3 Steps To Getting Stuff Done

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Tim Sackett

There are times when I struggle to get things done. I’m a really good starter of things – I love starting things. I can always see how I want it finished (a little shout out to Covey – Begin with the end in mind). But like most things you start, eventually things get bogged down, and getting them over the finish line can be hard. It’s probably why most projects fail, it gets tough, so we stop and move onto the beginning of something else – because that’s fun and exciting. I’ve learned this about myself over the years and I do two things to help myself. First – I surround myself with people who have great resolve to getting things done, the type of folks who don’t sleep well at night because they know there was that one glass left in the sink, and they should really get up and put in away. I love those folks – they aren’t me – I hire them ever time I get the chance. I even married one of those types – she makes me better! Second – I force myself to not start something new, until I finish what I’ve already started. This can be annoying, I’m sure, for those around me because sometimes projects have to go on hold – while you wait for feedback, or other resources, etc. This makes me antsy – I like to get things finished!

I was re-introduced recently to a quote from the novel Alice in Wonderland that I think really puts in perspective what it takes to get something done. The quote is from the King of Hearts and it is quite simply:

“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Your 3 Steps:

1. Begin

2. Go till the end

3. Stop

We make it much harder than that – but it really isn’t. I like simple stuff – it fits into my mind quite well. It might be the best advice I’ve gotten in a really long time. I don’t need pre-planning, or post project assessments, or update meetings, or budget reviews, etc.

Naive? Probably. But, sometimes you just need to Begin, go to you come to the end: then stop.

Recruiting’s 2032 Nightmare

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Tim Sackett

According to a recent USA Today article the U.S. birthrate is in sharp decline and is at it’s lowest levels in the past 25 years. Here’s probably a few facts you don’t know:

– Projected 2013 birthrate in the U.S. is estimated to be 1.86

– Birthrate needed to maintain a population over a 20 year period is 2.1

Why should this concern you?

There are a number of reason – one might be that you need as many young people as old for the simple fact of having enough young people to take care of your older population. If you turn that equation upside down (Taiwan 1.1 or Portugal 1.3) you have a society full of older people and not enough young people to fill the jobs needed to keep running your society. The U.S. already has 3 Million jobs left unfilled because of lack of skilled employees – today. Imagine if you now have millions of less workers to even choose from – and by the way – skilled workers aren’t coming from other countries because their societies are growing and need them. That is what our country’s employment picture will look like in 2032. I know for many people right now this sounds very good – because of our high unemployment – but this will be a HR/Recruiting nightmare for those young HR/Talent Pros starting out their careers in the next 20 years.

Being the Futurist that I am -I’ve already provided a solution to this problem back in 2011 over at Fistful of Talent- Should You Encourage Your Employees To Have Babies – check it out. Basically my advice remains the same – as U.S. employers we need to create a positive, encouraging environment for our employees, with family-friendly policies that make our employees feel like starting a family is a good thing, and that if they do start a family their job and ability to get a promotion won’t be compromised. This is not the case as many U.S. employers right now – for both men and women in the workforce.

As HR Pros and organizations we tend to think this isn’t our issue. It will take care of itself – but as we look at countries with low birthrates, the issue doesn’t take care of itself and those countries have a worker crisis going on right now. We need to change our ways right now – we need to be family friendly employers – we need to, as HR Pros, be concerned and find solutions for our employees around daycare, flexible schedules and other practices that will help our employees with families. I know it sounds a bit the-sky-is-fallingish, but the numbers don’t lie we are headed for some of the hardest hiring this country has ever seen.

One solution I’ve thought of, that I didn’t bring up in 2011, is baby sign-on bonuses! We do it for college students – I think we start doing for babies of our best employees. I mean if parents can arrange their kids marriage, what stops us from arranging their first job? Nothing! That’s what. Imagine how happy your employees would be to cash a $20,000 check to help with baby expenses for the simple task of forcing their kid to come to work with your company upon college graduation. It seems so simple – I’m not quite sure why no one has started this yet!

