Advice We Need, but It’s Super Hard to Take! #wdayrising @Lin_Manuel

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I’m out at Workday Rising this week in Orlando and yesterday I got the pleasure of listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda speak for the morning keynote. For those who follow me socially, I’ve seen Hamilton the musical four times (almost a 5th, but I got swindled!). So, I’m a bit of a super fan! Hamilton tickets aren’t cheap, it’s an investment to be a fan!

Miranda’s first big break was one he created himself when he wrote his first musical called “In the Heights“. Lin-Manuel is a Puerto Rican-American and in musical theater, there were basically almost zero rolls, so if he wanted to do musical theater he felt he needed to write his own role, so he did.  It was successful, which led to other opportunities and to him being able to develop Hamilton.

The advice so many of us need, but it’s super hard to accept is that many times to be successful, or chance your dreams, you have to create your own opportunities to make that happen.

Especially, if you don’t have the same privilege as others trying to do what you’re doing. My mom started her own company because she was sick of outperforming dudes in the same company and not getting the recognition. Miranda wrote his own roles, not thinking it would be ‘broadway’ successful, but that it was something he could perform locally and show people his abilities and that would lead him on his path.

It would be easy to say he was lucky with In the Heights, but it’s not really luck, he’s truly a genius when it comes to musical theater. He created his own luck by putting in years of work creating something that was perfect for him. It’s a great reminder for any of us who are feeling that there just isn’t the ‘perfect’ opportunity for you in the world.

My favorite quotes and ideas from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s keynote:

  • He came out on stage at a giant technology conference and said, “I feel like I’m launching Windows 95!” which drew huge laughter from the crowd.
  • When asked if he accepted the offer to do the Mary Poppins movie immediately he said, “NO! I had to go ask my wife!” And explained when you have a partnership you have to discuss these types of things because it has a huge impact on the other person, on your life, even if it’s a dream come true. (he seems super grounded!)
  • Hamilton musical stuff:
    • Burr came from a privileged background, a famous grandfather, father was the president of Princeton, he had so much to lose by saying or doing the wrong thing, and this shaped his decision making. Hamilton came from nothing and had nothing to lose. This clearly shaped his behavior and decisions and gave his enemies much to use against him, but he had nothing to lose, in the beginning. Imagine if we all went through life as if we had nothing to lose? What could we accomplish?
    • When you get criticism, and Lin-Manuel as an artist gets a lot of it, it’s important to understand the point of view from where it’s coming. Then, you can make the decision, do I accept that and change, or do I go back and try to change them.
    • “The best idea always wins” – Miranda talking about his writing and production process with his team.
    • “The teller changes the story” – Each person who tells a story will change it slightly based on their perspective. In HR we see this all the time as we get multiple sides of issues in our environments.
    • The interview asked Hamilton how he decided to use all minorities in the cast of Hamilton. He said if I made a hip hop founding father story and used all white dudes, you would have thought I messed up! We do Shakespeare and we constantly change the characters to whatever and it’s accepted, why can’t we do that with the founding fathers? It doesn’t change the story.
    • How did he come up with doing a Hip Hop version of the founding fathers? Hamilton’s story is a perfect hip hop/rap story. He came from nothing. Had huge bravado. Rose up to be powerful and wealthy. Got into a gun battle. Sounds like hip hop!

More to come tomorrow on my breakdown of Workday Rising specifically! But I had to write about Lin-Manual Miranda!

What is the biggest driver of Employee Engagement?

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I got to see Marcus Buckingham speak at the HR Technology Conference in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s the 2319th time I’ve seen him speak. I’m not sure if I’ve seen Marcus or Josh Bersin speak more, it’s probably almost a tie. Basically, if you go to HR conferences, you get to see those two dudes speak, a lot!

That’s not a bad thing. Both bring great data and are strong presenters, Marcus has the English accent which all American’s love. Marcus and ADP’s Reseach Institute released some new data on Engagement and that was the main focus of the talk. The research shows that 85% of employees are just showing up to work, because only 15% are ‘fully’ engaged, and if you’re not fully engaged, you’re basically showing up to collect a check.

That was pretty shocking, but the most shocking piece the research showed was the number one driver of engagement in any organization had to do with one simple thing: Are you a part of a team.

