I have not posted in a long time.  Its been a busy summer but thats hardly an excuse.  I have not had much to say and since the ERE site was redesigned, for whatever reason, I have not been as involved.  As the days grow shorter, however.....

Got an email today from The Adler Group about their Performance Based Hiring method.  Lou thought it might be interesting to apply it to the presidential candidates, but I dont think that was such a good idea.

I normally only link rather than long excerpt, but I dont have a link, so here is the meat of the item:

 1.Competencies and Skills. This refers to the technical knowledge the person possesses in comparison to real job needs. A 2.5 ranking on this factor means the person has average skills and motivation, or the person is light on skills, but with a high ability to learn.

On a basic level I'm not convinced that Obama has all of the current skills needed to handle world affairs, allow the U.S. to become energy independent, handle the complex military issues involved in the job, and has the depth of knowledge needed to handle global and domestic economic policy. McCain seems to have a better grasp of the military, energy and international issues, but I think they have the same level of understanding of economics, which is too low in my mind for either of them to be qualified. There is no question in my mind that Obama has more upside on the economic understanding side, but this is ranked under Factor 10: Potential, so he gets no credit here for that. On this factor, I give the edge to McCain. He scores a Level 3.5 in my book, with Obama barely getting a Level 2.5. For Obama fans, I know this is harsh, but I just don't believe he has the executive level skills required for the job. Given his lack of experience, I would not present Obama as a potential candidate, if I was given the search assignment to find the President of the United States. However, on this basis McCain probably wouldn't make the cut, either.

2. Motivation to Do the Work Required. Assessing motivation to do the work requires an understanding of real job needs plus an evaluation of the candidate's past performance in handling similar type work. I rank both candidates extremely high on this factor. They've both demonstrated an ability to work around-the-clock for causes they believe in. However, I'm concerned about McCain's health and endurance, so I'd give the edge to Obama on this one: 5.0 to 4.5.
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3. Team Leadership. This factor addresses the candidate's ability to select, motivate, and develop a team of outstanding people. One could dispute my rankings here, but there's no question Obama has the ability to motivate supporters and select highly qualified advisors. It's less obvious if he will take their advice and make the necessary decisions. I question both candidates' choice of running mates, but as of now, I like McCain's less than Obama's. Governor Palin does not seem like a wise choice for me. It seems more politically-based than performance-based. Biden's a safe choice, albeit uninspiring. I have some concern about McCain's ability to build a world-class team of advisors, given the Phil Graham problem. On this factor, I give Obama a solid Level 4 and McCain a solid Level 3.
   
   
4. Problem-Solving Ability. This refers to the candidate's ability to figure out the causes of typical job-related problems likely to be faced on the job, the ability to articulate a vision of how to solve the problem, and then putting together a comprehensive plan-of-action. Judgment, intelligence, and insight all fall within this factor. However, a person's point-of-view will dramatically affect your ranking here. If you believe Obama's liberal agenda will work, you'll give him a Level 4 or better here. However, I believe it lacks substance and logic at the detail level. Worse, it doesn't fit my economic viewpoint of how to maximize the country's growth for all groups. Despite this misgiving, I need to give him a 3.5 on this factor for his ability to visualize a problem and put together a rough plan. On the McCain side, I believe he can handle a broader variety of problems he'll be faced with on the job, particularly achieving energy independence, handling global affairs, and handling the economy appropriately, so I need to give him a Level 4 here. (Note: I recognize my bias here.)
   
   
5. Achievement of Comparable Results. This is one of the most important factors in our ranking system. It's based on a track record of delivering results. Using our Performance-based Interview process we examine major accomplishments in detail, examine the trend of these accomplishments over time, and then compare them to the performance needs of the job. Even if both candidates were equally strong on this factor, if you have a different understanding of real job needs, you'd rank your candidate much higher than the other.

   In this case to be fair, the comparison needs to be made on each candidate's past performance in meeting their party's agenda. On this basis you'd have to rank Obama low on the major issues (i.e., energy, crossing the aisle, international affairs, the economy, managing a budget, etc.), since he does not have any track record here. On the philosophic decision issues (i.e., selecting judges, funding for stem cells, etc.), you can rank him high if you agree with him and low if you don't. McCain's track record is much better on the performance issues, but certainly not perfect. While he's never held a comparable executive position, he does have some relevant military experience. However, other than holding a real executive position as Governor of Alaska, I rank Palin comparable to Obama on the performance comparison. As an independent, I rank McCain a 3.5 on this factor overall and Obama a 2.5, due to his lack of a track record of performance.

