Corporate Recruiters Don’t Fear Agency Recruiters

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Do you believe the title?  It’s common belief, in most Talent and HR circles, that most corporate recruiters fear agency recruiters.  Go ahead and argue if you would like, but it seems a little silly.

The reality is, true recruiting professionals don’t fear amateurs.

It’s like a really great professional Photographer.  They charge money because they offer something someone is willing to pay for.  Professional photographers don’t fear the mom at the soccer game with her $2,000 dollar camera and $5,000 dollar lens.  Who cares that you have the equipment, if you don’t know how to use it!?  Pros don’t fear amateurs.

So, if you are a really good corporate recruiter who knows how to really recruit, agency recruiters don’t scare you, because you know your stuff!  That’s the problem, though, right?  The reason so many people feel the title of this post is true is because we all know so many corporate recruiters, who really don’t know how to recruit.  They aren’t pros, they’re amateurs.  Amateurs fear professionals when it comes to meeting head to head in competition.

The best professionals love it when a talented amateur tries to play at their level.  These types of individuals help to push both parties to do the best work they can.  Or, at least, they should!  A great agency recruiter, should push an average corporate recruiter to want to get better.  An amateur agency recruiter will starve, that’s why you only see amateurs in the agency ranks for a very short period of time.  If they aren’t good, they don’t eat! That is why on average, agency recruiters tend to have more recruiting skills than corporate recruiters.  Agency folks aren’t full salary. How they are compensated forces them to have better skills, on average.

So, how do corporate recruiters ensure they become professionals?  Well, I love Malcom Gladwell, so I’ll steal a little of his 10,000 hour concept.  You must make yourself a true recruiting professional!  You need to invest time and development in yourself, in the recruiting industry, to become a pro.   That means as a corporate recruiter, you focus on recruiting, not becoming an HR Pros. What?!  Most corporate recruiters are corporate recruiters because that’s their path to get into a straight HR position.  Their endgame is not recruiting, it’s HR.  That’s a problem, because they are not fully vested into the recruiting game.  This is an amateur move.

Your reality is, those who get promoted are usually professional at something.  Become a great recruiting pro and the powers-that-be will take notice, and you’ll find yourself in positions you never thought possible.  True professionals don’t worry about promotions, they worry about becoming a better pro at their craft.

The next time you start feeling yourself pushed by an agency recruiter, don’t curse them for what they do, embrace them for what they push you to become — a better recruiter.

 

Reasons To Try Stuff

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Last week I got a chance to speak at the 5th annual Michigan HR Day on Social Recruiting.  The group was great, I had fun, we gave out some Coach Bags and I made some HR ladies uncomfortable.  I don’t actually intend to speak and make anyone uncomfortable, that isn’t a long term plan of speaker success.  But it usually happens to a small number of folks.

Here’s how it normally goes:

1. I talk about how to use a social networking site like Facebook to recruit great talent.  Show them how to do it.  Show them how they can get really specific in who they are searching for by skill, gender, location, company name, Likes, etc. All really good information, and the crowd eats it up! Things are going really well for me.

2. “Um, I have a question?”  Here it comes.  You probably noticed it yourself in the line above. He said ‘gender’ didn’t he? You can’t do that mister!  I’m an HR lady. You can’t do that. Then she pulls out her HR lady badge.

3. I say, “Yeah, you can do that”, and pull out my HR Guy badge.

4. She says, “No you can not!” Like my Mom, but scarier. “If you use a program like The Facebook to recruit, you’re going to have ‘disparate impact‘!”

5. I’m a pro, I’ve been here before. So I start asking questions, like, “Do your hiring managers ever see your candidates?” Yes.  “What the difference if they see them as a candidate or as an interviewee?” Well. “If you have a hiring manager willing to discriminate, that isn’t a Facebook issue, that’s a manager issue, isn’t it?” Yes. “Do you have any set of demographics you would like to have more of in your organization, like female engineers, let’s just day?” Yes. “What are you really worried about when recruiting on Facebook?”  Silence.

