Interview Gal

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I love listening to Jim Rome, Sports Radio and TV Sports Talk show host, and one of his classic bits is to go off and some of the crazy types of personalities we see in our every day lives – Slow Pitch Softball Guy, Travel Baseball Dad Coach Guy, Crazy Soccer Mom, etc. We see these people go from normal everyday accountant to something we can’t even recognize anymore! Wait is that Steve from the office?! No, it’s Slow Pitch Softball Guy – acting like a fool and playing like it’s game 7 of the world series when it’s really just a lazy Wednesday night with a bunch of guys trying to get away from the family for a couple of hours and have a beer and play a game!

I see this in our HR lives as well! My favorite is “Interview Gal“! You know her! She’s the lady who comes in to interview for your position – and you realize right away she probably escaped that morning from the mental hospital!

Here’s what Interview Gal likes to say during her interview:

“Why did I leave my last job? I didn’t feel it was right for my soul.”

“Haa haa haa, snort, haa, snort, ha ha!”

“Um, do you have anything else besides water or coffee? I really like tea!”

“Why do I want to work here!? Duh! The money! No, really just kidding – ha ha, snort – I need a position to help me pay my bills.”

“My strengths? I’m strong at a lot, and I’m not really late very much, I mean traffic is crazy around here, but I always try and leave early to get to work on time.”

“Is it hot in here? I’m roasting – must be those hormones!”

“So, I don’t want to bring this up, but if you hire me – I need to leave early every other Tuesday for my group. And one Monday per month I will take off all together – but that should be it. Do you let everyone out early on Fridays?”

I would have an “Interview Guy” but those comments would consist of “Yes” and “No” and “You know” and not much else!

I love HR for the simple fact, almost daily, candidates give me great joy and stories to share with my friends and family. I have a theory that people aren’t necessarily crazy, but the actual exercise of performing an interview makes them crazy! Kind of like when you bring out your video camera and your kids immediately lose their minds trying to crazy stuff in front of the camera. The same things happens to candidates and we (HR) are the cameras!

Got’em Right Off The Boat

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Don’t know if you’ve seen this, but a company called Blueseed recently announced their plans to build a ship to house Technical start-up workers off the shore of San Francisco, far enough off shore to in ‘International’ waters. Makes you trying to get around the Visa issue just a little easier, now doesn’t it!? What we’ve run out of H1B’s for the year – don’t worry about it – just hire them and put them on the boat! Gives a whole new meaning to “off-shoring”.

Here’s the explanation from Blueseed:

As a foreign national, to legally earn a paycheck in the United States, you would need a valid U.S. work visa. To live and earn a paycheck aboard the Blueseed vessel, you will only need a passport.

If you are outside of the U.S., you’ll have to enter the U.S. first before boarding the Blueseed vessel. The best way to do this, and to be allowed to legally come to mainland, is to obtain a B1 (business) or B2 (tourist) visa. These visas are easier to obtain because they don’t grant the right to work in the U.S., are usually valid for 10 years (check validity for your country here) and are often combined into a B1/B2 business/pleasure visa. Nationals of 36 industrialized nations are exempted from this requirement for travel periods of up to 90 days, under the Visa Waiver program.

I like it. I like when someone finds away around the system legally – or so they’ve interpreted it to be legal. It’s creativity, in business, at it’s best! We have a problem (not enough technical workers) – we’ve found a solution (building a big barge and anchoring just off the shores of the United States for you to ~~hide~~ house such workers). It causes everyone to have an instant opinion – you either think it’s legal or that it’s not legal, or you think it’s good for business or bad for business – it’s polarizing. It’s change. It’s fun!

I’d like to see some company take it one step further – put a floating work place in International air space! Sure that would make your work place 12 miles straight up in the air – but can you imagine the base jumps down to the ground! Talk about an extra benefit for your employees – even your employment brand would rock – “Working Here Is A Thrill A Minute!” or “Jump Into Your Career with Us!” – I mean the ideas are endless. Plus, with my airspace idea you won’t be hampered by just living hear water – you can move that sucker anywhere on Earth!

So, what do you think about Blueseed? Good idea or cheesy-creative attempt to get around U.S. Immigration and Labor Laws?

Video Interviewing for Cavemen

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Tim Sackett

When I start to think about adding something like Live Video Interviewing or Video Screening to my HR/Recruiting Toolbox – I instantly go to about 100 reasons why we can’t do that in our environment!

It’s too Technical!

It will take too much time!

It will cost too much!

I’m not smart enough to make this happen – and I don’t want to look like an idiot in my organization!

