You Can’t Fake Passion

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Just flying back from HireVue’s Digital Disruption conference this week.  This won’t be a post about HireVue’s products.  It’s pretty clear they are the industry leader in video digital interviewing technology (I think it’s funny we can’t call it video any longer, it’s now digital interviewing). This is about their 29 year old, Founder and CEO Mark Newman.

The cool thing about Digital Disruption is that it was a pretty intimate event.  HireVue’s executive team, hell most of their entire company, seemingly was at this event and interacting with everyone.  The event also allowed for a lot of up close and personal time with Mark.  Twice during the conference he got up to speak to the group of customers, prospects, analyst, etc.  Twice he showed why HireVue has been a fast growing success.

You know those times when you’re so proud, so upset, so frustrated, so happy, when you’re on the brink of showing some ‘real’ emotion? Parents I know will know these moments, when your kid does something so incredible you get choked up even telling others about it.  Twice, Mark did this while talking about his company and team.  About his vision for his company, about his vision for his team.  He is a proud parent of HireVue.

For the past three years or so when talking about HireVue with my HR Pro friends, we’ve all wondered aloud what HireVue’s play was going to be.  Do they build out a full platform ATS, HCM, etc.? Do they get bought up by one of the big enterprise plays (Oracle, SAP, etc.)? In my mind it was just a matter of time.  A ‘video’ interviewing company was not going to just make it on it’s own.

I was wrong.  It doesn’t mean that one day HireVue won’t go down one of these paths, but after spending some time with them it is very apparent that Mark and his team (Chip Luman, Kevin Marasco, Ben Martinez, Loren Larsen and Jared Wilks) have much bigger plans in growing and sustaining HireVue as a player by themselves in the Talent Acquisition space.

I’ve got to spend time with a bunch of different CEOs and leadership teams in our HR space, and across a number of industries in my career.  It’s pretty rare that I’ve been around a leader as passionate about his business as Mark, and as engaged in the development of the product moving forward.  It was refreshing, it was cool, it was motivating.  It made me feel less of a leader in for my own company!  And the bastard is only 29! It’s not fair!  What I found out about HireVue at Digital Disruption is that this is a company that is far from being done in ‘disrupting’ our industry.

This is something that is very unique in the HR Tech space, where most companies are just trying to build something fast and sell.  I found a company and leadership team in HireVue that is trying to build something not for today, but for generations.  It’s big goals and big aspirations, and I think they can do it.

Revenge Hires

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Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up!

From the land of Bad HR comes something I’ve only heard about as urban legend, the Revenge Hire!

A revenge hire is when someone hires a person to stick it to another person in their organization.  I can happen in a number of ways.  Here’s a few:

1. The Fired Re-hire:  This is when an employee gets fired by one leader, then another leader in the same organization hires that person back into a job that is almost exactly the same.  Usually this happens when the first leader and employee just had a major personality difference, and another leader saw real talent in the employee, and possibly, thinks the original leader is a tool.

2. The One Level Up Hire:  This is when your supervisor overrides your decision not to hire, and makes the decision to hire someone you didn’t want.  I’ve seen this happen within a department where the executive had a relative interview and the department manager didn’t want to offer, but was forced to hire the person anyway.  That always turns out really good in the end…

3. The HR Hire:  This is the one that just happened to me!  The one thing we know as HR Pros is, we really don’t ever hire anyone or fire anyone (unless it’s within our own department).  We do a whole lot of advising on hiring and firing, but ultimately it’s up to each leader to make these decisions.  Unless, there’s some sort of issue at play where HR is going to pull their ultimate legal trump card and make the call on their own.  This almost never happens!  For me, the manager wanted to hire one person, HR wanted to hire another person, the reason had to deal with some background issues with the managers person.  HR pulled their card, hired their person, the manager was not happy.  Ultimately it took about four weeks for the manager to sabotage the HR hire, then she went over HR’s head to an executive to make the hire she originally wanted to make.  Revenge hiring at its best!

Revenge hiring is like cancer. If you have it in your organization you need to cut it out immediately.  It’s not something a healthy organization can have.  As an HR Pro I always put a stop to it the moment I heard about it.  Each time it happens the leaders involved act like it’s totally something different and not a revenge hire.  They have to do this because the alternative should get them fired! It’s to think of a more unhealthy behavior from a leader within your organization.