58% of College Students Are Willing to Lie

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Tim Sackett

According to a recent study by NetImpact – What Workers Want in 2012 58% of College Students (1,726 total in the study) would take a 15% pay cut to work for an organization who’s values matched their own. In another study, I’m willing to coach the Los Angles Lakers for less than half what they are paying their current coach (1 total in this study)!

These studies are silly – it’s hypothetical, college kids still believe in things – like fairness and equal opportunity and you’ll always be able to drink 12 beers and get up the next morning and run 3 miles. Let’s wait for all 1,726 college students who took the study to get a job and then 5 years from now when they are employed we’ll go to them and force them to make a choice –

1. You keep your current salary and stay with your current job

2. You take a 15% pay cut and move to Employer A which happens to have the same values as you, under the current leadership team

I will bet my entire life savings that less than 58% of those people would choose to leave their current employers (no matter what job they have) and take a 15% pay cut! In fact I would be fairly confident to say only about 10% would take us up on our offer, and they were already looking or getting pushed out. So, what does the study really say? That college students being asked silly hypothetical questions for a study about how they will act in the future, are willing to lie.

Why do I think these studies are silly? Because solid, well meaning, HR Pros will go out and start recruiting folks to their organization who have the same values that “they” have. “They” being the key word. Who is “they”? Well, Tim, we went to our leadership and our managers and our employees and we did value assessment and we found that 73% of our folks valued honesty and integrity over 67% that valued hard work and a fun work place. Oh, you’ve got it figured out…

Here’s what I’m thinking – values are hard to hire – but you think they aren’t. I can hire for skills, I can hire for past performance, etc. When it comes to values and morals, I’m really throwing myself down the rabbit hole. Hiring for values and morals puts the selectors values and morals into play way too much. If Peggy is your main screener – you better damn hope Peggy shares the exact values and morals you’re trying to hire for – or you’re going to be in for a surprise down the road.

I’m not saying don’t do it – I’m saying you better weight it appropriately with some other criteria. I seem to be in the minority who still believes having the fire power to do the job, and some past performance to back it up, is still fairly important when selecting candidates. And if Humility doesn’t seem to be a part of their value chain, I think I might be able to work around that – if they can perform!

3 Reasons Good Recruiters are Good at Recruiting

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I was reminded this past week that recruiting is very hard. No, it’s not hard to post a job on your careers page and wait for a resume, that you won’t screen, and just pass along to the hiring manager -that’s not hard. Recruiting is hard – when it comes down to finding talent that really doesn’t want to be found and has no desire to go to work for your bad culture and crappy manager who turns over people constantly – that’s when recruiting is hard!

I think there are 3 main differences that separate good recruiting from bad recruiting. They are:

1. Good recruiters have the ability to change your mind about an opportunity, before money is even discussed. Bad recruiters lead with the money. Good recruiters believe in their organizations, believe in the position, and believe in the hiring manager as a great leader. Then they make you a believer!

2. Good recruiters know your rejections before you know them and address them as such. Relocation is probably the toughest one that comes to mind – next to relocation and a spouse who doesn’t want to relocate (that’s like Kryptonite to a Recruiter!). Getting someone to relocate for a new position, new company – when they are a great talent with a great organization – takes a recruiter with an exceptional ability to connect the dots for the candidates. This becomes the – this is why you need to be here, right now kind of moment that great recruiters come up with instead of just hanging up the phone and calling someone else.

3. Good recruiters know how to dig, and love to get dirty. Let’s face it, you mining the Monster database isn’t recruiting – I can easily find a $10/hr admin type who can do that and they’ll actually be more engaged doing it! Good recruiters love the search – yeah, it can be frustrating and heartbreaking, but when you uncover that hidden gem – it very much is worth the work!

