Category Archives: Technical Recruiting

The Myth of Being a Highly Selective Employer

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We all think it, don’t we?  We all want to believe in this notion that we only hire the best and brightest – we only hire quality.  We are ‘highly’ selective.

We’ll show our executives really cool data that shows how ‘highly’ selective we are.  Number of applicants per hire – 25,000 people applied for this position and we only took the best 1!

I read something interesting recently from Time magazine and college admissions at highly selective colleges – think Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc.  Schools that are super hard to get into because of how selective they are – much like your hiring process of your organization. From the Time’s article:

“What many parents and students don’t realize is that increasing numbers of applications isn’t necessarily a sign that it’s harder to get into a selective school; rather, it’s a sign of changes in behavior among high school seniors. More and more people who aren’t necessarily qualified are applying to top schools, inflating the application numbers while not seriously impacting admissions. In fact, it has arguably become easier to get into a selective school, though it may be harder to get into a particular selective school…

The most recent study available from the National Association for College Admission Counseling shows that between 2010 and 2011 (the most recent years available), the percentage of students applying to at least three colleges rose from 77% to 79% and the percentage of students applying to at least seven colleges rose from 25% to 29%. In 2000, only 67% of students applied to three or more colleges, while 12% applied to seven or more.

The net effect of this behavior is to create an illusion of increased selectivity. Especially at the most selective schools, an increase in applications generally leads to the acceptance of a smaller percentage of the students who apply. However, students who meet the academic and extracurricular thresholds to qualify for competitive schools will still get into a selective college; it’s just less likely that they’ll get into a specific competitive college. These schools work hard to not admit students who won’t attend;  the acceptance rate and the matriculation rate (the percentage of accepted students who attend) are key measures in many college ranking methodologies, so both admitting too many students and admitting students who don’t attend can hurt a college’s ranking.”

An illusion of increased selectivity…You see, just because you turn down a high number of candidates doesn’t make you more selective – it makes you popular.  Too many organizations, and HR departments, are marketing that they are highly selective based on some simple numbers that give an illusion of being highly selective, when in reality, they’re just good at processing a high number of applicants – but not really being ‘more’ selective.  Just because you turn down 24,999 candidates doesn’t make you selective – it just means you have a high number of applicants.

So what does make you selective?  Quality of hire – which I can argue is another very subjective metric in most organizations – but at least it’s a start.  Can you demonstrate with real measurable items that the applicants you’re hiring are better or getting better than those previously?  This creates a real evidence that you’re becoming ‘more’ selective and on your way to becoming ‘highly’ selective.

The Reality About Salary Expectations

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I think we all know that one person in our life that thinks they get the best deal on everything!  They consider themselves the ultra-negotiator, the person sales people hate to see coming! You know the person -they go and buy a $40,000 car and call and tell you how they got it for $27,000 and the car dealership actually lost money on them.  These are the same people that believe they can also ‘negotiate’ their salary.  There are some realities we face as HR Pros that most employees don’t get.  While we have rules and processes and salary bands – quite honestly, very little negotiation goes into any salary offer.  Younger people are always told, usually by their Dad or some cheesy uncle, to “Negotiate” their salary – “Never take the first offer!”

To me there are 7 main realities about negotiating salaries, and here they are:

1. A good HR/Talent Pro will pre-close you one what you are expecting. This is truly the point where you should be negotiating – the first call. 99% of candidates miss this opportunity.  This is also where you can truly find out what the position pays by playing ‘the game’ – Go in super high and work backwards – you’ll eventually get to the ceiling.

2. Health Benefits, 401K match, holidays – are all non-negotiable, unless you’re negotiating a C-suite offer.

3. Vacation days are usually negotiable – but only if you’re coming in with experience – most entry levels have no room to negotiate this – and if you did negotiate, as an entry level, and get more vacation than they originally offered, calm down, they were willing to give this already – it was a test.

4.  In most positions you have a 10% range within a position to negotiate salary for an experienced professional – they offer $60K – you can probably get $65K without much hassle.

4a. There are 2 schools of thought on this:

A. The fewer the people in a position the easier it is to negotiate salary – the theory being we can hire Tim at $65K, we have  Jill is already hired and working at $60K – but it will only cost us $5K to move her up to that same level – everyone’s happy.

B. The more people in a certain position the harder it becomes to negotiate because the example above, pay inequity now becomes very expensive, and ‘pay creep’ is more of a concern when you have 200 people in a position vs. 2.

5. You can raise your salary up quickly by moving around early in your career and jumping from company to company – but it won’t help you move ‘up’ in your career.  Congratulations you’re making $95K as an Engineer – but you won’t be the first choice to a manager or director position – that will go to the person who has been there for 8 years while you were working for 4 different companies.

