Category Archives: The Recruiting Rules

The End of Men

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I don’t really consider myself a “Man’s-Man” – I love to fish, go to college football games and I’ll watch back-to-back ESPN SportsCenters that are the exact same episode likes it’s brand new material – but I don’t hunt, I can arrange flowers better than my wife and musical theater is something I look forward to.  Probably more metro than macho – at least from a Midwest standpoint – I’m not Manhattan Metro – I’m more Milwaukee Metro.  I have 3 sons – so the topic of males is something I tend to study – I want to raise my boys to be successful men – in work, in life and in love.  That is no easy task in today’s American society.

Hanna Rosin recently released the new book, The End of Men: And the Rising of Women, which looks at how society over the past 50 years has slowly but surely shifted to a point where women have begun to move ahead of men in almost every measure.  This isn’t a feminist look at the topic, it’s a data driven look – and in many ways to blows away much of our traditional views on gender in our society.  From a Time article on the book:

“changes in the world economy have dramatically shifted gender roles. Women have adapted more skillfully to the new socioeconomic landscape by doggedly pursuing self-improvement opportunities, rebranding as the economy requires it, and above all possessing the kind of 21st century work attributes — such as strong communication skills, collaborative leadership and flexibility — that are nudging out the brawny, stuck-in-amber guys. Rock steadiness, long a cherished masculine trait, turns out to be about as useful in our fleet-footed economy as a flint arrowhead. Life favors the adapters, and it turns out they’re more likely to be women.”

Our educational system has been pushed to include girls so much over the past 50 years – that we’ve done a right ditch-left ditch that now has forgotten how to teach boys. Forbes also had a recent article on the subject that highlighted the book Why Boys Fail: Saving Our Sons from an Educational System that is Leaving Them Behind:
  • Schools have in effect become microcosms of the larger economy. Richard Whitmire, author of Why Boys Fail, summarizes the trend this way: “The world has gotten more verbal, boys haven’t.”
  • Beyond straight verbal skills, boys tend to get tripped up by what researchers call “non-cognitive skills” meaning the ability to focus, organize yourself, and stay out of trouble….
  • In the late 1990s, educators acted on the correct assumption that all jobs now require more sophisticated writing. Cops now need advanced degrees and practice in communication skills; factory workers are expected to be able to fill out elaborate orders. Society expects most workers to have college-level literacy, even if their day-to-day jobs do not really require it.

 

So, what does all this mean?  I’m not naive – I know men in executive leadership roles still dominate and in most segments in our country/world we still have major pay disparity – but these differences are changing at a historic pace and experts believe one day soon (by looking at college graduate projections) women will flip this upside down.  I wonder how many HR Shops are starting to put together diversity groups of white males – my guess would be zero.  I do believe that one day before my career in HR is over – HR shops will have to address an issue that involves “Developing Males” – seems almost laughable to write down.  Corporations having to be concerned about encouraging and developing male leaders seems like something I would never have to worry about in our society – it was always the “natural” way – until it wasn’t.

3 Reasons Talent Communities are NOT the Future of Employment

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I know a lot of really smart, brilliant people who espouse that Talent Communities are the second coming of Christ, in regards to employment and recruiting.  Business Week even had a recent article where they called “Talent Hives” (I guess their version of “Talent Communities” – the future of employment – which means this concept is now hitting main stream and soon you’ll see June the HR Manager down at the local Tool & Die Shop trying to set up her talent community.  Here’s more from Business Week:

“These are communities of people interested in an employer (whether because they’re job hunting themselves, or just curious, or because they’re fans of the product or service the organization produces) and willing to be in two-way touch with that employer over time. (For the simplest example of a Talent Hive, think of a Facebook (FB) company page or a LinkedIn (LNKD) group). Talent Hives are popular because they’re easy to set up, and because the two-way and group communication makes it easy for companies to learn more about potential job applicants (including people who are currently working for their competitors) even when they don’t have open positions.”

