Monday, April 23, 2007

Journalism

Many Bloggers are considered Journalists. I’ve never thought of myself as a journalist, or what I’m doing here on “Please don’t call us headhunters!” as anything approaching the valuable pursuit that true journalism is… I firmly believe that the true value of any journalistic endeavor is to present the facts of a story and allow readers, viewers or listeners to draw their own conclusions.

I encourage anyone that understands the value of journalism to visit the BBC’s Online Petition for Alan Johnston and add your name to those that are asking for his prompt release.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Update on our Detainee

Good news for our candidate who was detained by security while trying to reach his interview last week.

The candidate was extended an offer today and accepted his new position.

We've suggested the for the relocation, he might want to drive. Just in case!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The Importance of a Good Selection Process

Allison Boyce’s recent article “10 Things Candidates Hate; 10 Things They Love” provides a great list of do’s and don’ts when interviewing candidates.

I think many of our client’s could do with a reminder… and sometimes I think our office could use a gentle nudge in this direction as well.

A couple of my favorite examples of the things candidates hate and the things they love:



What they Hate: The number-one pet peeve of all candidates is talking to misinformed, condescending, and unoriginal HR generalists or entry-level recruiters who answer all questions with, "Because that's the way we do it here and we cannot do it differently." Or who answer every question with "I don't know."


What they Love: Getting a courtesy telephone call to the effect of, "What we have is no for now, not forever. We value your time and are sorry about the outcome."



What the article boils down to is:

What they Hate: When your company's process, makes it seem as if you couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, you’re going to annoy candidates. When even the most interested candidates encounter a laborious and disorganized process, they are likely to run for the hills.

What they Love: When you treat your candidates with respect, keep them informed, provide timely feedback and appreciate the time they’ve invested in the interview process, you leave even unsuccessful candidates with a better impression of your organization.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Pre-Interview Interrogation Anyone?

We’ve had candidates miss interviews, we’ve had clients miss interviews, and we’ve had a few recruiters muck up the process…But until now, I don’t think we’ve ever had Homeland Security interfere with a candidate’s interview.

Here’s the story… The candidate is making his way across the country for an interview and arrives in Chicago just in time to find his connecting flight has already departed.

The airline is kind enough to book him on to a flight the next morning (today), which still gets him to his destination in time for the interview.

The next morning he arrives at the gate for boarding and is informed that he is “Already on the plane”.

"No, No, really, I'm not on the plane" he must have insisted, "I'm standing here". At the same time the flight attendant must have been equally insistent that he really was already on board.

After some debate on his location, our candidate is whisked away by security and detained. A passenger from on board the plane is removed and also questioned.

The apparent cause of the issue? The airline had booked two guys with the same name on the same ticket! Security had to assume that one of the men was trying to get on the plane without a ticket, or worse, trying to assume another identity for some nefarious purpose.

Finally, after being detained for 3 hours, the candidate is released, and calls his recruiter... 45 minutes after his interview was scheduled to begin.

As of now, the candidate is finally on his way to his interview, which after an interrogation, should be a piece of cake.

Job Satisfaction

Evil HR Lady posted this fun "blogthing" so I had to try it out...

Your Job Satisfaction Level: 84%

Your job is nearly perfect - you've totally lucked out!
You like what you do, who you work for, and the people you work with.
And it seems like the job you have will eventually get you the job you want.
So enjoy what you've got. You've landed the ideal job!

Apparently, I'm pretty happy with my job.

Should You Get a New Job?

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The passing of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. saddens me greatly.

I am an avid reader of all sorts of literature and Vonnegut is one of my favorites. I always enjoyed the way he brought humor to subjects I was uncomfortable laughing at... (out loud anyway.)

As Donald Farber, Vonnegut's friend, lawyer, agent and manager said in today's Washington Post, "Every time he spoke with me no matter what the circumstances in the world, he had a funny angle on it even if it wasn't a funny thing."

Some of my favorite Vonnegut Quotes:

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre

The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.

Good Interview Questions

So I’ve talked pretty extensively about the odd questions interviewers sometimes ask. (For example: How do pineapples make you feel?) Which I find totally useless. But I haven’t talked much about the effective interviewing techniques.

In my opinion the most effective method of interviewing is to drawing out the candidate’s strengths and weakness in direct relation to the skills required to perform the job. The key here is to ask questions that are designed to elicit specific information while being broad enough to apply to all candidates that may be qualified for the position. In fact, these are often not questions at all, but requests for examples.

Interviewers - This type of interviewing works equally well for evaluating both “hard” and “soft” skills. Here are some examples of the “Requirements” for a job, translated into what I feel are effective interviewing questions:

Requirement: Quality engineering experience
Standard Question: What were your responsibilities for quality engineering in your last job?
More Effective: Please describe the types of quality systems you’ve implemented, how you monitored quality and improved the system as required.