We don’t try stuff, because trying stuff could cause change.  When I speak about things people haven’t tried, a very small group, no matter where I am, will immediately try to come up with reasons on why they shouldn’t try it.  Not why they should. Our initial reaction to change is to find reasons to not change.

It really has nothing to do with recruiting on Facebook.  Facebook’s own demographics will show almost a 50/50 gender mix. LinkedIn, admittedly, is heavily male dominated.  Do you recruit on LinkedIn?  Do you see pictures of potential candidates on LinkedIn?  Aren’t you, the HR department, the ones pulling potential candidates, who have been trained not to discriminate when it comes to hiring?  So, what’s really the issue?  You see, it breaks down very quickly.

We aren’t really concerned about disparate impact or being discriminatory, we concerned about this guy asking me to do something I’m not comfortable with.  I just like playing Farmville and watching so funny kitty videos on The Facebook.  Do make me feel like I should have to do work on there as well!

The problem we tend to have in HR is that we don’t find reasons to try stuff.  We are pros at finding reasons not to try stuff.  Find some reasons today to try stuff, you’ll be a better HR Pro because of it.

Tattoo Hiring

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A tattoo is basically forever.

I know, I know, you can get them removed by laser now. But most people don’t go into a tattoo proposition thinking I can’t wait to pay a couple of thousand dollars to get this removed! It’s permanent baby. Like a Sharpie, but better!

Most organizations do Tattoo Hiring.  They believe we are going to hire this person forever.  In fact, go ahead and tattoo the logo on their butt while their in orientation.   But the life cycle of most hires is similar to that of your tattoo you got on Spring Break back in 2001.

Tattoo Hires:

1. Day 1 – it’s a little painful, but your so excited to have the person on board.

2. First couple of weeks – pain has gone away, still doesn’t look right, but you can tell you’re going to love them. And you keep showing the new hire to everyone you see, that has yet to see them.

3. Years 1-3 – Tattoo Hire is awesome. You’re proud of your tattoo hire. People comment on what a great hire.  You couldn’t be more proud of your tattoo hire!

4. Somewhere past year 3 – the first Tattoo Hire went so well, what the heck, time for another Tattoo Hire!  This time we’ll go bigger and better!

5. Into Tattoo Hire #2’s first year – you begin to notice your original Tattoo Hire doesn’t look as good anymore. Isn’t performing as well. You think it might be time to change your original Tattoo Hire.  While Tattoo Hire #2 is more awesome than you can imagine!

6. Time to remove Tattoo Hire #1 – You’ve finally made the decision, Tattoo Hire #1 has to go. It’s going to cost you thousands of dollars to remove, but Tattoo Hire #1 just isn’t what you want anymore.

That’s alright you’ve got Tattoo Hire #2!  I mean what could go wrong, a Tattoo Hire is forever, right?

Organizations that hire with a Tattoo philosophy are bound to fail.  It’s not that you can’t expect, or want, employees to stay with you their entire career.  You can.  The problem we face is when we don’t set up our organizations to support forever hires.  The new tattoo always looks better, because it is usually more defined and brighter and you put more thought into it.  An employee is no different.  You can’t let a more tenured employee fade.  You must keep them vibrant and up to date.  Or, many times you will spend a ton of money replacing them.

 

Everybody Knows How To Hire

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I could argue, although many HR/Talent vendors don’t want to hear this, that hiring is still a black art.  Our reality is we, still in this day and age, have no idea how someone is actually going to perform in our environment in the position we put them in. Although, we truly believe we do know exactly how they’ll do.  Until they fail, then we blame them, not our own inept ability to select the right talent for our organizations.

I have two quotes from Seth Godin regarding expertise.  The first:

“It’s easy to pretend expertise when there is no data to contradict you.”