The last four or five years have given us an environment where newer recruiters just coming into the industry, didn’t have to be good – they had to be present. Being present isn’t a qualification, necessarily, to becoming a good recruiter. High unemployment and low jobs, gives you an abundance to candidates and usually qualified candidates as well. This doesn’t make you a good recruiter – it makes you a good screener. In many industries we are now seeing the value of good recruiters come back, as certain job markets are opening up in a big way and candidates, even bad ones, are no longer advertising themselves as available.

Good recruiting is invaluable to a good HR shop – and bad recruiting is the quickest way for your HR shop to lose credibility with your leadership. So, what can you do? Don’t allow bad recruiting to live in your barn! Good Recruiting is hard, and it shouldn’t look easy and it doesn’t work 40 hours per week, 8 to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday. But, bad recruiting is betting on the fact that you don’t know the difference, or you are to lazy to do anything about it.

Can You Hear Facebook coming LinkedIn?

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Tim Sackett

This is old news but – last week Facebook announced that Facebook Jobs is coming! You can almost hear the Jaws theme music playing in the background, can’t you!? CareerBuilder, Dice, LinkedIn, etc. – all the job boards – you can bet are taking note. 900 Million users – everyone from your Grandma to your Mom to your cousin Mary – from Brain Surgeons to Alligator Wrestlers – Facebook has got them.

My good friend Lance Haun wrote about his over at TLNT last week – What Is Facebook Thinking? Do We Really Need Another Job Board? From Lance’s post:

“The strength is obvious: imagine you’re applying for a job at XYZ company and you find out that a friend’s family member works there. Or what if some sort of robust search capability were added to the site? Or what if Facebook could recommend certain career options based on your activity beyond career-related postings?

The problem is that it would also come at the expense of privacy and the sort of digital wall that many people have put up to differentiate between their Facebook life and their LinkedIn life. Yet, the sheer numbers potential is attractive in it’s own right.”

This is the argument that LinkedIn has been hoping you will buy! And so far you have been! LinkedIn is for Professional, Facebook is for Personal. It’s a 2008 argument. Most people don’t want to live two lives – they would prefer to live one, but they feel they can’t be themselves professionally – they need to be this watered down version of themselves – at least when not at a conference – then anything goes. Let’s get real for a second – everyone is on Facebook – Your Mom, Your co-workers, Your boss, the owner of your company, your HR Manager, your ex-boyfriends, your current boyfriend – everyone. Your not hiding anything – even with your ‘privacy’ settings. It’s time to stop living the double life and be yourself.

Here’s what is really exciting about Facebook Jobs – We finally get access to everyone! Well, almost everyone – at least 7 times more than LinkedIn – and all those ‘Passive’ candidates! Even if Facebook only goes for the quick cash grab and does postings for a fee – it’s still better than just posting on a Job Board or LinkedIn. People like to look, lurk and see what’s open – it’s human nature. Facebook is the perfect place for this. Just like when LinkedIn started and HR Pros were actually encouraging their employees to get on, to ‘network’ (don’t we look stupid now!) – no one will consider a person on Facebook to necessarily be job hunting. It’s the perfect safe environment for this to happen. Plus, it easily allows people to engage their personal networks when they see something interesting that someone in their personal network would have interest in.

LinkedIn should be nervous – good talent is already leaving or ignoring them at this point – recruiters have taken it over – it’s become spammy. Facebook is an open frontier – the best recruiters are already finding ways within Facebook to network and source. Facebook Jobs – or whatever they decide to do – could be a big game changer for recruiters.

4 Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Jenny Foss (@JobJenny) had a good article over at Forbes recently, 4 Non-Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview, where she gave some tried and true job seeker advice out for post interview contact. If was what you would expect from a Forbes article: Ask about next steps, send a thank you note, connect via LinkedIn, etc. Safe stuff. Not knowing Jenny, I looked her up on her blog – JobJenny.com and after learning a little about her – I think she probably wanted to write the 4 Most Annoying Ways – but didn’t want to throw her Forbes gig out the window – so I’m here to try and do it for her. Let’s face it – Forbes isn’t asking me to write any time soon!

