Category Archives: Trench HR

Happy Thanksgiving, HR and TA Friends!

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I’m super thankful for 2016. I have to say in 2016 I honestly believe I’ve met more HR and TA leaders and pros in this year than any other single year in my professional career!

I’m constantly told, by well-meaning folks, when I go to a new place something like, “Well, Tim, the people here are great, but from an HR (or TA) perspective, we’re probably 3-5 years behind!” Almost every single place I go! Big city, tiny country town, foreign countries, big company, small company, startups. Everyone says the same thing!

What I find is really two things:

  1. You think you’re way more behind than you actually are.
  2. Those who are actually behind, really don’t care or have given up on their profession and/or their organizations.

Those who really care about HR and TA are rarely ever behind. They might not have the same resources as other companies, but their thought processes on what is great HR and TA is spot on. Also, I rarely find HR or TA professionals or leaders who truly feel they’re on the cutting edge of innovative HR and TA practices.

The fact is, those who are on the cutting edge of HR and TA are less than 1%. If you go to HR and TA conferences you probably get to hear from these folks, and that makes you feel behind, but 99.9% of those sitting with you in the audience are right where you are! Also, just because someone is from a big, popular company, don’t think they know about HR or TA than you do!

Most of the truly great HR and TA leaders I meet aren’t from giant brands. They’re from medium to smaller organizations and they’ve had to hustle to get their shops in order, they’ve had to be innovative to compete, and they’re much more willing to push the envelope of technology to move their organizations forward.

So, today I’m giving thanks. I thankful for all the new friendships I’ve created over this past year. I’m thankful for all the old friends who call me out on my bullshit. I’m thankful for having this community of people who care so damn much about their organizations and their people. It’s uplifting to work in this world every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

@SHRM Certifications Gain Accreditation!

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If you haven’t seen it SHRM announced last week that they gained accreditation for their SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP exams by the Buros Center for Testing. This was a big deal because it was one of the major things HRCI was holding over the heads of those HR pros trying to decide which HR certification they should get. This is no longer a factor as both are accreditated.

From SHRM’s press release:

To achieve accreditation, SHRM submitted a 1,900-page application documenting its testing practices, methodology, and policy. The thorough review process took six months to complete and included site visits of SHRM and its testing vendors.

Since the launch of the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP two years ago, SHRM has worked to gain recognition as the global standard in HR certification. Achieving accreditation further demonstrates to HR professionals and their employers that SHRM-certified professionals meet the high standards expected and needed in HR today.

We celebrate this milestone with more than 96,000 SHRM–certified professionals, the fastest-growing HR certification community. The SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP are the most widely-taken HR exams in the world.

 

Who can also listen to a portion of media call where SHRM made this announcement by clicking on this link.

So, why is this a big deal?

I could argue that for most HR pros and most organizations hiring HR pros, it’s probably not. Many won’t understand the difference in being accreditated or not accreditated. All they want is the letters behind your name. But, if you believe that hiring someone who actually knows how to work in the business of HR, then it becomes a very big deal!

It’s like hiring someone from a great university, say Michigan State University and their fantastic HR program, versus hiring someone who graduated with an HR degree from the back of an airline magazine. You want to make sure you’re actually hiring someone who came from an accreditated program!

Another piece that’s important here is the continued battle between SHRM and HRCI to gain the trust of the growing profession of human resources. There are roughly 1700 university-based HR programs available in the United States. The profession of HR continues to grow at a staggering pace.

I’ve argued all along that SHRM has many advantages in continuing to have the upper hand in this war for HR pros, being accreditated just took away a major advantage HRCI had over SHRM. I’ve always thought the competency based measurement that SHRM has is better than a knowledge based assessment. I don’t much care if my HR pros can give me facts, I need them to be able to use that knowledge to move my business forward and demonstrate to me they have that ability.

SHRM still has a ton of work to do to stay on top, like updating their university program and allowing HR college students and new graduates to gain some sort of certification that isn’t pending. A global certification is another item that is a must. Plus, SHRM has to figure out how to act smaller and move faster. They’re a very traditional, large association type organization, and quite frankly that isn’t a strength in a world that is moving extremely fast.