The Kris Dunn and I are two 40ish white guys – who normally struggle changing the clocks on our ~~VCR~~ DVD players – so we get it – we get your feelings – this HR technical stuff, is well, at times, just too technical!

So, we decided to do something about this for our fellow HR/Talent Pros – we’re doing a free, live webinar on the 5 Ways to Use Video to Raise your HR & Recruiting Game. Our intent is to break this down so even your Mom and her iPhone can show you how to add video into your HR Shop – whether you have a 1 person HR shop or a 100 person HR shop – we’ve got some ideas for you. If you haven’t used any video let in your HR Shop – this is a must see Webinar – it will blow your hiring managers away and help you fill reqs so much faster – and the value proposition is ridiculously cheap!

Kris and I have gotten to play around with this and through trial and error, and a few IT folks yelling at us, I think we have some simple ideas that can help you begin. Plus, for all those who register for the Webinar – we’ll provide you with a Tool Kit to help give you some step-by-step instructions to get started – again For Free. Why do we do this for Free? I would ask myself – well we don’t! We have a sponsor – HireVue – who pays the technology bill to allow us to provide it for Free! Win-Win for you.

Sign Up Today – unfortunately we have a “Technology” limit of how many people we can accept and our last Webinar filled up very quickly! (isn’t that such a cheesy sales line!)

HR Strategy for Dummies

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Tim Sackett

In HR we have to have a strategy for everything. What’s your employment brand strategy? What’s your orientation strategy? What’s your open enrollment strategy? It’s not really strategies for most of these – they’re processes – but we get hit over the head so many times in HR we stopped calling our “processes” – “processes” and started calling our “processes” – “strategies”. It makes us feel strategic when we have strategies!

Unfortunately, it’s rare that I see a real strategy for an organizations talent – their people. We strategically have many strategies in HR – our strategic benefits strategy, our compensation strategy, our recruitment strategy, etc. These really aren’t strategies either – these are more, what I call – HR operational initiatives – it’s the crap we do on a daily basis – it’s our jobs. It’s not strategy.

What is strategy? It’s a plan of action designed to achieve a vision.

We do really well on the plan of action! We usually fail on the last part – achieving a vision – because usually we really don’t have a vision – unless you consider doing the job a vision!? It’s not. The vision part of your strategy is by far the most important part – it needs to connect to the heart and minds of your HR group. They need to truly believe in it – it will shape decision making at all levels in your department – or at least it should!

Your HR Strategy needs to speak to what you truly believe on the people side of your business. It’s alright if your strategy and your current reality are not yet at the same point – you need to have a vision to be able to reach it. Very few organizations design their strategy based on their current state – unless they’ve already reached that pinnacle of excellence they desire. Too often I see HR departments go to design an HR Strategy – and it breaks down because people try and throw reality into the mix – “Wait, this isn’t who “we” are – we aren’t what you are saying…” I love realist – but they usually aren’t the best ones to draft your HR Strategy! You obviously need reality in your strategy – but not so much that you just regurgitate your current state.

I can’t tell you what your HR Strategy should be, but I can tell you some elements that better be a part of it:

The level of talent you need to achieve your organizational strategy
The type of talent you need to achieve your organizational strategy
The personality traits your talent will need to be successful in your organization

Not every organization needs high energy, go-getter, experienced individuals to be successful – some do. Some need calm, mild manner, entry levels to be successful. Many organizations need a large mix of talent, traits and experiences – heck – most of us do! In the end – we all need great talent that cares about their personal outcomes, they care about organizational outcomes and they believe both of those things can be accomplished under our roof.

Lastly, make your HR Strategy simple – so simple everyone in the building can spout it off in under 5 seconds. That will be hard to do – but that will make your strategy lasting and effective.

Nothin’ Human About These Resources

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Tim Sackett

********GUEST POST ALERT***********

The post is brought to you by John Whitaker from People Results. John calls himself the Texas “Me” – which I’m not sure I would ever admit to, but at least he has enough sales sense to flatter me for a guest post – plus I like his writing style! Check him out – he’s good people.

Occupational hazards come in all forms … Cops get shot, waiters get stiffed and dentists smell breath that would gag a dog. In human resources, the hazard is learning to hate people. Ironic, yes?

HR Senior Execs are toadies to the “real” leaders of the organization … Generalists are often witness to the most base of human behavior. Specialists in compensation or benefits are collecting hollow-points in the chamber, waiting for one more person to complain about their pay, their coverage, their co-pay, or their 401K compared to what “other” companies offer.

All HR people bear witness to the double standards and favoritism that somehow benefit the worst people. Seriously, do you know how annoying and despicable we are as a species?

