ERE.net

The 20 billion in tax cuts for homebuyers and businesses to help create jobs and revive a sluggish housing market is about to be signed into law today. The legislation, which provides up to 20 weeks in additional pay to more than 1 million people who have lost or are in danger of losing jobless aid, extends until spring a tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time home buyers and adds smaller credits ($6,500) for some who owns a home.

Along with the homebuyer credit, the package contains another $10 billion tax break that allows companies that suffered during the last two years to use recent losses to reclaim taxes paid in the previous five years, when times were good.

This is huge news and good news for recruiters too. keep reading…

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The economy grew 3.5% in the last quarter, signaling a definite end to the recession and the start of a recovery. That’s great news, but look closer and it doesn’t seem that there’s much to celebrate yet. Six-tenths of a percent came from spending by the federal government and another 2.2% from residential construction and auto purchases. The latter number is directly linked to the cash-for-clunkers and the housing credit. That leaves only 0.7% from private industry. This is why we’re not seeing any growth in jobs. The economy is growing because it’s being propped up by taxpayers (and the Central Bank of China) instead of by real growth in GDP. In some places this is known as a ponzi scheme. keep reading…

The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson is about an emperor who hires two swindlers to create a new suit. The emperor presides over a kingdom of prosperity and peace and is pretty concerned about appearances. The swindlers manage to sell him a new suit of invisible material that they claim is visible only to those worthy to lay eyes upon him. Once it is “finished” they drape him in pantomime and he proceeds to swagger naked amongst his minions only to called out by a child who says “the emperor has no clothes!” The moral of the story is that none of his loyal inner circle bothered to tell him he was naked. It had to be a kid on the street who didn’t have anything to lose to point out his folly.

In today’s age, the fable is a metaphor for those in HR who are unwilling to state an obvious truth to a higher up out of fear of appearing stupid, sacrilegious, or politically “incorrect.” They would sooner let a company’s reputation stick out buck naked than tell the truth about the company culture and reputation. This is co-dependency with a superior who wants Yes-men, not accountable partners.

I arrived at this observation because I am always struck by the stark difference between what companies think their employees think about them and what they tell me when I interview them. I also am always shocked about what those employees will say on Twitter, Vault, and any other number of “pink slip” sites about these top-rated employers. I wonder if anyone in competitive intelligence, PR, marketing, or HR ever reads about the fallout of bad managers making bad decisions, including furloughs, reduced hours, wearing double hats, etc. When did having a bad reputation not count?

I’ll give you an example of something that happened to me at Wal-Mart. keep reading…

I recently wrote about the need to directly stimulate job creation by giving employers incentives to hire workers. I’m glad to say that the government is taking the advice seriously. keep reading…

The Recruitosphere is undergoing significant change, and one of those changes just announced was the acquisition by ERE of the only sourcing conference event of its kind: SourceCon. ERE is no stranger to acquiring bright and shiny pieces of the Recruitosphere; the present event was foreshadowed by the purchase of the three-decade-old Fordyce Letter, widely considered to be some of the best information for the search and placement industry.

Now that ERE has taken over the reins of the industry’s only live, in-person sourcing conference, it will be interesting to watch where it goes. David Manaster, owner of ERE, recently described the sourcing community as possessing a “distinct (and quirky) ethos.”

There are many definitions of the word “quirky” in the dictionary. Some of them say it is: far-out with informal terms; strikingly unconventional; idiosyncratic; odd; a strange attitude or habit

Although all of these describe one or some of sourcing’s characteristics, we would take it a bit further and suggest the grassroots sourcing community that has developed over the last decade or so around the teachings of several well-known sourcing gurus is a strikingly individualistic and dedicated workforce bringing some of the most innovative solutions to today’s hiring challenges. Even so, the industry itself is at the threshold of a new era.