6.  HR/Talent Pros (the good ones) expect you will negotiate something – they usually are holding something back to help seal the deal.  If you don’t negotiate, you missed out an opportunity to get something – and that will follow you as long as you are with that company.  The $5K you left on the table initially, compounds each year like bank interest – if you’re with the company 20 years – that one little $5K negotiation will cost you $100K+.

7. The best HR/Talent Pros will tell you up front if they have don’t have room to negotiate – very rarely are they lying.

Share some of your salary negotiation stories in the comments below.

The #1 Cause of Bad Hires

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A while back I interviewed a lady that would make a great recruiter. She was high energy, great on the phone, could source and an HR degree.  She applied for the job we had open for a recruiter and 100% positive she would have accepted the position, if I would have offered it.  I didn’t.  She wasn’t a ‘fit’.  The job she truly wanted, her ‘dream’ job, was in straight HR, not recruiting.  She was willing to recruit – she really didn’t want to recruit.  We walked away from a terrific candidate.  Poor job fit is the #1 reason most people fail at a job.

Organizations spend so much time and resources ensuring they’re hiring the right skills, but most totally fail when it comes to organization and job fit.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy to determine organizational fit.  Sure you can design an assessment, do peer interviewing, etc. But it always seems like a moving target, and it is.  Job fit also has multiple components:

1. The job you have open.

2. The company culture.

3. The job the candidate actually wants to do.

4. The job the candidate is willing to do and how good of an actor they are to prove to you that is the real job they want.

5. Your inability to see your perception of the candidate and their perception of themselves doesn’t align.

How many of you have ‘Poor Job Fit’ as a reason for termination on your exit interview form?  My guess is almost none.  Most managers and HR pros will list things like: performance, personality conflict, attitude, low skill set, personal reasons, schedule, etc.  We don’t want to use something like “Poor Job Fit” because what that says is “We suck at our jobs!”  The reality is – probably 75% of your terminations are because of poor job fit.  You hired someone with the skills you wanted, but the job you have doesn’t use or need most of those skills.  The job you have doesn’t meet the expectation you sold to the candidate.  The job you have isn’t really the job the person wants.

Most organizations would be farther off to hire by fit, than by skills.  True statement.  HR pros hate to hear that – because it discounts a lot of what we do.  Job fit is the key to retention – not skills.  Find someone who wants to be a recruiter – and they probably be a decent recruiter.  Find someone with great skills who doesn’t want to be a recruiter – and they’ll be a terrible recruiter.  In almost every occupation where you don’t need professional certifications (doctor, lawyer, CPA, etc.) this holds true.  I know a great Accountant who never went to accounting school – better than anyone I’ve met you graduated from accounting school.  Some of the best teachers – never went to college to become a teacher – but they love teaching.

Do one thing for me the next time you interview a candidate for a job – ask them this one question:

“If you could have any job, in any location, what job would you select?  Why?” 

There answer doesn’t have to be the job they’re interviewing for to be the ‘right’ answer.  Their answer should be in line with what you’re asking them to do – or you’re going to have a bad fit – and either you will eventually be terminating them, or they will eventually be resigning.

2013 Grads – Here’s some advice from HR

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It’s that time of year when college and universities around the world will release onto us the great minds of the 2013 graduate class.  This always makes me think of the popular advice – Wear Sunscreen:

While this advice might be from 1999 – it still rings true today – but like everything else in the world this can be added to and expanded.  Here are my additions to the advice above for the 2013 grads from an HR Pro – listen up:

– Don’t buy into the fact that a paper resume is no longer needed.  Most people who are making hiring decisions are old – they like paper to hold onto while they asked you pointless questions that will tell them nothing about what you can do as an entry level candidate, it makes them feel comfortable.  White paper and black ink – don’t get creative – old people don’t like creative.

– Have a story when interviewing.  In almost every single interview process you’ll get a moment to tell your story.  People will hire your story, not your skills – because you don’t have any skills, but you might have a story.

– Over dress for your interview.  While you might feel out of place to their business casual, it shows people that you care about your appearance and that you’re trying to get this job.  They’ll laugh about you after, but they also appreciate the effort.  Don’t wear your Dad’s suit – that’s tacky – unless your Dad has extraordinary taste and wears your size.

– Don’t go to work if you’re not ready to go to work.  You can be young and poor only once in your life.  Then you get older.  Being older and poor, sucks.  Being young and poor is like being in college without classes.