What about you?  Any good revenge hire stories?

 

6480 Lunches

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Each day I get up.  Take a shower.  Go downstairs and say ‘good morning’ to my youngest son (he’s up first in the house – he’s like his Dad). Let the dog out.  Then I make lunches for 3 boys.   180 days per year.  My wife would make the lunches if I really wanted her to, but like most couples we have our ‘jobs’.  I make lunches, she puts together water bottles, snacks, makes sure they actually have what they need for everything else.  I run the lunch assembly line.

2 lunch boxes with those blue ice things to keeps things cold, 1 brown paper lunch bag (Keat’s too cool to carry a lunch box)

3 Turkey Sandwiches with cheese, 2 kinds of bread, 2 kinds of cheese.  One on pita or ciabatta (Cameron prefers none normal bread), one on whole wheat, one half on whole wheat.

3 Granola and/or protein bars

3 bags of baked chips (this is as healthy as we get in the Sackett household!)

3 of something sweet (we don’t live in Russia!)

1 Fruit Roll-up (Coop loves these)

1 Large bag of fruit snacks (Keat loves these)

1 bag of Chex mix or other cracker (Keat again)

1 package of peanut butter crackers (Keat again)

2 waters, 1 V8 Fusion

I’ve attempted a few times to figure out our per lunch cost, because it seems like we probably pay more for our kids taking their lunches, then if they just bought school lunch.  My wife and kids tell me I’m crazy, but it seems like an insane amount of food each day for three lunches!

5 times per week, 180 days per year, 12 years, 3 kids.  6480 lunches.

I know my kids have no real conception of what this means.  I know so many families that have their own kids, make their own lunches.  I really don’t mind.  I know that one day, very soon, I won’t be making lunches.  I work a lot, my wife is home mostly, she gets the after school conversations, etc. Most things my sons go to my wife because she is the one that’s there and takes care of most things.

I take care of lunches.  I go to work.  By the time I get home usually one or two or three have already eaten dinner.  It’s not a huge contribution, and I’m sure I could force them to make their own lunch, but it’s one small way I get to show them I’m involved.

6480 lunches seems like a lot, until there all done, then it seems like not so much.

The 8 Man Rotation 2013 Edition

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I’ve got some buddies in the HR industry: Matt Stollak, Lance Haun, Steve Boese and Kris Dunn.  Five guys who like HR, love sports and we all write about it many times throughout the year.  Back in 2010 we decided, with the majority of heavy lifting done the Professor, to put all these posts together as an annual ebook.  Today we release the 2013 edition of The 8 Man Rotation.

The title “8 Man Rotation” comes from a basketball concept where 8 players are rotated in a normal playing group.  We only have 5 of us writing for this, but 5 Man Rotation isn’t really a thing.  Let’s face it, it’s our book, we’ll call it what we like.   If you like HR, Talent and such, and have a passing interest in how this might all relate to the popular sports stories throughout the year, this is for you!

You can check it out on The 8 Man Rotation site.

Also, check out the forward by Robin Schooling!

How Zappos Ruined Job Posts!

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Zappos made a big splash last week announcing they were no longer going to post their jobs!  From this point forward, or as soon as they can get out of their legacy system, they’ll stop posting their open jobs.  Instead of the good ole post and pray strategy used by the majority of companies worldwide.  Zappos’s Talent Acquisition team will now only proactively search for candidates, build networks of possible candidates and always have a slate or ready candidates available for each hiring manager whenever they have a need arise.  Sounds like the same line we’ve been feeding all of our organizations for a long time, right!?!

The difference is, Zappos can actually do it, you can’t.  You see Zappos is a ‘one-percenter’.  They are one of the very few employment brands who don’t need to post their jobs to get candidates, they have more candidates than they can handle.  They have one of the most engaged employee bases known to man, who refer more great employees like themselves.  Zappos can kill job postings, because job postings, in their environment, actually make them less efficient!  Their Talent Acquisition team is smart and doing exactly what they should to kick their competition to the side – taking advantage of their greatest strengths!

