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I read an article last week about job candidates being asked for their Facebook passwords so that potential employers can examine their personal activity. It also covers law enforcement agencies making similar demands of their applicants. So at the risk of getting tarred and feathered, here I go.

When did companies decide that it’s okay to invade someone’s privacy? Some candidates said that they feel like they have to say yes to this “request” since they need the work. One individual in the article referred to it as “coercion.”

Any company attempting to take advantage of candidates in this way should be ashamed. This wouldn’t have been considered even five years ago. Just because it has gotten easy to check someone’s social activity doesn’t make it appropriate to ask them for their password or that they “friend” you so you can spy on them. I can almost hear the requester respond, upon asking how s/he would feel if they would feel if asked this, “I don’t have anything to hide.” But that’s not the point.  keep reading…

NASA photo taken in Vienna by Peter Wienerroither (U. Wien)

You might have read about something called 360-degree feedback. Depending on who you read, it gets good, bad, or ugly reviews. People generally agree that performance feedback is a good thing, so what goes wrong? How can feedback from multiple raters possibly be a bad thing? Why do organizations generally toss it out after a few tries? After the initial shock and awe, why does it usually die on the vine? The reasons are quite simple. keep reading…

I continue to be excited by what I am seeing in the world of assessments.

Recently a client told me about a new assessment program that made my ears perk up.  It’s called the Bloomberg Assessment Test (BAT) and it’s yet another piece of solid evidence that the use of pre-employment assessment is being seen as a value-add by business leaders across the globe.

To me the BAT says that the highest echelons of the corporate boardroom are starting to gain some clarity about the value that quality assessment tools can provide in predicting outcomes that have a direct business impact.

We have the dawn of the era of big data to thank for this. All facets of business are now using predictive data modeling to help them make better decisions. While HR is a bit behind in this area (in what area is HR not behind?), it is catching up fast as more tools are becoming available to support the collection and analysis of data. The results, even at this stage of the game, are proving to be amazing.

Those setting the pace in the financial world (such as Bloomberg) are not only on board, they are actually driving the train — showing the rest of the business world the value of predictive pre-hire data to the achievement of valued business outcomes.

Here’s the skinny on the BAT.

What Is It? keep reading…

Would you hire Meryl Streep?

She’s 62, you know. And sure, she’s been nominated for 17 Academy Awards, but prior to winning this year for her brilliant portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady” she had a pretty questionable track record. Only two awards out of 16 opportunities. That’s barely better than a 10% success rate. And did I mention that she’s 62? She has been making movies since 1977. Half the time she doesn’t even get nominated!

She once went five years without a nomination back in the 1990s. It has been two years since her last movie came out. I think she might be losing her edge. Unemployed for two years … do you really want to take a chance on her? Maybe the times are passing her by? Maybe she can’t keep up with younger actresses? What if she can’t adapt to all the new technologies? What if she’s uncomfortable working with directors who are younger than she is? That could be a problem. And you know she was unemployed before she got this part. Can’t we find a currently employed actress for our next film?

Sound ridiculous? Of course it does. Any producer or director would give up a reservation at Chateau Marmont to work with the woman who is arguably the finest screen actress of the past 50 years and the acknowledged successor to the brilliant Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn. Yet we hear these same arguments every day in conversations with recruiters and hiring managers. All the myths that exist about people who are unemployed — particularly those who are on the other side of age 50. keep reading…

Dear Corporate America,

This letter is intended to ask for your help and to open your mind, perhaps a little bit. I have recently completed my tour of duty serving our country and now it is time for the next opportunity in my career. The past several years have been tough for me; numerous deployments, time away from my family and loved ones, the missing of birthdays and holidays and tough financial times as well.

I initially joined the military due to my sense of commitment and wanting to be part of something greater like service to my community and country. Now that I have accomplished that, I am ready for my next challenge and will be entering the civilian world, hungry for an opportunity where I can demonstrate my talents and knowledge.

While in the military, I learned such traits like leadership, commitment, accountability, dedication, team work, sacrifice, and courage. I learned my job in the military through schooling and classroom education. What takes civilian world technical schools and colleges months and even years to teach, I learned and successfully passed in weeks and months. I then applied those acquired classroom skills and theories in real world applications and career fields such as aviation, logistics, security, administration, healthcare, supply, legal, nuclear power, IT, and many other fields.

