Tag Archives: Performance

Recruiting is Worthless

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Paul DeBettignies recently had an article over at ERE – Where Have All the Recruiters Gone – which gave me the idea for this post.  In Paul’s post he wonders why recruiters are networking face-to-face anymore. I think many of us in the recruiting field who have been in the field pre-internet, probably wonder this and many more things as we look at how the industry has totally transformed over the past 20 years.  A person today can get into recruiting, sit at a desk, have great internet skills, marginal phone skills and make a decent living.  They probably won’t be a great recruiter – they probably won’t make great money – but they’ll survive – they’ll be average or slightly above.  It’s why the recruiting function in most organizations gets a bad rap!  In corporate circles I’ve heard it called “worthless” many times – and for some this is their reality.

Recruiting is Worthless, if…

…you’re a hiring manager and you never have face-to-face conversations with your recruiter when you have an opening, and when you don’t have an opening.

…you’re recruiters believe it isn’t there job to find talent, talent will find them.

…your organization believes it’s the recruiting departments job to find talent.  It’s not, it’s the hiring managers job to ensure they have the talent they need for their department, recruiting is the tool that will help them.  This “ownership responsibility” is very important for organizational success in ensuring you have the talent you need.

…your recruiting department acts like they are HR – they aren’t – they are sales and marketing.  Too many Recruiters, in corporate settings, don’t want to recruit, they want to be HR – which makes them worthless as recruiters.

…if your recruiters have more incoming calls then outgoing calls.

…if your recruiters believe their job begins Monday thru Friday at 8am and ends at 5pm. The best talent is working during those times and most likely won’t talk to you while they are at work.  That’s not a slam on you or your company – they are great employees, it’s what we expect from a great employee.

…your senior leadership team feels they have to use an “executive search” company to fill their higher level openings, because our recruiting department “can’t handle it”.

…if they are victims – “it’s not my job”, “we can’t do that because…”, “marketing won’t allow us to do…”, “our policy won’t allow us…” etc.

…if they just send hiring managers resumes of candidates that have come to them, without first determining if the person is a fit for the organization and a fit for the hiring managers position – before sending them on.

…they haven’t developed the organizational influence enough to change a hiring managers, hiring decision.

Recruiting is worthless if in the end they have failed to show the value of their service back to the organization.

Recruiting is the one department in the organization, besides sales, that truly has the ability to show ROI back to the organization, yet so few of us take advantage of the opportunity we have!  There is nothing more important, and have a bigger competitive advantage, than our organizations talent – and oh by the way – THAT IS US! We control that.  Recruiting isn’t worthless, unless you make it worthless.

 

 

Are You Drowning In Your Position

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You know the crazy thing about drowning?  It doesn’t look like you’re drowning! Read this from Mario Vittone:

  1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
  2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
  3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
  4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
  5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

Take away the eventually water death – and this seems eerily familiar to some of our employees…

As HR Pros/Hiring Managers/Supervisors we have people who are drowning in their positions right now – but we can’t “see” them drowning.  Employees have natural things they do in terms of self-preservation, much like some one who is truly drowning.  They begin to do: put in extra time at the office, they seem a little to stressed for normal work, they make things bigger than what they are (this gives them an excuse in case of failure), etc. – it gives you an impression “they’re on top of it” – but they aren’t.  They tend not to ask for help – they don’t want anyone to know they’re in trouble – they can handle it on their own.

How do you spot an employee who is going under?

1. Look for employees who are disengaging with key relationships they need to have to get their job done.  Why?  Employees who are drowning – will disconnect from those who will be the first ones to spot them drowning – key hiring managers or peers from other departments – which buys them time from their own supervisors finding out they aren’t staying afloat.

2. They become defensive or blame shift – when this isn’t usually part of their normal behavior.  Another mechanism they use as a life preserver –  “it’s not me – it’s them!”

3. Drowning employees tend to cling to each other.  Rarely will you see a drowning employee hanging with a top performer (that’s one more person who will see they aren’t making it).

How do you save an employee who is drowning?

That’s even tougher than spotting them!  Because it takes you confronting them, and not allowing them to cop-out, most HR Pros/Hiring Managers/Supervisors find this very uncomfortable (hello Performance Management!) It basically takes you jumping into their role – deep – and pulling them out.  Most of us don’t like getting our clothes wet and ruining our iPhone – so we try and throw them things to help instead – additional training, words of encouragement, EAP, discipline…sound familiar?  When what they need is some full life saving – to push them up for air and take them to shore (you’re sick of metaphors at this point! – actually do the job with them for a while, so them how it should be done).  You still might decide when it’s all done to let the person go – they just can’t handle the position – but some will actually learn from the experience and turn out to be really good.