The research shows that being a part of a team is the strongest predictor of full engagement. There are others, like being new to an organization is fairly strong and makes sense. When we first start working at a new job, we are usually more engaged. Do you trust your team leader is another strong predictor, but first you better be on a team!

Being a member of a team.

It seems fairly simple, but for those of us who are constantly working on teams, we know it’s not. You could simply just throw everyone who works for you on teams and think, “okay, I just fixed engagement!” It’s really more about the dynamic of being on a team where you feel you belong and have a role that is valuable to that team.

Belonging is a big part of being on a team and being fully engaged. There are plenty of people who are on teams but don’t feel like the team they’re on needs them or wants them. Or you are on a team that isn’t successful. Turns out, failure is a big deterrent to engagement as well.

Once you are on a team, it then becomes critical that you trust the team leader. Lack of trust of the team leader is another negative driver to engagement. This then becomes more about the leader themselves establishing trust, and having team members who are open enough to first assume trust. Too often we get on teams and immediately believe the team leader is keeping things from us, probably because many times they are.

In any team, in the beginning, or when new team members come in, they should do a transition meeting. A meeting designed to establish trust from the beginning. It’s a time to get everything out in the open, at the beginning (or when it’s new for someone else) and do things like ask all the questions that usually go un-asked but then become issues down the road, establish communication likes and dislikes, share items that you should know, but might not, etc. I always have this facilitated by someone outside the team, so the leader doesn’t try and control the outcomes.

Go download the research paper, there’s great information about how to drive higher engagement in your organization and more information about the importance of the team dynamic.

I’m a Proud ATAP Member! Are you?

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At every talk I do I put up a logo slide. All of the logos that I personally support in my normal, everyday work world. My company HRU Tech. My blog, The TS Project (this one right here!). Fistful of Talent, where I still write, and the Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals (ATAP).

I always get the question, what’s ATAP!?

Quite simply, ATAP is an association that supports all aspects of the talent acquisition profession. It’s similar to an association like SHRM for HR, or ATD for learning and development professionals. It was the brainchild of Ben Gotkin and Gerry Crispin. The membership is a whos-who of the greatest recruiting and sourcing minds on the planet!

At ATAP we have teams of TA volunteers who are constantly working on solving and improving Recruiting’s biggest issues and opportunities. One of the ATAP committees developed and released a universal set of Sourcing metrics, and are currently working on a similar set for TA as a whole.

ATAP founded Global TA Day where we had thousands of TA pros and corporations support the profession on Sept. 4 this year with some awesome celebrations!

A talent acquisition body of knowledge has been developed and the association put together a complete database of every recruiting certification on the planet (there’s way too many, BTW!). One of the committees has developed an on-going series of developmental webcasts for members.

I’m writing about this today because today I’m in Washington D.C. meeting with the ATAP Board of Directors, of which I’m a part of, and discussing ATAP’s strategy for the future. Our goal is to be the one association that every recruiting professional on the planet can join and have a community that supports them at all levels. An association that for once and all support Talent Acquisition as a full-blown profession, and not a career we fall into.

We launched in 2016 as a 100% volunteer organization and we have recently added our first full-time staff in the role of Executive Director, Kristen LeBlanc. Our President, Jim D’Amico, head of global TA at Celenese, has big ideas and plans for growth. And we have a board of great TA leaders and committees full of volunteers, from all over the country, who give their time and knowledge endlessly.

What can you do to help? 

I got involved with  ATAP as a founding board member because I believe there is no more important function in a company than Talent Acquisition when it comes to improving the talent and success of what we all do. Is that a little over the top? Maybe, but I love our industry!

I need more TA pros and leaders to come join us. To invest in your development and your team’s development on an ongoing basis. Do you know what our peers in HR do? They support SHRM and the HR profession.  You know what most TA pros and leaders do, right now? They show up to work.

The vast majority of our industry does not belong to any professional association or do any professional development on an ongoing basis. We need to change that!

Come join us at ATAP and help us shape the future of talent acquisition! 

If you can’t do it today, build it into your budget for 2020. All of our organizations want and need TA to be better. Joining ATAP is a great step in putting yourself and your team in a community of the top TA minds in the world.