As a SHRM member, I’m happy that the SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP are now accreditated. I look forward to seeing continued updates and changes from SHRM, and I’m excited to see that they’re actually being a bit more open with the HR blogger community and giving us access to information before it goes public.

It Sucks Getting Turned Down for a Promotion!

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The hardest part of being a leader is promoting an employee internally when there are more than one viable candidate for the position. The fact of the matter is someone is going to get that job, and one or more are not. That usually ends with one of your really good employees being pissed off.

I’ve read countless articles on how to handle this situation and they’re mostly crap, and I think written by people who have, 1. Never actually dealt with this situation and/or 2. Never be turned down for a promotion they truly felt they deserved!

For some reason the the Dallas Cowboys current quarterback situation reminds me of this issue. Rookie Dax Prescott came in when Tony Romo got hurt. He’s been awesome and the Cowboys are currently one of the best teams in the NFL. Tony Romo, a great quarterback in his own right, is now no longer injured and ready to return. Almost every team in the NFL would love having Tony Romo start for them.

So, it’s a bit different from the promotion scenario, but not really. Tony should be promoted into the role of starting quarterback. He’s proven, he’s good, he used to be the starter, but he’s not going to. In his absence, they found a replacement that is really good as well and you don’t want to screw up that chemistry.

Here’s what I really like about Romo. He came out and became the ‘team’ guy. He’s letting everyone know, including Dax, this isn’t about Tony Romo, this is about the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl. He’s supporting Dax and the team to keep winning and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, including supporting them on the sidelines and not playing. Oh boy, you know that’s tough for him to say!

Not getting a promotion at your job, feels exactly what Tony Romo is feeling. Don’t kid yourself about the money. He would play for free this year if he could win a Super Bowl. You really, really wanted that promotion, but someone else got it. Probably, someone you feel you’re as good as, or maybe even a bit better, but the ‘team’ choose to pick someone else for that role.

You have a choice to make:

  1. Be disgruntled and pissed off, believing you got screwed, probably leave the company, eventually.
  2. Be that ‘team’ player. Keep being the high performing employee that got you in a position to be considered for promotion, and support your peers, waiting for your next opportunity.

Most people will choose number one.

In almost every single situation in a corporate environment where I’ve been a part of these decisions, no matter how hard we tried to let the other person know how valued they are and what are our plan was to get them to that level they desired, they still choice to go the route of number one. It takes a really strong person to go the route of number two and be Tony Romo.

In the end, choosing to go the path of number two actually says more about you as a leader, than your actual performance as an employee.

Vets, We Love You, but We Still Aren’t Hiring You!

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One of the most politically correct lies that employers spout off constantly is how desperate they are to hire Veterans! There’s a reason for this. In America, we love to honor our Vets! There’s nothing better than propping your brand up against that American flag with a soldier standing right next to it.

The reality is, most Vets are still struggling to find solid careers. Sure, everyone wants to offer them a $15/hr bust-your-ass-job, but Vets are looking for salaried positions with great benefits, in jobs they can work the rest of their career, that won’t destroy their body. Not many employers are offering Vets those jobs!

I’ve been writing about this problem for the past five years and I get a healthy stream of Vets who write me behind the scenes and share their stories and struggles to find solid career level positions. I just recently had an individual who came out of his service with a degree in HR, service of constant promotion, supervised upwards of one hundred soldiers at a time. In that role, he had constant performance management, training, process improvement, etc.

He was applying for an entry-level HR Generalist role. He got turned down because he didn’t have enough experience!

So, why are companies still struggling when it comes to hiring Vets into higher level roles? Here’s what they don’t tell you:

  1. Less than 1% of Americans have ever served in any branch of the military. We fear what we don’t know, and we definitely don’t hire what we don’t know! We only see pictures of Vets holding guns and in combat, but that’s a small part of their every day activities.
  2. Movies have given us a warped sense of what professionals in the military actually do. Today’s modern military is rarely portrayed as it actually is in the movies because it wouldn’t be very exciting. It’s the same reason you don’t see movies about the day to day happenings of a large company. It’s mostly boring! What most military pros do on a daily basis, away from battle zones, is mostly the same stuff you do on a daily basis. It’s HR, logistics, accounting, administration, training, development, etc.
  3. We overvalue work experience within an industry. If someone worked at your competitor for 3 months, you would value that more highly than a military professional doing the same job for 3 years. We so overvalue industry experience it’s not even funny! I’ve worked in four different industries and each time had people tell me, “Oh, Tim, this is the craziest industry you’ll ever be in”, ever time! Guess what? It wasn’t. It’s all the same! Get over yourself!