I performed my job in the military to a high degree and in places around the world that your average worker in Corporate America has never seen and will never know of: keep reading…

I continue to be impressed by the evolution of pre-employment assessment tools. This evolution is being driven by the continued growth of the value proposition assessment provides. As a result, an increasing number of new product include embedded assessments designed to help predict which applicants have the best chance of success.

This past year has brought a proliferation of firms that are using assessments to provide a new twist on matching online job applicants with job openings (and conversely allowing firms to match their job openings to candidate data residing in a database).

To understand the origin of Internet based matching, one has to turn the clock back about 15 years to the dawn of the job board. Job boards provided arguably the biggest overall change to the status quo for the way — both in the way people are hired because of the increased ability for individuals to find out about job opportunities, as well as for those hiring, to locate viable candidates.

Things have not changed much as even in the present day. The basic Internet job search equation involves a matching process in which each party provides information about who they are and what they are looking for. Behind-the-scenes algorithms living on servers evaluate the data provided by each party and calculate a match.

Although the job boards would argue otherwise, my basic description of the matching process used by most of them can be summed up with the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” keep reading…

During the six years I led talent acquisition for Deloitte New Zealand, much of our employment brand strategy revolved around humanizing our brand and creating an engaged talent community. We aimed to do this through allowing people to experience our culture and what it was really like to work at Deloitte NZ. We did this through social media initiatives and other means. Our culture and value proposition appealed to some and not to others — this was our aim and I believe it was successful.

So we had this engaged talent community — that’s great, what’s next?

Recruiting Needs to Look Outside of Recruitment keep reading…

The Internet makes talent communities inevitable

In recent weeks we’ve seen a lot of outpouring of grief over the now dead SOPA legislation. The law’s critics claim that, if passed, the law would end the Internet as we know it, threaten our way of life, and confirm the Mayans were right. We periodically experience this type of mass hysteria, whenever something seems to threaten the “promise of the Internet” — the last time was over net neutrality. That so-called promise has to do with the perceived “free” flow of information: articles, stories, videos, songs, or content. What’s gotten lost in this noise is that that nothing is free. The current business model of the Internet has simply shifted dollars from content creators to content aggregators. Advertisers sponsor content so users can pretend it is “free.”

A long time ago, about the time the last ice age ended, there was something called AOL. It seems like eons have passed, but those who remember that era may recall that after we returned from foraging for food we would turn on our dial-up modems and connect to AOL, having paid a monthly fee for access to all the content that was available, the forums, the news, etc. Connection speeds were 1,200 bits per minute — you could almost count those bits coming in. Now we do the same with Facebook and Google, which we experience as free. Perceptually, we ignore the ads — targeted ads based on all the information collected by the sites — ads tailored to our habits, our behavior, and interactions. AOL charged a fee and had no ads; Facebook doesn’t charge a fee but has ads. There is no free lunch. keep reading…

An old Gary Larsen cartoon once showed a kindly old lady hand-feeding birds in her back yard. Off to the side was a sack labeled with words that read something like: “Fake birdseed. Great fun! Birds just can’t figure it out!”

Fake bird seed represents many vendors’ test claims … and, what users don’t know about birdseed and test validity can cost them a fortune. Test validity does not mean people like the test; or, the test has zero adverse impact; or, the EEOC approves; or, the test looks sexy. Validity means test scores consistently predict some specific aspect of job performance. For example, if high scores predict more mistakes, then low scores should predict fewer. Validity predicts on-the-job performance … both ways.

Reputable test vendors (i.e., those who follow professional test development standards) eagerly show controlled studies of test results … and, welcome questions about them. Bird seed vendors enthusiastically produce client testimonials … andget defensive when questioned. How can testimonials be unacceptable? For the same reason you cannot trust political ads. They have an agenda and are seldom supported by facts. Here is an example using a sales job: keep reading…

It’s a brand new year, great things are on the horizon … and for me, I have had it up to my eyeballs with a particular topic. I am so fed up with this topic that I want to climb to the highest peak and scream, bang my head against a wall, and even toss my desk around the room over and over. This topic that’s making me and others so irritated is Passive Candidates.