Requirement: Ability to handle multiple projects at one
Standard Question: How you handle multiple priorities?
More Effective: Describe a time when you had multiple projects each demanding your time. How did you management the situation and what were the results.



Candidates - You should be prepared to answer questions like these with a very simple formula of “Situation, Process, Outcome”.

Briefly outline the situation: “We were having problems with the paint quality on the widgets…”

Describe the Process: “I conducted a root cause analysis and found that the problem was caused by improper pre-finishing, we developed a quality check process to be sure that out-of-spec product was stopped here and corrected before processes X Y and Z made it impossible to fix.”

State the Outcome: "By identifying those parts earlier in the process, we could rework those parts instead of having to scrap them. This resulted in a 5% reduction the amount of scrap, saving approximately $100,000 per year.

Please note: I cannot over-emphasize the concept of BRIEFLY here… nothing is worse than a rambling candidate keep your answers precise and concise. Give examples with results in terms of dollars or numbers wherever possible, but don't get bogged down in the tiniest of details. Remember, you can always ask if the interviewer needs more information.


Rowan Manahan writes an excellent piece on Competency-Based or Behavioral Interviewing which of course, is what I’m really getting at.

My favorite piece of advice from Rowan's article:
If you can't think of a relevant example from your past - either in your preparation or if you are hit with a question from left-field during an interview - then move quickly to a hypothetical approach. "Well, I've never actually had to decapitate anyone as a result of a conflictual situation at work. But if I did have to do it, I'd make sure I had identified the right person to behead, I'd make sure that I had a really sharp axe, I'd warm up my muscles, wear a big rubber apron with galoshes and..."

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Coworker Difficulties

I’ve talked before about some Seriously Weird Coworkers, but a recent post on the Job Lounge discussed a more common situation, coworkers that are just difficult. In this case, a real jerk of a boss who was insulting his subordinates.

In addition the advice provided by one of her experts, The Job Lounge’s Susan Ireland directs readers to a Review of Bob Sutton’s Book The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't.

The book is a guide to identifying assholes, how to avoid being one, and how to survive in their presence. In his review Guy Kawasaki includes:



Suttons’s dirty-dozen list of everyday asshole actions:
  • Personal insults
  • Invading one’s personal territory
  • Uninvited personal contact
  • Threats and intimidation, both verbal and non-verbal
  • Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems
  • Withering email flames
  • Status slaps intended to humiliate their victims
  • Public shaming or status degradation rituals
  • Rude interruptions
  • Two-faced attacks
  • Dirty looks
  • Treating people as if they are invisible

And the Starbuck’s test:
If you hear someone at Starbucks order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,” you’re in the presence of an asshole. It’s unlikely that this petty combination is necessary—the person ordering is trying to flex her power because she’s an asshole.



I decided to check out the book on Amazon, and I found these simple and useful guidelines:

Test One: After talking to the alleged asshole, does the “target” feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized or belittled by the person? In particular, does the target feel worse about himself or herself?

Test Two: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than those people who are more powerful?

I think I might have to buy this book - not that I work with any assholes of course and most of the time I am not one myself.

And I apologize for those moments when I have been one... most often because there was no coffee. That's regular coffee, not the Starbucks decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet... I could never drink decaf.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Agency Recruiting is not just a sales job.

Normally, I have nothing but praise for the articles that come from my ERE daily newsletter. However, on Friday I received an article entitled “Losing your Professionalism” in which the author has some not so pleasant antidotes about the world of agency recruiting. Clearly she had a bad experience… statements like:



"You're only as good as your last deal" was a common phrase during my agency days. I didn't just view it as a deal; this was a person's livelihood by placing a candidate in a new opportunity. But when "deals" are associated with your income, people are commodities.”

“During my agency experience, I had a manager who told me to inform a candidate that the candidate should accept an offer because it would "make my numbers" for the month. How embarrassing! Why would this candidate care about my numbers?




Apparently this lead the author to conclude the following:



The agencies will always focus on metrics… Agencies tend to hire salespeople from all walks of life, and it is a commissioned-based environment.

Occasionally, there are agency recruiters who believe in the customer-service aspects of recruiting and want to "cross over" to corporate recruiting to take a different approach to recruiting that better addresses their values and interests.



I can only say that the Author must have had a very bad agency experience. Firms like mine, stress the importance of working with a candidate as their advocate and advisor, and we have often coached candidates to accept offers that we aren’t representing or even talked candidates out of interviewing for opportunities because we didn’t think it would meet their long-term needs.

A commission based recruiter gains nothing by trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. If the candidate doesn’t work out, or decides to leave the role, we have to do all the work of replacing that candidate for no additional “production”.

