How important is that first job for your career ladder? #HRFamous

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In episode 24 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss the escalation of career expectations for college students (as well as the musical Hamilton and Glassdoor/Indeed changes).

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1:30 – KD is now a user of a standing desk. How do you like yours?

2:00 – Hamilton time! Tim convinced the rest of the crew to watch Hamilton on Disney+ and Jlee says she respects it but is not the biggest fan of musicals or history.

4:20 – Tim asks KD and Jlee who they think each of the HR Famous crew is in the Hamilton cast. Tim and Jlee both think they’re Alexander Hamilton. KD doesn’t think that Hamilton is charismatic enough to be Tim. KD wins by being compared to George Washington and King George by his friends.

11:00 – First topic of the day: Indeed and Glassdoor are merging services. Tim thinks that this is bad news for Glassdoor and worries that Indeed will sell out the mission of Glassdoor for $$$.

14:45 – Second topic of the day: new grads! We welcome Tim’s middle son, Cameron, who is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan to discuss his latest experience in the job market. Cam is looking for a job in the entertainment industry in marketing/social media and he spends a lot of his time applying for jobs and reaching out to UMich alums to network.

18:15 – KD asks Cam about the alumni network at the University of Michigan and how he tries to leverage that connection. He talks about the different types of responses he gets and the steep cost of being a member of the U of M Alumni Association.

22:00 – KD and Jlee talk about network fatigue that is occurring right now due to the many people who are currently looking for a job and how this will make it harder for anyone to make new connections.

23:30 – The HR Famous crew wants to see Cam out in the news space talking about his experience. If you want to interview a new grad on his job search or are interested in Cam for your company, find him on LinkedIn!

24:30 – Tim talks about his perspective as a parent of a new grad and an HR professional and how he’s had to watch the struggles of his son enter a bad job market.

26:15 – Tim asks Cam about candidate experience and what kind of response rate he’s getting from companies. Tim talks about how he thinks the data from this year about candidate experience is going to be really poor.

29:00 – KD discusses his worries about post-grad jobs in a COVID and post-COVID world. He thinks we’re setting difficult expectations for high performing college students who are entering the job force. Jlee worries that colleges are just using student’s successes and expectations to get the best crop of incoming students.

32:45 – Tim talks about his blog post he wrote about Cam’s college admissions experience and how the college admission system is screwed up. KD is a big fan of the comments on the blog post and still subscribes to them 4 years later.

35:30 – KD asks Cam about how he remembers his college admissions experience and the frustrations he felt during this time.

37:30 – KD asks Jlee about her experience going through college as a child of immigrant parents. She discusses the high expectations that her parents had for her and how she’s going to change and adapt those expectations for her children.

40:00 – Jlee discusses her rebellious streak as a young adult and how she did well enough to get by and still rise to the top of her field.

41:30 – HR Famous thinks the cream always rises to the top!

44:00 – KD posted a blog post on the HR Capitalist this week about a woman who reached out to him that had worked at the same call center for four years. He thinks that regardless of where anyone starts, the best will always rise and reach where they want to be.

47:00 – Cam talks about what he thinks about taking a call center and his hesitations. He says that he would be more willing to take a customer service entry-level position if he’s joining a company that has great upward mobility and career mentoring.

48:45 – The HR Famous crew gives their last words of advice to Cam on the job search.

COVID Career Pivots – The One Thing You Need to Know!

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On a daily basis, I get messages from folks who are ready to make a pivot in their career, and with so many folks losing their job because of COVID the amount looking to pivot seems to be increasing. Career pivots aren’t a new thing. On average people change jobs like 358 times during their career or something like that.

Here’s how that conversation normally goes when I have a conversation with a friend who’s deciding on a pivot:

Friend of the Project: Tim! So, I lost my job (or I hate my job) and I’ve always wanted to be a Professional Puppy Petter!

Me: OMG! Me Too! I love puppies! So awesome!

FOP: Okay, so I’m currently making low six figures, like $127,350. And while I know I won’t make that same amount in my pivot profession, I still need to make $127,300. What advice do you have for me to become a Professional Puppy Petter?

Me: Don’t.

FOP: Haha! No seriously, petty puppies are my passion! I’ll do whatever it takes!

Me: You have to be prepared to take a pay cut of at least 99% (in reality, for most career pivots, it’s probably 30-40%).

The reality is, most of the actual examples are people asking me how to get into HR. They are usually coming from a sales job or management job where they are making $65-85K. Some even have an HR degree, but little or no experience.