– Big companies are cool for your resume, but do very little to teach you anything about running a business.  A small company will let you do more than you should.  Both experiences are valuable – don’t think one is more important than the other.  Too many new grads think big firm experience is key to success and crap on smaller companies – those people miss out and what it really takes to be an executive in the future.

–  If someone at your first job offers you a chance to get together after work as friends (drinks, softball, coffee, movie, etc.), do it – unless they’re creepy.  Having strong work relationships will move you forward in your career faster than your skills will.

–  Learn how to drink in moderation.  You’re not in college anymore and when you drink with work associates you need to be able to have a drink or two and be good.  Don’t become the office story about what not to do.  If you do by chance do this – find another job – you will never outlive this story.

– Don’t be the weird person in your office.  How do you know if you’re the weird person?  Do others invite you to lunch, or do you invite yourself?  Do people stop by your cube, or are you always stopping by everyone’s cube?  Corporate success depends on your ability to fit into the culture.  Companies like inclusion, as long as you fit into the ‘inclusion’ they’ve decided for their organization.

Good Luck 2013 Grads!

Bad Hire Blame Game

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Jessica Hagy, over at Indexed, inspires me constantly – this is one I made based on her inspiration:

Bad Hire Blame 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s what you sign up for in HR – you’re going to take the blame when a bad hire happens, and your hiring managers are going to take the credit when a good hire happens.

 

 

Not Everyone Is Created ‘Professional’

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My friend and HR Pro, Kris Dunn, is fond of saying – “The world needs ditch diggers to”.

I got into a conversation with a couple HR pros recently regarding helping them find ways to find ‘unskilled’ talent for their company.  Today’s ‘unskilled’ doesn’t really mean having no skills – it means the person didn’t have to go to a four year college and get a degree to do the job!  What they need, also, wasn’t professional skilled trades – people who have to go through a certification process – plumbers, electricians, pipe-fitters, toolmakers, CNC machinists, etc.  We talked about a number of various marketing and employment branding things they could do to steal people from their competitors, etc., but the conversation for me always goes back to root cause.

Why?  Why can’t a company find semi-skilled labor when we have millions of unemployed people in this country?  Why?

Root cause?  Our society makes kids believe they only have two options when coming out of high school!

1. College/University route

2. Prison

I’m not joking!  If you look at what our country is doing to public education it’s completely insane.  A kid, who obviously doesn’t want to go the college route, has very little opportunity to learn a skill, or begin to learn a skill, before he or she graduates.  When I was in school, I was college bound from the start (underlying meaning – Timmy didn’t like manual labor!).  Still I was ‘forced’ to take multiple classes in my middle and high school around the skill trades.  I took wood shop and some basic auto repair class – but I had friends that spent most of their time learning how to weld, electrical work, rebuilding engines, etc.  None of these people are unemployed now!  The schools started early to identify kids who had the ‘knack’ for these skilled professions.

I have two high school boys right now.  Great students – neither of which have ever really lifted a tool, used a saw, a drill, changed oil in a machine, etc.  They have almost zero opportunity to do this in their school setting.  So, is public education the problem?  No.  We are the problem.  We equate success with college graduation.  We equate ‘doing better’ with a white collar job.  We equate importance to society by having a title and a desk.  I feel lucky my boys are good students.  I should feel lucky if my kids are passionate about learning a trade – professional or skilled!  Something has to change and it’s not our schools – it’s our mentality to what success looks like in our society.  I find myself envious of my auto mechanic, of my electrician and my plumber – I wish I had half their skills!  I would be proud if my son came and said he wanted to be a toolmaker.  Those are great jobs and skills to have, and as the baby boom generation continues to leave the workforce – more and more of those ‘skilled’ professionals are going to be needed.

As Aristotle said, “Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation.”

Mailbag: How do you talk someone into working Contract?

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Here’s the question:

“Can you please help me on how do you convince a candidate to work on contract?”

Sam – New Jersey

Here’s some background, because some people might be confused on what the question even asks. A ‘Contract’ position is usually what technical engineering and IT recruiters refer to for a professional temporary type job.  It’s not ‘temp’ that you usually think of when someone says “hey I’ve got a temp job” for you  – which is normally a low paying, manual labor job.  Contract positions are usually project based, highly paid hired guns that come in to do a certain job and move on.  You also see many corporations now using contract hiring for their professional staff as a kind of ‘try and buy’ type of staffing.  Hire talent on contract, if they workout well and fit your culture, then offer them a direction position.