For a very long time, sourcing was treated as a red-headed stepchild. Shunted to the darkened far corner of the room, some of today’s sourcers stingingly remember the disregard and sometimes contempt they were held in within their organizations. This was in the very few organizations that even had the foresight or temerity to bring them onsite! Many of them fell by the wayside, disheartened and discouraged by the lack of support, training, and development that they encountered in their daily pursuits. A few of them realized that the choice that lay before them was in the decision that they could either get better or get bitter. The ones that decided to get better trail-blazed the path that led to the threshold we are on today.

It’s only the beginning, folks.

We’re just scratching the surface of where we’re going to go. There are a few things we wish for the Sourcecon conference (and for all sourcers in the sourcing community) moving forward and they are enumerated below. keep reading…

It’s not often that the government of the United States has anything to learn from the government of Singapore, but when it comes to job creation the city has something to offer. The Jobs Credit initiative provides cash grants to employers on a certain percentage of monthly wages per employee. The result: unemployment remains among the lowest in the world at 3.3%, even though the wider Singapore economy has continued to contract. Obviously it’s much easier to do this in a single city and it may not transfer to America, but we seem to be fresh out of ideas that work when it comes to creating jobs.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending and lots of government programs, we’re now close to 10% unemployment, having lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession began. If the economy were creating 200,000 jobs a month it would still take three years just to get back to where we were. And that isn’t all. The economy needs an additional 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth. If the job market returns to the rapid pace of the 1990s — adding 2.15 million private-sector jobs a year, double the 2001-2007 pace — the U.S. wouldn’t get back to a 5% unemployment rate until 2017.

So what’s holding things back? keep reading…

Ask for an inch, and you get a yard! Ask for a staff accountant, and you’re buried in resumes from those who were a controller. Ask for an IT help-desk associate, and receive resumes from the directors of IT. We just aren’t used to having so many overqualified talented people to pick from.

During one recession I remember being young, working in retail, and thinking: “everyone in retail has to have a four-year or master’s degree, for that is what my co-workers all had.”

I didn’t know back then that I was in the middle of a recession, one that pales in comparison to today. People now faced with transition are diligently looking for the right fit, but are also considering applying for positions which they are overqualified for, and, then they are surprised, they are not getting them.

Overqualified workers will be quickly bored, frustrated and discouraged, and the moral in the office may suffer.

One hiring manager said the best time to hire overqualified is when a company is faced with rapid growth, needing to promote quickly without much runway. Having a strong bench with “A” players will position the right talent in key roles, easing the growing pains. This is not the time most companies are feeling that growth.

Some managers are tempted to create that strong bench even without that growth. They want accounting departments full of controllers instead of accounting clerks, or an engineering department full of senior-level designers.

Soon after hiring a clearly overqualified candidate, the manager sees the pitfalls. keep reading…

For some strange reason, Todd Raphael, the ERE Editor, sent me an article on yet another wacko idea pretending to facilitate hiring. He must think I have an axe to grind against wrong-headed hiring ideas. Imagine that! Well done, Todd. This one ranks right down there with handwriting analysis.

The article cites a lady who specializes in what she calls energy profiling. She claims she or one of her licensees can examine your photograph to determine with perfect accuracy (her words) your personality type. Amazing! And to think all those psychologists who worked their way through graduate school, suffered peer-reviewed research, and spent tons of money pursuing advanced degrees for the last 100 years could have just looked at your photograph! Go figure.

I searched, but aside from watching an engaging streaming video taken in front of some very picturesque mountains, I found little proof that she was qualified to produce legitimate hiring tools. Her PR firm did claim she revolutionized the fashion and beauty industries by sharing her simple beauty/fashion assessments with women around the world; helped women align their physical features in perfect harmony with their clothing, jewelry, hair color and style; and provided pioneering insights on weight, sex & intimacy/relationships, depression, self-esteem, parenting, finances, physical health, and spiritual health. Wow. After all that, I guess hiring was the only field left to master.

I don’t know about you, but I like to see a writer have professional certifications or special education that would convince me they actually knew what they were talking about. You know, the same way we would expect a medical correspondent to actually have practiced medicine, a legal expert to graduate from an accredited law school, or an engineer to a have a legitimate engineering degree. But that’s just me.