That’s awesome. I love HR! But, you have to be ready and prepared for an offer around $40-45K for your first HR job, depending on the market. That means you need to adjust your lifestyle to make that career pivot. I find about 1 out of 25 people are willing to make that adjustment.

When I first jumped from agency recruiting to HR I took a 65% cut in pay to move into straight corporate HR. I actually lied about how much I was making because it was probably double what my new corporate boss was making. They never would have hired me knowing they were making me an offer so low from I was currently at. But, I truly wanted to make that pivot!

Career pivots take major sacrifice, but often they are worth it if you find a career doing something you truly care about. It’s easier to pivot at the beginning or end of your career. You have less to lose. When you are mid-career with a house payment and kids and a dog, career pivots are almost impossible, without major adjustments to lifestyle.

The one thing you need to know…

Career pivots have less to do with your ability to do the new job and everything to do with your willingness to take a major step back in life comforts.

Good luck out there my friends!

Do you need more Diversity Representation at your organization? (free resource)

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First, let me start by saying, I am not, nor do I try and portray myself as a D&I expert. I am an expert in finding talent. Do you need a black female .Net developer with a computer science degree? I can find that, but you better be ready to pay a lot, because 10,000 other organizations are also looking for that smart lady!

I get asked frequently how can we hire more diverse candidates so I created an eBook that lays out some strategy around acquiring diverse talent for your organization. You can download it for free here:

Free eBook on 5 Strategies to Strengthen Your Organization’s Diversity Representation

What I find is most organizations want an easy button. “Oh, isn’t there a website that will just allow us to post our jobs and it’s full of diverse candidates!?” No. Someone will tell you there is, but they are lying.

I also find a ton of staffing and recruiting firms who claim they “specialize” in diversity recruiting. Again, this is mostly a lie. Now, they might only take on positions where the client only wants a diverse candidate, but this isn’t a specialization, that’s just market segmentation. Either you can find talent, and specific talent, or you can’t.

Increasing your diversity representation takes good old fashion recruiting. It takes work. Why hasn’t Facebook changed its diversity representation in five years? They didn’t want to do the work. They didn’t want to hold folks accountable for doing that work. This isn’t magic. It’s solid sourcing and recruiting. It’s calling out those hiring managers who refuse to hire a diverse and inclusive workforce.

Enjoy the free eBook!

Do Recruiters Still Need to Make Phone Calls?

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Recently, I was on a webinar, and in my presentation, I harped on the talent acquisition pros and leaders on the webcast on why 100% of us are not using texting as a primary first form of contact with candidates. The data is in. Texting works! It works better than email by a mile, but still, less than 50% in the room are texting candidates.

After I was done a great TA pro contacted me and said, “Tim, shouldn’t recruiters being calling candidates!” I feel in love! Why, yes, fine, sir they should always be calling candidates! But, let’s not forsake other tools that are working at a high level. We know people, in general, respond to texts at a much higher rate than email and phone calls.

You see a text and within seconds you read it, and you respond to it at more than double the rate of email or voicemail. In talent acquisition, we are in LOVE with email, even when it doesn’t work.

In 2011, I wrote this post below – funny enough, it’s still relevant today (except now I think we need to add in more texting with those phone calls!)

Do we (recruiters) still need to make telephone calls?

I mean really it’s 2011 – we have text messaging, emails, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – hasn’t the telephone just become obsolete?  Does anyone actually use their cell phones to make actual phone calls anymore?

The New York Times had an article: Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You, in which they delve into this concept of whether the act of making a phone call has jumped the shark or not.  From the article:

“I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ”

Phone calls are rude. Intrusive. Awkward. “Thank you for noticing something that millions of people have failed to notice since the invention of the telephone until just now,” Judith Martin, a k a Miss Manners, said by way of opening our phone conversation. “I’ve been hammering away at this for decades. The telephone has a very rude propensity to interrupt people…

Even at work, where people once managed to look busy by wearing a headset or constantly parrying calls back and forth via a harried assistant, the offices are silent. The reasons are multifold. Nobody has assistants anymore to handle telecommunications. And in today’s nearly door-free workplaces, unless everyone is on the phone, calls are disruptive and, in a tight warren of cubicles, distressingly public. Does anyone want to hear me detail to the dentist the havoc six-year molars have wreaked on my daughter?

“When I walk around the office, nobody is on the phone,” said Jonathan Burnham, senior vice president, and publisher at HarperCollins. The nature of the rare business call has also changed. “Phone calls used to be everything: serious, light, heavy, funny,” Mr. Burnham said. “But now they tend to be things that are very focused. And almost everyone e-mails first and asks, ‘Is it O.K. if I call?’ ”

Sound Familiar?

