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The Recruiter Texting Rules!

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Here we go! Your boy is back with some more rules! You know I love me some rules! I’m high rules, and low details, which drives most people crazy!

I was having a conversation recently with some recruiters about texting candidates. For the most part, in recruiting, we’ve gotten to this point where we believe every candidate prefers texting over every other kind of communication. And, if they don’t want a text message, then they want email.

This isn’t exactly true! I did some research and surveyed over 1600 candidates we screened to find out the facts and published it – 6 Things Candidates Want You to Know – you can download it here for free. But I’m not here trying to sell you a free whitepaper!

The entire reason we believe candidates prefer text over any other form of communication is some creative marketing around text vs. email response rates in overall text vs. email communications. Now, this is where all of this falls apart. I get over 500 emails per day. I get maybe 25-50 messages. Of course, I’m going to respond more to text messages vs. email. But that doesn’t mean, as a candidate, I want text vs. email, necessarily!

This all lead me down a path where I believe we need some rules around texting as recruiters!

The Recruiter Texting Rules:

Rule No. 1 – As the first outreach to a candidate you don’t know, texting is not preferred by candidates. They don’t know you, and they certainly don’t want you jumping into their private text messages with a spammy job offer!

Rule No. 2 – No one of quality ever accepted an interview and job offer through text message without first speaking to a real human. Pick up the god damn phone. Once a candidate is all in with you, then yes, they will most likely only want texts from you.

Rule No. 3 – Give me a way to opt-out of your bad text recruiting automation hell! For one, it’s the law. But, most still make it way too difficult to stop the automated texts.

Rule No. 4 – Just because you have my number as a candidate does not give you permission to stalk me for a date. It’s super creepy!

Rule No. 5 – If we aren’t friends, don’t text me like we are friends. Avoid sarcasm. Keep it professional and short.

Rule No. 6 – If it feels like you’re sending candidates too many text messages. You are sending candidates too many text messages! Also, don’t text me a novel! Send long stuff in an email.

Rule No. 7 – If I ask you a question, answer the damn question! We are adults. You can tell me the truth I don’t need some run-around answer that doesn’t really answer my question.

Rule No. 8 – If you expect me to respond within minutes. I expect you’ll respond within minutes. Set the ground rules around expectations early.

Rule No. 9 – Never! And I mean, NEVER! Text with a green bubble! Just Kidding! 😉

Okay, peeps, what did I forget? Give me your favorite rule for texting candidates in the comments below.

Take a look at some awesome new HR Technology startups! #HRTechConf

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The popular startup competition will take place during the upcoming HR Technology Conference, happening September 13 – 16, 2022, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I’m super proud to once again be of the judges selected by LRP Media Group and the HR Technology Conference for this year’s Pitchfest. It is my favorite event of the year!!

This year, 33 companies will compete during the three preliminary rounds, each with five minutes to present and two to three minutes to answer questions from the judges. Based on a combination of votes from the audience and the judges, the total score earned by each company in the preliminary rounds will determine which six advance to the finals.

On Thursday, September 15, at 10 a.m. PT, the Pitchfest final will name one winner to receive the grand prize of $25,000 and exhibit space at the 2023 HR Technology Conference. A second-place winner will get $5,000. Prize money for the winners will be donated by Randstad Innovation Fund, Randstad’s strategic corporate venture fund.

Listed in alphabetical order, these are the companies selected to participate in the 2022 Pitchfest:

1.    AtlasJobs

2.    Dalia (Frontline Recruiting Tech)

3.    EasyLlama (Sexual Harassment Compliance)

4.    Educe Software (Talent Management Tech)

5.    Extraview (Interview Tech)

6.    Findem (Sourcing Tech)

7.    Finwello Inc. (Financial Wellness)

8.    Gift Better Co. (Employee Appreciation)

9.    Illoominus Software, Inc (DEI Analytics Tech)

10. Inclusively (Workforce Inclusion)

11. ishield.ai (Diversity Communication Tech)

12. JobSync (Recruiting Automation Tech)

13. Largely (Talent Marketplace)

14. Lumina (Job Advertising Tech)

15. Manager360

16. ModernLoop (Recruiting Opersations Tech)

17. PivotCX (Recruiting Communications Tech)

18. Pointr (Position Tracking Tech)

19. Praisidio (Talent Retention)

20. Probotalent, LLC (Reference Assessment Solution)

21. Pulse – Automatic Status (Slack Status solution)

22. Ramped (Upskilling)

23. ReturnSafe (Hybrid Work Experience Tech)

24. Rise (Core HCM)

25. SmartRank (Candidate Screening)

26. Soundbite Inc. (Employee Engagement Tech)

27. SPOTLYFE (Employee Engagement Tech)

28. Sunny Day Fund (Financial Wellbeing Tech)

29. TaTiO (Applicant Attraction Solution)

30. TeamSense (Text-based Hourly Worker Comms Tech)

31. ThinkSight (People Analytics Tech)

32. Translator, Inc. (DEI Learning Platform)

33. uMap™ (Talent Management Tech)

**You’ll notice two of the 33 don’t have links – that’s because I couldn’t find them based on their name! That’s a great Startup lesson.**

So, how do you use this list? Start clicking through and see who they are and what they do! What I find is that many of these startups have amazing technology, and they are looking to get users to prove their concept, so that means you can probably get great tech at a great price!! Plus, many times, be at the forefront of an HR Technology movement.