She presents, as proof of her work, a collection of streaming video segments and personal testimonials from people claiming her system changed their lives for the better. Sorry, folks, this kind of “proof” is nothing more than personal opinion. If you want to know whether something is fact, you have to produce facts to support your opinion. Unbridled enthusiasm unsupported with expert knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I’m sure she is sincere about what she does. No one would make such wild claims unless they were. Unfortunately, using a photograph system to type people and predict job skills is a shining example of pure nonsense.

Let’s list a few facts prepared by the DOL, published in 1978. keep reading…

I am looking at an email in my inbox from June. I’m not going to call anyone out by name in this post, but it’s from an HR Blogger, and in it the Blogger is complaining that they did not get a speaking slot at our Social Recruiting Summit even though they would promote the event if they spoke. Not a word about how much value they would deliver, or how insightful they’d be. Only that they could promote the hell out of it.

I have a second email from an even more prominent HR blogger in my inbox from late July, offering “guaranteed positive posts and tweets” in return for ERE covering all or part of their travel costs.

Why do these emails bother me? They show a willingness on the part of their authors to write their “thoughts” publicly, while never disclosing that those thoughts were not genuine, but contingent on favors.

I don’t think that either blogger thought of those emails in this way, but they were, in short, proposals for payola. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. And these are not extraordinary — they are just the two of the more bold tit-for-tats I’ve received.

Workforce Online recently published a piece on transparency in the HR Blogosphere. Collectively, the HR bloggers’ reaction ranged from outrage to dismissal. Nobody likes to be called out in public.

But as someone intimately familiar with many (but not all) of the players, I’ve long been troubled my many of the same things that are brought up in the Workforce piece. And so far, I’ve seen a lot of indignation and questioning of motives about the article (Old media: scared, out of line, link-baiting.  Bloggers: Great guys, opinionated, keeping it real.) but nobody seems to be claiming that any of the points and examples of undisclosed conflicts of interest in the article were incorrect.

I think that is a disservice, because even if HR bloggers disagree with the assertion that the level of disclosure they’re currently providing about their conflicts of interest is woefully inadequate, it’s worth considering the issues raised in the article and the level of disclosure that they provide.

It’s not wrong for bloggers to make money from their hard work. But deception about the motives behind a post — even by omission — can destroy all of that in a heartbeat. (Anyone else remember the Pay Per Post scandal?)

HR bloggers: I love you. Please don’t let the Sturm und Drang over the Workforce article keep you from giving this issue a cold, sober look.

There was a blog posting by David Lynn recently here on ERE that asked where recruiting belonged: under HR?

I could feel the blood rushing into my fingers as I answered: “I have strong feelings about this. It belongs under finance with a leg into biz dev and mergers & acquisitions as well.”

And it does.

Here’s why: keep reading…

There’s been an explosion of ‘free’ out there — free social media, free long distance, and yes, free job boards. What is a free job board? For most recruiters and employers, it’s a place where you can post jobs (and sometimes search resumes) without paying a dime. Ever.

How can a free job board survive? Some make money from advertising (think Google AdWords). Some charge the job seekers for access. And many boards, I suspect, simply don’t make money.

So what gives?

keep reading…

… and nobody follows him, then was it written? Any discussion around Twitter raises a lot of questions from the sublime to ridiculous. And so it should be: Twitter is an interesting product, and there aren’t a lot of those in recruiting. My last article on social networking criticized Twitter, so I’ll start this one by accentuating the positive and discussing the merits of Twitter. keep reading…

The Northern Lights have seen strange sights,
But the queerest they ever did see … – The Cremation of Sam McGee

While they may not quite compare to the sight spoken of by the nameless narrator of Robert Service’s famous poem, nonetheless some of the tales I’ve heard lately of interviews certainly give Cremation of Sam McGee a run for its money.

By far the most dramatic was the interviewer who spent the entire interview reading email. When the candidate tried to get the interviewer’s attention, the response was, “We multi-task here.”