TA Tech Vendors – become a sponsor and support the profession that buys your products! 

When in Doubt, Hiring Attractive People Usually Works Out!

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The first time I wrote that in a post, it was 2012 with a post called, “Hire More Beautiful People!“. In 2014, it was, “Do Managers Have a Bias for Hiring Attractive People!” (Spoiler Alert – Yes!) In 2016, I doubled down as the science continued to tell us, pretty people, make the best employees with, “Pretty People Make the Best Employees!”  In 2018, it was “The One Big Problem with Being Pretty!”

All of them pre-Internet outrage wars. So, the fall out was minimal. A few ruffled feathers from some ugly folks, but all in all, people believe science! That’s hard for the extra-libs! They want to kill Trump for not believing science, but then it’s hard for them to kill me when I’m using science.

So, here we are in 2019, the height of #outrage culture and Business Insider feed my obsession to write about the Attractiveness Bias in hiring with, “11 Scientific Reasons Why Attractive People Are More Successful in Life!” I love science!

I think I write about our need to hire attractive people so much because it’s right there in our face and yet no one wants to admit to it! You see, I was raised a red-headed stepchild. I know what it’s like to not be attractive and lose out in life to some idiot who looks like Brad Pitt. To me, it might be the biggest travesty of our time!

So, what does “science” tell us about being attractive (remember – this is science, it’s not me!):

Since I’ve been writing about this concept of “Hiring Pretty” I haven’t really changed my position. When in doubt, hire an attractive one!

It’s a bit fascinating to me that there is so much research about this topic. But, like me, I think dorky smart people, who most of us wouldn’t consider attractive, are trying to prove all of this wrong, but we can’t! Those damn pretty people still keep coming out on top! It’s like they have pretty privilege.

There is one giant reason most people don’t get upset by this concept of “hire pretty”. For the most part, we all think we’re fairly attractive! Not all the time, but at our best, when our game is flowing great, we look in the mirror and go “yeah, I’d hit that!” Come on! Be honest! You believe that!

I mean, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a hotel room getting ready to go down and speak and look in the mirror and think, “yep, they’re about to get destroyed by you, beautiful bastard!” Then, sixty minutes later, I see pictures of myself on social media and I look like a troll! A f@cking TROLL!

Every time I’ve ever struggled with getting a hiring manager to actually make a decision to hire, and they just won’t, I know the problem. I haven’t given them someone pretty enough to hire! Once I find an attractive candidate, they always pull the trigger and make the hire. It’s science, we can’t stop it.

So, kill me in the comments. I’m just sharing our reality that we continue to ignore. We love to hire pretty!

Where Does Corporate Logo-wear Go to Die?

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This is the very first blog post I ever wrote! It was 4-12-09 over at Fistful of Talent. I just got back from HR Tech, this past week, where I was wearing a bunch of corporate logo-wear (see the pic above wearing at Patagonia vest from Candidate.ID) and it made me think for as far as I’ve come, I haven’t really come that far at all! 😉 

If you are like me, you’ve had a job or two in your career, and each stop along the way you pick up a few extra pieces for your wardrobe that you wouldn’t have necessarily picked out on your own.  These pieces usually are of the polo shirt variety, but they need not stop there as I’ve been given dress shirts, t-shirts, baseball hats, jackets, watches, sweatshirts – to date no undergarments – Thank you!

In almost every situation, these items were encouraged to be worn on casual Friday’s (check on Punk
Rock HR’s post on Casual Fridays).  My question is once you leave an organization, what do you do with this corporate logo wear?  Also, where does it all go?

I have to admit that most of my previous corporate wear went to Goodwill and I imagine (in my own little fantasy world) that somehow it all gets funneled into the international Goodwill community.  From there I know that there is some guy in need in West Africa wearing my “Applebee’s  #1 HR Peoplestacks 2007” jacket, not knowing what Applebee’s is or what he is wearing such a limited edition item.  I can say that I’ve never seen anyone locally wearing my gear, so at the very least I appreciate Goodwill for not re-selling my stuff local!  Can you imagine seeing someone at the movies wearing your shirt – how do you start that conversation “Hey – that was me – I’m the Applebee’s Peoplestack Guy!”