   Over the years I've noticed a "rookie risk" factor whenever someone is given a job way above their current level of performance, despite the intellectual capacity to do the work. While top people can articulate a vision, without a track record of past comparable performance, there is a high degree of failure. There are just too many things that can go wrong when someone hasn't experienced and successfully dealt with similar issues. It's comparable to putting a great MBA professor in charge of a business. This point is fully explored in Bossidy and Charan's book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.

   This is the primary reason I'm very concerned with Obama. As an appropriate example, consider Abraham Lincoln's first few years in office. He couldn't convince Robert E. Lee to command the Union forces, he couldn't solve the secession problem diplomatically, he had a terrible war plan, he couldn't find a competent general for three years, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died needlessly, and he wouldn't take the advice of his security advisors not to go out in public on that fateful day in April, 1865. Despite Lincoln's successes, in my opinion many of these rookie mistakes could have been avoided with a more seasoned executive in charge, achieving the same overall outcome more smoothly.

6. Organization, Planning, and Management. For an executive-level position this factor involves ensuring that operating and strategic plans are met, budgets are negotiated and achieved, organizations are designed to be effective, and accountability is the watchword. Philosophically I rank McCain higher than Obama on this factor. However, Obama's ability to build a nationwide political team, raise enormous amount of money, mobilize a huge portion of the electorate, conduct a world-class convention, and get nominated for the Presidency is proof that he is strong on this factor. Overall, McCain's campaign seems a bit disorganized. Also, I'm not convinced that running an effective national campaign like Obama has is transferable to running a country. Based on these points, I'm giving Obama a Level 3.5 on this factor, and McCain a Level 3.0.
   
   
7. Trend of Growth over Time. Examining results over time reveals upward growth, but these need to be compared to the actual needs of the job. We expect a top performer to show significant growth in a short period of time, taking on bigger comparable job-related assignments, and performing successfully. While the job-related accomplishments are thin for Obama, the growth is fast. Despite this, his academic performance, rapid rise in politics, and a successful campaign are indicators of high potential. Regardless, since the track record is short, you couldn't give him any more than 3.0 on this factor if you're an independent. McCain has a strong senate track record, but from an accomplishment perspective, his military growth seems adequate, but he wouldn't be considered a fast-tracker. Overall, I'll give him a 3.5 on this factor. However, on this same factor, Palin should also be considered a fast-tracker, but it's still way too much of a leap to handle the Presidency.
   
   
8. Cultural Fit and Style. This factor represents a combination of a lot of variables, including how the person's style fits within the organization, their approach and speed of decision-making, working with others, and overall pace and intensity. This is a pretty tough one to evaluate since the President brings much of his own style to the job. However, I tend to prefer McCain's decisiveness and maverick style in getting results over Obama's academic approach. I've placed many top strategy thinkers, and they do not perform as well long-term in line roles over those who can execute and achieve results. I think in a crisis Obama will be too slow to act. However, this will be neutralized longer term, since he'll probably do a better job of putting a strong organization in place. Getting things done requires tough decision making, frequently without all of the information necessary. So, taking everything into account, I'm giving the edge to McCain with a 4.0 ranking, and Obama just a 3.0 on this factor.
   
   
9. Character and Values. This factor involves the critical issues like ethics, honesty, social values, family, faith, morals, and judgment. For this job, and both candidates, I'm going to assume the best and worst. I assume both candidates are honest within their family and social units, but both are ambitious politicians, so their ability to buck the party line is what I'm using to evaluate them on this factor. For Obama I'm still concerned about the Rev. Wright and William Ayres issues. He also has voted 97% on all Democratic issues. For McCain, I'm disappointed that he caved in to Bush after the 2000 elections, and for his selection of Sarah Palin for his running mate - for me she's too extreme on the social issues. To me these are politics-as-usual decisions, but I guess that's the kind of stuff you have to do to get elected. For me, these negative issues offset McCain's strong pattern of bucking party lines and crossing the aisle. Regardless, on the values/ethics factor, I'm giving both candidates a 2.5 ranking. While only average for the population at large, unfortunately it's pretty good for a politician.
   
   
10. Overall Potential to Move Up. For a manager-level position this factor refers to the person's ability to move up one or two management levels or handle more complex business challenges. It's determined largely by the person's trend of growth over time, the ability to logically articulate solutions to complex problems, the capacity to manage and organize teams to achieve success, and their team leadership skills. On this factor I give Obama more long-term upside than McCain, and I believe he does have the potential to be President some day, but not today. There's just too much of a "rookie risk" factor for me to tolerate. Realistically, though, if you're an Obama fan you have no choice, since the McCain/Palin ticket offers you no comfort. If you're okay with his world view, McCain has the potential to be an effective President with the "rookie risk" far less an issue. As an independent, I have to give Obama only a 2.5 on potential to be President today, but a 5.0 to be President in eight years. But it's today's vote that matters. I give McCain a 3.5 on Overall Potential, which is good, but not great.