The interviewers who ask technical questions and then say, “That’s not how I would solve the problem, so you must be wrong,” are, sadly, so common that they don’t even rate.

I must confess that when I heard the first story, I was left speechless. Here’s an interviewer trying to convince a candidate to take a job at a company and is treating that candidate with a total lack of respect. If that’s how the person behaves when the candidate isn’t working there, how will he behave when the candidate is working there? That’s assuming, of course, that the candidate takes the job.

Now, it’s highly likely that some people are thinking that there must be a mistake in the previous paragraph: shouldn’t it say that the candidate is trying to convince the company to hire them? Sure they are; however, it’s a two-way street. The company clearly needs someone to fill a certain position, even if it’s not that specific person. Conversely, that person needs a job, even if it’s not that specific job.

But wait, it’s a terrible economy! Does the candidate really have a choice? keep reading…

I once heard a story that the CEO of a major executive search firm told a group of newly minted partners to never present candidates who are unemployed. When one of the new partners raised his hand and challenged the CEO as to how the firm could adequately serve its clients without evaluating all potential candidates, the CEO implied that, by definition, anyone who is unemployed is inferior.

I understand this line of thinking. It’s simple, concise, easy to categorize. A “sexy” pitch. In fact, it’s the same line of thinking that leads to the idea that anyone who hangs out with a communist must be a communist sympathizer, or that someone who fires a woman must be a misogynist, or who is accused must be guilty in some way. In short, it’s dead wrong. keep reading…

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, created a stir at the SHRM conference in New Orleans this year by stating: “There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

Organizations worry about being perceived as offering a good balance between work and personal time.

Many career sites and recruiters stress the ways the organization addresses this through flexible work policies, family-friendly HR polices, child care, and so on. And, for many job seekers, finding a company that offers this magic blend is the Holy Grail.

While Jack was addressing women specifically and speaking about their opportunities for promotion and growth within traditional corporate America, he was reinforcing this assumption. He was heavily criticized for talking to women in this way, even though it is an accurate reflection of the thinking in most of traditional corporate America.

My problem is not with Jack as much as it is with the assumptions that work/life balance is based on. keep reading…

Like prospectors during the gold rush, recruiters everywhere are flocking to social networks in search of hires. But like the experience of many during the gold rush, getting results in not easy. Reaping the benefits of social networking requires engaging with those networks. There’s plenty being written about how to do so, but to know if what you’re doing is working, consider the following metric:

EE = (1-N) X (R/P)

Where:

EE = Effectiveness of Engagement, expressed as a percentage

Engagement, in this context, means getting ready access to employees’ networks, regardless of the mechanism for doing so. Virtually 100% of employees have social networks and connect to them using different means (networking sites are not the only way to do so), but only a certain proportion of employees may be willing to give an employer access, by either making the contacts available or agreeing to forward job postings to them.

N = The proportion (%) of employee networks that an employer or recruiter has engaged with.
R = The average number of qualified referrals received per month per employee
P = The average number of postings accepted by employees to their networks per month

So if an employer is engaged with 10% (N) of employees’ social networks, and on average each employee accepts 3 (P) postings per month, and produces 2 (R) qualified referrals:

EE = (1-10%) X (2/3) = 60%

If the same results are achieved by engaging with 50% of employee networks, EE = 33%

Engagement is more effective the larger the number of qualified referrals received for the same proportion of employee networks an employer is engaged with. However, this is not a bottomless pit. Research shows that beyond a certain threshold of postings, the volume of qualified referrals starts to flatten out and even reduce.

Reality Meets Hype keep reading…

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to. –Parker

The world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be happy as kings; and you know how happy kings are. –Thurber

I am not sure of why, but many recruiters I know are not very good with money, myself included. Perhaps it’s the stress of the business or our belief that we can always make more that allows us to use money as a balm to soothe our aching souls. This is unfortunate because there is nothing less valuable then money you have just spent. (Honestly, which first-year agency person does not have his Porsche picked out?)