So, what’s the point?

I have to admit, it is usually us in HR who has this bright idea to reward our people with logo merchandise.  On one level we believe our associates will appreciate the gear and having the ability to promote the company they so proudly work for.  On another level, we are probably missing the boat completely, especially when looking at generational differences in terms of rewards and recognition.

I do believe Baby Boomers and the older Gen X set probably do feel appreciated when getting some of these rewards (assuming these aren’t the only rewards).  But, I would dare say, Gen Y probably doesn’t view this as reward and recognition and actually might take this as a negative now feeling like they have to or should wear these items at work.

Rule of Thumb:  Save your money and challenge your department to come up with other ways to reward and recognize.  That being said, I’m wearing my Careerbuilder.com Logo Nike golf shirt right now which just goes to show you, HR vendors need to go high-end to get into my closet!

(BTW – none of this has changed. If you want to get in my closet it better be branded swag! Shout out to Smashfly, OC Tanner, and Saba for great branded swag this year!) 

 

10 Resume Phrases That Will Get You Hired…Or Not…

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Liz Ryan is one of those enigmas in the space of HR and Recruiting. She was an executive in HR when I was still in elementary school! She was also a “Junk Rock” singer before Laurie Ruettimann was Punk Rock HR! She was also an early internet writer in our space and got in early on the LinkedIn Influencer space. She has giant traffic and writes in a very safe way for places like Forbes, etc.

I’ve personally never seen her at industry conferences or events, I’m not even sure she’s a real person, at this point, she might just be A.I.! Besides all the writing she also does watercolor paintings for her posts, which is another quirk I don’t quite understand, but let’s face it, I’m just jealous of her massive traffic!

Here’s an example of what Liz’s content looks like 10 Boilerplate Phrases That Kill Resumes.

Liz’s list of killer resume phrases are:

  • Results-oriented professional
  • Cross-functional teams
  • More than [x] years of progressively responsible experience
  • Superior (or excellent) communication skills
  • Strong work ethic
  • Met or exceeded expectations
  • Proven track record of success
  • Works well with all levels of staff
  • Team player
  • Bottom-line orientation

I’m sure your own resume probably has a few of these beauties scattered through your 3 or 4 pages. This got my head spinning on what do we need to put on our resumes to get noticed, and, more importantly, get us hired!

So, here are my 10 Killer Resume Phrases to Get You Hired:

  • Guaranteed not to fall asleep, much.
  • I will give 110%, 10% of the time.
  • I always show up to work on time, if you come and get me.
  • There’s no I in Team, but there is an M and an E.
  • Completely clear of all past communal diseases.
  • I’m all about making money. (Graduate of Gary Vee University!)
  • Likely to Perform well.
  • Will do almost anything, once we define “anything”.
  • Plays well with others (Oops, that is actually on my resume!).
  • Great personality, when medicated properly.

For all the Hiring Managers and HR Pros out there, you know that while these phrases are unlikely to show up on a resume anytime in the near future, they are probably closer to the truth on some of those rare candidates we all have stories about.  With us all living in this narcissistic world of social media and an elevated sense of self, I don’t see outlandish statements going away anytime soon on resumes!

So, screen well, assess better, use automated reference checking tech, interview better than you ever have, and for the love of St. Pete, smile and have some understanding that so many of those looking in the job market grew up in a world where we have all been told how awesome we are!

I’m on a Liz Ryan watch. Let me know if you’ve actually seen or met her. The pics online have been the exact same for a decade, so I’m about 99% sure she’s not a real person or was a real person, died, and now A.I. has taken on her persona and just kicks out boilerplate HR and recruiting content! Which would be totally awesome!

Most of your dreams won’t come true…

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…but some will.

That’s what it’s all about. We don’t live and work and struggle to reach every single dream. That’s impossible. We do all of this for the chance we might actually get the chance to see some of our dreams come true. Maybe even just one. I guess it depends on what kind of a dreamer you are.

I dream of great cookies (okay, not all my dreams are big, but they’re all mine!). I had some once in small local hoagie place in Omaha, NE. The best cookies I’ve ever had. I think the secret ingredient was crack because I could never get enough of them.

