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Thought Leaders and Experts: They Have Good Insights, But Not All of the Answers

No one denies the fact that our world needs experts, thought leaders, and world-renowned specialists.

That’s because it’s clear that we DO need people who are capable of dedicating their entire time and efforts to gaining as much experience as possible for one important thing — so they can teach and help others.

There are experts in every field known to humankind, and here in the Internet Age, we make great use of the expertise of these people. However, there is a huge “but” connected to that.

Do we rely too much on “experts?”

It’s this: Problems arise when people rely too much on what they read, which is the information touted by all of these modern experts. Even if the information you get is from a reputable and well-known expert, it doesn’t necessarily mean that THEIR solution will fit YOUR case.

Yes, other people may come forward and confirm that this expert provided the solution they needed, but that doesn’t mean that the advice will work for you, too. This is especially true in recruitment, because what works for someone in one location, with one specific set of needs, may not work for someone working in another location who has a different set.

But, let’s start at the beginning here: How did people end up trusting these modern “experts” so much?

We can connect this widespread general trust in experts to one thing: familiarity. These experts usually have good visibility, and they appear on TV, or on the radio, in magazines, online, at conferences and public events, or in almost any environment that gives them public exposure.

Once people get familiar with these “experts,” see them almost everywhere, and hear them in the media voicing their opinion and expertise on some topic, they become familiar and knowledgeable about the expert and their beliefs.

This sense of familiarity makes people begin to trust this person, especially if people pop up who say they were helped by the solutions or information provided by the expert.

It’s true: You should always question “expert” advice

No one is stopping you following the advice promoted by an expert, but you should be fully aware that there is the risk of their advice and experience not working in your case. How can such a thing happen?

The answer lies in this critical fact: We are not all the same.

Each person has their own evolution and is subjected to a different set of factors. An expert’s solution may fit the background generated by the evolution and influencing factors, which means that the required answer will be delivered or it may not fit the background, leading to a solution that will not solve someone’s problem.

No matter how much we would like to believe that we may fit into the group of people who were successfully helped by experts, we should always question the information provided by them. While they may have top-notch training, vast experience, and a deep knowledge set, they’re still human.

Yes, it’s impossible to know it all.

Also, bear in mind that frequently, an expert’s fame comes also from the results of marketing campaigns and skilled PR, or from their great skills of self-promotion. And that is absolutely OK because many of us are looking for a way to rise, shine and be heard.

Don’t believe everything you read (or hear)

However, there is always the chance that an expert is not the “savior” you thought he or she was. A healthy thing to do is to constantly question and challenge the information we get from these people. Is the information valid in your case? How will it help you, and will it be able to produce the positive changes you seek?

Before taking ANY advice, you should do some thorough research on your own and see how much it fits your case. If you hear that, “Cold calling is not working anymore,” will you stop doing that just because some expert weighed in about it?

It would be risky to bet everything on someone’s opinion just because the media gave that person the title of “expert.”

Again, this is not an attempt to discredit the expertise of people who built a strong reputation through their hard work and study, but it IS a recommendation that you should not take for granted everything they write or say because something they write or say may not really apply to you.

In an era where information is widely and easily available, more and more people, in their search to find the needed answer, end up stumbling across solutions provided by these so-called “thought leaders.” In some cases, the information they find proves to be useful, but, when it doesn’t deliver the expected results, people become disappointed and start believing that they are failures, or, that fate is against them.

Of course, this is nonsense.

One is not ill-fated or a loser if something an expert said doesn’t work in his or her particular situation. The problem does not lie in the person, but in the fact that the solution that was thought to be correct actually wasn’t.

Final thoughts

Our trust in things we see on the Internet is growing every day. That’s why “fake news” gets so much attention from us. And when we also stop double-checking facts, and embrace everything we find on the Internet as correct, we help spread the bad information even further.

Here’s an example that illustrates how Internet-driven “facts” that are not double-checked are spreading like wildfire.

You may be surprised by this, but I like to listen to Tony Robbins, because he is very inspiring and an incredibly successful motivational speaker. When I was watching one of his videos on YouTube, he mentioned a “goal setting study” that was done at Yale University back in 1953. I was quite impressed the information so I decided to try to find that study on the Internet and read more about the results.