Yes, there are bad recruiting firms out there, but not all Third Party Recruiters are the used car salesmen and “hard sell” artists. I feel bad that this person left our industry with a bad taste in her mouth, but there are agencies that hold themselves to high standards of customer service, operate with ethics and integrity, and are focused on the needs of both candidates and clients.

These sort of over-arching generalizations about my chosen line of work bother me… not all recruiters are ruthless headhunters, just the bad ones.

To me Successful Recruiters:

  • Are successful salespeople - Recruiting is the art of connecting the right people with the right companies and selling is the art of accurately identifying needs and providing effective solutions. Successful recruiters have the drive, tenacity, and focus of great sales people, combined with the desire to be a powerful positive force in both the lives of candidates and the success of our clients.
  • Are self-motivated and goal-oriented to develop and maintain momentum on a search, to develop effective strategies and plans that keep them working smart and progressing toward goals.
  • Use all available resources to identify and recruit top talent in the industry. This includes building a network of professionals, prospecting candidates by phone, using the Internet and working closely with industry organizations to develop strong and fruitful relationships.
  • Understand how to measure experience, not just skills, and make connections between candidates and companies based on more than keywords. Great recruiters also know how to truly qualify candidates and how to evaluate the “fit” between candidate and client.
  • Represent the best interests of his/her candidates and clients, facilitating effective interview processes, offer presentations and employment transitions.
  • Remain focused and demonstrate tenacity, energy and enthusiasm for each new assignment. They welcome new challenges and strive to succeed.
  • Act with honesty and integrity at all times, without exception. They treat candidates and clients with sincerity and honesty and never present false or misleading information.

Friday, April 6, 2007

Thanks for Reading!

Rowan Manahan stumbled across my humble blog the other day and was kind enough to leave some well thought out comments on a previous post. I thought it was only fitting that I return the favor and so went poking around on his Fortify Services Blog.

I found some really great posts, my favorites include:

Most Valuable Asset: A great tie in of the definition of insantity and how many companies structure their HR and Talent Acquisition departments

PowerPoint Again: Personally I think that done well, PowerPoint can be a useful tool, however it can also ruin a perfectly good message, examples include the Gettysburg Powerpoint and a morbid bit from The Onion, where a Project Manager constructs his final goodbye in PowerPoint.


Thanks for reading Rowan! I hope you’ll drop by again… I know I’ll be adding you to my daily reads.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

Another Odd Interview Question

Granted, this isn't strictly on the "odd job interview question" topic, but it is a question that has been posed in interviews:

"IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPER POWER, WHAT WHICH ONE WOULD YOU CHOOSE?"

Personally, my choice would be teleportation, but I liked this honest answer from Plymouth Argyle Football Club manager Ian Holloway:

...I would like to be able to see into the future. What would I like to find out? The lottery numbers so I could win the thing. I would go and retire and that would be great. I would win it every week and do a load of good with the money...

See the rest of the Holloway Column.

This man has a great sense of humor. Just one of the reasons I have links to PAFC on my google homepage. (I won't go into the others now).

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Great Expectations - Not just a boring novel.

Yes it's likely that moving into a new job will produce a raise in salary and it's realistic to assume that a company will assist you in relocating to a new area.

Here is one example of a candidate with unrealistic expectations:



Recruiter: So where are you for salary right now, and what would you be looking for?

Candidate: I'm making $60,000 right now, and would be looking for $90,000 to make a move

Recruiter: Oookay... and what would you be looking for in a relocation package?

Candidate: Well I would expect the company to buy my current home, and make the downpayment and closing costs on my new home. (The candidate later admitted he'd bought more house than he could afford...)


A $30K jump in salary? Is that seriously your expectation? That would be a small miracle and things like this very, very rarely happen. (except of course those rare cases where your stock options make up the difference, but who gets away with that anymore!)

And Relocation? Yes, there are a few companies out there that will still buy your house but usually this is something reserved for executive level packages.

In short, a realistic idea of what is available to you in your market is a valuable tool in evaluating the opportunities that come your way. If this candidate is holding every opportunity to this standard, he is going to be looking for a very very long time.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Job Interviews and American Idol?

I spotted this article from Yahoo! HotJobs today: 'American Idol' and Your Job Interview

Personally, I find American Idol (and most reality TV shows) offensive. This is because I firmly believe the objective of these shows is not to grant a recording contract to the most talented, or a million dollars to the one who outlasts and outwits others in silly games on an island, but instead to entertain the masses by humiliating the untalented and making fun of those that fail. But enough of my soap box...

I do have to agree with the following piece of advice from the HotJobs article:
...you don't have to be the best singer, just the most remembered decent singer. Same for the job interview. You don't always have to be the best candidate with the top skills. You do have to find a way to be the most remembered, hirable candidate.

So maybe it is possible that shows like 'Idol' can teach us important and valuable lessons about life and I should lighten up? ... Nahh...It is still rubbish.