Okay, that was a small dream. But I got to experience it! And, it was glorious! It’s been more than ten years since I’ve had those cookies and I still remember them!

 Some dreams we have are giant and most likely won’t come true. I have a dream to coach the LA Lakers. It’s a dream. I’ve done almost nothing to fulfill this dream but dream about it and watch a lot of NBA games and coach my sons in rec league games. This dream, probably won’t come true.

 I’ve dreamed about my boys going to college. I started saving money for this when they were babies, and still save today. We pushed them constantly to get good grades and put their studies first. We made them go to bed at a decent time, even when they complained. We made them eat good food when they wanted junk, so they would have energy at school to learn. We sat with them and helped them fill out applications.

We made them eat good food when they wanted junk, so they would have energy at school to learn. We made sure homework was done before free time took place. We sat with them and helped them fill out applications.

 I have two boys in college and one well on his way. I worked for this dream, for a long time, in many ways.

 You see we all have dreams. Some just happen. Some will never happen. Some you have to work your ass off to make happen.

 Most of your dream won’t come true, but some will.

The One Piece of Technology Recruiting Leaders Say They Can’t Live Without! #HRTechConf

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I led a panel yesterday at the HR Technology Conference around the evolving talent acquisition stack. My panelists were a great group of TA Leaders, Jennifer Shappley from LinkedIn, Jim Livingston from Quicken Loans, and Sola Osinoiki from Prosus Group, who all shared selflessly about their stack, their wins, and their struggles.

One the question I asked all there was what piece of technology outside of your core ATS could you not do without. When I asked the question I assumed I would hear about recruitment marketing technology, or sourcing technology, or some sort of assessment they were using, but that wasn’t the case.

In fact, all three, without being previously prompted said the one piece of technology they could not do without was their Business Intelligence software. Respectively, Linkedin and Prosus used Tableau, and Quicken Loans uses Microsoft’s Power BI. I have a feeling, eventually, LinkedIn will probably make the move to Microsoft as well, because, well, Microsoft owns LinkedIn!

It makes sense that this would be the most irreplaceable tool. At no point in history has data been more important or more powerful to leaders and HR and TA leaders are no different than any other function. In fact, we could argue HR and TA have combined more data than any other function.

My push back was doesn’t your core ATS deliver the data you need. Every single ATS on the market is building or has built powerful internal BI and reporting tools. Why are they going through this effort if you’re going to just extract your data and pull it into a business intelligence tool?

The response from the panel was basically, enterprise-level organizations, that are using multiple pieces of technology within their recruiting stack need to have the story and pictures around all of this data to truly understand what is happening, and what decisions need to be made moving forward. SMB organizations that are primarily only using the ATS for most of their recruiting can get away with using the internal reporting from an ATS, but the larger your stack becomes, the more of a necessity it is to have BI tools.

Great insight from the group on how modern HR and TA leaders are really invested in their data like never before. These leaders are having to push themselves and their teams to really educate themselves around data so they keep their organizations on a successful path. It’s definitely a leadership skill set that is underrated and probably not looked at enough when it comes to promotion and hiring, but that is quickly going to change!

The difficult piece of BI tools is developing and showing the ROI. You buy a sourcing tool and you can show a drop in third party spend. You purchase a LinkedIn membership and you can show how it helped you hire so many more of a certain role, etc. You buy a business intelligence tool and it will show you what you should be doing that you’re not, but it isn’t as clear on giving you a straight line ROI.

The difference is, though, your executives, especially the c-suite, gets the value of great data. So, in reality, it becomes less of an ROI conversation, and more of a strategy conversation, which for the most part, they are already bought into. So, two great BI tools to go demo, and there are others out their as well. Modern-day TA leaders must-have business intelligence in their stack!

Mothers, Sons, and Daughters! #HRTechConf

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I’m out at “The” HR Technology Conference this week in Las Vegas and a few years ago HR Tech started a Women in HR Technology event that happens the morning of the opening of the conference with specific content built around the unique role of women in our industry.

