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Category Archives: Staffing
Are You Tired of Your Employment Brand?
You might be tired of your employment brand…but your candidates aren’t!
That’s real.
This happens all the time in organizations. Talent acquisition isn’t feeling successful, or they’re getting pressure to do more/better/faster, and they start looking for excuses. The one excuse that always comes up is ‘our employment brand is old/tired/sucks, etc.’ It might be that it is old/tired/sucks, but it’s usually just an excuse.
Here’s what happens internally at your organization.
1. You have an employment brand. If you say you don’t, you’re lying to yourself! You do, you just didn’t have a part in making it!
2. You’re having trouble attracting the talent you want.
3. You believe having a really cool new employment brand will help attract the talent you can’t attract. Which it might, but most likely not.
4. You use your old employment brand as a crutch to why you can’t be successful in talent acquisition.
The real problem has nothing to do with your employment brand. For most companies, your candidates have little knowledge of what your actual employment brand really is. Most candidates equate your employment brand to your consumer brand.
So, externally your employment brand is what it has always been. The real problem is we get tired of our employment brand really fast because we are dealing with every single day. We forget that most candidates only will engage our employment brand usually once in a lifetime. So, they aren’t tired of it at all!
Any time I hear a talent acquisition pro tell me they can’t attract talent, and blame their employment brand, I question their ability to actually recruit. Being able to attract talent has very little to do with your employment brand, and more to do with your own perception of your employment brand. Our reality is most candidates have hardly any idea of our employment brands, until we engage them with it. If you are great at selling your brand, the candidates are more than likely going to have a positive perception of your employment brand.
If you believe your employment brand sucks. More than likely so will the candidates you’re contacting. It comes back to your attitude about your company. I’ve never seen or heard from a recruiter who desperately loved their organization who said they couldn’t find talent! Coincidence? I think not. If you love your organization, and you recruit, you usually are pretty successful. If you don’t like your organization, and you recruit, you usually are pretty crappy at it.
Just because you’re tired of your employment brand, doesn’t mean everyone else is.
The Crappy Job Badge of Honor
As some of you may have realized from recent posts (Wanted: People Who Aren’t Stupid), I’ve been interviewing candidates recently for the position of Technical Recruiter working for my company HRU. I love interviewing because each time I interview I think I’ve discovered a better way to do it, or something new I should be looking for, and this most recent round of interviews is no different. Like most HR/Talent Pros I’m always interested in quality work/co-op/internship experience – let’s face it, it’s been drilled into us – past performance/actions will predict future performance/actions. So, we tend to get excited over seeing a candidate that has experience from a great company or competitor – we’re intrigued to know how the other side lives and our inquisitive nature begs us to dig in.
What I’ve found over the past 20 years of interviewing is that while I love talking to people that worked at really great companies – I hire more people that have worked at really bad companies. You see, while you learn some really good stuff working for great companies – I think people actually learn more working for really crappy companies! Working at a really great companies gives you an opportunity to work in “Utopia” – you get to see how things are suppose to work, how people are suppose to work together, how it a perfect world it all fits together. The reality is – we don’t work Utopia (at least the majority of us) we work in organizations that are less than perfect, and some of us actually work in down right horrible companies. Those who work in horrible companies and survive – tend to better hires – they have battle scars and street smarts.
So, why everyone wants to get out of really bad companies (and I don’t blame them) there is actually a few things you learn from those experiences:
1. Leadership isn’t a necessity to run a profitable company. I’ve seen some very profitable companies that had really bad leadership – people always think they’ll leave those companies and they’ll fail – they don’t. Conversely, I’ve worked for some companies that had great people leaders and failed.
2. Great people sometimes work a really crappy companies. Don’t equate crappy company with crappy talent. Sometimes you can find some real gems in the dump.
3. Hard work is relative. I find people who work at really bad companies, tend to appreciate hard work better than those who work a really great companies with great balance. If all you’ve every known is long hours and management that doesn’t care you have a family – seeing the other side gives you an appreciation that is immeasurable.
4. Not having the resources to do the job, doesn’t mean you can’t do the job. Working for a crappy company in a crappy job tends to make you more creative – because you probably won’t have what you need to do the job properly, so you find ways.
5. Long lasting peer relationships come through adversity. You can make life-long work friends at a crappy job – who you’ll keep in contact and be able to leverage as you move on in your careers. And here’s what each of you will think about the other: “That person can work in the shit!” “That person is tough and get’s things done” “That person is someone I want on my team, when I get to build a team”
We all know the bad companies in our industries and markets. Don’t discount candidates who have spent time with those companies – we were all at some point needing a job – a first experience, a shot at a promotion or more money, etc. and took a shot at a company we thought we could change or make a difference. I love people who worked for bad companies, in bad jobs with bad management – because they wear it like a badge of honor!