That’s all of us and our hiring managers who claim we are ‘great’ at hiring, yet have no concrete measures to back up this assertion.   We also allow ourselves to ignore what our data is telling us, if we don’t believe it fits the story we want to tell.  “Well, Ted is a one of our best managers, he’s been here a long time. Sure his 90 day turnover is twice as high as the next hiring manager, but that’s not Ted’s fault, he has high turnover positions.”

Here’s the other quote:

“Relying on the ignorance of a motivated audience, isn’t a long term strategy.”

These two quotes go together in my view of hiring.  Many times we allow hiring decisions to be made by very motivated people who need talent and are being pressured to get things done.  When you add these two things together, you have disaster.  Not in the short term, but in the long term.

Have you ever seen the resume of the HR Pro who tends to make it three to four years at an organization, then moves on, and on, and on?  Every three years or so? This is what happens.  Ignore data. Rely on the ignorance of a motivated audience.  Eventually it all catches up on you, and you need to go perform your black HR magic somewhere else!

Everyone knows how to hire.  Very few people know how to hire well.  The best are the ones who listen to their data, and don’t allow those incapable of hiring, to hire.  This isn’t easy.  This takes courage.  You will have some battles to fight within your organization to make this happen.  But it beats moving all of your stuff every three years.

7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves

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It’s that time of the month!  No, not that time – a better more enjoyable time!  It’s the FOT monthly webinar!   This month FOT will be doing Recruiter Makeovers and giving Recruiters 7 ways they can reinvent themselves as Marketers!  As always it’s FREE and comes with HRCI credit for all those SHRMies.

We know – you’re feeling stale as a recruiter. We get it, that’s why we’re partnering with Jobvite for the May FOT webinar – The Recruiter Makeover – 7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves as Marketers. The world’s full of great products/services that became commodities, and unfortunately, there’s a lot of recruiters in danger of becoming commodities if they don’t change with the times. Odds are you feel the shift under your feet – great candidates are less responsive than ever to average recruiters, which means you have to become a more effective marketer of the brand and opportunities you represent to keep your closing rate high.

If you’re still reading, that means you haven’t been average in the past. Join us for this FOT webinar and we’ll give you the roadmap for a career makeover that includes the following goodies:

—The Ugly “Before” Picture – We’ve all seen the “before” pictures used in makeovers and this one is no different. Using your “average joe/jane” recruiter, we’re going to take a snapshot of the recruiter most in need of our makeover. Brace yourself, because “before” pictures in makeover workups all look like mug/prison shots of Lindsay Lohan, right?

—Trendspotting 101 – We can’t start prescribing the skill equivalent of makeup or liposuction for recruiters until we tell you about the trends that are causing the need for the makeover. Candidates have more options and messages flowing to them than ever before. Whether its the emergence of Indeed, Glassdoor, LinkedIn or the social recruiting scene, recruiting is morphing into marketing. We’ll compare and contrast some of the trends to tell you why recruiters are evolving into marketers even as they keep their core recruiting skills strong.

—7 Ways Recruiters Can Reinvent Themselves As Marketers – Makeover time. We’ll hit you with our list of things you can do to reinvent yourself as a marketer who just happens to recruit for a living. You can do this. Don’t believe the naysayers that will say this is hype. Those people are just trying to keep you average.

—Our Top 5 List of Recruiters Who Have Strong Marketing Game – It’s all empty talk until we give you examples, right? The FOT crew will break down our top 5 list of recruiters who have added the marketing toolkit to their games, complete with emphasis of which of our “7 Ways” list they specialize in. Everyone in the world needs role models – even recruiters. We’ll tell you who to connect with and emulate to become a marketer in the recruiting game.

Evolving your game as a recruiter isn’t easy – it takes thought, expertise and time you don’t have, because you’re busy filling positions. Join us for the May FOT Webinar and we’ll show you how to add marketing chops to your personal recruiting brand so you don’t get left behind.