The one thing that all HR and Talent Pros can connect with is having to deal with stalker candidates who are relentless at contacting you after an interview. The ironic part of this, is they are most likely following someone’s bad advice – usually a parent (If you don’t call them, they won’t know you’re “really” interested), or a grandparent (Back in my day we would go back the next day and knock on their door again to tell them how interested in the job we were) telling them what they needed to do. Even worse – many times they are following the advice of a Pseudo HR Pro who is shoveling out free career advice like they actually know what they’re talking about – until you realize they haven’t actually worked in HR since the 1970’s. For those of us in the trenches – having to deal with overly aggressive candidates following up can be the biggest pain of our day.

So, here are 4 Annoying Ways To Follow Up After An Interview (if you’re a candidate, stop doing this!):

1. Use Your Inside Connection in my company to get feedback. Nothing screams cheesy more than doing this! Hey, my uncle works in tech support, I’ll just have him contact Tim in HR to see how I did. When this happens to me – I go overboard to the connection on how bad they did, so much so we are actually rethinking your employment because of your relationship.

2. Send me a Thank you note to my Home. Yes, this has happened to me – and yes it was way creepy. The last thing I want to deal with when I walk into the door of my home is some crazy candidate from work. No, it does not show initiative – it shows your propensity to be a stalker.

3. Ask me to be Facebook friends. Look, I don’t even want to be work friends if we hire you, and I certainly don’t want you picking around my Facebook page. I would rather you tattoo a picture of my on your chest and put it on a billboard before befriending you on Facebook. Don’t do this!

4. Leave me a voicemail everyday for 2 weeks. Again, this doesn’t show initiative, it shows desperation – Like the veteran running-back who run into the end-zone and tosses the football to the umpire – act like you’ve been there. You can follow up once – a quick “thank you” and a “I’m definitely interested” is all that it takes.

I can’t even begin to tell you some of the crazy ways that candidates have tried to stay in touch and get noticed over the years – but most bordered on insanity and just helped me screen them out as a possible selection. The ones who seem not interested, are the ones I usually had to stalk myself! (Seem familiar ladies!?) I would tell you to just use common sense – but that seems to be thrown out the window on most folks – so I’ll say less is more and be respectful of the hiring managers time.

Dating Your Job

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’m at SHRM12 all week and the pleasure of sitting through Malcolm Gladwell‘s keynote this morning! He is by far my favorite author and he was really the only must see for me here at SHRM12 – yes, I have a complete man-crush! I didn’t stand in line to get his autograph at the SHRM book store, but only because I hate lines! Gladwell spent most of his time analyzing why generations are different, he’s a great story teller, and gave great examples of why my generation – GenX – is completely different than the millenials – which we all know – but he really went deeper into the subject.

One example that he gave stuck with me, when he used the concept of dating to explain one of the main differences between these two generations. As a GenXer you just didn’t go on many dates – you were lucky to go on a few per year – because once you met someone and you liked each other – it immediately became exclusive – it’s what we did. Millenials network and date much differently and are willing to go on many more dates and continue dating, finding more than one person they might connect with. Because of how millenials network, they open themselves up to many opportunities to date. Doesn’t sound like a bad deal – based on how my dating life went! I met my wife the first week of college – we will celebrate 20 years of marriage in July! (so, basically, I had 1 date in college – luckily it was a VERY good date!)

Here’s where I think we run into problems with this type of mentality -with how millenials network – their job! I get a feeling way too many are just dating their jobs as well. Many hiring managers are in the GenX age group – which causes them to want employees who view their job like they view their job – it’s a marriage – not a date! Gladwell pointed this out as a difference that was neither good or bad – just a difference that we as organizations will have to work through.