Yes, that’s right. The topic or even the mention of passive candidates now a day makes me want to throw up. In conducting my own personal year in review and through scouring HR topics, articles, blogs, etc., it seems as if 2011 was the year of the “Passive Candidate.” My response … so the heck what.

I guess I am at a loss as to why there is so much over-emphasis on “passive candidates.” Whatever happened to simply hiring the most-qualified, best-fit individual who can add their strengths in order to advance the organization? Now we have resorted to “Commandments of Recruiting Passive Candidates,” “Rules to Recruit Passive Candidates”, “Your Guide to Passive Candidates” — you get my point.

So here are some questions for you to ask yourself and answer: keep reading…

Someone called me yesterday in a rush.

“I need to find Application Engineers installing medical equipment — x-ray equipment to be exact — and I looked on LinkedIn and there’s not much I can use. Oh, sure, there are some application engineers who list ‘medical equipment’ in their profiles, but I need people from specific companies — companies like GE, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Medtronics, Becton-Dickinson, Boston Scientific, Stryker, St. Jude, Varian, Cordis — you know, the majors. And I don’t need them if they worked at those companies in the past — I need them working at those companies today!

“I also don’t need all the desperate substitute offerings LinkedIn is giving me because they don’t have exactly what I need –I can’t wade through that mess of misfits.”

“Can you help me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you help me fast?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said again.

“I have to warn you, though, a couple of those companies you listed are customers of mine so I won’t be able to source them but I think we’ll be able to add some other companies that will yield you a list of 30 or 40 that might do the trick for you,” I added.

“And you’ll be able to get me names of the application engineers at those companies who are installing medical equipment today?” he asked. There was an emphasis on the word “today.”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And you’re sure they will be application engineers — the guys in the field installing the equipment?” he pressed, still unsure I knew what he was talking about.

“I promise,” I solemnly swore.

“How long will it take?”

“Give me 48 hours,” I answered. I’ll be able to send you probably half of what’s out there to get you started. Give me another 48 hours and I’ll send you the rest.”

I heard the surprise in the silence that followed. keep reading…

I’ve learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success.

Jack Welch said that. It’s a good reminder of that old aphorism about learning from your mistakes.

What about those times when no one believes in you? When you fail when no one expected you to succeed anyway? Ted Turner has been there: ”All my life, people have said that I wasn’t going to make it.” Today, there’s no doubt that he’s made it, and like Welch, helped transform an industry. keep reading…

As the media have amply reported, there is a broad consensus that the current job environment in the U.S. economy is the worst since the 1930s. Let’s explore the state of the job market now and one of the most unique features, the lack of job creation on a scale sufficient to reduce unemployment.

This chart (click to enlarge) shows the job market over the past decade, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The job creation record from 2001 through 2007 was more than 5 million non-farm payroll jobs added, topping out at 137.5 million in January 2008. At that point, the economy entered into recession, with six million jobs lost through mid-year 2009, when the recovery commenced.

Note that the current number of people on company payrolls today is almost equal to the number of payroll job holders 11 years ago. In addition, since January 2001, the U.S. economy has gained a net increase of 12 million people available in the workforce, from 142 million to 154 million.

At present, the number of employed is substantially below the available workers. The BLS uses a category of workers called “discouraged workers” to define a group that, while available for work, are “not looking for employment.” The practice results in an understated unemployment percentage versus the total workforce, as evidenced by the Workforce Participation Rate.

According to BLS data, since 1980, the average Workforce Participation Rate is 65.8%. If we calculate the “unemployed” count to reflect the average participation rate, we find that the more correct figure for unemployment today is more than 17 million workers, or an 11.4% unemployment rate. Compared to the official report of 13 million workers and an 8.5% unemployment rate, the BLS figures grossly understate the unemployment problem. In a quote from a recent Gallup Poll: the practice of “reducing the unemployment rate by driving potential employees out of the workforce is not a solution to today’s job problem or a good sign for the U.S. economy.”

The recovery that officially started in June, 2009 has stalled out, and growth in GDP as well as the job creation process essential to a healthy job market is not happening.