Great theoretical concept.  But I think theory and practice don’t always align because the real world steps in an kicks it in and kicks them both to the curb.  Here’s 3 reasons I don’t see Talent Communities as the Future of Employment:

1. Reality – Talent Communities are established by you and ran by you (the HR/Recruitment Dept.) – that’s means you need to deliver content, sometimes unique, definitely engaging. Very few people, in HR worlds, have the skill/ability to do this.  You can shop this out, at a cost – a cost of not only money but also authenticity – there goes that community feel.  And, by the way, you’re doing this for a benefit you may, or may not, get in the future when you have an opening you believe you might have.  How many organizations are really going to do this long term? It’s a small percentage, congregated into smaller specialty industries – with really big budgets – to make it sustainable.

2. Logistics – Talent Communities assume “Talent” – that talented people you would want to hire will voluntarily want to join your content driven community and interact.  That’s a huge assumption! Gigantic!  First, you (yes, you – who else will do it) needs to go out and find the great talent that you someday want to work at your company and engage them to be apart of your community.  I don’t know about you – but 99.9% of the HR/Talent Pros I know don’t have the capacity to make this happen – either through time or skill.

3. WIFM (What’s In It For Me) – Talent Communities don’t deliver enough WIFM.  Talented people get this – they are fooled by your “Community” which isn’t really a community but a holding pen for potential future candidates and you have to know they know this. This means someone who ops into your community gets the deal – I want to work at your place – so I’m going to engage with you – and you will engage with me – and one day you’ll hire me – and you’ll use that number to justify how great Talent Communities are so I can keep this job as Talent Community Manager and justify my $50K+ salary.  How’s that work for you?

Let’s face it – I don’t know much – but I think I know a little about recruitment – and to me Talent Communities seem to be a lot of smoke and mirrors and well it’s easier/safer than just picking up the phone and finding/calling the talent you want (which is dirty and evil for some reason).  I know some folks have some great examples of Talent Communities working – good for them – I hope they keep working for them.  I guess this message goes out to the HR majority – it isn’t as easy as it might sound.  Before jumping in with both feet – make sure it’s right for you.

It’s a Long Story

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Have you noticed when you ask someone a question, that is pretty simple to answer – like a “yes” or “no” question and they answer you back with “it’s a long story…” it never really is a long story.  It’s that they just don’t want to tell you what you don’t want to hear!

It’s funny that people act that way – because usually it’s really that the other party just wants some closure – just let me know!  Let me know if this sounds familiar:

Candidate: (ring, ring – that’s phone) “Hi, Tim? It’s Mary Smith, I was just calling back to see if you had any feedback on my interview?”

Tim: “Mary! (as I frantically look up Mary on my ATS) How are you? (which buys me another few seconds)”

Candidate: “Tim, I’m doing great, just anxious to hear on this position – I really want it!”

Tim: “Mary you interviewed very well but, well, it’s a long story…(then I make up some long story on my way to telling her “No, you didn’t get selected)”

We tend to see this is a way of “letting someone down easy” but in fact it’s a mechanism we use individually because we are uncomfortable at giving negative feedback and it’s rather annoying.  It draws out the conversation longer than it needs to be – usually you then say something you shouldn’t, which leads to more conversation.  We teach our hiring managers to be direct and to-the-point when delivering performance feedback – don’t “beat around the bush” – but many of us HR/Talent Pros struggle mightily trying to do just that – be direct!

Don’t make it a Long Story – make it a short story – the candidate will thank you and  your legal team will thank you.

 

 

 

The Employee Walk of Shame

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I’ve lost jobs and I’ve called old employers to see if they would want to hire me back – I’ve usually gotten a response that sounded something like – “Oh, boy would we want you back – but – we just don’t have anything. Good Luck!”  Many of us in the talent game talk about our employee Alumni and how we should engage our Alumni – but very few of us really take true advantage of leveraging this network.

I was reminded of this recently when a friend of mine took a new job.  You know the deal – shorter drive, more money, growing company – oh, golly, just where do I sign!?  The fact was, it was all they said – shorter drive, more money and they were growing – but they forgot to tell him was – our operations are broken beyond repair, you will work 7 days a week and probably 12-14 hours per day because of the mess we have, but keep your head up – it’s the only way you won’t drown here!

So, now what does he do?