Yup, by and large HR folks are a pretty acrimonious bunch. None of these, however, hold a candle to the most jaded of all HR professionals … the Internal Recruiter [Generalus nofriender].

Experience in staffing is invaluable as you move up the HR food chain, but I suggest you begin to encounter diminishing returns after Year Two. Why is this?

Think about it from the perspective of the recruiter:

Volume – after you’ve looked at 10,000 resumes, had phone interviews with 1,000 job seekers and had your head ripped off by 100 hiring managers, you cultivate a certain level of pure exasperation for idiots.
Too much inside knowledge – You know what really ticks off the average recruiter? Getting exposure to the offers that other people get when they walk in the door. Even worse, seeing the ridiculous “add-on’s” that candidates (or current employees) demand before assuming a new role – especially when they get the stupid requests.
Second-fiddle syndrome – During the initial interview & selection process, the recruiter is the critical person for a candidate. BFF, sounding board, coach, advisor ~ then they get hired and pfffffft. Count on it, once they get the job, the recruiter is a toot in the breeze.
The bad hire – If a newbie flames out, it’s the recruiter’s fault. If the newbie goes on to be CEO, nobody cares or remembers who brought them into the company.
“Real” HR – Even within their own kind, Recruiters are the whipping post. They don’t do “real” HR work and the internet has reduced a lot of their job to a screen & sort position. Whenever the topic of outsourcing comes up, you can be sure that Staffing is in the crosshairs as a first cut.
Career vacuum – Stick around too long in the recruiter role & you’ll be given the career kiss of death, the dreaded “Senior Recruiter” title. You now have zero transferable skills internally and you’ve priced yourself too high for an HR “rotation” assignment. Either suck it up or get your own resume ready, ‘cuz your fate is sealed.

A decidedly grim view, I know, but I speak the truth because I care.

So, what do you do about it?

Top three things to do immediately and often:

1. Make it known that your five-year plan does not include being a phone-jockey for job applicants.

2. Gain the gracious support of your internal clients:

a. Offer perspective and insight they don’t normally get from their recruiter.

b. Challenge them on the ranking and selection of candidates.

c. Remind them of the cost-avoidance (a great ROI in theory, but they may not give a rip) you offer them by providing a service an external recruiter would charge thousands of dollars to do.

3. Push those in charge to let you “shadow” or participate in any number of different functions.

And for Pete’s sake, do it before you get promoted to Senior Recruiter.

Recession Fallout in HR

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I have a feeling I’m about to preach to the choir. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with hiring manager lately – that just don’t get it! (I hear you saying “What do you mean “lately” – did hiring manager “ever” get it!) The Recession has made our job very hard – Today – especially if you are currently trying to hire anyone with technical skills (engineers, designers, IT professionals, Scientist, etc.). During the Recession we had candidates coming out of our ears! Today, it seems like, almost overnight, technical jobs across the country have turned on like a fire hose! Everywhere companies are trying to find technical talent – in all industries – all at the same time. Remember that baby boomer Tsunami of retirement we were suppose to see? This feels like the first waves are hitting the shore in terms of technical hiring!

I’ve spoken to engineering schools that 100% graduation hires, plus companies now paying for engineering seniors, senior year of tuition! I’ve spoken to companies that have had to double their payroll projections – mid-budget year, just to have enough money to hire the same amount of projected hires at the beginning of the year. In HR and Recruiting we get this – the market moves, sometimes very quickly, and organizations have to be prepared to adjust and move with it – or risk causing some very bad outcomes to our operations. But, do our hiring managers get this?

I’m hear to say – not enough have gotten the message!

Over the past few months, it seems like we are having daily “conversations” with hiring managers who are still wanting to see the same 20 candidates they saw during the recession, and turning down candidates for minor things like “he seemed a little shy”, “she was from Tech and I like State grads”, “he’s had 2 jobs in the past 10 years!” I’ve had hiring managers have interviews, come back and say they like both candidates really well, but would like to see some more – when there aren’t any more! It all sounds familiar doesn’t it! The Recession did this to them! It made the greedy – it made them ultra picky – it made them believe there is a never ending pool of great candidates who only want to come work at your company. Ugh! I hate the Recession!

So what?

In HR/Recruiting this is where we become marketers – we start selling – and what we are selling is an idea. An idea that the world is different, they sky is falling and there’s only one person left to hire. That person – is the stupid candidate I just put in front of your face!!! (wouldn’t that be great if we could say that!?) Look, I understand you and your hiring managers “only want to hire the best talent” – BTW – so does everyone else. But times are changing – if you want to hire the best – you better be paying the best – or at least offering the best value proposition as compared to your competitors. Lines of candidates are out their just waiting for calls any longer. It’s simple addition – more technical job openings than candidates + baby boomers now beginning to feel like they can retire = our job just got a lot tougher!