I recently hired a Vet into my own company. We mostly hire new recruiters and train them up, but it’s definitely a career job. Great recruiters can find work anywhere for the rest of their life, in every industry. It’s mostly a desk job. Recruiting companies love to hire former college athletes. What I’ve found is Vets come with the same motivations and skills, but their work ethic might be a bit stronger!

I constantly have CEOs tell me they just want people who want to work. Yet, when it gets down to their hiring managers, there’s a mental block happening. If these military folks were minority or women we would call this discrimination, but for some reason, we don’t say that with Vets. But, that’s mostly what’s happening.

We love to hide behind the fact we found someone with more ‘industry’ experience, or someone who has done the same job, etc. It’s all excuses. You don’t hire Vets because you don’t think they can handle your jobs. The fact is, they can, they just need you to give them a shot!

Do yourself a favor this Veteran’s Day. Take a chance and hire a Vet into a job you’ve never tried before. Sure, they’ll need some training, but they’ll bring the rest, and you might just find your organizations next great talent pool!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #8 – If You Buy Today!

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions with the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

Notes to HR Tech Vendors #8 – If You Buy Today! 

“If you buy today we can ensure you’ll be a part of the beta product for free, but if you wait, we’re going to be charging future buyers for that product.” 

“If you buy today, we can wave the implementation fees.” 

“If you buy today, I can give you the rest of this quarter for free. That’s two free months!” 

“If you buy today, it’s $79 per user. I can only give you that today, next week it’ll be $99 per user.”

Look, Sparky. If I don’t buy today, and I buy next Wednesday I better still get the beta, and the two months, and the stupid t-shirt and any other crap you’re waving around to try and close me!

If you sell HR Tech like this, you suck! And not the cute, “Come on guys, you suck! #Winkyface”. It’s the “You Suck!” and hopefully bad things happen to you and everyone you know because you’re an awful person, suck!

I actually had this happen to me recently. Very good product and I definitely wanted to give it a try. The salesperson knows she has me very close to signing the deal, and then it happened. “Well, Tim, if you sign today, I’ll give you the last two weeks of the month for free!”

I said, “Thank you. I’ll let you know”, and hung up. She’s been trying to reach me almost daily since not understanding why I won’t return her messages, we were so close! Except then you did the worse sales pitch known to man, and now I hate you.

HR tech vendors stop doing this. If you’re willing to give a buyer two weeks for free, just tell them you’ll give them two weeks for free. If they buy tomorrow, or if they buy next Tuesday or next month! Also, we get your prices change, but if you are currently talking to me about $79 per user, that price better be good for a reasonable amount of time, like a minimum of 30 days at least.

HR tech buyers, if you feel like you’re being ‘forced’ to buy today! End the call. End the relationship. The company you’re dealing with is not a good company because good companies don’t sell this way. They don’t treat you like an idiot. They respect you and understand that you usually aren’t in a position to “Buy today”.

No one in HR Tech needs to be hard closing HR Pros. People’s careers are on the line for these buying decisions. It’s not something to hard sell them into. If they make a bad choice for their organization it could cost them their job. Ease up Boiler Room.

 

T3 – @InvestiPro

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This week on T3 I take a look at the employee investigation technology InvestiPro. Okay, I have to tell you that I first ran into InvestiPro at The HR Technology Conference when their Founder, Dana Barbato, got on stage during a new technology competition and by herself just got up and killed it! No flash, just real HR talk about one of the biggest challenges real HR pros face on a daily basis. I loved it!