Already had the going away party – bar night out with the work friends with the promises to do lunches and not get disconnected – packed up and unpack the office into the new office.  Let’s face it big boy – you’re stuck!  Not so fast.  He did the single hardest thing an employee can do – he called his old boss – after 7 days – and said one thing – “I made a mistake, can I come back?”  Luckily for him – his past boss was a forward thinking leader and so this past Monday – he did the 2nd hardest thing an employee can do – he made the Employee Walk of Shame.

You can imagine the looks from people who didn’t know him well – “hey, wait a minute, didn’t you leave?” Having to tell the same story over and over – feeling like he failed, like he wasn’t good enough.

HR plays a huge part in this story because it was HR who can make this walk of shame – a little less rough.  Let’s face it, it is different.  You just don’t leave and come back like nothing happened – something did happen – there was reason he left and that reason isn’t going away.  A transition back needs to be put into place – even though he was gone 7 days.  It’s not about just plugging back in – it is about re-engaging again – finding out what we all can do better so it doesn’t happen again.

It’s also about making sure you let those employees who you truly want back – that they are welcome to come back (assuming you have the job) and not just saying that to everyone.  There are employees who leave that you say a small prayer to G*d and thank – there are others where you wish there was a prayer you could say so they wouldn’t leave.  Make it easy for your employees to do the Walk of Shame – it helps the organization – but realize they are hurting, they are embarrassed, but they are also grateful!

The Value of a Really Crappy Job

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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!

2 Reasons Women Don’t Get Hired or Promoted

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The New York Times had an article recently regarding hiring practices and succession practices at Google – and G*d knows if Google is doing it – it must be important, and we must try and do the same thing. What I liked about this article was it didn’t necessarily look at practices and processes – it looked at data – and the data found that Google – like almost every other large company – does a crappy job hiring and promoting women. Shocking, I know, if you’re a man – we had no idea this was going on! In America of all places… Beyond the obvious though, Google was able to dig into the data and find out the whys and make some practical changes that I think most companies can implement – and that I totally agree with.  From the article:

“Google’s spreadsheets, for example, showed that some women who applied for jobs did not make it past the phone interview. The reason was that the women did not flaunt their achievements, so interviewers judged them unaccomplished.

Google now asks interviewers to report candidates’ answers in more detail. Google also found that women who turned down job offers had interviewed only with men. Now, a woman interviewing at Google will meet other women during the hiring process.

A result: More women are being hired.”

Here are two selection facts that impact both men and women:

1.  We like to surround ourselves with people who we like – which usually means in most cases people who are similar to ourselves

2. We tend not to want to brag about our accomplishments, but our society has made it more acceptable for men to brag.

This has a major impact to your selection – and most of you are doing nothing about it.  It’s very common that if you run simple demographics for your company – ANY COMPANY – you’ll see that the percentage of your female employees does not come close to the percentage of your female leadership.  Why is that?

Here are two things you can do to help make the playing field more level in your organization:

1. Have women interview women.  Sounds a bit sexist in a way – but if you want women to get hired into leadership positions you can’t have them going up against males being interviewed by males because the males will almost always feel more comfortable with another male candidate. Reality sucks, buy a helmet.

2. Ask specific questions regarding accomplishments and take detailed notes. Studies have found woman don’t get hired or promoted because they don’t “sell” or brag enough about their accomplishments giving their male counterparts a leg up – because the males making the hiring decisions now have “ammunition” to justify their decision to hire the male.

Let’s face it – Google is doing it – so now we all have to do it.  What would we do without best practices…(maybe innovate and create new better practices – but I digress…).

WANTED! People who aren’t stupid

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I’m looking to hire an additional Recruiter for my team – business is brisk, we are growing, blah, blah, blah.  We’ve been in business 31 years, profitable all 31 years.  Part of that profitability is we don’t overpay for talent.  That is a good way of saying, we’ve been very good at hiring entry level college kids and turning them into very good recruiters.  Basically, I have some upfront investment into teaching them the trade and that investment pays off in the long run.

I hear that there are millions of people out of work.  What I don’t see are people who actually want to work to get paid.  I wrote a job description, qualifications, etc. and put it up on one of the Big Job Boards to see what I would get – see below:

Here’s the JD:

Technical Recruiter:
What the heck is a Technical Recruiter?  We find great talent for our client companies.  You need to be part private investigator, part blood hound and part jealous girlfriend – basically you will be using the training we give you to get out and find Rock Stars – the best of the best – in the fields of engineering and Information Technology.