Recruiting is Worthless

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Paul DeBettignies recently had an article over at ERE – Where Have All the Recruiters Gone – which gave me the idea for this post. In Paul’s post he wonders why recruiters are networking face-to-face anymore. I think many of us in the recruiting field who have been in the field pre-internet, probably wonder this and many more things as we look at how the industry has totally transformed over the past 20 years. A person today can get into recruiting, sit at a desk, have great internet skills, marginal phone skills and make a decent living. They probably won’t be a great recruiter – they probably won’t make great money – but they’ll survive – they’ll be average or slightly above. It’s why the recruiting function in most organizations gets a bad rap! In corporate circles I’ve heard it called “worthless” many times – and for some this is their reality.

Recruiting is Worthless, if…

…you’re a hiring manager and you never have face-to-face conversations with your recruiter when you have an opening, and when you don’t have an opening.

…you’re recruiters believe it isn’t there job to find talent, talent will find them.

…your organization believes it’s the recruiting departments job to find talent. It’s not, it’s the hiring managers job to ensure they have the talent they need for their department, recruiting is the tool that will help them. This “ownership responsibility” is very important for organizational success in ensuring you have the talent you need.

…your recruiting department acts like they are HR – they aren’t – they are sales and marketing. Too many Recruiters, in corporate settings, don’t want to recruit, they want to be HR – which makes them worthless as recruiters.

…if your recruiters have more incoming calls then outgoing calls.

…if your recruiters believe their job begins Monday thru Friday at 8am and ends at 5pm. The best talent is working during those times and most likely won’t talk to you while they are at work. That’s not a slam on you or your company – they are great employees, it’s what we expect from a great employee.

…your senior leadership team feels they have to use an “executive search” company to fill their higher level openings, because our recruiting department “can’t handle it”.

…if they are victims – “it’s not my job”, “we can’t do that because…”, “marketing won’t allow us to do…”, “our policy won’t allow us…” etc.

…if they just send hiring managers resumes of candidates that have come to them, without first determining if the person is a fit for the organization and a fit for the hiring managers position – before sending them on.

…they haven’t developed the organizational influence enough to change a hiring managers, hiring decision.

Recruiting is worthless if in the end they have failed to show the value of their service back to the organization.

Recruiting is the one department in the organization, besides sales, that truly has the ability to show ROI back to the organization, yet so few of us take advantage of the opportunity we have! There is nothing more important, and have a bigger competitive advantage, than our organizations talent – and oh by the way – THAT IS US! We control that. Recruiting isn’t worthless, unless you make it worthless.

Make HR Suck Less

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Are you working in a HR department that sucks? You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”. It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm. So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company. If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what? We have the power to make HR Suck Less. Yes, you do. Stop it, you do. No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1. Stop doing stuff that Sucks. But Tim! We have to do this stuff. No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on. Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc. Stop that. Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck. It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2. Get rid of people in HR who Suck. Some people get real comfortable with sucking. They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor. You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck. We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something. If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well. Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck. If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck. You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc. This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization. No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking. You need to change perceptions, not reality. You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock. Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”. “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill. You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

It’s Back! FOT’s Top 25 HR/Recruiting Blogs!

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Fistful of Talent – which I’m proud to be a member of – is releasing it’s Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs. What’s really cool about this list – unlike some other lists I have poetically mentioned in prior posts – is this isn’t made up by some random analysis, of random metrics – this thing is totally un-apologetically 100% subjective! That’s right, we (the FOT Tribe) sent in our own Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs that we love to read -the blogs we are fans of – and we ranked them 1 to 25. Simple – yet very effective!

I’m not saying that it’s easy to pick the Top 25 – for starters no FOTer blog can be a part of our list – which right there eliminates probably the 10 greatest blogs on the planet! So, I might have to recommend to Kris that next year we call the list – The Top 11-35 HR and Recruiting Blogs! That being said we looked at hundreds of blogs – many of us have our personal favorites – many of us really like and read blogs that our out of the HR world – as our personal favorites. What I can tell you – is the Top 25 – are solid! If you are looking for a list of HR and Recruiting blogs to follow – you won’t go wrong with any of these!

FOT’s own Steve Boese will be doing his thing tonight at the HR Happy Hour – unveiling the winners and talking HR with some of the top HR bloggers in the business – go check him out –

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/steve-boese/2012/03/23/hr-happy-hour-141–the-hr-blog-power-rankings

HR Happy Hour Episode 141 – ‘The HR Blog Power Rankings’

“LinkedIn? Is that the Facebook for Recruiters?”