To me, the best HR Tech is one that solves an actual problem that I’ve really had to deal with working as an HR Pro. Dana, like I, was a real HR Pro in the trenches. Before starting InvestiPro, real HR was her entire career. So, she gets it. She gets that having to run an employee investigation can be hard for a number of reasons. Having to run multiple investigations at the same time can really be a chore!

InvestiPro is a fully-automated workplace investigation solution designed to simplify the way employers conduct investigations. From start to finish the technology simply walks you through the process and ensures you remain complaint, legally, and keeps you and your organization out of hot water.

What I really like about Investipro: 

– The system allows you to maintain all of your investigations in one place. Keeps you organized and easily lets you see where you’re at in the process of each one. For those of us, like me, that had all of this in multiple files and doing it all by hand, this would have been a godsend!

– For those who don’t have to do investigations often, InvestiPro ensures you follow a process from beginning to end and helps you out along  the way. Many times investigations fail, from the corporate perspective, because something was missed along the way.

– InvestiPro helps HR pros answer all those questions that they just don’t know, or might not fully understand, in regards to liability, should you even be doing an investigation, should you hire outside council, what questions you should be asking, etc.

– Each investigation is reviewed by a qualified legal expert to ensure it meets normal legal standards in case your investigation might end up in a courtroom.

– It’s a fraction of the price of bringing in outside council. It’s the 90/10 rule. 90% of your internal investigations can probably be taken care of by you, the other 10% probably need outside counsel. Most organizations tend to use more outside counsel than is needed. InvestiPro helps save you money.

The HR Tech crowd was un-wowed by InvestiPro, that’s because most of that crowd aren’t actual HR Pros and Leaders who deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis. For me, InvestiPro was the most usable out of the box technology that was presented at the conference! It was brilliant in its simplicity and function. That’s hard to do! Take a look.


T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great HR, recruiting, and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

HR’s Unwritten Rules!

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For those NFL/Professional Sports Fans out there I give you one of the dumbest unwritten sports rules that are out there:

You can’t lose your starting spot due to injury.

Dallas Cowboy’s, Tony Romo was injured at the beginning of this season and potentially could have come back this past week, but his ‘backup’ Dax Prescott has done such a good job this season, that the coach and GM now have a really difficult decision to make! This has sports news, radio and fans talking about ‘the rule’ – if you’re the starter and you get injured, once you are better, you automatically get your starting job back.  But, why?  Where does this come from?

This has sports news, radio and fans talking about ‘the rule’ – if you’re the starter and you get injured, once you are better, you automatically get your starting job back.  But, why?  Where does this come from?

I can think of a couple of reasons why an organization might want to have this type of rule, in sports:

1. You don’t want players playing injured and not wanting to tell the coaches for fear if they get pulled, they’ll lose their job.  Thus putting the team in a worse spot of playing injured instead of allowing a healthy player to come in. Also, you don’t want the player furthering injuring themselves worse.

2. If the person has proven themselves to be the best, then they get injured, why wouldn’t you go back with the proven commodity?

I can think of more ways this unwritten rule makes no sense at all:

1. No matter the reason, shouldn’t the person with the best performance get the job?  No matter the reason the person was given to have his or her shot – if they perform better than the previous person, they should keep the job.

2. If you want a performance-based culture, you go with the hot hand.

3. Injuries are a part of the game, just as leave of absences are a part of our work environments, the organizations that are best prepared for this will win in the end – that means having capable succession in place that should be able to perform at a similar level, and if you’re lucky – at a better level.

It’s different for us in HR, right?  We have laws we have to follow, FMLA for example, or your own leave policies.  But is it really that different?  In my experience, I see companies constantly make moves when someone has to take a personal or medical leave and go a different direction with a certain person or position.

Let’s face it, the truth is our companies can’t just be put on hold while someone takes weeks or months off to take care of whatever it is they need to do.  That doesn’t mean we eliminate them, and legally we can’t, but we do get very creative in how we bring them back and positions that get created to ensure they still have something, but at the same time the company can continue to move forward in their absence.

I wonder if ‘our’ thinking about the NFL’s unwritten rule of losing your position comes from our own HR rules and laws we have in place in our organizations.  It would seem, like the NFL, most HR shops figure out ways around their own rules as well!