The first few results that I found on Google revealed to me that there was no such study done at Yale University. Tony’s source, I learned, was motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, so I dug further and found that when people asked Mr. Ziglar about his source, he told them he had only heard the statistics mentioned over the years but had no concrete source for the information.

This reinforced for me the fact that it’s very important to double-check the source of information. Next time you read things that proclaim “Cold calling is dead,” “How to double the pipeline,” “Job Boards are dead,” or other advice and conventional wisdoms, remind yourself that not everything the experts say is true, or that if you follow their advice unconditionally, everything will work out for you.

We all need to filter the information experts provide through our own experiences while taking into account the factors that are specific to our specific case so we will end up using only those pieces of information that turn out to be valid for our situation.

It’s good to be inspired by experts like Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar, but we shouldn’t blindly follow their advice.

No matter how good or professional an expert’s statement or article looks, sometimes, the best way to learn is to double-check the data is by asking simple questions like, “Why?” “Where you get that information?” and “What is your source?”

Trust is a great thing, but blind trust, where you trust everything you see or hear,  is a recipe for others to manipulate you. That’s something you should never, ever forget.

The Key to Success? It’s Getting the Hiring Manager to Really Trust Their Recruiters

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” — Dilbert creator Scott Adams

Dear Recruiter,

You’ve spent years in therapy attempting to identify yourself, yet you think you can know me in 30 minutes? That my entire being, my soul, passions, knowledge, abilities, and creativity, can be assessed by you and your stone-faced, unpassionate behavioral questions – because you’ve been given the working title of “Recruiter?”

The dystopian Myers-Briggs test questions that I have to answer are pedantic questions from you, and standard answers cannot just be explained. Life, like work, is not always black and white. There are many shades of gray in the world, and having the audacity to believe you can determine my entire work ethic and personality in 30 minutes is both arrogant and cynical at the very least.  

But are you truly prepared to interview and assess a person’s abilities in 30 minutes? What form of training have you received in your past that would help you ascertain all of this information? Where is it that I may obtain such a fantastic education? Nowhere you say? It seems all I have is questions — and you have no answers.”

Gathering information, but not interviewing

Now, this is not an actual letter from a candidate, but it would be a pretty boilerplate response that they could send out to hiring managers or recruiters had they known about the fraud that had been capitulated towards them.

I have to admit that after 20 years of interviewing candidates, both on the phone and in person, I have gotten pretty good at figuring out the posers of the world, but that is experience, nothing more.

I’ve also trained young recruiters and shown them what to look for, especially the traps. Yet, I’m actually just getting information from the candidate and not really interviewing them.

That is what the hiring manager does — not us.

Seriously, I have done this a long time, and still to this day I send candidates that I’m on the fence with, along with a write-up, to the manager. The best learning tool you have out there, when working on roles that you may not know that much about, or a new role you have not worked on before, is feedback from the hiring manager.

You just need to get the hiring manager to explain the “why” as in, “why” the candidate was not right for the role. You can carry that with you on to the next search, or when looking at roles that are similar, especially since many of us work within the swim lanes of similar roles.

Can you win the trust of the hiring manager?

This does not mean that I don’t fight for candidates. I have had plenty of times in my career where I’ve taken on managers who were wavering, or were “on the fence” if you will, in an attempt to get my candidate the gig. Sometimes I was successful, and sometimes not, but you need to learn when to push hard and when to just give up and move on to the back-up candidate, if you have one.

There is not a perfect candidate out there. No one is perfect, we are all flawed, so knowing this and carrying the knowledge with you puts you ahead of the curve of a number of recruiters out there. Now, you are winning.

The best part of winning is winning over the hiring manager though the trust factor, really. It’s when they know that you know your stuff, and there is gained trust.

In fact, I have had managers learn that if you listen to me as a partner that they will hire more effectively because they really listened to you. I have managers, even now, that say, “Yeah, let’s bring them in for an interview.” It’s a pretty cool feeling when they really listen, and you get a real sense of satisfaction.