The following ideas can preserve precious resources and give you a sense of control and dominion in these difficult times. This list is by no means comprehensive but it is good starting point in terms of employing the belief that a penny saved really is a penny earned. If you try to do this and it is not painful, you are not trying hard enough. keep reading…

As a (once and future) corporate recruiter “actively looking for his next opportunity,” (translation: unemployed and hitting refresh on Indeed.com), I’ve had the opportunity, for the first time in my career, to experience life across the desk, as one of the unwashed masses yearning to breathe free.

Interesting paradigm shifts have occurred. An interview has gone from a job function to an event worthy of a phone call to mom; I no longer screen my calls, and in fact, am excited when the phone rings; and, of course, the worst of it all: I’ve become the target of a billion-dollar industry of profiteers who promise to give my search the winning edge, but they’re no longer contingency recruiters on biz dev calls. That, at least, would represent a career opportunity.

Let me be clear: I actually admire those who have figured out a way to monetize providing services to the unemployed. Most marketers would probably, conducting a SWOT analysis, point to the fact that categorically, those without jobs who are “actively looking” likely lack disposable income. But, you see, that’s capitalism in action.

Perhaps the most common service offered is professional resume writing. These services promise that, for anywhere between 400 and 800 dollars, a professional resume writer will not only critique your resume, but also work with you to create a resume guaranteed to “break through the clutter” by using better verbs to craft the “story of your career.” Corporate recruiters, apparently, have very strict guidelines for formatting on a resume, and a secret code known only to them and somehow cracked by the Professional Resume Writer’s Association. I must have missed that workshop at ERE, but I suppose so too did a lot of my colleagues, who I have seen commit such violations to code as cut and pasting resumes off of Monster into Word or forwarding horrifically misformatted LinkedIn profiles to hiring managers.

Since there seems to be an interesting amount of conspiracy theory around how recruiters read resumes (if they do at all, since apparently, talent acquisition systems are to candidates what the Meadowlands are to Jimmy Hoffa), I hope to add to the body of knowledge and present, from first-hand observation, how recruiters read resumes. And we do. Hundreds of them, every day, but there’s a method to our madness: overstaffed, overworked, we’ve developed a short-hand to get through that resume. It involves a few simple steps. keep reading…

Every time I encounter customer service that is so bad that I just have to write an article about it. (I call it cheap psychotherapy). You see, I think most organizations cause their own problems because they hire the wrong people to represent them on the phone.

In this article, I refer to my experience turning in a leased car. I always treat the companies I encounter anonymously; let’s just say this organization’s first name rhymes with “smells” and its last name rhymes with “cargo.”

Its logo, a cute little stagecoach pulled by a team of fast-moving horses, is so engaging that one can almost smell the sweat and manure. But enough about sweat. Let’s talk about manure. keep reading…

The Human Resources Commissioner for Chicago recently resigned. He had been originally hired to implement a hiring system free of politics. Apparently, the Commissioner had made some employment decisions that were influenced by politics, and then lied to the Chicago Inspector General about them. This was a great loss, given how high a priority the city’s administration placed on this project — being the result of a consent decree signed in 1972. But after he succeeded in freeing hiring from politics in the hometown of Rod Blagojevich, he was scheduled to find a cure for cancer and solve the global economic crisis. Tragic. Very tragic.

Interestingly, he had been scheduled to talk at a major HR conference about how he was implementing a hiring process free of politics. I believe it was labeled “Tilting at Windmills.” The commissioner was a political appointee, and not necessarily the best qualified person for the job. Of course he may very well have been the best candidate — the fact that the gentleman is the treasurer for a political action committee that contributed to the mayor and a key alderman couldn’t possibly have influenced his selection. Then again, he was perhaps not the best choice to be a spokesperson on acquiring talent. One might as well ask Joe Biden to speak at a Toastmasters convention.

So what exactly was the Commissioner supposed to do to make the hiring process in the Windy City free of politics? An independent review had identified some deficiencies in the city’s process that included: keep reading…