CLICK HERE IF YOU’RE A SMART TALENT PRO!

Michigan HR Day 2014!

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Tomorrow, Wednesday April 23rd, I’ll be speaking at the 5th Annual Michigan HR Day.  What the hell is that, I assume you’re asking yourself!?  Well, five years ago, Michigan Governor, Rick Snyder (He’s the One Tough Nerd guy) and his team thought Michigan needed an HR Day, so they made one up.  Apparently, no one on his team was aware that Michigan SHRM had an annual state conference to discuss virtually the exact same things.  Now, Michigan is lucky enough to have two state conferences, one by Michigan HR Day and one by Michigan SHRM.

Michigan HR Day is actually really big.  1000 or so HR Pros from all over the state.  They keep it super cheap, like $50, and you get a full day’s worth of HRCI credits!  Maybe that One Tough Nerd guy is smart after all!

This being the fifth year, I was asked to speak.  I wasn’t asked the first four years because I wasn’t boring enough.  This year’s keynote will be given my Quicken Loans Chief People Officer, David Nachbar.  I’m actually interested in hearing him for the simple fact that Quicken Loans is like the new age Detroit sweatshop!  Stick 5,000 20 somethings into buildings in downtown Detroit selling high cost loans to people who can’t afford them, and little buy little purchase up all available real estate in the city of Detroit until you can rename the city ‘Quicken Loansville.’  Can’t wait to hear about their culture!

The lunch keynote is given by some legal person regarding the Affordable Care Act. I’ll spare you the details…

You see where this is going.

I get to bring up the rear!

I’m in the last session and doing Social Recruiting MacGyver Style, teaching HR ladies how to the Facebook and the Twitters to recruit great talent.  I’m giving out Coach Bags and Free Hugs, it’s going to be a blast.  At least once I’ll show a slide of Richard Simmons and use the word “Pimp” repeatedly when discussing LinkedIn!

Unlike SHRM, I wasn’t asked told I couldn’t swear, so I’m assuming I won’t be asked back for the 6th Annual Michigan HR day.  That means you only have one shot to come see me.  I’m on at 2:15pm, if you come and try to leave I will purposely call you out in front of the entire room.  You can follow all the happenings on the Twitters @MichiganHR or #mihrday.  I love to meet people who read the blog, so if you do come out and see me, please stop by afterwards and say ‘Hi!’

Evolving Just In Time Talent

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If you’re in the talent/recruitment game you are well aware it’s a Just In Time (JIT) game.  Has been that way since we were called the Personnel Dept. and will be that way for the foreseeable future.  Executives and hiring managers hate this about recruitment.  They think we should have this ‘pipeline’ of great candidates waiting to come into our organizations the moment we lose someone, or have a need to add additional talent.  But, we all know that while in theory that sounds really nice, it’s not reality.

There is a faction that tries to sell that this can happen, through things like talent communities, etc. Again, the reality is this is these types of things are just a show for our organizations, they really don’t do what our hiring managers are desiring.  Having a pipeline of candidates, who have yet to be screened, interviewed and offered (i.e., your talent community) is still just JIT talent.  Maybe a little quicker, but still far short of expectations from hiring managers.

So, how to you get On Demand Talent?

Eventually, we are going to see companies take a page from the contracting talent world and they are going to ‘bench’ their next hires.  In contracting great talent gets ‘benched’ in between their projects.  They actually get paid not to work, but be ready for the next major project they’ll be working on.  Could be a week, could be a month.  Corporate benching will be slightly different. Let me give you a peak of how corporations will eventually evolve JIT Talent to meet the expectations of their executive teams and hiring managers:

1. Active sourcing of top talent, even when they don’t have an opening.

2. Full screen, interview process and selection decision of this talent, even without an opening.

3. Contractual offer and benching bonus to be the next hire for a certain position.

What does all that mean?