Now I could easily turn this into a generational issue because for one it’s easy to do, but this isn’t a GenX vs. GenY issue.  This is a basic communication issue.  An understanding of what we do in our industry issue.  Whether your third party or corporate recruitment, we do the same thing, we search and find talent.  There are two basic ways to screen potential talent for fit for your organization: 1. Meet them in Person (no one would argue that this is the best way, but boy it’s expensive if you are using it as your first-line screen); 2. Meet them over the phone (done in some form or another by 99.9% of recruiters).

There really isn’t any way around this issue, we recruit, we make telephone calls.  If you don’t like to make telephone calls, if you believe what the New York Times article believes, you shouldn’t recruit.  It’s not an indictment on you, this just isn’t your gig.

Recruiters like to talk to people, to question people, to find out more about people, not a career, best done by email and text messaging. We need to talk live to others. That’s how we go to work. Doesn’t matter if you’re 21 or 6. It’s how to deliver great talent to our hiring managers.

So, here’s a tip, if you’re in recruitment and you don’t like making phone calls get, out of recruitment, you will not be successful.  If your first choice of contacting someone isn’t picking up the phone and calling them, instead of sending them an email, when you have their phone number, get out of recruitment. If you’re thinking you want to recruit, and you don’t like making phone calls take another path.

Recruiters make phone calls, that’s what we do.

E23 – The HR Famous Podcast: Are you using TikTok on your work phone!?

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In episode 23 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss Jlee’s recent vacation, Tim’s new favorite shorts, different proposed plans for return to work bonuses, and privacy concerns about TikTok and other apps on company-owned devices.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player below) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:20 – Jlee is back from vacay! Jlee went on a working vacation to the beach and returned with a nice tan.

3:45 – Do you turn on an out of office reply on your email when you go on vacation? The HR Famous crew has rarely if never turned on their out of office reply.

6:00 – Tim comes through with the much-needed fashion advice. He says to check out Fair Harbor shorts! (Also, we’re open to a sponsorship!)

7:00 – First topic of the episode: return to work bonuses. Republican lawmakers are calling to an end to the unemployment benefits coming from the federal stimulus package and replace them with a return to work bonus. Tim says that he’s hearing from many companies that they cannot find workers right now.

9:30 – KD lists off a few of the proposed return to work bonus plans that are being considered. Jlee brings up the fact that many states have waived work search requirements for those receiving unemployment benefits.

12:00 – KD praises the government for moving fast at the beginning of the pandemic to get money to those who really needed it, although there may be problems with the policies.

14:00 – Idaho implemented a version of a return to work hiring bonus but the funds are first come, first serve. Tim worries that some people will return just to get the bonus and then quit and go back on unemployment.

16:20 – Tim discusses a company that he is currently working with and how it is harder to recruit positions for that company in places where Amazon warehouses exist.

18:00 – A big factor for many people to return to work depends on decisions schools make to go virtual or return to in-person instruction. KD brings up some counties in the Atlanta area who have decided to do virtual learning for the upcoming school year. Tim talks about how he would want to recruit other families to do virtual learning together.

21:45 – Next topic of the episode: TikTok and employer’s rights! Last Friday, Amazon emailed employees to delete TikTok from their phones. Later in the day, they issued a statement that the email was a mistake and their employees didn’t need to delete TikTok. Wells Fargo also directed their employees to delete TikTok from company-owned devices.

24:00 – Tim brings up the bitcoin hack on Twitter and privacy/security concerns on there as well. Although TikTok is a Chinese owned company, there is still risk coming from American owned companies like Twitter.

25:50 – KD discusses the differences in security issues on different kinds of devices or software. Tim brings up how many tech companies have allowed their employees to work on whatever operating system they’re most comfortable with and how there may be IT concerns surrounding that.

28:00 – KD asks Jlee if she thinks that people will delete TikTok from their personal mobile devices even though most people have other privacy-sensitive information on their devices. Jlee thinks it’s not going to happen and says the only way employers could have complete control over the employee’s devices would have to be somewhat similar to government agencies that work with national security concerns.

30:00 – Tim discusses concerns over TikTok being a Chinese company and therefore, somewhat state-controlled. He thinks a solution may be getting a US-owned TikTok alternative to replace the platform. Jlee is very sad about the potential outlawing of TikTok.

32:00 – Tim thinks that people should be allowed to have multiple logins on a phone as you can have on a laptop or a computer. KD thinks that companies should just pay for their employees to have their own company device to solve any security concerns.