I have managers that have gone to my Directors after a few months and have said, “Yeah, so Derek was a really good decision for us.” That right there is a pretty cool feeling when your hiring manager tells you something like that over lunch. Believe me, I don’t like adulation, but seriously, that really lights you up and makes you smile inside.

Make choices that help you to be successful

“Time kills deals” is one of my favorite things to say when trying to get a hiring manager to get back to me with a candidate. Sometimes, it looks like time could kill a hire before you even get the chance to interview a candidate that could have been the one you really wanted, it kills it all because of personal arrogance.

You might want to take more chances to learn, listen, and make sure that you are not making choices that could stop you from being successful.

15 Must Ask Questions For Aligning Talent Acquisition and Employer Branding

Here’s a simple truth: Leading edge and “best place to work” companies recognize the critical need to synch up their talent acquisition strategy with their employer branding.

These companies achieve this synergy (and alignment) by reviewing their practices and incorporating numerous best practices into their plans. To align your talent acquisition strategy and your employer branding, start by asking yourself and your team, these 15 questions:

15 questions you need to be asking

  1. Are our recruiters embodying (and promoting) our employer branding?
  2. How well does our talent acquisition department know what our employment brand and employee value proposition are?
  3. Are our recruiters and HR generalists sharing valuable content about our “Brand,” i.e,. its culture, values, mission, goals, benefits, training, on social media?
  4. How are we showcasing our hiring managers? And their attributes?
  5. Are we showcasing our firm’s opportunities? Do we do it on our careers page? Our on our Facebook page? Or do we give status updates?
  6. Is talent acquisition truly working with other corporate departments in delivering the employer branding?
  7. Are all company interviewers trained to sell our employer brand?
  8. How – specifically – are our business leaders delivering on our employer brand promise and our employee value proposition?
  9. Are our onboarding, induction, orientation processes showcasing — and highlighting — our organization’s employer branding?
  10. Are we working with our in-house employee groups to improve our candidate experience and our onboarding programs?
  11. Are we showcasing our employer brand on college campuses with our interns and with our college and university employee contacts?
  12. What influence does our employer branding have on a candidate’s decision to join our company?
  13. What are our current employees saying about our employer branding on review websites such as Glassdoor?
  14. What do our alumni say about our employer brand? What’s our percentage of “boomerang” hires?
  15. What are candidates who “turn us down” saying about our talent acquisition department and our employer branding?

Employer branding can help you be a Best Place to Work For, too 

Great Place WorkWhen you look at some of the firms on the most recent Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list you will find leading edge companies which have successfully answered these questions. They are sought after employers in any type of job market.

In a word, they are the most selective — and, they garner a lion’s share of the best candidates.

Hopefully these questions will engender some analysis and focus on the alignment of your Talent Acquisition strategy with your Employment Brand.

Lastly, be aware of your candidate experience and social media. Given the rapid changes in technology we all experience, it’s important to seek out the latest technologies because yes, they CAN dramatically improve your candidate experience and perhaps make your company one of the Best Companies to Work For some day soon.

Want to Hire Faster? The Problem May Be Your Recruiter’s Calendar Etiquette

The job market is brutally competitive. With the lowest national unemployment rate in 17 years, talent wars will ramp up in 2018.

Recruiting teams across the U.S. are scrambling to bring in top talent, but working at a frantic pace just isn’t enough. No matter how hard teams work, it’s tough to get candidates through the door fast enough to remain their organization of choice.

Here’s the good news: It’s the perfect time for recruiting teams to improve processes and hire faster than their competition.

Efficient processes are crucial to winning top talent in this market. They help you put in the same amount of effort and reap more rewards (i.e., great candidates!).

How do you create more efficient processes? Where do you begin?

Look at your time to hire — it’s a key metric​. It shows you how quickly a qualified candidate moves through your recruiting process, from start to finish. A slow time-to-hire rate means you risk candidates losing interest in your organization, and it also costs you time and resources.

Drilling down into your time-to-hire rates can even tell you which jobs or departments face the most challenges in their hiring processes. You’ll definitely want to find out what’s causing those long time-to-hire rates.

A likely culprit is … interviewer calendars

If your interviewers don’t have time available in their calendars to conduct interviews, you have to delay those interviews until you can get everyone in a room. That means your time to hire increases.

