Category Archives: The Recruiting Rules

The Frequent Flyer Candidates

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In the staffing game we have a group of folks we call “Frequent Flyers”.  Those of you who are in Talent Acquisition know these folks well.  Your ‘frequent flyers’ are those candidates who seem to stop by all the time – maybe not physically, but they keep cropping up.  Frequent Flyers are those candidates who you know by name.  “Oh, Charlie, is he still around?!”  It’s the candidates that no matter how many times you’ve had an opening – they just keep applying, just keep trying to get in with your organization, many times in positions they aren’t even qualified for.

Do you have some Frequent Flyers?

I know of companies who won’t even post positions because their frequent flyers are so aggressive in applying for the position that TA doesn’t even want to deal with it.  They would rather not let anyone know they have an opening, than to deal with their frequent flyers!  My company has actually worked positions for clients because they would rather pay me a headhunting fee than to deal with their frequent flyers.

So, how do you get rid of a frequent flyer?

I’ll give you three options:

1. Hire Them!   No, really.  At some point you have to think to yourself – “Holy smokes if my current employees only wanted to work here that much we would be in really good shape!”  But your frequent flyers have issues, that’s why you haven’t hired them.  One way I’ve found successful is to give a frequent flyer a list of things to accomplish before I’ll hire them.  Two things usually happen: 95% of the time, after giving them your list, you’ll never hear from them again; 5% of the time they’ll actually do it and make a better than average employee!

2. Brutal Honesty.  I don’t mean ‘brutal HR honesty’, I mean brutal to the point you don’t feel good about yourself honesty.  This is tough, but it’s better than dealing with a frequent flyer that you never plan on hiring.

3. Find them a job.  Sometimes it’s easier to find a frequent flyer a job with another company in town, than it is to deal with them.  Get their resume or application and float it out to HR folks around your area – you might get lucky and they’ll start stalking someone else!

What’s your best Frequent Flyer story?

 

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!

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!

 

 

 

 

Mailbag: How Can I Get My Employees To Refer More?

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From The Project mailbag –

“Tim –

My company is doing a ton of hiring and we are trying to get our employees to refer former co-workers, friends, family, etc.  We offer a great referral bonus.  We make it easy. Still we get little, if any, referrals – and usually it’s the same people who refer candidates.  What can we do to get our employees to refer more people?

-Jennifer, Talent Acquisition Director, Austin, TX”

I love this question, because I think 99.9% of Talent and HR Pros face this same dilemma at some point in their career.  We spend a ton of time and resources putting together a great referral program – then we get the same results we got from the old referral program!  It’s frustrating. It makes us feel like our employees don’t care about the company. It makes us feel like we must not be doing something that we should.  You’re right! Well, somewhat right!

Here is my response to Jennifer:

“Jen – (It’s funny but I have a small pet peeve – if someone has a longer name with multiple syllables or one that seems formal – I like to call them by the shorter easier name. Sometimes people take offense to that. Like with ‘Jennifer’ – I like ‘Jen’ – with William – I like Will or Bill – Steven is Steve – James is Jim – you get the picture.  If you tell me “No, it’s James”, in my head I’m thinking “No, it’s asshole!” Anywho…back to Jen!)

Everything with your program is fine. Sure you can make tweaks and add technology, etc.  But basically referral programs don’t work because Talent Acquisition does two things wrong:

1. You’re asking the wrong question.  Almost every HR shop wants their employee to refer more candidates – and they will ask “Who do you know that is looking?”  The reply, almost 100% of the time – “No.”  Instead, ask this one question, then have your recruiters shut up and write down what they say: “Tell me the name of one of your previous co-workers from your last company.”  That’s it.  Each name is a referral.  You can tweak it for certain companies you want to pull from and focus the question to those current employees who came from those companies.  It works.   

2. You Don’t Ask Face-to-face.  Employees can blow off email easier than anything. Stop sending email and even calling them.  Get your lazy butt off your chair and have your recruiters sit down face-to-face when they ask this question. 

This change, to how you go about getting Employee Referrals, forces your recruiters to actually recruit – which is why 99% of companies don’t do this on the corporate side of Talent Acquisition!  If all you get is a name and a place of employment – your recruiters will have to Google a phone number and call into a company to speak to the person – they also might be able to find the person on social networks and track them down that way, but it’s faster to just call them at work.  People LOVE being called about a job opportunity!  It’s flattering. You found them – they don’t know how – they must be doing something right!  

Let me know how this works!