Sam – is new to the professional contingent staffing game – and he’s asking the million dollar question.  Your ability to sell ‘contract’ is what separates the men from the boys in the staffing industry! Here’s my reply:

“Sam,

Here’s the canned staffing industry answer for getting an IT Pro to work contract vs. direct:

You talk a candidate into a contract because of a number of factors – the ability to work a project that gives them experiences they don’t have, to work for a company they have desire to work for, it’s a higher level of position than they currently have and/or it is in a location geographically they want to be versus where they are currently.  A few other things that are enticing – much higher level of compensation, working for a true leader in the industry (mentor type), working on a project that will set them up for future projects they couldn’t get without working on this project.  

 Here’s the reality:

If you have none of these things – you’ll never talk a direct person to go contract – unless they are just plain miserable in their current job.  To get a direct person to work contract you have to find their pain spot – what is it about their current position they can’t stand – and if you can solve that with what you have to offer – just maybe you’ll get that person to accept your contract position.  If you have none of those things that solves their pain – you have no chance.

Good luck, Tim”

Finding an individuals pain spot, or hot button, is the key to any kind of candidate negotiation, but critical for getting someone to accept a contract position.  I’ve been told by 100+ HR Pros that a ‘good’ candidate would never accept a contract position over a direct position.  After 10 years of working the industry – I can honestly look them in the eye and tell them they are flat wrong!  I get people to take contract position every single week who turn down direct positions.  The direct position might be with a bad company, bad location, low pay, etc.  Contract offers them an opportunity to stay where they want, work with a company they’ve been targeting to get into, maybe cash a big check, etc.

I speak to corporate HR Pros every single week and many have the same issue – “Tim – we spend so much time and resources bringing in good talent – only to have them fail and once they are on staff, it seems next to impossible to get rid of them quickly!”   Contract is one answer to solve this.  It allows both sides to feel each other out, see if it’s a fit and then get married down the road after you’ve dated a while.  If it doesn’t work, your hiring managers don’t feel the same ‘ownership’ of a contractor and will cut them loose quicker than they would a direct employee.

 

Finding Mr. Right Too Fast

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Here’s the scenario:

You have an opening and you do your recruiting thing.  You find a candidate and low and behold they are great!  What luck!? You think to yourself. The hiring manager is going to thrilled. Boy, my job is easy!

Do I need to even go on?

You set up the interview with the hiring manager.  She also thinks the candidate is great.  Done deal, you think to yourself.  Then ‘it’ happens.  The hiring manager, she does that thing they do, those hiring manager types, she says that statement we don’t want to hear:

“Let’s take a look at a couple more before we decide.”

Bam!

Just like that, this job went from being easy to being horrible!  You found her Mr. Right and now she wants to see two more Mr. Rights!  Doesn’t she know, Mr. Right only comes around once!?

Grizzled Recruiting Veterans know what I’m talking about.  Finding Mr. Right too fast is a killer.  So, how do you get around this?  There are two ways, neither of which is preferred over the other:

1. Hold Mr. Right and show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  The problem with this is that while you’re messing around showing the hiring manager Mr. and Mrs. Wrong, Mr. Right might just find Mrs. Right Job for him and you’re done holding hands with Mr. and Mrs. Wrong – with a hiring manager saying “I want Mr. Right – Go find me Mr. Right!”

2. Present Mr. Right, and present Mr. and Mrs. Wrong soon after.  This works about 75% of the time if you have secondary candidates waiting to go – timing is everything with this.  Hiring Manager sees Mr. Right.  Wants to see who else might be on the market. You quickly show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  Hiring manager makes quick decision to go with Mr. Right.

Either way getting a hiring manager to understand the market and what they have can sometimes be a sales job!  Too many hiring managers believe you can present them a slate of Mr. and Mrs. Rights!  When in reality you might know that you got lucky finding one Mr. or Mrs. Right – and the chances of finding more are slim to none.  Ah, hiring managers…you can’t live with them and you can’t legally shoot them.

The Proactive Recruiting Myth

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If there is one thing that I hear more from hiring managers and executives, especially executives!, it is why can’t recruiting, as a function, be more proactive!  Both groups look at it like an economic lesson – supply and demand – like recruiting is an assembly line.  In ‘their’ world they have expected needs, and to meet those needs they will need product, so they schedule that much product to be produced and ready for delivery on the date needed.  Simple.  What is wrong with recruiting!? That’s what we want!

Simple.

Being proactive in recruiting and having a pipeline of candidates ready to go and start working isn’t simple.  You’re dealing with two parallel moving time lines – the candidates and the organizations need of that talent – it’s highly complex.  Whenever I hear about an organization that is ‘proactively’ recruiting it makes me smile – because they probably really aren’t proactively recruiting, they’re probably actually recruiting for needs they know they’ll have in the future – which is reactive, since they already know of the need.  Proactive recruiting is preparing for a need you don’t know of yet, but expect will happen.  Those are two different things.  One you have money for, one you don’t.