That’s a problem because a slow interview process can lead to higher attrition rates in the candidate pipeline.

You don’t want to give the competition time to lure candidates away from your organization. Do you know if delayed interviews are happening at your organization? To find out, take a look at your interviewers’ calendars.

  • Are they booked up weeks in advance, with almost no availability?
  • Are they blocked off from the crack of dawn until dusk, leaving you no wiggle room to fit in valuable candidate interviews?

If so, you’ll find yourself frequently delaying interviews with potentially amazing candidates — and that’s doesn’t work in this brutally competitive job market.

The solution? Calendar etiquette

Etiquette. It sounds so old fashioned, but sometimes, the simple and civil rules are what matter the most. Ignoring them can cause problems.

To help reverse the trend of unavailable interviewers, you need to educate your staff on basic calendar etiquette.

Getting a few rules in place can have shockingly positive effects on your hiring processes and get the right candidates in the door quickly. That’s good all around: for recruiting teams, candidates, fast-scaling departments, and the overall health of your organization.

Start by working with your hiring managers to foster better calendar etiquette and open up availability in interviewers’ calendars.

Here are five (5) tips to get your team started:

1 — Be transparent

If every event on an interviewer’s calendar shows up as “Busy,” recruiting coordinators have no visibility into their calendar.

The problem is, it’s private. No one knows whether they’ve booked time off for a critical meeting with a VP, or simply want to work on a project they’ve been meaning to tackle. That leaves coordinators with no room to make suggestions about priorities when time is of the essence.

What if your recruiters have an incredible candidate who can only interview on Monday at 2 pm, and a critical interviewer’s calendar says busy … but it’s for something unimportant. That’s frustrating for the recruiters and risky for your organization, because you might lose out on a great candidate.

Here’s a solution: Encourage hiring managers to move away from wholly private calendars. Unless there is a very convincing reason why meeting information cannot be shared with the rest of the organization, ask everyone to keep their calendar information transparent.

It will make your recruiting process easier and help recruiting coordinators prioritize meeting times.

2 – Stop scheduling fake events

Do people at your organization create fake events with dubious titles to block out portions of their day? Some of the most common ones are:

  • Work-life balance;
  • Do not schedule;
  • Work block; and,
  • No meeting day.

Often times, those labels are a last resort for employees whose time isn’t fundamentally respected. People are creative, and if they’re forced to create time to focus, they will.

So proceed with a bit of caution. If you need to ask people to stop scheduling fake events, you may also want to think about whether your organization’s culture is meeting-heavy or if you’re asking interviewers to do too many interviews.

Overall, while this behavior may indicate a deeper issue in your organization’s work culture, it’s detrimental and a roadblock for your recruiting team. It needs to stop.

3 – Kill the zombie events

Some interviewers’ calendars are cluttered with events that were created ages ago but that no one attends regularly.

They may also have activities “scheduled’ that every member of the team is invited to, like Friday Lunch yoga. When the co-worker who taught yoga leaves the organization, their lingering invite becomes a zombie.

If it’s a poorly attended regular meeting or not happening at all, get it out of everyone’s calendars!

4 – Don’t use it as a “to-do” list

Employees often use their calendars as daily to-do lists. They’ll drop all kinds of things in there, and those tasks may or may not be relevant to work.

We’ve all done it, but for some people, it’s a chronic issue.

Some common examples are:

  • Go grocery shopping;
  • Call mom;
  • Email customer; or,
  • Pick up UPS package.

If those to-do’s are eating up your calendar space (especially if your calendar isn’t transparent!), you’re having a direct and negative impact on your recruiting team’s hiring efforts.

Here’s a solution: Make your to-do lists elsewhere.

5. – Make timely calendar updates

The worst calendar etiquette is not keeping it up to date.

When you don’t post Personal Time Off (PTO), Out of Office (OoO), or Working from home (WFH) on your calendar, recruiters may schedule an interview without knowing you’re away. They’ll have to reschedule it when they find out you’re gone, in a different time zone, or have a conflicting event. That’s an unnecessary hassle and results in a poor candidate experience.

When you’re away, let everyone know on your calendar as far in advance as possible.

The heart of it all

Better calendar etiquette will carry your scheduling efforts to new heights.

