Comments on: Maxine’s Challenge http://www.ere.net/2008/03/20/maxines-challenge/ Recruiting News, Recruiting Events, Recruiting Community, Social Recruiting Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:00:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Joshua Letourneau http://www.ere.net/2008/03/20/maxines-challenge/comment-page-1/#comment-5036 Joshua Letourneau Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:57:00 +0000 http://www.ere.net/2008/03/20/maxines-challenge/#comment-5036 Apparently, Maxine was the wrong hire. The atmosphere and work environment appear to be inconsistent with the skills she brings to the table. Not all recruiters are created equal, and not all recruiters have skillsets that correlate to success in all environments. This call center is looking for an admin-minded Board Scrubber with no real sales, consultation, or persuasion skills. After all, the thought process is to simply provide bodies ('good, smart people', although it appears to be a sin to delineate what qualifies someone as 'good' or 'smart' in the hiring managers' eyes). In my professional opinion, I'd recommend letting Maureen go and I'd hire an offshore-RPO to scrub boards and toss paper to an temp-employee appointment setter. I imagine you could get a temp in at $15/hr for a 3-mth gig, along with a $3000 investment in a 90-day offshore RPO deal. This would equate to about a $10,800 investment (likely less over 90 days than the fully burdened rate they're paying Maxine on a W-2 monthly or 1099 basis). The Fallacy of Sunk Cost (and/or Loss Aversion) dictates that it's better to cut ties and eat a loss than to throw good money after bad. However, the question here is not one of the best course of action for the organization - rather, it's about the best course of action for Maxine (relative to increasing her success). The first thing for Maxine to understand is that 'success' is a relative term. In this particular situation, it appears that 'success' is about Time-to-Fill and/or # of Hires and nothing else. Quality-of-hire and Retention are not KPIs' upon which she is judged . . . therefore they only matter to her personally and are obviously not correlated to call-center performance. It's mentioned that Maxine has operated in call-center environments that did not offer the same level of customer service and response time. She needs to let go of the practices that dictated success in lower-performing environments and adapt to those that are prevalent within higher-performing call-center environments. There are many examples of not only call-center environments, but also mfg environments, etc., where the level of automation and repeatable processes allow organizations to be less concerned with Quality-of-Hire than others (for example, Toyota). At the end of the day, I'd recommend Maxine clear her mind of practices that led to success in other types of environments and work to adapt to those that enabled continued success within the one she currently resides . . . meaning if she decides to stay. My fear for Maxine is that by assimilating to this environment, she's commoditizing herself and her rare skillsets (sales, consultation, persuasion) that separate her from the hordes of telephone name generators and board scrubbers out there. In that sense, I'd recommend moving on. I'm interested to see if this echos the self-proclaimed 'expert opinion' that has been promised as an addendum. I'm also interested in seeing what others think about this scenario. Apparently, Maxine was the wrong hire. The atmosphere and work environment appear to be inconsistent with the skills she brings to the table. Not all recruiters are created equal, and not all recruiters have skillsets that correlate to success in all environments. This call center is looking for an admin-minded Board Scrubber with no real sales, consultation, or persuasion skills. After all, the thought process is to simply provide bodies (‘good, smart people’, although it appears to be a sin to delineate what qualifies someone as ‘good’ or ’smart’ in the hiring managers’ eyes). In my professional opinion, I’d recommend letting Maureen go and I’d hire an offshore-RPO to scrub boards and toss paper to an temp-employee appointment setter. I imagine you could get a temp in at $15/hr for a 3-mth gig, along with a $3000 investment in a 90-day offshore RPO deal. This would equate to about a $10,800 investment (likely less over 90 days than the fully burdened rate they’re paying Maxine on a W-2 monthly or 1099 basis). The Fallacy of Sunk Cost (and/or Loss Aversion) dictates that it’s better to cut ties and eat a loss than to throw good money after bad.

However, the question here is not one of the best course of action for the organization – rather, it’s about the best course of action for Maxine (relative to increasing her success). The first thing for Maxine to understand is that ’success’ is a relative term. In this particular situation, it appears that ’success’ is about Time-to-Fill and/or # of Hires and nothing else. Quality-of-hire and Retention are not KPIs’ upon which she is judged . . . therefore they only matter to her personally and are obviously not correlated to call-center performance.

It’s mentioned that Maxine has operated in call-center environments that did not offer the same level of customer service and response time. She needs to let go of the practices that dictated success in lower-performing environments and adapt to those that are prevalent within higher-performing call-center environments. There are many examples of not only call-center environments, but also mfg environments, etc., where the level of automation and repeatable processes allow organizations to be less concerned with Quality-of-Hire than others (for example, Toyota).

At the end of the day, I’d recommend Maxine clear her mind of practices that led to success in other types of environments and work to adapt to those that enabled continued success within the one she currently resides . . . meaning if she decides to stay. My fear for Maxine is that by assimilating to this environment, she’s commoditizing herself and her rare skillsets (sales, consultation, persuasion) that separate her from the hordes of telephone name generators and board scrubbers out there. In that sense, I’d recommend moving on.

I’m interested to see if this echos the self-proclaimed ‘expert opinion’ that has been promised as an addendum. I’m also interested in seeing what others think about this scenario.

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