That starts with a demo! I promise, they are painless, and you will learn some cool stuff, give it a try! Challenge yourself to do one new demo a quarter. Keep on top of the technology that is shaping our industry into the future!

HR Technology Conference Unveils 2022 Top HR Product Awards! @HRTechConf #HRTechConf

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The HR Technology Conference is right around the corner, September 13-16, in Las Vegas, and today, they announced the winners of this year’s Top HR Products! I will be attending this year’s conference, and I will be a judge at HR Technology Conference’s startup competition, The Pitchfest, which runs throughout the event.

Here are the winners of the 2022 Top HR Products:

ADP Intelligent Self-Service

ADP Intelligent Self-Service anticipates, solves and reduces employee issues before becoming a problem. Combining artificial intelligence, deep HCM knowledge and intuitive experiences, ADP Intelligent Self-Service proactively nudges employees to resolve potential issues.

Compa 

Compa is offer-management software to help talent teams make smarter offers and gain real-time market data. When recruiters use Compa, they can skip spreadsheets and automate workflows to find pay guidelines, navigate pay conversations and build custom offers that get approved quickly.

Eightfold Job Intelligence Engine

The Eightfold Job Intelligence Engine provides an AI-powered foundation for role definitions that dynamically learns from internal and external talent insights. By replacing archaic and ineffective job descriptions with centrally defined roles, the tool combines AI, automation and human expertise for better decision-making.

Gloat Workforce Intelligence

For many organizations, workforce strategy is often encumbered by fragmented systems and manual processes that make it difficult to meet the demands of increasingly agile talent and business needs. With this in mind, Gloat built the Workforce Intelligence suite to solve the challenges of accessing scalable skills, jobs and talent insight, empowering organizations to understand and adapt to market needs.

iCIMS Marketing Automation 

Amplify sourcing and engagement efforts with sophisticated lead scoring and conditional, behavior-based campaign personalization to address the toughest talent and recruiting challenges. iCIMS Marketing Automation redefines recruitment marketing by helping recruiting teams adapt to the age of the candidate.

Joyous

Joyous is an app that unlocks the expertise in large workforces to solve strategic challenges. It works in four steps: it breaks a big challenge down into small conversation starters; reaches out to a cohort of the workforce who will have the knowledge needed; routes their responses to subject matter experts and leaders who turn it into conversations, asking for clarification or offering support; and finally, AI analyzes all those conversations to identify the actionable themes that will make the biggest impact.

Oracle ME

Oracle ME is a complete employee experience platform designed to elevate employees’ growth, connections and ability to thrive in the new ways of work and workplaces today. Part of Oracle Cloud HCM, Oracle ME enables organizations to deliver personalized experiences to every worker based on their unique characteristics and situations. .

Paradox Animated Assessments

Paradox has built the fastest, mobile-first assessment on the market, requiring just 90 seconds to complete and boasting a 95% completion rate. By using animated images rather than words, candidates provide accurate information in a fraction of the time, reducing candidate drop-off and increasing satisfaction.

Plum Leadership Potential 

Plum Leadership Potential enables organizations to identify high-potential talent using proven science combined with scalable technology. By leveraging the results of Plum’s single assessment, organizations can instantly measure leadership potential in every employee, ensuring each member of the workforce is equitably considered for their aptitude.

PTO Genius

PTO Genius helps organizations transform the employee experience and boost profitability by unleashing the power of PTO. The AI-powered software helps optimize and automate time off to uncover hidden opportunities to decrease burnout, improve employee wellness and reduce churn.

ServiceNow Manager Hub

Manager Hub delivers a purpose-built destination for people leaders to stay informed and engaged with their teams by leveraging personalized resources to guide their leadership journey. Managers can view a summary of team insights and action items for employee journeys, daily team stats, important dates, tasks and requests.

Talview Interview Insights

Talview Interview Insights maximizes the effectiveness of the Interview. The AI-powered solution works by analyzing conversations and behaviors to assess the candidate and the interviewer, helping organizations continuously improve the quality of interviewing.