T3 – Fitbit Group Health – @Fitbit

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This week on T3 I take a look at wearable technology Fitbit, but not from the actual wearable tech perspective, but from their health wellness tech solution. Fitbit Group Health was developed specifically to support organizations that have decided to use the power of wearable tech to help their employees reach their wellness goals.

I was drawn to this tech because seemingly everyone knows the brand Fitbit. As an experienced HR pro, I’ve learned that the path of least resistance is critical when getting employee adoption of any HR program! Meaning, if my employees are already Fitbit fans, why would I fight the momentum!?

Fitbit has been around for a while now and because of this they’ve been able to do some long term studies with large organizations using their wearable tech and run side by side control groups to find out what impact this wearable tech has on wellness from a cost perspective, and it’s quite stunning!

Fitbit Group Health recently released a study that shows year over year results can reduce your overall healthcare spend by almost 25%! The study compared one group of employees with the Dayton Transit Authority (bus drivers who sit almost all day) with a control group of the same employees not wearing the Fitbit tech. For one year they followed this group and the group wearing the Fitbit incurred 24.5% less per person average overall healthcare cost as compared to the control group.

Fitbit’s own data amongst all their corporate users is showing similar great reductions across 2.6 million users in 70 of the Fortune 500. Wearing the tech leads to more active lifestyles and better health outcomes. Makes sense, right? Get your employees moving more and crazy enough they get healthier.

What I really like about Fitbit Group Health:

  • Employees already like Fitbit and are wearing Fitbit. This makes is super easy to gain adoption.
  • Fitbit Group Health makes it easy for you as an employer to supplement the cost of buying individual Fitbits and setting up a site just for your organization for employees to purchase the technology.
  • The Fitbit Group Health technology gives you a dashboard to track employee usage, set up contests and message individuals and groups of employees. The metrics you receive in HR allows you to track your own results and tie it back to cost savings.
  • It’s proven outcomes and reduction of cost over many industries, blue collar and white collar, fully supplemented, partial supplemented and non-supplemented. It doesn’t matter, it works!
  • It’s scalable and can easily be tested in an organization at the department level, location, etc.

What you’ll find is you already have Fitbit fans in your organization and you’ll easily be able to make some new fans, but you’ll also be able to drive a culture of wellness with employees supporting each other.

We all know the struggle of getting high adoption of wellness in our organizations. I think Fitbit Group Health is providing a great model of getting your employees moving and supporting each other. The fact is, that small thing, can give every organization huge positive results!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great HR, recruiting, and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.

Guess What? HRCI Didn’t Die!

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So, back in March, I told you that HRCI was going to die! You know the whole SHRM started their own certification and why would anyone want two certifications. If given the choice the smart HR pro is going to choose SHRM over HRCI. I assumed, at that point, HRCI would pack up camp and just slowly go away.

Well, they packed up camp! Move across the street from SHRM (I mean literally across the freaking street!) and set up a new camp. I think that’s funny and cool, and shows some of the spunk the HRCI crew has in them.

We all know the story. HRCI was in bed with SHRM for 39 years, then SHRM decides it wants to be in bed by itself and start their own certification. My take then, and now, is the same, smart move by SHRM to drive more revenue. Good decision for the business, mass confusion for the membership.

So, HRCI, like most companies facing survival, did some things to make sure they will go on another forty years and some things I really like. Check these out:

– Year around continuous testing. One major problem with most certification bodies is they get stuck in having their one or two times per year testing. Great for them, awful for the people wanting to certify. Technology now allows you to test anytime, anywhere. No waiting. Test when you’re ready. Smart.

– Voucher program. Allows organizations to buy exams in bulk. So, you have a large HR shop and want to get all of your people certified, buy in bulk and save money. Also, certifying prep organizations can also buy in bulk and sell packages for prep and testing all in one. Again, this is something organizations like because they can pay for it all at once. Smart.