You spend a lot of time on the phone and on the internet tracking down and networking to find these types of folks.  Then once you find them – you put them through the 3rd Degree on why they might be good enough to get passed onto to our client.  It’s a fast pace environment and every day you never know what you’re going to run into.

Why this might be for you?
1. You’re smart (i.e., you have a Bachelor’s Degree – no a real bachelor’s degree, not one out of the back of an airline magazine)

2. You’re are self motivated (Look, we don’t want to babysit you, we’re busy – you need to be able to push yourself)

3. You can take rejection (Recruiting isn’t easy – you spend all day tracking down the perfect candidate and they tell you to take a hike – that’s life – time to put on the big boy/big girl pants)

4. You’re a networker (this means you have probably have more than 1000 Facebook/Instagram/Twitter Friends combined – and most actually know who you are and haven’t blocked you)

Requirements

Ok, Let’s recap – here’s what you need to work here:

1. Smarts – Bachelor’s Degree

2. Motivation – I want to be successful, and willing to do more than show up and wait for someone to give me a trophy

3. Business Sense – we negotiate and sell all day – that’s the real world.  We sell people on why they should want to go to work for a company, and we sell the company on why they need the person we have. It’s fun!

4. Guts.  Yeah, that’s right – you’re going to have to pick up the phone and talk to real people that you don’t know – scary right – you mean I just can’t text them? No.

This is a Big Girl job – business cards, your own phone extension, 1 hour lunch breaks. Welcome to the show.  We expect that you’ll actually work.

If you send me your resume and you don’t have all the stuff above – we might ridicule you publicly on our blog.  The End.

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Seems pretty straight-forward right?  You need to be out going and have a BACHELOR’s Degree – and probably a sense of humor.  If you don’t have that, don’t send me a resume.

Guess what I got from my Ad?

19 responses with Resume.  Of the 19 – 6 had a bachelors degree (No, having 82 credits towards a Bachelor’s degree does not constitute you having a bachelor’s degree).  6 were female, 13 were male – 4 out of 6 females met the requirement, which tells me Females are less stupid than males.  One female was currently a Licensed Attorney with her JD – which tells me all I need to know about that profession right now.

We don’t have a jobs problem in this country.  We have a candidate problem.  People are mostly stupid.  Employers don’t want to hire stupid people.

So, I’ll ask you – my overly smart and snarky readers – Was I clear enough on my Job Descriptions and Qualifications on what I was looking for?

iRecruiter – How to Recruit more like Apple

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Open position… Job posting… Mass distribution via automation… Rinse, repeat.

What’s that?  You took a flyer on social recruiting and it hasn’t delivered any real results for you?

There are a million things for people to read on the web.  With that in mind, if you want the right people to stop, read and take action on an open position at your company, your goal should be to entertain them with your recruiting pitch – or at least not bore them to death.

Join Fistful of Talent for our August installment of the FOT webinar, “That’s Your Pitch?  How to Raise Your Recruiting Game By Acting Less Like ACME and More Like Apple”, as hosts Kris Dunn and Andrew Curtis (from iCIMS) deliver the following:

1.    The Top 5 Traits of Successful Marketers and Advertisers recruiters should use to raise their promotional game.  We’ll deliver this in true Mac vs. PC style.  What do great marketers do to generate interest?

2.    How to Prevent Your Job Postings from Being Lame.  We’ll show you what to include with live examples ripped from the companies we love.

3.    How Cool Companies are Experimenting with Elements Beyond Text (including video, audio and more) to deliver some pop to traditional recruiting campaigns.

4.    We’ll play a game we like to call, “That’s Your Freaking Pitch?” – where we peel back the cover and take a hard look at traditional messaging that flows through your recruiting function today after the job posting goes out –  including ATS messaging, live call recruiter scripts and more

5.    A Plan to Customize Your Social Distribution Message Across the Big 3 (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook). You know the same message doesn’t work across all social channels, we’ll tell you how to do it.