If you truly want your Recruiting department to do proactive recruiting, you have to be willing to ‘over-hire’ the amount of staff you actually need.  Some companies are actually willing to do this, and fund this.  But stop and think for a minute the message that sends to your organization.  You’re hiring replacements for people who haven’t left, so you’re assuming we are going to leave, crap I don’t want to be the person who gets let go, I better go out and find something!  You get people to think about leaving by being proactive.  ‘Proactive’ recruiting in this sense might actually cause higher turnover (I actually know this from experience when a highly successful organization I worked with thought this would be a brilliant idea – it wasn’t).

Now, some of you HR/Talent Pros reading this will say – but wait, what if your proactively recruiting for growth! Again – that’s not proactive, that’s reactive. If you know you’re growing, you would be hiring those folks for spots you plan on having in the future – this doesn’t cause your workforce to freak out and think they might be replaced – these people are being hired for growth.

The problem is very few HR/Talent Pros are willing to tell their hiring managers and executives the truth about Proactive Hiring.  We can do it – but – it will cost money and it might cause some folks to leave that we don’t want to leave!  Now, you can combat this – but that takes strong leaders willing to have great performance and developmental discussions with their team. There is a false assumptions by hiring managers and leaders that recruiting can somehow magically pipeline great talent for a long time.  Some organizations that a brand that can do this – but 97% don’t!  Google can pipeline candidates for months, years – folks are willing to wait in cue to get on board.  Walmart can’t. Nike can.  Bank of America can’t.

What can you do?  Share reality.  Explain why, what they want is difficult and costs a ton of money.  Then give them some other solutions, that are most cost effective.  Ways to lower turnover, ways to develop talent and ways to onboard talent faster. Also, start changing their vocabulary – Proactive – in their vernacular is the wrong word!

iTunes killed Recruiting

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There was an excellent article recently on how  iTunes singles have killed the music industry.  Buying singles hasn’t killed sales, though, in fact sales are actually up!  So, how has iTunes killed the music industry?

“When music sales reached their peak in 2000, Americans bought 943 million CD albums, and digital sales weren’t even a blip on the radar. By 2007, however, those inexpensive digital singles overtook CDs — by a wide margin — generating 819 million sales to just 500 million for the CD. Last year, there were 1.4 billion digital singles sold, dwarfing CD sales by a factor of 7. More than three-quarters of all music-related transactions were digital singles last year, according to the RIAA…

The popularity and ease of downloading cheap digital singles has transformed the industry. Not since the vinyl era has the single been this popular. The smaller, cheaper “45” record dominated music in the 1950s and ’60s, but the music industry wised up in the ’70s.Vinyl, cassette and CD singles were always cheaper for consumers, but manufacturing costs were not. Nor was the space required to house them in stores. Thus, the single became harder and harder to come by.”

In theory, we really ever never wanted an entire album/CD, for the majority of us there were always a few great songs that most listened to, but by having to buy the entire album the artist were able to work their craft. By getting music sold that wouldn’t sell if you’re just by singles, the artist is allowed to have some more freedoms to write and produce songs that might not otherwise get made, which down the road could end up being the start of something new.  Buying singles limits dare I say – diversity – of music.  The concept of only buying popular music singles is homogenizing the entire industry.  The music industry has completely changed in ten years since iTunes was launched.  Now the music industry focuses on producing hits – not music – assuming you don’t want to be one of those starving artist!

So, how has iTunes killed recruiting?

iTunes changed how we looked at something and made us want something different.  We use to want music and knew we had to ‘buy the entire package’ an artist would give us.  That included some great songs, average songs and probably some songs that were purely experiments.  iTunes is so popular many other industries try to copy the method of their success.  This philosophy spreads – “I don’t want to buy what you want to sell me – I want to buy what I want!”  Like Burger King made so popular – “I want it my way!”

Hiring has somewhat become a victim of this, especially hiring managers.  I remember a time when we would interview candidates knowing they were going to have some ‘opportunities’ and we as an organization where going to have to bring them in, give them a big hug, and teach them what they didn’t know and make them valuable to us.  Now, most organizations want to hire like they buy iTunes. They only want superstars.  When you hire a person they should have no opportunities. They should all be hit songs!  This is ruining recruiting!  Because the fact of the matter is, no one is a superstar, and everyone of us has opportunities.  By having a philosophy that you ‘only hire superstars’ you’re setting your organization and the new hire up for major failure because in short-order you’re going to find out they actually do have opportunities.  You’re going to find out, they aren’t all hit songs!