Job Creators: on Strike or Broke? keep reading…

Have we become too impersonal today? Too efficient? Will that hurt recruitment in the long run?

Think about it. We’ve got wonderful technology. We no longer need to sift through hundreds of job applicants by hand. We select our criteria and wham — we have our list of candidates. We’ve got efficient phone systems; individuals interested in working for us or talking to us can simply punch in the right numbers. “Press 1 if you … press 2 if you…”

The calls are directed automatically. As recruiting and HR professionals we can then call them back if we want. If not, well …. they don’t know who they’re calling anyway. Makes things so easy for us …. Doesn’t it?

The systems are set up so we barely have to do anything. Which of course we all know in reality doesn’t quite work that way. But the concept sure sounds like a dream. keep reading…

I’ve never felt better about the evolution of pre-employment assessment. In this coming year we’ll see some real progress toward new levels of assessment adoption that will be based more on results then on hype. But there are some significant challenges to be faced.

As we enter this exciting new year, here are the trends that I feel are going to define the future of pre-employment assessment. keep reading…

Two of the hottest topics in corporate recruiting today are the candidate experience and need for transparency. And although many corporations are making a sincere effort to improve that candidate experience, they often pay only lip service to becoming more open, honest, and transparent. No corporate leader that I know directly lies to applicants.

However, if you consider omitting information that could directly help the applicant successfully understand the process or land a job to be a lie, then there are quite a few areas where corporations are omitting the complete truth. keep reading…

As another year draws to a close, it’s time to take a look back at the year that 2011 was (man, that was truly an awkward construction, eh?).

As usual, there was much sturm und drang about social media, the lingering recession, and the Iowa caucuses — no, wait, that’s another post.

At any rate, here are the things I thought were most notable: keep reading…

Krista Bradford recently wrote a timely and provocative article here on ERE about LinkedIn.

One of ERE’s long-time members, Ted Moore, in a comment to that article, stated, “If you rely heavily on LinkedIn and similar tools to connect with those your clients can easily find and recruit on their own, at least as they perceive it (and what else matters?), I look forward to competing with you.”

I know Ted and I also know he means what he says.

I also know as time marches on those who think LinkedIn is sourcing are eventually going to pay a heavy price for their growing addictions.

In my “Help Me Help You” document that I send to all my new customers requesting telephone names sourcing, there is a paragraph that instructs the customer to provide me:

– Any names you might already have — this does two things: 1) avoids me duplicating your efforts and 2) gets me in to the targets faster. Be sure to include their titles and any contact info you have on them — their titles help me understand how close I am to the target and what these folks may be called at the respective companies and their contact info gives me clues as to how to get inside their organizations.

More and more we have the LinkedIn discussion. keep reading…

College hiring is about to ramp up again — and the very best college recruiting organizations would argue it ramped up several months back — so now is an opportune time to conduct an ROI analysis to determine when and where you should hire college grads instead of experienced hires. Understanding the unique competencies and skills that college students bring to a business is important not just in determining the number needed, but where to place them.

As a college professor and someone that advises firms on the design of college recruiting programs, I have come up with a long list of the advantages of hiring recent graduates. keep reading…

As much as we in recruiting enjoy the many benefits of LinkedIn, there is trouble in paradise. I’ve been a member of LinkedIn since the early days, to which my user ID (59572) will attest. Because LinkedIn numbers its members sequentially, if you do the math, you’ll find me counted among the first .06 percent of LinkedIn users. However, lately, I’ve noticed that what began as a business networking site is starting to feel more like a marketing and recruiting site dressed up as a social network.

Others suggest it more resembles the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, a digital beast that devours our contacts and serves them up to large corporate clients willing to pay for what was once our data.

One cannot really blame LinkedIn for monetizing its business model. It does need to generate revenues to keep the lights on. But as it pursues recruiting revenues, as it encourages business professionals to use LinkedIn more as a marketing platform for “brand you,” as it prods users to pay for the privilege of networking and recruiting on LinkedIn, it is fair to wonder what value we get in return for that investment. While LinkedIn may remain a shiny object to which many recruiters feel inextricably drawn, we are in serious need of a reality check. keep reading…