I do wonder, though, isn’t Zappos very big public announcement of ‘killing job postings’ just one very, very big job post!  Ah, employment branding and marketing.  Silly rabbit.

Let’s be clear you are not Zappos.

While you’ll need to keep running your post and pray strategy, I do think there is something valuable to take away from Zappos’s new no job posts posting strategy.  Zappos has publicly shown all HR and Talent shops, you don’t really have to post your jobs!  “What!?! Yes, Tim!  Yes, we do!  You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about!”  Calm down, calm down.  There are a few shops around that will continue to be forced to run job postings do to government contracts, or other ‘contractual’ arrangements, I’ll give you that.  But there is nothing legal, for most employers, that forces you to run job postings.

Most employers can hire whomever they choose. It is a best practice to post jobs, internally and externally, to ensure you are pulling in a widely dispersed pool of candidates, and not opening yourself up to potential hiring biases, or even illegal hiring practices.  But most employers do not legally have to post a job.  And just because you post one job, doesn’t mean you have to post all of your jobs.  That is the big takeaway from what Zappos is doing.

Let’s face it.  Zappos’s operations is mainly a call center.  They sell shoes over the internet and on the phone.  They are customer service, and the best customer service job option known to man.  They are in Vegas which has thousands of crappy customer service jobs.  If you’re good at customer service in Vegas,  you’ll eventually want to work at Zappos.  They have no need in posting call center jobs!!!

You probably have similar issues.  When I worked at a large health system we had no need to post openings for cafeteria workers and lower level positions.  We had people contacting us daily wanting those jobs.  Yet, every time we had an opening, we would post the job and have to deal with hundreds of applicants.  Our ‘legal’ department made us do this.  It was do ‘reduce’ potential risk, of which, was almost zero to begin with!  It was stupid.  It made us do more work.  It wasn’t needed.

Zappos has put the entire Talent Acquisition industry on notice.  To stop doing stupid stuff, like posting jobs you don’t need to post.   If you think you can get away with not posting any of your jobs, well, good luck to that.  You’re not Zappos!

The micro-blog post, after the blog post:

You know what really pisses me off about this announcement from Zappos!?  For the next 3 years I’m going to have to go to conferences and listen to people like Stacy Zapar and Mike Bailen tell us how Zappos is changing the recruiting world! Ugh! More Zappos HR conference speakers…didn’t we already go through this with them?  Oh, yeah, I wrote about it, like three years ago and Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, actually commented on the blog post – that was really cool!  Check it out here!  How Zappos Ruined HR! 

P.S. Stacy and Mike if you guys ever want to speak together at a conference just let me know – I’m willing to ride that Zappos gravy train out with you for the next three years!

Would You Pay A Candidate To Interview?

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Last week I got my ass handed to me for daring to consider that those who interview with a company, should pay for interview feedback.  Not just normal interview feedback, like thanks, but no thanks, but something really good and developmental.  Most people think that idea is bad.  Interview feedback should be free.  It’s not that I really want to charge people who interview a fee to get feedback, it’s just I think we could do so much better in terms of candidate experience, but we have to get out of our current mindset to shake things up a bit.

This all leads me to the next idea (hat tip to Orrin Konheim @okonhOwp) what if companies paid interviewees for their time?

Cool, right!?

We’ve built this entire industry on shared value.  Organizations have jobs, candidates want jobs, let’s all do this for free.  What happens when the equation isn’t equal?  What if candidates didn’t want your jobs?  Could you get more people to come out an interview if you paid them?  How much would it be worth?  It’s a really cool concept to play around with, if we can get out of our box for a bit.

Let’s say you’re having a really, really hard time getting Software Developer candidates to even consider your jobs and your organization.  It’s a super tough market, and you just don’t have a sexy brand.  You also don’t have the time to build a sexy brand, you need the talent now!  How much would it take to entice great candidates to give you an hour?  $100? $500? $1,000?  What if I told you I could have your CIO interviewing 5 top Software Developers tomorrow for 5 hours for $5,000?  Would you do it?

I hear the backlash of questions and concerns already forming in your head!

– People would just take the money, but not really want the job!