Tim”

I hope Jen tries this with her team, but I don’t hold out hope.  People say they want more of something – you tell them how to get it – and they reply with “Oh, I didn’t want to do that”.  Oh, so you were looking for magical unicorns to give you more referrals – my bad – yeah, those work to, magical unicorns are great for referrals!  What people really are saying is “How can I get more referrals without doing anything to get them?”  My answer to that question would be different from what I told Jen above – that answer is:  “Nothing”.

 

 

 

 

3 Stupid Questions To Ask In An Interview

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I’m sure at this point you saw the news from this weekend – Reese Witherspoon’s husband got arrested for DUI and she did what any drunk celebrity wife should do – threatened a police officer with the best question ever asked by celebrities – “Do you know who I am!?”   Yep – Mrs. Legally Blonde herself asked the one question celebrities are trained to never ask, under any circumstances.  She broke Rule #1 of being celebrity – and it was glorious!

This got me to thinking, from a candidate perspective, what are the questions who could ask that would ensure your interview went from Fab to Drab in about 3 seconds!?  My Catfish Friend, Kathy Rapp, over at Fistful of Talent had a great post this past week – 3 Questions Freakin’ Awesome Candidates Ask – which gave candidates three absolute home-run questions to ask at the end of the interview to show you’re a Rock Star candidate.  My list does the opposite!

The cool part of my list – is that each of these questions are from actual candidates asked during interviews that I’ve been apart of:

1.  Do you drug test?   Nope!  But we do now!  I’m pretty sure the person who asks this question has already made up their mind they don’t want to work for your company and they use this to ensure you won’t hire them.  Believe me there are plenty of people who interview, to get their parents, spouse, etc. off their back, but they don’t really want to work – so they sabotage themselves.  Asking dumb questions at the end is one of the best ways to sabotage an interview! Other question on this path – Do you do background checks? Do you do credit checks? Do you hire felons?

2. How long before I get to use sick time?  Never!  Because you wont’ be working here!  Again, the person who asks this question asks it for a reason – that reason is they ‘plan’ on being sick.  Quick HR Pro Rule of Thumb – if someone plans on being sick – you aren’t going to be happy with that hire.  Other questions on this same path:  When would I get a raise? How soon can I use my health insurance?  What happens if I’m late to work?

3. Can you date co-workers here?  To be honest – my immediate follow up question to this, without answering his question, was – “Are you dating one of the employees here?”  To which he said “No” – but that he ran into this at another employer and didn’t want to ‘have any problems’ again.  So, you’re assuming we have folks here who are just not going to be able to hold themselves back and must date you!?  Is what I’m hearing!  Again, I’ll come clean on my next response – I told him “You’re allowed to date employees here, you just can’t sleep with them.” (That wasn’t actually our policy – but it was fun to say!) At which he had no response and I ended the interview.  Other questions on this same path: Can you drink alcohol on the job here?  Can you smoke pot in the work bathrooms?  Can you steal office supplies?

What has been the dumbest question you have ever heard during an interview you were apart of?

Launch and Learn

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I love HR Pros! I really do.

There is one common trait that many of the best HR Pros have – we love to have things perfect before we launch or go public with them!  BTW – this is specific to HR – Operations, Sales, Marketing, etc. are all willing to ‘try’ stuff – to throw it out there and see what happens.  In HR this is taboo!

Why is that?

For me this idea is the one thing that truly holds HR back from being innovative.  Think about these words from Mark Suster at the Both Sides of the Table blog:

“I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.”

If those types of decisions lead to ‘bad company decisions’, inevitably those same types of behaviors will lead to bad HR decisions.

I hear what’s going around in your head right now, HR Pros!  I’m an HR Pro myself – that voice is hard to quiet.  “How can making sure something is perfect – a project, a program, a new process – be bad for HR and our organization!?”  Making something perfect isn’t bad.  Failure to launch is bad.  Also, taking too long or using too many resources to ensure perfection can be a huge negative to how HR, and you, are viewed.  In HR we aren’t trying to save lives or solve the world economic crisis – we have some room to ‘test’ and do some ‘trial and error’ – as long as communicate that is what you’re doing.

I’ll give you a little secret I’ve used for years in HR.  Like most of us in HR I’ve designed my fair share of new programs and processes, and I’ve tried to make them perfect.  To ensure I didn’t have something blow up on me – I always have done ‘soft’ launches.  I’ll launch with a single department or I’ll communicate out that this is a ‘test’ and we need feedback.  99.9% of the time my ‘test’ goes off without any issues and the ‘test’ becomes the program.  That .01% of the time that something goes wrong or there are errors – we chalk it up to why we ‘doing the test first’!  Everyone wins.  Employees and hiring managers get to tell you where you messed up without feeling like they’re stepping on toes.  You get to correct your errors without feeling like an idiot. The company moves forward – faster.