What Do You See When You Look In The Mirror
Was at ERE last week and got the chance to see John Robinson speak. Here’s his story:
Very cool story and great example of a person who rises up over all that life can throw at you. We all need these reminders, more than we usually get them. Think your life is hard? How about needing 30 minutes each morning to just be able to put on your clothes. Every. Day.
John said one thing that stuck with me. After getting dressed in the morning and brushing your teeth, etc. We all at some point take a look in the mirror. John asked, “What are you looking for when looking in the mirror?” Do you know? Ask yourself that same question. What are you looking at?
We are all looking for something wrong that is wrong with us! That is a conscious decision we make, each and every day, before beginning our day. We are looking for something wrong with us! It’s so true, and so crazy!
We get ourselves looking good, ready for our day, all positive stuff, but we take one last look. Before I leave is there anything wrong with me? Did I miss something with my hair? Leave some toothpaste in the corner of my mouth? Does this shirt look right with these pants?
John’s point is that there’s nothing wrong with any of us. We are who we are. Some of us are tall, some are fat, some are black, some have no arms, some have scars. This makes us different from each other, but not better or worse or ‘wrong’.
So, when you look in the mirror today, do me one favor. Find something that is right with you, not wrong with you.
Recruiters! Conferences Don’t Care About You!
I’m down at ERE’s Fall Conference in Chicago this week. It’s a conference designed for Talent Acquistion leaders (FYI – they don’t like to be called ‘Recruiters’). It’s really cool the folks at ERE do a great job putting together great content and work to push the role of Talent Acquisition forward in organizations around the world.
HR Tech also does a great job for HR folks looking for HR Tech. So does Sourcecon, for people wanting to be better sourcers. So does TLNT’s Transform for HR leaders. Heck, even SHRM National has some great content.
Besides ERE, though, where does a TA leader or Recruiter go to keep up on their industry. To get better. To challenge and measure themselves and their organizations to get better? No where, that’s where.
ERE does a fall and spring national conference. If you don’t have the budget for a national conference, usually $1-2,000 to attend, plus travel which usually doubles the cost, you’re screwed when it comes to getting really good recruiting content.
SHRM has both local and state opportunities for HR Pros to get further development and expand their knowledge base. Do you have a local recruiting organization or a state recruiting organization that will offer this to you? Most likely No, unless you live in D.C. (RecruitDC) or Minnesota (Hello Paul!).
It’s crazy when you really stop and think about it. Almost no where are we really leveraging the minds and the dollars to bring these people together at a state or local level.
I’m in Michigan. I know right now I could put two days of content together, leverage some awesome Recruiting talent from around the world to come in and speak, and get 250-500 Recruiting/Talent Acquisition Pros from Michigan to attend at $400-500 each. That’s anywhere from $100-250K just in conference fees, not including probably another $100-200K in sponsors. So, some company isn’t interested in $400-500K!?
Southeast Michigan is begging for technical talent. Organizations would spend the money to spend their TA teams to something like this. All across the country many areas are hurting for talent and willing to invest (a little) to get their recruiting teams better. But, most are not willing to have those same teams travel across the country at the price tag of $3,000 each for the same content.
Build it and they will come…just don’t build it too far away!
I see this work on the HR front. Monthly local SHRM meetings will get 50-100 participants at $50 per meeting for lunch and one hour of content! State conferences give you a day and half of content for $500-750, and most of that is vendors trying to sell you crap.
It just seems insane to me that someone who actually does conference planning for living can’t figure out how to leverage the largest 25 metro areas and put together a calendar of ‘local’ level recruiting conferences.
Like I said, ERE does a good job nationally, their just leaving about 90% of the money that is available out there locally on the table.
Job Descriptions are Just Commercials for Jobs
Only Employment Lawyers and HR Pros from 1990 believe that Job Descriptions are important legal-type documents that are still needed in 2014. Most companies have given up on job descriptions (JDs). At best you’ll find them, today, using ones from back in 1990 when people thought writing JDs was an important part of human resources. You’ll still find a few HR Tech vendors around trying to make you believe this is an important skill to have.
Our reality, though, is that JDs are really just a marketing tool to get you interested in a position and company. Nothing more, nothing less.
If this is true, 99% of companies are failing at JDs in a major way!
The other 1% are using titles like “Ninja Developer” and think they’ve gotten it solved. The problem we all share is that we haven’t let marketing just take this part of our business over. It’s a legacy thing. Somehow we believe only people in HR can write job descriptions. It’s that ‘legal’ thing again. We need to make sure we put “EOE” on the bottom, and you know you can’t trust marketing to do that!
Last week a Facebook group I’m in shared the following employment branding commercial:
I know, this isn’t a job description, but do you really think the JDs at Kixeye look like your JDs? No, they don’t!