On this 10-Factor Candidate Assessment Scorecard, from my independent voter's perspective, Obama received 31.5 points (out of 50) vs. McCain's 35.0 points. This, of course, would flip-flop depending on your Republican vs. Democratic leanings. To put everything in perspective, neither of these scores is remarkable. In my search practice a typical strong candidate would score somewhere in the high 30s to low 40s. Regardless of the overall score, we also have some deal-breakers that preclude us from hiring someone. We urge hiring managers to exclude anyone with a 2.0 on any of the 10 factors and look really carefully at the 2.5s (this is average).

Under this basis the "rookie risk" factor is a deal-breaker for me for Obama. If I agreed with his policies, I would only hope that he gets at least a year to put his team in place and get on top of all of the complex issues we're facing before we're hit with some major crisis. On the McCain side, while I don't agree with all of his positions, I can only hope he stays healthy, because I am not comfortable with Palin's social positions. Lieberman would have been my choice for V.P., but I hear this would have crushed the conservative base for McCain.

I dont like the mix of politics and business, although of course thats only a platonic ideal, not a practical reality.  That said, I dont think its wise to expose one's self politically in a business setting because you will cost yourself some money.  

Rather than showcase Lou's system, which probably works pretty well for hiring, its bound to look bad to all sides because we dont like to hear anything negative about our chosen sides.

Now that its out there, I do disagree with Lou on some pretty basic points.  One of which is that "rookie risk" is part and parcel of the Presidency- there is no really comparable job one could have prior to that one.   Buchanan was vastly experienced and a horrible president.  Lincoln was a country lawyer and sometime state rep, and turned into the true father of our country. 

I also disagree with Lou on problem-solving ability.   For one, if you manage risks  well and do things right, you wont get a ton of experience in solving big problems.   The better you are, the worse your record may be, unless your job is to troubleshoot.

For another, I believe IQ is the best indicator of problem-solving ability, all other things being equal.  I leave it to others to extrapolate that to the current race.

Also, I'm  not sure Lou has his history straight regarding Lincoln's election; that very fact WAS the secession problem. 

I wont even touch the ethics and values question, other to say that 'character' based decisions are well known to go sideways because human beings are super complex animals who can behave like gods or devils given the right stimulus.   

The factors in the 'motivation' section appear to be illegal- you may not discriminate in hiring based on the age of the applicant unless there is a bona fide occupational need (e.g. you have to be 35 years old to be President).

All in all, im not impressed with this system for this purpose (admitted by Lou to be a stretch and done for fun), but I would have been better off not knowing about Lou's political views in such detail.   

For the record: IMHO, if Barack Obama is not fit to be President (aside from his politcal positions), than nobody is.

For example, when a senior writer for Sports Illustrated makes an impassioned argument, you might find yourself in agreement.  You would be wrong.

Today's playoff win may have been 'the most amazing of them all' according to SI.  I know that very little work was being done in our office and that watching TV on the Internet is BIG- this was memorable to me for that observation alone . 

Verily, you must never fully trust the experts - self-interest easily clouds judgement; this guy was mad that he had to rent his car for another day.......     

SystematicHR  links to CedarCrestone's whitepaper research regarding the dollar value of human capital automation.  Some good figures in there in case you were wondering what it costs a large firm to change someone's salary for instance, or approve a promotion.   

My takeaway: no surprise, organizations with data warehousing capability show superior return.  Also key: HR Help Desk systems and Competency Management systems.   I see the former as any workflow or task/ticket system - essential for coordinated efforts by small groups, yielding high productivity. 

Yes its true- if you can slice and dice data and use whatever systems you want to use, whenever you want to use them, and still get reliable numbers from your data warehouse, you are going to get your mission done faster, cheaper, and better than the other blokes.

I have been writing (esp. in context of Vurv/Taleo) about my contrary opinion that Talent Management is in a race with advancing data technique; firms with high powered HR data warehouses really don't/won't care if all the application interfaces or databases are from a single vendor. 

John Sumser has been out to prove otherwise. 

He brings the tradeshow experience to recruiters who may have never been to a real event, and packs four hours of real content between a light breakfast, and yes, a free lunch.  His notion: bringing 125 recruiters together at no cost to themselves on a regular basis will naturally lead to good business activity and fun for all concerned.  Sponsors do pay (somebody always has to pay, but John will need to be extra clever to  figures that one out!) but the only expected ROI for a sponsor is the genuine and appreciated halo effect arising from doing something in a true community spirit (and the ritual giving away of schwag, of course).