As an HR Pro I think the big hurdle we have to help our organizations overcome is this concept of being married to your job. It’s easier said then done. Try telling a hiring manager that it’s alright for a candidate to have 4 jobs in 4 years – they don’t buy it – heck, I’m not sure I fully buy it – it’s a tough paradigm shift to make. I do think we have the ability, though, to influence this paradigm with our hiring managers – and to get the best talent we must be willing to look through our own filters to help our organizations. Having multiple positions can be a huge benefit – it’s not always a sign of a “job jumper” – especially over the past few years. We have to provide better tools for our hiring managers to get them to feel comfortable with the skill sets and talent the candidate brings, and less uncomfortable with job longevity of candidates.

Stay tuned for more SHRM12 learning’s.

Live at SHRM12! One Day Only!

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I’m excited – next week Kris Dunn and I will be co-presenting at SHRM National for the first time! We got the session of death time (last session of the conference) on Wednesday June 27th at 11:30am – but KD and I are Pros – so we will be coming full force whether it’s a full room or their are 3 HR folks left in Atlanta! Our session is Officially titled: Developing Your Influence to Drive Better HR Performance – the unofficial title is: Raise Your HR Game by Thinking Like a Money-Hungry VP of Sales!

KD and I have done this one before and we have some fun with it. For all of us in HR who deal with Sales teams on a regular basis you’re sure to get some laughs, but we also really dig into some techniques our Sales partners use, that we in HR can use as well – to give us a better ability to influence decision making in our organizations.

We get most of you will be pretty “conferenced” out by the time the last session rolls around on Wednesday – but we’ll give you the famous FOT promise – We’ll make it fun, we teach you a couple of things and 60% of the time, it works every time!

See you all in Atlanta!

P.S. I would love to meet HR/Talent Pros who read The Project while I’m at Atalanta – send me a Tweet @TimSackett or an email timsackett@comcast.net and let’s get together!

A Job Post with Your Name On It!

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Tim Sackett

I was in a conversation the other day with another Talent Pro and she was asking me for some advice on getting better applicants to apply for her postings. I asked a number of questions but one that really got the conversation moving was:

Do you know who you want to apply for this position?

She told me “Yes” and then went on to give the specifications of the job description. I said “No”, do you know the Name of the person you want to apply to this position? She laughed – she thought I was joking – I wasn’t. Well, I half-wasn’t. It was a quirky idea, but in the right environment and small to medium community you could really make a splash by actually naming your post after the person who you really want to take the job. Can you imagine!

Wanted “Michael Smith – Chemical Engineer” – please apply today!

The obvious issue at play here is – well – if I knew the name of the person I wanted, why wouldn’t I just call them up and ask if they wanted the job!? GREAT question – why don’t you? It’s actually fairly easy to find names of competitor employees you might want to hire. So, why don’t you call them up and ask them if they want the job you have? You know why? Because it’s F’ing hard to do! That’s why the search industry is a multi-Billion (with a “B”) business.

So, instead of calling them – just make a job posting with their name on it – and go float it around town – through your social channels, on your website, maybe a job board posting, etc. Believe me – it will get back to the person you are looking, and if they are interested – they will come calling. Seems silly, but I bet it would work far more than it wouldn’t. People like to feel wanted. How much more wanted can you get than a company creating a job posting with your “actual” name on it! THIS job is for me! You would say to yourself.

In a tough talent marketplace, sometimes it’s the easy, simple things that make the difference. Sometimes people just want to know they’re wanted. We make this search game so difficult sometimes. I always tell people I have the easiest job in the world. I just have to ask people if they are interested in a job, I have open. Pretty easy! I’m not trying to launch the space shuttle or fix someones heart – I just need to see if they would have interest in making a job change. The rest is just market variables, all of which, are probably pretty similar to the next guy. Many times, it comes down to only one thing – me showing interest in them, and their current company not showing the same level of interest in keeping them.

I say give it shot – what’s the worse that can happen – you get your community talking about your company and how aggressively you’re going after people? That’s not all bad – either way!

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: The Recruiting Rules

3 Steps To Getting Stuff Done

Live at SHRM12! One Day Only!

“LinkedIn? Is that the Facebook for Recruiters?”