I know. I know. Your company can’t do something like this. You’re probably right. But you can do something that is more like you. More authentic. More real. More, well, you.
That’s the problem with your JDs. They aren’t you. In fact, I would argue they aren’t anyone!
Your JDs, most JDs, are just a boring list of job requirements, that may not actually be required, and skills needed to do the job, that may not actually be needed to do the job. Job descriptions have turned into those things most companies are embarrassed to even show you. Weekly, I have conversations with companies that will either say they don’t have a job description, or the job description is old and updated, or just flat out ask me to help right them a new one!
It’s time HR gave up the job description business and handed it over to marketing where it belongs.
Fear Can Create Sustainable Success
I’ve been told that fear can only create short-term success. That’s a lie.
You see I grew up with a single mom. She probably didn’t sleep most nights, and the nights she did it was probably helped by a glass of cheap boxed wine. She had a mortgage and she had two kids to feed. She lived every single day in fear. Fear of losing her kids. Fear of losing her house. Fear of her check bouncing at the grocery store.
She did the one thing she knew how to do, recruiting, and started her own business. She started as a branch manager for a local temporary employee company. Learned the business in the hardest way possible. Temp staffing is the lowest common denominator in the staffing world. It is the definition of ‘grind’! She knew technical staffing, high end bill rates, was a much better life, but she was a woman and it was the 1970’s. Fear.
She built a successful technical staffing business that has lasted for the past 35 years. Never has the fear stopped.
You see she grew up in an era where you managed by fear. It seemed normal. If I’m living in fear, why shouldn’t I share some of this fear. It was a very common management tactic in the baby boom generation. You had Opec, the cold war, recessions, etc. People didn’t believe they have the choices they have today. If you got a job, you had to keep ‘that’ job, and if that meant a little fear, so be it.
If you didn’t do what you were told. If you didn’t make your monthly goal. If you talked back. All of that could get you fired, and you never wanted to be fired. Fear.
I took over the company five years ago. I’m a man. I also have fears. I fear I won’t be able to pay my mortgage if I don’t have a good job. I fear how I’ll pay for my son’s college education. I fear I’ll have enough money to ever retire. Different fears than my Mom. But I live with some fear in my heart. Maybe I was wired that way from growing up the way I did.
Fear pushes me out the door to work every single day. Fear isn’t my enemy. Fear of failure motivates me to succeed. If I didn’t have fear, I’m not quite sure how I would perform.
I tend to believe businesses and business people who succeed have embraced living with this fear. They’ve decided to become partners in a way. Fear is their life coach. I won’t call fear a friend, but I know it’s something I can count on. Rarely a day goes by when we don’t meet for some reason or another.
Here’s what I know from 35 years of sustained profitable success. Fear isn’t what you believe it to be. We believe fear can only motivate for short bursts, and then people will fall down in a puddle and be less productive. That’s a lie. The unmotivated are selling this version of fear. Those who don’t want to reach levels they never thought they could, are selling this version of fear.
Fear can create sustainable success, but it might not be as comfortable as you would like it to be.
Is Your Recruiting Department Racist?
At one point in my career, over a decade ago, I was working with a company where we hired a high percentage of foreign born applicants based on the technical skill set they had. Many of the names of these applicants were extremely hard to enunciate. Most of the hiring managers I worked with would spell the names out or say “the guy that worked at…” A few would try and say the names and butcher them badly.
Internally, in our recruiting department, we would ‘joke’ about asking these candidates to change their name to something it was easier for the managers to say, ‘Joe’ or ‘Charlie’ for instance. Deep down we knew we had some managers who would be more willing to interview if the name came across as ‘Joe Vishay’ or ‘Charie Xjang’. The manager would assume that because the candidate ‘choose’ an American name they must have better English skills.
It’s racism at a strange level. You want to hire the person, but you feel because you can’t say their name, they must not be worthy.
Check out this video –
This Man Changed His Name From Jose To Joe And… by buzzfeedvideo
I know if I asked 100 HR and Talent Pros if they were ‘racist’, 100 would say they were not. But, at a certain level we are. We won’t interview Jose, but we’ll interview Joe. You won’t interview Marcus, but you’ll interview Mark. My hiring manager wouldn’t interview “Arjun” but he would interview “Al”.
How do you stop this?
Hire Jose and Marcus and Arjun to do the hiring. That’s a start, at least. Call out those hiring managers who continue to not want to interview qualified candidates because they can’t pronounce the name of the candidate. You know who they are.
Also, educate your hiring managers, and give them the phonetic spelling of the candidates name. Let your hiring managers know the pride they feel about their own surnames is shared by cultures all over the world. I’m proud to be a “Sackett”. I get asked almost monthly by someone if I’m related to the Louis L’amour ‘Sackett’s’, and rarely do I point out those were fictional books!