If its Tuesday and its Cleveland, lament not: its a fine town and we are going to have a great time.  

Learn about the event here.

More interesting news today for the industry, beyond the dismal employment numbers: internal migration (e.g. relocation) is way down in the past year and expected to decrease again in 2008-2009 timeframe.

Reason: if you can't sell your house, you can't take that job in another city. 

If you are a recruiter who does a lot of relo business, you are already probably more of real-estate expert than you might have expected to be at this point......I know I know more about mortgage banking than I ever thought I would.....  

Intersting take on non-compete agreements today on thestreet.com

The gist is than rather than attemp to complete/enforce an uphill battle, you might be better as a firm owner to sell departing recruiters their books of business for (a suggested valuation) 3X sales. 

I think this indeed may be a more common practice in the TPR industry, as we now deal with database transfers to ex-employees at least a few times per month. 

Some tips if you are including database elements in an agreement:

-Make it clear if the transfer will be a move or a copy (e.g. will you retain the data and then both use it going forward, or will you no longer have access to it?)  

-Make it clear when title to the data is passed (upon final payment, upon execution, or something in the middle). 

-Make it clear what kind of data is to be subject and which is not (e.g. company database files , Outlook contacts, Word docs, email archives, etc.)

- You may want to inform your database vendor or IT people that a given data asset may be subject to future transfer- could lower costs to seperate it going forward and avoid mistakes later    

From my seat, it might also be smart to include provisions in any future account sales agreement about solicitation of your other employees- losing one person is one thing; mass exodus is a whole other thing.   

It also might be smart to define what it takes to 'secure' a client (i.e. how much of the work was the salesperson's and how much was the firm's, with a valuation model fitted to each situation)

This is a tough but real aspect of bringing people along in any services business......

For those of you who know who he was, he probably had as much influence on you as he did on me.  We are far from a small group- so rather than echo what so many others have said about him, here are links to a Space.com tribute, part 2,  and his Wikipedia page.

Many, many scientists, engineers, and aerospace types were inspired by his work, and as a vector toward the subject of recruiting, it should never be underestimated how powerful real inspiration can be.

His passing marks the end of an era- although its been well and truly gone since at least the early eighties, when the visual arts began to dominate popular SF.   

Yes I am aware that ERE is not an economics or political website, but events are now so serious in the macroeconomic area that there is little doubt that recruiting will be impacted in the coming months and years by what is happening today.

The bailout of Bear Stearns lasted about 48 hours before taking another turn; the essential wipeout of the firm, sold to JPMorgan for maybe the value of its office furnishings. 

Nouriel Roubini has been an astute observer of the crisis- his Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster have been widely linked and discussed, and we now appear to be at Step 9.

He closes his latest post with the line:

Breaking decades-old rules and practices is a radical action that seriously requires a clear public explanation and justification.   

To which I can only ask:

Where the heck has he been for the last six years? 

I have been watching for what seems like years now as leaders recognize that talent has now almost wholly superseded capital as the key driver of business worldwide. 

Secretary Paulson today gave an important speech regarding an interagency working group tasked with getting a handle on the ongoing credit crisis/ meltdown we are seeing.   I thought the speech was well conceived although I think he laid too much blame at the feet of investors-saying that they had to do more work to understand what they were buying, and that simply counting on credit ratings is not enough.  Frankly, nobody without advanced math degrees could really understand how CDO's and Credit Default Swaps eventually pan out; the essence of the problem is that it appears that nobody can know.  Not to mention that the rating systems are rigged (even if the rating agencies could understand the products, which they clearly don't) being the elephant in the room.  

The quote that really got my attention was this one:
 

"The ultimate success of any CEO is largely determined by the answer to one question: Do we have the right people in the right jobs with the right incentive structure? And these large financial institutions have a large number of key jobs to fill."

If you are in the talent business, you have to be pleased that the very highest levels of economic leadership in our society are thinking along these lines. 

Reading the whole speech might be worth a few minutes of your time- he hits on a lot of the key drivers of our current crisis, without doubt one of the biggest challenges our country has faced in a generation, if not the past 50 years.   

I dont know how anyone in business could fail to be disturbed by this report.*

Not only do we imprison more people than any other nation per capita, we have a ticking time bomb among African-American men, with more than 10% of prime career age behind bars.  Literally decimated. 

In the past 10 years, more than 1000 measures have been passed to increase sentences, and not a single one to reduce them.

This can't continue...... 

*excepting folks in the prison-industrial sector, of course....