Let’s say you have a group of Engineers.  You know at some point, based on your annual metrics over the last 10 years, you will lose an engineer to turnover within the next 12 months.  It’s critical that when you lose that engineer you have a replacement quickly, but the current cycle time of sourcing, interviewing and accepting is taking 8-12 weeks for your critical skill set.  Sound familiar?  Your hiring managers expectation is you’ll have someone in 2 weeks.  Which is impossible in your current process.

An On Demand Talent model would have you, without an actual opening, go through your full engineering search. Find that person who is right for you and extend them a hiring contract for the next available opening in the next 12 months. For accepting this ‘spot’ on your depth chart, you will pay this candidate a bonus.  Could be a one time bonus, could be a monthly bonus.  In the mean time, they continue to work at their current position and company, and wait.  When they get the call, contractually they have two weeks to give notice and start.

You meet the expectation of your organization, you have succession ready to go, you just created a better talent demand system.  Yes, it costs money.  But, so does having an opening in your organization for two to three to six months, while projects sit idle.

What do you think?  Blow holes in my theory of On Demand Talent in the comments.

 

30,000 Days

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I had something happen to me recently that was really just one more reminder that life can change in an instant.  It seems like life has a way of trying to shake us awake and bring your focus back to what’s really important, when we start to focus on things that really aren’t that important.

Here’s the deal.  If we are lucky we each have about 30,000 days to live.  (I’ll wait, go ahead and do the math…) Welcome back. 30,000 days seems like a lot of days.  The thing is that 30,000 number is really best case scenario.  Many will not make it to 30,000, and those that do, I can’t tell you those 30,000+ days will be your best days.

So, what are you doing with your 30,000 days?

I won’t say I’ve wasted 16,000 already, because I’ve done some pretty remarkable things.  I’ve got a great wife. Three great kids.  A solid career.  It’s taken all of those 16,000 days to get to this point.

Here’s what I’ve learned to this point in my 30,000 days:

– I’ve stopped valuing how valuable each day is.  I mean, I value all that I have and my life, but it gets lost on the daily basis of life.  I get big picture, small picture over takes it constantly.

– I don’t enjoy the things I enjoy, enough.  I have enjoyment, but if I only have 30,000 days, I should be enjoying those things more.

– I don’t spend enough time with those I love.  In the end I won’t cry over not being able to work another minute.  I will cry over not having another second with those I love.

My guess is many of us will have the three things above in common.  Many of us are in this race of life.  Until we realize we are just racing to the end. At which point, you’ll go, oh wait a freaking minute, I don’t want to win this race!  Go ahead, I’ll catch up later!

This doesn’t mean I want to sell off all my worldly possession and walk the earth like Caine from Kung Fu (look it up Millenials).  I don’t.  I like my stuff!  It helps me enjoy my life.  I like my work.  I like to play more than work (my guess is that’s 99.9% of the world!).  This isn’t about balance.  30,000 days doesn’t care about your stupid balance.  It’s a clock, and it’s ticking.

In my 30,000 days I want to leave the world a better place than when I arrived.  To each of us that means something different.  One person might want to care for sick kids. One might want to change our environment. One might want to help homeless. I’ve decided I want to leave the world 3 young men who will create a legacy of their own.  Three men who will take my vision one step further and help to leave the world a little better as well.  If I spend my 30,000 days being the best Dad possible, I think I’ll feel content that I spend my 30,000 days pretty well.

What are you going to do with what’s left of your 30,000 days?

Can I Be Completely Honest?

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“Can I be completely honest with you?” is a phrase usually followed by some sh*t you don’t want to hear.  We talk about this concept a bunch in HR.  We need to tell our employees the truth about their performance.  We work to coach managers of people on how to deliver this message appropriately.  We develop complete training sessions and bring in ‘professional’ communicators to help us out on the exact phraseology we want to use.  All so we can be ‘honest’ with our employees.