Take the names off all your resumes you send to managers, as a ‘test’, and replace the name with a code number. Did it make a difference in who they chose to interview? It’s a great inclusion exercise to have with your leadership team.
No one ever wants to admit they are racist. The truth sometimes is very sobering. This isn’t about blame, this is about fixing what’s wrong. Great leadership teams will understand this.
Would You Sell Your Backup Candidates?
Here’s the staffing game has taught me over the past 20 years.
1. Great candidates get hired.
2. The difference between a great candidate and a very good candidate is one hiring managers gut feeling (usually).
3. The very good candidate that didn’t get hired, is someone elses great candidate.
This means that many of you are just sitting on another organizations great candidate! This means you’re sitting on something very valuable to someone else. Something that others would probably pay for.
Question:
Would you be willing to pay to have access to Google’s ATS?
Yes. Yes you would. More than you pay for LinkedIn Recruiter, I’d gamble!
This begs the question: would you be willing to sell your backup candidates? The ones you didn’t hire, but would have if your first choice didn’t accept.
So, what if your organization, your talent acquisition department, decided to start calling up other organizations that you know of who had similar needs and say, “Hey, we got what you want!” Do you think you could turn your corporate in-house talent acquisition department into a money maker? Yes. Yes, you could. Will you? No.
It really wouldn’t take much. Within your staffing process you add a little disclaimer, you know the ones nobody reads, which gives you freedom to ‘sell’ the contact information to those submitting for your jobs to other companies who are also looking for similar talent. From there you establish some relationships with other companies. Negotiate a price. Sign some simple agreements. When communicating with your backups about not getting the position, you pass along some good news. While they didn’t get the job they applied for, you have another position, with another company they might have interest in.
Bam! You’re printing money.
Very little extra effort, and almost no extra resources needed. Your talent acquisition department just turned into a profit center.
No organization would do this because they believe it will ‘hurt’ or ‘damage’ their employment brand. “Tim! If candidates knew we were going to sell their information to other companies, they wouldn’t apply to our jobs!” Or, maybe they would because they actually want to work for you! If that’s your process, what option do they have? Plus, all your doing is potentially giving them more options. How many people do you know that don’t want more options?
While no one is doing this publicly, I’ll tell you it is happening privately. I’ve been approached by corporate talent acquisition pros who are willing to ‘sell’ me access to their database for a fee. I pay them. They deliver to me candidates who applied to their positions that they never wanted to begin with, or couldn’t use. I haven’t ever did this for the simple fact that each time I was approached, the person was doing this behind the organizations back, with them wanting the check made out directly to them, personally. That’s shady.
But, if a company was willing to do it all above board as a paid service…I can’t tell you I would be in!
Prospective Employee Camp
In athletic recruitment there are these things called ‘Prospect’ camps. Depending on who you talk to these are either just coaching staff supplemental income, or serious recruitment functions needed to get prospective student athletes on campus.
Whatever they are, they’re a little genius!
Here’s how the entire system works. Usually an assistant coach emails your kid, who has a dream to play college athletics, that they are having a prospect camp and you’re invited to attend, for $150. Two things just happened: 1. Your kid just got an email from a college coach; 2. That coach insinuated that your kid is a ‘prospect’! Either way, there’s a good chance you’ll bite and pay the $150.
A couple of things happen at these camps. Coaches actually invite players they really do have interest in, and they invite anyone else who is willing to pay $150! So, a hundred kids show up, two or three which have actual ability to play college athletics, and they go through drills and modified games. You instantly know who has ability because the coaches spend time with those kids. If your kid doesn’t have a coach talking to him or her, they don’t have ability. It’s a real quick and easy way to set your own expectations.
These camps are a necessary evil of the function of recruitment. While most parents don’t like them, they all pay the money and have their kids attend.
These prospect camps got me to thinking if we in HR could do this in our organizations. Could we charge $150 to have potential employees come in and check us out, while we check them out? We run them through some tests, show them our facilities, make them compete against others in their same job function, spend time with our employees. At the end of the day, we offer a couple of them jobs.
Could it work? Maybe not for the average organization, but what about Google or Apple or some other big organization that has thousands wanting jobs with their company? I think it could work. The one issue we face is the expectation. “Well, I paid $150 what do I get for this?!”
We would have to deliver $150 worth of ‘value’ in these Prospective Employee Camps. I think that is probably the easy part. Think interview skills, resume skills, leadership skills, some hardcore job function skills based on what they actually do. It’s part self-development, and part dating game. People pay millions of dollars per to sites to find their perfect romantic match, with most failing to do so.
Prospective Employee Camps might just be a way for your organization to set itself a part from all the noise, and get candidates to come in that truly interested in (I’m willing to pay to be here, truly) and want to be a part of your organization. I know, crazy idea, but when you see it work in one area it just begs to be tried in another!