– How would you know these people were serious?

– Why would you pay to have someone interview when others will for free?

– Did you get hit on your head as a child?

– This might be the dumbest idea since your idea last week.

When we think about really having a great candidate experience, shouldn’t compensation be a apart of the conversation.  For most interviews you’re asking someone to take time off work, losing salary, time off, putting themselves at risk of their employer finding out, etc.  At the very least, you would think that we might offer up some kind of compensation for their time.  I’m not talking about interview expenses, but real cold hard cash, we appreciate your time and value it!

If you started paying candidates to interview, do you think you would get and have better or worse interviews?

When you put value to something, i.e., an interview, people tend to treat it as such.  Now that interview that they might go, might not go, becomes something they have to prepare for, because, well, someone is paying me to do this.  To interview.  I’m guessing if you paid your candidates to interview, you would get a higher level of candidate, and have a higher level of success in hiring.  It’s just a theory, wish I had the recruiting budget to test it out!

The Tim Sackett Commencement Speech

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It’s that time of year when universities and high schools go through graduation ceremonies and we celebrate educational achievements.  It’s also that time of year when you get bombarded with every great commencement speech ever given.  There is clearly a recipe for giving a great commencement speech.  Here are the ingredients:

1. Make the graduates feel like they are about to accomplish something really great, and not just become part of the machine.

2. Make graduates believe like somehow they will be difference makers.

3. Make graduates think they have endless possibilities and opportunities.

4. Make graduates think the world really wants and needs them and can’t wait to work with them.

5. Wear sunscreen.

I think that about sums up every great commencement speech ever given.  Let’s face it, the key to any great speech is not telling people what they need to hear, but telling them what they want to hear!

I would like to give a commencement speech.  I think it would be fun.  I like to inspire people.  Here’s the main topics I would hit if I were to give a commencement speech:

1.  Work sucks, but being poor sucks more. Don’t ever think work should make you happy.  Find happiness in yourself, not what you do.

2.  You owe a lot of people, a lot of stuff.  Shut your mouth and give back to them. Stop looking for the world to keep giving you stuff.

3.  No one cares about you. Well, maybe your Mom, if you had a good Mom.  They care about what you can do for them.  Basically, you can’t do much, you’re a new grad.

4.  Don’t think you’re going to be special. 99.9% of people are just normal people, so will you.  The sooner you come to grips with this, the sooner you’ll be happy.

5.  Don’t listen to your bitter parents.  Almost always, the person who works the hardest has better outcomes in anything in life.  Once in a while, a person who doesn’t work hard, but has supremely better talent or connections than you, will kick your ass.  That’s life. Buy a helmet.

6.  Don’t listen to advice from famous people.  Their view of the world is warped through their grandiose belief some how they made it through hard work and effort. It’s usually just good timing.

7. Find out who you care about in life, and make them a priority.  In this world you have very few people you truly care about, and who care about you in return.  Don’t fuck that up.

8.  Make your mistakes when you’re young.  Failure is difficult, it’s profoundly more difficult when you have a mortgage and 2 kids to take care of.

9.  It’s alright that sometimes you have to kiss ass.  It doesn’t make you less of a person.

10.  Wear sunscreen.  Cancer sucks.

So, do you feel inspired now!?  Any high schools or colleges feel free to email me, I’m completely wide open on my commencement speech calendar and willing to give this speech on a moments notice!

 

The Best Sports Related Job Ever!

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Do you know what the ingredients are to the best sports related job ever?

1. Basketball

2. The 5th Richest person in the world

3. Beautiful weather, water and beaches

4. A Gigantic Yacht with a basketball court on it.

Mix all that together and you get one of the best jobs ever invented!   Pulled directly from the critically, award winning, Wall Street Journal:

The Oracle chief has had basketball courts on at least two of his yachts, said Tom Ehman, who handles America’s Cup matters for Mr. Ellison. He said Mr. Ellison liked to relax by shooting hoops, and has had someone in a powerboat following the yacht to retrieve balls that go overboard.