Can I be completely honest with you?

No one wants you to be honest with them.

They want you to tell them this:

1. We like having you work here.

2. You’re doing a good job.

3.  You are better than most of the other employees we have.

4. We see great things coming from your development, and you’re on target for promotion.

5. Here is your annual increase.

Now, that might actually be ‘honest’ feedback for about 5% of your employees.  That means you will be saying a different version of honest to the other 95% that won’t like you being completely honest.

That is why talent management is really hard.  No piece of software will help you with this one fact.  Most people don’t like honest.  The cool part of this is that most managers don’t like to be honest. It’s uncomfortable. It causes conflict.  Most people aren’t comfortable telling someone else that they have some issues that need to be addressed, and most people don’t take that feedback appropriately.  You tell an employee they have ‘room for improvement’ and they instantly believe you told them they suck and they’re about to be fired.

So, as managers, we aren’t completely honest.  We tend to work around the truth.  The truth is we all have things we need to get better at, and it sucks to hear it out loud.  If someone tells you they welcome this feedback, they’re lying to you and themselves.  Those are usually the people who lose it the most when they are told the truth.  People who tell you they want honest feedback will believe you’re going to tell them ‘honestly’ they’re a rock star.  When you say something less than ‘rock star’ they implode.

So, what’s the honest solution to this?

Say nothing.  Set really good metrics. Metrics that show if a person is performing or not.  Make sure everyone understands those metrics.  Then, when the employee wants feedback, set down the metrics in front of them, and shut up.  Don’t be the first to talk.  The employee will give you some honest feedback if you wait.  Which will open the door to agree or disagree? Otherwise, you’re just working on subjective.  Subjective and honest don’t go well together.

But, you knew that. I really like having you stop by and read this.  You do a great job at your job. You’re certainly better than all those other readers who stop by and read this.  I’m sure you’re on your way up!

 

Homing From Work

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This might be the phrase for 2014.  Every year we get stupid business phrases that become part of our lexicon:

  • “Use it or lose it!”
  • “Necessary Evil”
  • “A seat at the table”
  • “Thinking outside the box”
  • “Silo Mentality”
  • “At the end of the day…”

For 2014 I’m calling it – “Homing from Work!”

Fast Company released an infographic recently that had some interesting facts about how, especially in the U.S. (I have to say stuff like that now, because I have this international audience, which in itself is funny since the most international I’ve ever gotten is Canada and Mexico! Which I don’t really even consider international, they’re more like Northern and Southern suburbs of the U.S.) , workers are working more hours, and feeling like they have a healthy work/life balance.  Since 2011, there has been a 30% increase in the number of people working more than 9 hours per day, and 80% of white collar workers feel they have a solid work/life balance.

That doesn’t sound right, does it?!

Well, there’s a bit more!  93%! Yes, 93% of workers take care of personal business and family needs during their work day, while at work.  63% increase in surfing and shopping online – more women than men! Surprise, surprise. If you make over $100,000 you’re more likely to exercise during your work day. Workers under 30 are 76% more likely than workers over 50 to visit social networking sites while at work.

Now, that sounds about right!

“Homing from work” is nothing more than what it’s always been, but now we have a term for it!  Basically, you have some personal stuff that needs to get done, but you can’t do it after work or the weekend, so you do it at work.  It’s been going on since the 9 to 5 was invented!  The one thing you need to be aware of, though, is it works both ways.  If you want to “Home from Work” that’s cool, but don’t give me grief when you need to take a call from home or catch up on something during the weekend.  It’s not either/or, it’s both.  You can’t do one without an expectation of other.

I know you’re checking into Facebook at work. I know you’re booking your airline tickets for your vacation at work. I’m fine with that, but don’t act like I owe you something if you need to work an extra hour one night, or put in some hours from home.  Hoomie don’t play that.  Go ahead and home from work, just know that it comes with an expectation of working from home.