all of my roadblocks.

If anyone should have their own day, it’s Kelly!  She would never ask for it, or feel she deserves it, but she does.

Please send Kelly a note on Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn  – where ever you like to hang and congratulate her on being named the 2014 Tim Sackett Day honoree!