Workday Scheduling and Labor Optimization

Workday Scheduling and Labor Optimization is an intelligent, worker-first scheduling solution that leverages artificial intelligence to match labor demand with worker qualifications, availability and preferences to optimize schedules for both workers and the business automatically. By analyzing data across the organization, Workday Scheduling and Labor Optimization helps managers and operations leaders optimize schedules to meet both the labor demands of the business and numerous business parameters—such as labor regulations—and worker scheduling preferences.

There will be over 600 HR Technology vendors at this year’s conference! These products definitely stood out as a few of the must-see technology advances across the HR tech stack. For me, The HR Technology Conference is one of the conferences I will not miss on an annual basis in our industry. Having a great understanding of HR Technology and the impact it has on running a successful business is a must-have skill every HR leader must have in our current environment.

Why do you suck!?

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There’s an interactive questioning technique called The 5 Whys.  The theory is that if you continue to ask ‘why’ enough times, you’ll get to the root cause of every issue.

  • Timmy is a bad performer. Why?
  • He doesn’t follow through on anything. Why?
  • It seems like he gets things started well and then moves on to other things before the first thing is finished. Why?
  • He likes the energy of starting new projects. Why?
  • He thinks if he’s on the front side of the project, he’ll have more influence on the direction the project is going. Why?
  • Because that has been his experience with our organization.

Oh, so he might not be a bad performer. He just has an opportunity area that we might be able to help him out with – getting projects across the finish line.  And we’ve taught him to behave in this manner.

I don’t know if you have to use to 5 whys each time. I do think you have to ask at least three whys to get past the emotion of any decision.  We tend to make most decisions with some element of emotion.  Getting to the third why will get the emotion out in the open.  That is important in any decision-making process.

Does this technique seem a little ‘parental’?  It does, which is why you probably don’t want to make a habit of using this technique too often.  It is definitely a tool, though, that can be very effective for a leader to use from time to time.

  • “We need to change our hiring process!”
  • Why?
  • “We have had three consecutive failed hires.”
  • Why?

“Well, one person was a referral from an executive, so we hired without really checking references. One hire totally aced our pre-employment testing but had a sketchy work history but tested off the charts. One was a knockout in the interview, marginal testing, and just didn’t pan out.”

So, do we really need to change our hiring process? Or should we just start following our hiring process?

3 Whys takes the emotion out of any decision-making process.  It gets out everyone’s inner issues about the problem.  We tend to lead with a crisis statement that will lead to action.  If we take action based on incomplete information, we will unnecessarily start doing things that we might not need to do or make changes that really don’t make sense to the organization.

Next time you are facing a tough decision, start asking ‘Why’ and see where it leads you. You might be surprised where you’ll end up!

5 Signs You Should Not Make That Job Offer!

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If I have learned anything at all in my HR/Recruiting career, it’s that everyone has an opinion on what makes a good hire. If you ask 100 people to give you one thing they focus on when deciding between candidates, you’ll get 100 different answers!

I’ve got some of my own. They might be slightly different than yours, but I know mine will work!  So, if you want to make some better selections, take note, my young Padawans:

1. Crinkled up money. Male or female, if you pull money out of your pocket or purse and it’s crinkled up, you’ll be a bad hire!  There is something fundamentally wrong with people who can’t keep their cash straight. The challenge you have is how do you get a candidate to show you this? Ask to copy their driver’s license or something like that!

2. Males with more selfies on their Instagram than all other photos. I don’t even have to explain this (also, don’t go do a count on my IG!).

3. Slow walkers.  If you don’t have some pep in your step, at least for the interview, you’re going to be a drag as an employee.

4. My Last Employer was so Awesome! Yeah, that’s great. We aren’t them. Let’s put a little focus back on what we got going on right here, sparky. Putting too much emphasis on a job you love during the interview is annoying. We get it. It was a good gig. You f*ck’d it up and can’t let go. Now we’ll have to listen about it for the next nine months until we fire you.

5. Complaining or being Rude to waitstaff.  I like taking candidates to lunch or dinner, just to see how they treat other people. I want servant leaders, not assholes, working for me. The meal interview is a great selection tool to weed out bad people.

What are your signs not to make an offer?  Share in the comments!

How Can Organizations Succeed In a Multi-Channel Work Environment?

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I’m keynoting the HRM Tech Asia conference in 2023, and as part of that, HRM Magazine did an interview with me for their Aug/Sept Magazine. The idea is we all want to offer flexibility. Our employees and candidates are demanding flexibility, but building a solid culture across all of these work environments is very complex!

Here’s some of what I had to say:

You can read the full article by clicking here!

What’s Your Beauty Premium at Your Remote Job?

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If you know me, you know I love talking about beauty and attractiveness and the impact it has on work! We like to think that how you look has nothing to do with how you perform. Ugly people are told that from birth! “It doesn’t matter how you look, Timmy. You can still be great!”