Mr. Ellison, is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, and 5th richest person in the world, worth about $48 Billion.  Larry likes basketball, a lot.  Likes to shoot hoops on his yachts.  For those who have ever shot hoops, the ball tends to bounce off the rim and backboard when you miss.  For those who yacht.  Those tend to be on Oceans, or big bodies of water.  So, when you mix those two together, you would suspect you’re going to have some basketballs go ‘into the pond’ every once in a while.

Now, with $48 Billion, Larry could probably just forget about any basketballs that went over board and just keep using new balls.  The problem is, having a couple dozen basketballs go overboard every time you play, might bring some unwanted attention on your from those who are environmentally conscience.  But, don’t fret, there is an easy solution.  Pay some dude to follow you’re yacht in a smaller boat and pick up those wayward balls!

That my friends is the best Sports Related Job ever!  On a boat all day, warm sun, cool drinks, picking up a few basketballs every once in a while.  I don’t think I could ever create a better summer job, ever!

You know the boat you’re picking up basketballs with is top notch.  You don’t have a piece of crap follow around a $200M yacht.  You’re probably outfitted in some cool uniform.  Paid lunches, delivered out on the water.  Great tan.  Good music.  Absolutely, no stress.  You’re getting paid well.  The guy has $48B and is asking you to retrieve basketballs for G*d’s sake! Where do I sign up?  I would do that job in a second, and would be the best ever at it!  No one would ever be better than me picking up basketballs in the ocean.  I really think I could retire from that job.

Just mark this down as crap you’ll never understand because you’ll never have $48B.

(Hat tip to Daniel Savich for passing the article on to me, and having the great boss who ever lived!)

Talent Acquisition’s Digital Disruption

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I’m headed out to Park City, UT on June 1st to be part of HireVue’s first ever Digital Disruption 2014.  Semi-User Conference, Semi HR Tech Trends Conference, one of the more intriguing agendas filled with practitioners from across industry.  The keynote will be the famous Moneyball guy Billy Beane – remember the Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill movie about baseball and selection metrics, that Billy Beane.  He was really the first guy to bring selection metrics to the forefront of what we in Talent Acquisition now use daily.   He did it to get the best baseball team possible, using the smallest payroll possible, to stay competitive in a world of competition willing to spend whatever it took.  Sound familiar to your own industry!?

I’m looking forward to seeing him talk, again.  The first time I ever saw Billy speak was the day after the Oscars when Moneyball, and it’s actors, were up for a number of awards.  He had great stories from that, plus his normal presentation on metrics.  That was a few years ago.  Things have evolved, as has the emphasis of everyone now using the same metrics.  So, now what?  What do you do when those who have more money than you, now are also using your metrics as well?  My guess is you get back to strategy and culture, and make sure you follow it, like crazy!  It should be very interesting.

On a side note, ERE recently released their annual ‘State of Recruiting‘ study.  You know what they found out?  You don’t like to be called ‘Recruiting’.  In fact, the majority of you prefer to be called ‘Talent Acquisition’.  Did you know that?  It’s uncomfortable to me.  I like to shorten everything.  I like to simplify.  So, going from one word to describe something, to two words to describe something, seems totally ridiculous!  I can’t tell you how much of a pet peeve this is to me.  It’s like when someone named “David” or “Michael” demands you call them by their full name instead of “Dave” and “Mike”.  I hate those guys!  What do you mean you want me to use two syllables when I can only use one!  I demand efficiency!

My guess is people who do this type of business for a living, on the corporate side, felt like they needed two words to keep up with Human Resources.  “Well, if they have two words in their department name, we need to words in our name as well!”  No one would admit this, but in reality, it’s how this stupid stuff happens.  There is actually nothing wrong with calling Recruiting, Recruiting.  HR use to be ‘Personnel’, but had to change it because ‘Personnel’ just didn’t encapsulate what ‘we’ really did.  Now, even ‘Human Resources’ is coming under fire from progressives because we shouldn’t think of our employees, our people, as ‘Resources’.  They are People!  So, you get these ridiculous titles like Chief People Officer and VP of People.

I hear you Recruiters.  I know you want to be all big and fancy and “Talent Acquisition” seems so much more big and fancy…  But you aren’t kidding anyone.  You’re still a recruiter.  You’re not ‘acquiring talent’, you’re putting asses in seats.  Get over yourself, and get back on the phone.