33:30 – The HR Famous podcast promotes wearing a mask! Mask up!

34:00 – Is your family stocking up on new devices for back to school? Jlee’s family is spending a lot of money on back to school and Tim may need to buy his son a new laptop.

35:00 – KD is working on bringing a manager training series online at Kinetix. Look out for that coming soon!

36:00 – Check out friend of the podcast, Stacy Zapar, for recruiter training.

Do you pay a larger employee referral bonus for Black Engineers?

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I know a ton of HR Pros right now who have been charged by their organizations to go out and “Diversify” their workforce.  By “Diversify”, I’m not talking about diversity of thought, but to recruit a more diverse workforce in terms of ethnic, gender, and racial diversity.

Clearly, by bringing in more individuals from underrepresented groups in your workforce, you’ll expand the “thought diversification”, but for those HR Pros in the trenches and sitting in conference rooms with executives behind closed doors, diversification of thought isn’t the issue being discussed.

So, I have some assumptions I want to put forth before I go any further:

1. Referred employees make the best hires. (Workforce studies frequently list employee referrals as the highest quality hires across all industries and positions)

2. ERPs (Employee Referral Programs) are the major tool used to get employee referrals by HR Pros.

3. A diverse workforce will perform better in most circumstances, then I homogeneous workforce will.

4. Diversity departments, if you’re lucky enough, or big enough, to have one in your organization, traditionally tend to do a weak job at “recruiting” diversity candidates (there more concerned about getting the Cinco De Mayo Taco Bar scheduled, etc.)

Now, keeping in mind the above assumptions, what do you think is the best way to recruit diverse candidates to your organization?

I’ve yet to find a company willing to go as far as to “Pay More” for a black engineer referral vs. a white engineer referral. Can you imagine how that would play out in your organization!?  But behind the scenes in the HR Departments across the world, this exact thing is happening in a number of ways.

First, what is your cost of hire for diverse candidates versus non-diverse candidates? Do you even measure that? Why not?  I’ll tell you why, is very hard to justify why you are paying two, three, and even four times more for a diversity candidate, with the same skill sets, versus a non-diverse candidate in most technical and medical recruiting environments.  Second, how many diversity recruitment events do you go to versus non-specific diversity recruitment events?  In organizations that are really pushing diversification of the workforce, I find that this figure is usually 2 to 1.

So, you will easily spend more resources of your organization to become more diversified, but you won’t reward your employees for helping you to reach your goals?  I find this somewhat ironic. You will pay Joe, one of your best engineers, $2000 for any referral, but you are unwilling to pay him $4000 for referring his black engineer friends from his former company.

Yet, you’ll go out and spend $50,000 attending diversity recruiting job fairs and events all over the country trying to get the same person.  When you know the best investment of your resources would be to put up a poster in your hallways saying “Wanted Black Engineers $4000 Reward!”.

Here’s why you don’t do this.

Most organizations do a terrible job at communicating the importance of having a diverse workforce, and that to get to an ideal state, sometimes it means the organization might have to hire a female, or an Asian, or an African American, or a Hispanic, over a similarly qualified white male to ensure the organization is reaching their highest potential.

Workgroup performance by diversity is easily measured and reported to employees, to demonstrate diversity successes, but we rarely do it, to help us explain why we do what we are doing in talent selection.  What do we need to do? Stop treating our employees like they won’t get it, start educating them beyond the politically correct version of Diversity and start educating them on the performance increases we get with diversity.  Then it might not seem so unheard of to pay more to an employee for referring a diverse candidate!

So, you take pride in your diversity hiring efforts, but you’re just unwilling to properly reward for it…

Chief Crisis Officer – The newest c-suite addition in 2020!

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The c-suite has expanded over the years. Originally you had basically the CEO, COO, and CFO. Next, depending on the industry came the CIO/CTO (IT), CMO (marketing), and CHRO/CPO (HR and Talent). Some organizations have added depending on need c-suite roles for strategy, diversity, safety, client/customer support, etc.

Basically, the c-suite is a little like empire building. If you’re a CEO with a decent head on your shoulders you want to surround yourself with people who complement your lack of certain skill sets, or skill sets that need more emphasis.

Don’t be surprised if you start to see another addition to the c-suite roster that I’m calling the Chief Crisis Officer!

Think about the crisis’s that many organizations have had to deal in the past couple of years:

COVID – Work from Home/Remote transition

Social Justice/#MeToo/BLM

Major Client issues (social media blowup, bad press, freak of nature accidents, etc.)