Academically, that actually does prove out very well, in study after study. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite, and it might be the biggest thing no one talks about at work. This week the newest beauty study hit the street titled, “Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching.”

Okay, I know you’re saying this says student, not employ, so it doesn’t count! Bare with me…

First, this is a legit study, not some vendor survey thing. This was done by a legit PhD at a legit university.

What does the study say?

  1. Both men and women have a beauty premium in terms of their performance. This means, that more beautiful you are in a university class, the more likely you are to be graded higher. (This is real!)
  2. With in-person classes, the beauty premium is the same for men and women. Basically, pretty boys and girls equally get an advantage in grading.
  3. With remote classes, the beauty premium only works for men!

Why does this matter to remote work?

If we know there is a beauty premium in human behavior when judging the performance of students, how hard is it really for us to believe our supervisors and managers also don’t have a beauty premium when it comes to determining work performance? I would argue that there is very little difference between the two judging activities.

This means as many of our jobs switch to remote, we now have an issue with women having their performance judged harsher than men when working in a remote environment because they will no longer get any beauty premium. Again, this only works with beautiful people. The ugly ones were already getting judged more harshly.

We love to believe that remote work favors females for a number of reasons. Saving time on the commute, easier to arrange care for kids and those they might be responsible for, etc. But now we have this issue!

The work beauty premium is real, and it’s not!

The beauty premium is measurable and has been proven in a number of studies. When judging people, we find it more difficult to judge pretty people harshly but easier to beat down ugly people. It’s not real because it’s totally an unconscious bias that even when we know it’s a problem, we ignore it and keep promoting pretty people over maybe higher performing people who aren’t as pretty.

I just find all of this so fascinating! Two-fold, one in that I’m not what any study would find as traditionally “beautiful” from the male standpoint, and that over a long period of time, centuries, genetically, this actually plays out across all cultures. While one culture might like light skin, tall, slender, and those people will have a beauty premium. Another culture might prefer dark, short, chubby people, and that beauty premium plays itself out.

I just need to find the one culture that likes gingers!

DisruptHR Lansing 2.0 Call for Speakers is Open – Event Date – Sept 28th!

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I’m hosting DisruptHR Lansing 2.0 on September 28th at the Lansing Brewing Company in downtown Lansing.

What is DisruptHR Lansing?

DisruptHR events are held in over 150 cities worldwide. It’s a two-hour event with 12-14 speakers, and each speaker only talks for 5-minutes! Big ideas in a short time brought to you in a unique format. Each speaker gets 20 slides, each slide automatically moves every 15 seconds, and the math tells me that’s 5 minutes! It’s HR Nerd Super Fun!

This year we are excited to be partnering with the Greater Lansing SHRM chapter for this event. We expect a sell-out as seating is limited to around 150 – you can get your tickets now to save your spot:

DisruptHR Lansing 2.0 Tickets

Each ticket comes with drinks and appetizers. There will also be some exciting raffle prizes, like Coach bags and much more!

Here is a link to the DisruptHR Lansing 1.0 talks from 2021! It was a very fun night!

Call for Speakers is Open!

We need speakers for this event!

Why should you speak at DisruptHR Lansing?

  • Great opportunity to do some professional speaking in front of a supportive audience!
  • Each speaker gets a professionally produced video they can use to market themselves!
  • It’s one of the most challenging talks you’ll ever do as a speaker!

We look to provide an inclusive and diverse set of speakers on all topics around HR, people, and leadership. I’m specifically looking to add some GenZ (18-26-year-old) speakers to the agenda this year. So, if you know of anyone – have them apply! We also love the Millennials, GenX, and Boomers as well! It’s just really hard to find GenZ speakers in HR!

DisruptHR Lansing is only successful if we have great volunteer speakers! It’s a great environment to try out speaking of an idea you’re passionate about!

Apply to Speak at DisruptHR Lansing 2.0

Sponsors!

If you’re interested in sponsoring this event, please contact me directly at sackett.tim@hrutech.com for sponsorship details. Each sponsor will get a table at the event, a full list of attendees, and be able to give out raffle prizes.

The 1 Thing You Have to Do to Fall In Love With Your Job!

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean, real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and Facebook messages, and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some, it’s been a while, and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love; it doesn’t last that long, and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say, “I love my job,” and I never used to pay much attention; in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is that I don’t love my job. I mean, I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, and I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7 am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Want to know the difference between like and love? The next time your significant other tells you, “I love you!” just say in return, “Yeah, I like you as well!” Then get ready for an argument!

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stops caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  It seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love and lose their minds.  Once that calms down, the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship, you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job, and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your one-year anniversary, and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff, the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked on, but it can last forever.