I only bring this up because when I’m in Utah with the HireVue folks, I’ll be rubbing elbows with many ‘Talent Acquisition’ Pros.  Talking about all the new cool trends in, well, Talent Acquisition (a little part of me just died).   I think what Billy Beane will all remind of, though, is that while technology and analytics can disrupt any industry, you still need to have great vision, solid strategy and the courage to follow through with your plan.

My guess is that hasn’t changed as much as we like to change what we call ourselves!

SHRM Releases Their New Certification Designations!

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So, currently you have a PHR (Professional of Human Resources), or a SPHR (Senior Professional of Human Resources), or a GPHR (Global Professional of Human Resources) from HRCI.  SHRM announced it was launching it’s competency based program of certified HR professionals, and the one thing everyone wants to know is what are my new letters going to be!?!?

Hello, My Name is Tim Sackett, SPHR.  But not for much longer, soon I’ll acquiesce to the new SHRM certification because that’s what we do as HR Pros, we give in and take it.

I like having letters after my name.  It makes me feel important, even though only HR people have any idea what they mean.  I’ve always known the letters were a little bit of a fraud.  I got my SPHR without every working in HR.  I can say that now because the statue of limitations has run out on SHRM legally taking away my SPHR, plus my SPHR is now worthless in the eyes of SHRM so they could care less about it!  In 2001 I accepted my first corporate HR gig, after working at a recruiting agency for eight years. I sat for and received my SPHR, without technically ever working in HR.  I did have eight years of recruiting experience, which mostly consisted of sales.

Either way, I felt proud to have letters behind my name.  This is why I’m super excited when SHRM chose my little old blog to make such a super big announcement of their new designations!  Here are the new SHRM Certification Designation letters (if they allowed me to choose them):

HRN – Human Resource Ninja – The HRN designation is for HR Pros who actually get something done, and you never have to hear about it.  That shit just happened and nobody knows how it happened. That’s because it was done by an HR Ninja!

SHRN – Sr. HR Ninja – Like the HRN, the SHRN gets stuff done without needing acknowledgement, but also without notice gets rid of horrible performing employees and leaders, never to be heard from or seen again.  Cold HR killers.  You need to get rid of an under-performing employee? Call a SHRN!

CHRR – Corporate HR Recruiter – The CHRR is a designation for those folks who work in corporate recruiting but don’t actually recruit, but they do a lot of stuff that sounds like recruiting, but isn’t really recruiting, because they don’t really want to recruit, they want to be in HR.  Is that clear?

SCHRR – Sr. Corporate HR Recruiter – The SCHRR is savvy enough to not only not doing any real recruiting, they’ve made a career out of coming up with analytics to prove how good of a non-recruiter recruiter they really are.  The SCHRR is also tech savvy enough to find programs that will endlessly post and pray, so now they can find ways to use Pinterest to not recruit great talent.

NHRBP – Not HR Business Partner – The NHRBP is someone who is so strategic, so business savvy, they aren’t actually considered to be in HR any longer.  A NHRBP can actually run your company. They know everything: Operations, Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc.  Just don’t ever ask them to plan a picnic, organize your annual United Way drive or send flowers to a grieving employee, because they don’t do that!

SNHRBP – Sr. Not HR Business Partner – Or as we like to call it- The CEO.  Moving forward SHRM will now push that every single CEO in the world get their CNHRBP certification.

HRGP – HR Global Professional – The HRGP is like the current GPHR but we moved the letters around. This is for those people who fell into HR and traveled overseas in either high school or college and decided they would rather live outside of America.  We don’t understand them either, but American companies like to feel like the people they send overseas to offend other countries have some insights, so here you go.  No SHRGP will be offered because why.

PhDP – The Doctor of People – I had to do this one for my professor friends who teach HR – hello Matt Stollak and Marcus Stewart! The only way you can get this designation is by spending most of your life at university and actually getting a PhD, and teaching HR classes every Tuesday and Thursday from 9am to 10:30am.  I might actually go back to school because having a PhDP would be the coolest designation ever!

I can’t wait to use my SHRN designation! Thanks Hank!