Major Employee issues (labor supply, harassment, D&I, pay equity, etc.)

Supply chain issues

IT Hacking issues

Environment Issues

Stuff we haven’t even thought of yet…

If I’m a CEO today, of course, I expect my c-suite partners to own crisis, but I also need a point person who I’m 100% sure their job is to work through crisis and help us mitigate crisis fallout. Ownership of crisis is critical, as it’s a nature of organizational dynamics to want to push crisis off onto other functions.

We continue to hear stories of organizations that handled COVID and most recently the uproar around social justice with great poise and response. We also continue to hear about the organization that totally mishandled these situations. Leadership, and the ability to have someone high enough in the organization to push back, seems to be critical in getting the proper response all the way around.

Where would your “Chief Crisis Officer” come from? I think it’s definitely a personality set vs. a skill set, in terms of coming out of one functional area over another. You would probably want a person who is more of a generalist, than a specialist, but someone who has a keen understanding of how your operations are run. I don’t think you want someone from outside since part of great crisis management is knowing the history.

The person has to be all in on the organization. I want someone who loves the company, our mission, our employees, our customers, all of it. That person will own it all during a crisis. They’ll take all the stakeholder’s viewpoints into consideration. I need someone who is high details, low rules. Get it done. Don’t miss anything. I don’t really care how it gets done in a crisis, as long as it gets done correctly in the end.

I’m not sure I want someone from legal. They get too caught up in risk aversion. Crisis management is about mitigating risk, not eliminating it. This person will have to be confident, as we’ll need them to push forward with not much information or certainty. I tend to believe the best folks at in crisis situations, in the workplace, are female. Confident, good detail orientation, but not cocky. Quick to move, but not so fast stuff will get missed that doesn’t have to be.

Keep your eyes out, the c-suite will be growing in 2020 and beyond, and many organizations across the Fortune 1,000 will be hiring Chief Crisis Officers!

Will You Have Your Kids Return to School this Fall?

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I’ve talked a lot about return to work, but what about return to school. The reality is, this one decision will have a ton of impact on your workforce. This is playing out across the nation right now and parents are stressed to the max about what’s going to happen.

First, I think both educators and parents believe the best place for kids to learn is in the classroom. No one is really debating this, except maybe those folks who believe in homeschooling.

I heard a quote today that helped me gain some perspective on this issue from the Superintendent from the Ithica, NY school district, he said:

Parents will forgive us for educational malpractice, but they will not forgive us if we don’t take of their children’s health.

In hindsight, I don’t think any parent who pays attention to their child’s education felt like public education was good last spring when everything got shut down and kids got sent home. Remote learning, the first time around, failed miserably across the board in a crisis. We’ll see how it goes this fall for those school systems who have already made the decision to delay or outright not return in the fall.

We’ll forgive the educational malpractice of public education because we understand the extraordinary circumstances. We will not forgive schools returning and kids dying. The nation will come unglued. If you think cancel culture is bad, wait until the first kid who gets COVID at school and dies. There will be complete anarchy.

There are two things American’s won’t put up with: Kids dying and Puppies dying. 

We know the chances of a kid dying from COVID are rare, but they are not zero. If schools go back, some kid will die from COVID. Some teachers and administrators will 100% die from COVID, and it seems like the nation, for those who want return to school, are actually fine with that concept. I mean, look, it’s either you die or I have to stay home and teach my kid math, sorry. For those about to cancel me, understand that the last sentence is called sarcasm.

I get it, trying to work from home and educate your children at home is less than ideal. One of our strengths as Americans is our ingenuity, though. Why aren’t we coming together as neighbors and creating our own neighborhood educational/family bubbles? Five families with school-aged kids get together and each family takes all the kids one day a week and create an 1800s one-room schoolhouse where kids of all ages will do their work, get help, and mentorship from each other.

While the rest of the world laughs at us because somehow we believe wearing a mask to saves lives tramples our freedoms, we need to figure this stuff out, and unfortunately, our government and our public education aren’t really going to help us. But, that’s okay. I decided to have my kids, and I can decide how to educate them. Those “freaks” who homeschooled their kids and none of us understood, figured it out. Turns out homeschooled kids are pretty smart. We can figure it out too.

Public education and higher ed have been broken for a while. The pandemic is speeding up their demise. Tech companies are feverishly working to disrupt this space in ways we can’t even comprehend right now, but those won’t be ready by September. Yep, it sucks. All of this sucks in comparison to a year ago. But, the other great American trait we have is optimism, and I’m optimistic our kids, under their parent’s guidance, will be just fine.