Stop thinking like a recruiter and start thinking like your marketing friends down the hall.  Join us for this webinar (sponsored by iCIMS) and we’ll help you breathe some life back into your candidate outreach.

Register Today – Click Here!

Employment Branding – I love the brochure

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I have a feeling that Employment Branding has jumped the shark.  This probably happened around the same time we stopped really caring about what our employment brand truly was, and we started designing the brochure about what we wished our employment brand was – and started selling the “idea” as the “brand”.  When it isn’t.

I’m a true believer in HR Pros having Marketing Chops – I’m no a true believer in HR trying to be marketing.  Marketing sells the “idea” of your organizations product or service – not the reality.  No one wants to buy reality – they want to buy the dream, the vision.  That’s why we have marketing.  They sell the crap that no one would buy if they really knew what they were buying – there’s a reason your sales and marketing folks get paid more than you – besides the fact they’re better looking.

We buy the brochure.  It’s pretty, the sun is always shining, the people are always smiling and there is a perfect ratio of white, black, male, female, wheelchairs and tattoos – and everyone is pretty. We buy the idea.

I think this is where employment branding went to die.  It just walked out and laid down next to authenticity and closed it’s eyes.

I guess I need to go back and sit down next to the coffee breath, pit stained, loud mouth, but he writes good code, reality. He’s annoying, but I can count on him to do good work – plus he’s loyal.  It’s not much of a brand – but it’s the truth…

 

(this all makes me think of the Jay-Z song Forever Young:

So we live a life like a video
When the sun is always out and you never get old
and the champagne’s always cold
and the music is always good
and the pretty girls just happen to stop by in the hood
and they hop their pretty ass up on the hood of dat pretty ass car
without a wrinkle in today
cuz there is no tomorrow
just some picture perfect day
to last a whole lifetime
and it never ends
cos all we have to do is hit rewind)

Great HR Doesn’t Come from Big HR Shops

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We here it all the time:

“They’ve got to much to lose to take that kind of a risk.”

Or statements similar to this.

As I travel out and about on the fall HR conference tour (most State level SHRM conferences happen in the fall) I’m reminded constantly that Big HR Shops (Fortune 500 companies, Big Government, Giant Non-Profits, etc.) are not who you should be turning to for the next great HR ideas.  Maybe you can turn to them for Best Practices – but is best practice – where you want to be?  Best Practice is by it’s nature – solid and fully vetted – for years.  It’s great HR from 5+ years ago. Safe. You can’t go wrong with Best Practice HR.  But please stop trying to act like it’s “great” HR – it’s not  – it’s more of the same HR.

There’s actually a name for this, it’s called Loss Aversion theory, which is basically:

“people’s tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Some studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains.”

What this all boils down to in HR is what you have to lose by taking a chance.  Want a industry changing benefit program?  You have to get way out of the box.  Big HR Shops don’t get way out of the box.  By the way – Google is a big HR shop – Giant.  So are most of the other companies you continue to use as examples of “Great” HR, but they really aren’t “great” HR.  I say this because I’m tired to hearing “more of the same HR” practices at conferences being played off as “Great HR” practices, and seeing my HR peers buy it as life altering HR. It’s not – unless you have a Delorean that can’t go back in time to when it was.

So you want Great HR, you want HR that will change industries in 5 years? Don’t get caught up with a brand – get caught up with an idea.  Too often we want the “brand” – “Oh, look Southwest Airlines HR is going to be talking – I MUST go see them!”  Stop!  Southwest was great 20 years ago – they aren’t anymore – they are the same now – which is still good – but not “Great”.  You don’t want to be like Southwest Airlines right now – you want to be like Southwest Airlines 20 years ago.  You’re goal is to find that session with that person you’ve never heard of – they have nothing to lose – they will probably have better ideas.

I’m probably on an island with this one.  Because everyone wants to hear about how the “Big Boys” are doing it – because if they are doing “it”, “it “must be good.  But you know I’m comfortable on this island – this island is full of start-ups you’ve never heard of and they are fighting to make it ever day and that fight propels them into a space the “Big Boys” won’t go.  This island has a bunch of creative HR pros who don’t have books published and aren’t paid to speak  – they get their hands dirty, they make mistakes – they – make – great HR.