– APHR – Associate Professional Of HR – HRCI was super smart with this one. Before students couldn’t truly get their PHR. They could take test exam but had to wait like two years before HRCI would issue the certification. Now, HR students (and there are 1,700 HR college programs around the country) can take this exam as a student and get the certification. Brilliant on so many levels! You now lock up students with an HRCI cert from the beginning and they’re more likely to move forward with additional HRCI certs. Plus, it’s a huge audience to go after that just keeps getting bigger each year.

– 2nd Chance Insurance – Currently for $150 you can hedge your bets on failing your HRCI exam and almost 45% of people fail! It’s tough! This is a little insurance policy to take it again the second time for a fraction of the cost. Smart. People love buying insurance! Smart.

– Top Employer’s Institute – HRCI partnered with Top Employer’s Institute out of the Netherlands to certify complete organization’s HR shops. Basically, this is a third party coming in and ensuring your HR shop is providing best practices to your organization and you have your shit together. Everyone loves trophies! Smart.

I still don’t know how all of this will end, but my declaration of HRCI dying might have been premature! What I like is they’re moving fast and adapting to what HR pros want. This is a weakness of SHRM who tends to move much slower in making changes, even obvious changes.

HRCI has nothing to lose. They’re smaller. More nimble. They’ve got a little brother edge to them which I like. They’ve still got some huge marketing challenges ahead. First and foremost is SHRM’s advantage of messaging and marketing to their full membership about the advantages of their own certifications. That will be tough to overcome, but I don’t see them going away anytime soon.

Notes to HR Tech Vendors – #10 – Your Real Competition

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I’ve done a few presentations titled something like, “HR Tech Buyers Guide”, “How to Buy HR Tech”, etc. The presentation is designed for HR and TA practitioners to help them become better buyers of HR Tech. To understand the crap that HR and TA Tech vendors do and say to get you to buy stuff you might not need, want, or will use.

The interesting thing about these presentations is that half the audience turns out to be the actual vendors themselves wanting to hear what it is I’m telling the real HR and TA leaders! It’s smart for the vendors. It helps make the better sellers as well. Well, at least some that actually listen!

Based on these interactions I decided to build a series of what has come out of interactions to the vendors themselves, aptly named “Notes to HR Tech Vendors”. Look I don’t alway have to be creative! Enjoy!

#10 – Your Real Competition

Unless you’re buying some giant watered-down enterprise level HRIS or ATS/Talent Suite you almost never have competition!

Yes, you read that correctly. 90% of HR Tech vendors have “NO” competition! But, you believe the opposite.

Here’s the deal. HR and TA Tech buyers are fairly naive to the industry. It’s not our full-time job to track every new ATS that is being launched. We’re just trying to get people hired and stop people from quitting. Takes up about 99.9% of our job! So, when it’s time to buy new Tech we usually buy the first thing we’re sold!

The competition you face is not your real competitors. The competition you face is a “no sale”.

Almost all HR Tech buyers will buy your product, or they won’t buy anything. Primarily because they don’t even know you have competition. Well, they didn’t until you actually told them! “Hey, we’re the #1 CRM on the market, so much better than #2, #3 and #4.” What? There is more than one CRM!?

If you’re Smashfly (a CRM Tech) almost every single sale is going to be a “Yes” or a “No, we’ve decided we don’t need this right now”. It’s almost never “hey, we’ve decided to buy Clinch, or Avature, or Ascendify, or Talemetry, or Beamery, or”…you get the picture!

Almost never!

Your real competition is you. It’s your ability to sell your solution to a buyer that has some sort of pain around HR or TA. It’s shocking at how often this fails. I mean what can go wrong when you throw a 15-year-old on the phone with a twenty year HR vet on the other end, telling them how to fix her shop!?

And you think I exaggerate on the age! Almost every single HR and TA Tech sales person I speak is under the age of 30 and most have never worked a day in HR or TA. This leads to a ton of “no sales”.  If you can’t tell me how your solution is going to solve my pain, in my language, I’m probably not buying.

HR and TA Tech vendors, your competition isn’t the problem. Your technology isn’t the problem (it’s usually really awesome). Your sales strategy is killing you. The cute, little, naive babies selling your products is the problem. They don’t know me. They don’t know my pain. They don’t speak my language.

Your real competition is you.