I’m a big fan, and I think LRP (the company that runs the HR Technology Conference, and Jeanne Achille who chairs this part of the conference) have done an exceptional job building content that you really find nowhere else in our industry. Which leads me to the panel I was on, “Mothers, Sons, and Daughters” with my co-panelist, Jess Von Bank and Kyle Lagunas.

The idea Jeanne gave us and we ran with was around this idea that women in technology play these multiple roles, that are very different than their male counterparts. Jess is a single Mom of three young girls and a successful professional in our industry. Kyle is a son and aspiring father, and I’m a son to a woman who started the business I currently run. We all have very strong beliefs around the impact and influence women make on our lives.

I can’t stress enough how this type of content does not happen at conferences. Not technology conferences. Not HR conferences. Not any conferences I’ve been to! It was real and raw, and we were able to have this awesome conversation with a bunch of attendees that was unfiltered.

You see my quote from the tweet above. One of the questions we wanted to tackle is, “Do women make better leaders?”

This part of the conversation really centered around how we were raised and what were the things our mothers gave us to be successful in life. Where those things the same things that possibly give women an advantage in leadership roles in the modern workplace?

Gen Z and Millennials are looking for workplaces and leadership that are empathetic, compassionate, developmental, and understand that they want to bring their whole self to work. Traditional leadership kind of frowned on all this. You come to work, to work! Don’t bring your personal life to work!

Any leader can have the traits to be successful as a modern leader, but we find that females tend to have more of these traits than males, and it much easier for them to develop these traits deeper, primarily because of how they were nurtured and nurture as mothers.

I left the session inspired by the women in our industry and the great things they are doing to move the workforce and our workplaces forward. Great organizations need great talent. That won’t happen in a traditional workplace that our parents grew up in. My mom ran a successful company partly because the employees of her company were her family. She used those words constantly and meant it. She took it very personal to make sure they could and would succeed.

I want to send a huge thank you to LRP and Jeanne for allowing us to indulge in a very personal topic that is ever-present, but rarely talked about!

Is Being a Founder a Career Death Sentence? #HRTechConf

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I’m out at The HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas this week and it struck me at the number of ‘Founders’ I meet when I’m here. The founders I meet seem like the perfect person you would want to hire. Super motivated. Smart. Creative. They believe in an idea and they are willing to do what it takes to make that idea a reality.

Sounds perfect, right?

Turns out, we actually hate hiring Founders! In fact, in a strange twist of fate, we actually hate hiring successful Founders more than failed Founders! Why? Well, if you’re successful we feel you will just leave us and go be successful again. If you fail at being a Founder, we feel you’re beaten down enough to come be your employee and you’ll probably be super happy to be an employee!

That’s why most all of us suck at hiring! We have no idea what really matters or makes a difference!

We know that like 99% of startups fail. So, we have these great people who are willing to go try and hit a grand slam, but they strikeout. Because they actually took that big swing and did all those things we think are great, we actually then don’t want to hire them. Um, what!?

Not only that, if these same folks are actually successful, but then decide to exit, then we really don’t want to hire them because we somehow don’t think they’ll hang around long enough!?! We are all insane and have no idea how to judge talent! “But we only hire the ‘best’ talent!” No, you don’t! You hire people who don’t intimidate you in any way.

Part of it is the concept around entrepreneurship. We all say we want to hire employees who are ‘entrepreneurs’, but not ‘real’ entrepreneurs. More like entrepreneurs who went to school to be entrepreneurs but they were smart enough to know they would actually fail at being entrepreneurs so they’ll come work for us and be entrepreneurs, non-entrepreneurs!

I find that most of the “Founders” out here at HR Tech are not the type of folks who went to school to be an Entrepreneur. I find most folks who go to college and get a degree in “Entrepreneurship” actually want to start a bar or a t-shirt clothing brand or have one nerdy friend who can code, so they go after starting some sort of delivery-service app.

I find most of the HR Tech founders have come from all walks of life, but mostly technologist, where they ran into an issue and said to themselves, “there should be a solution for this”. Very few were from HR or TA. Many did work in corporate environments which is where the idea came from. So, the reality is, they have already shown to want to work in the corporate world.

So, what does this all mean? We need to look at someone being a former Founder of a company as a great thing, not a bad thing. Those former founders can be complete rock stars in your company!