Painting a better picture of every interviewer’s day will reduce the time it takes to move a qualified candidate through the interview process. That reduces your time to hire, which is a significant win for the organization and candidates.

Bonus tip:​ Cap it off with robust scheduling technology and you’ll be well on your way to improved recruiting processes.

Recruiting and the New Tax Law: It’s Mostly Good, Unless You Recruit Executives

Regardless of how you feel about it politically, the Trump Administration has pulled together and passed the biggest tax overhaul in 30 years.
Let’s explore how the new tax law may impact recruiting efforts for your clients.
But first, a quick overview.

The new tax law, explained

Overall, the changes in the law are aimed at decreasing taxes for most Americans, adding more jobs, and significantly lowering corporate taxes.
For the consumer, analysts estimate that about 62 percent of Americans will indeed net a tax cut! Tax rates are applied for each of the seven tax brackets, and the the income thresholds are now higher for each bracket.
For example, the 38.5 percent tax rate now applies to married couples making over $1 million, compared to $470,700 in the previous program.
Some other notable changes in the tax law include:
  • Most state and local tax (SALT) deductions have been eliminated. We can deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes.
  • The much-feared Alternative Minimum Tax threshold is also increased slightly.
  • Standard deductions are expanded to cover the first $24,000 for married couples and $12,000 for individuals.
  • A list of other changes are summarized nicely here in this MarketWatch article.

How companies are reacting to the new tax bill

Now, the biggest tax change is in corporate taxes. Fundamentally, the decrease in corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent will yield greater company profits.
This is big, big news for Corporate America, so much so that within days of Congress approving the tax cut, companies such as AT&T, Boeing and Wells Fargo were promising wage increases, bonuses, and other employee benefits as a result of the new tax law.
In some cases, we’re talking about $1,000 bonuses (or more) to each and every full-time employee. As a matter of fact, over a million workers are expected to receive a bonus of up to $3,000 this year.
In short, companies are LOVING the new taxes.

Impact of new tax law on recruiting low-wage earners

The average Joe Job-Hunter has likely heard about the new taxes since it’s been all over the news, and on Facebook, Twitter, etc. — not just in the The Wall Street Journal.
So shame on them if they haven’t heard about the new tax rates.
In fact, if someone you are recruiting hasn’t heard about the new taxes, well, you may not even want them as a candidate.
A $1,000 bonus is a lot of money for a lower-wage earner, like a retail salesperson or a janitor. So recruiting
these individuals will depend entirely on the extent to which your company will be offering a $1,000 or similar type bonuses.
If you’re AT&T, then it should be a lot easier for you to recruit lower-wage earners because now the recruiting package includes a nice $1,000 bump.
However, if your company is not able to “pass the tax savings” on to the employees, then it will be more difficult for you to attract talent — even lower-wage talent.

Impact of new taxes on recruiting mid-wage candidates

What about the mid-section of the American workforce?
These are the accountants, IT administrators, account managers, and other similar positions. This group would certainly appreciate a $1,000 bonus, but they will likely net a larger bonus from Uncle Sam.
Based on an analysis from The New York Times, President Trump’s new tax plan will deliver tax cuts to those middle-class families who take the new standard deductions. The tax cuts are even greater for those married with two children –roughly $1,500 to $2,100 in tax savings.
From a recruiting standpoint, the new taxes will likely not have much of an impact on this segment of candidates.

Impact of the new tax bill on recruiting top executives

The high-end of the candidate spectrum is different, however.
While the decreased Alternative Minimum Tax and the improved tax brackets may help some executives, we expect a vast majority of them will be negatively hit by the elimination of the State and Local Taxes (SALT).
This is especially true as most executives own their homes. For states with high state (and local) taxes, such as California and New York, this segment of candidates will have to pay more taxes under the new tax structure.
From the perspective of recruiting top executives, there are several implications of the new tax law:
  1. Executives will likely demand a higher compensation package for their new job compared with what they were making before. This is to help them balance out the bigger checks they’ll have to pay to the IRS.
  2. It will become much harder to expect an executive to relocate to a state with high state taxes. Before Trump tax bill, this was already a big challenge given the huge difference in home prices between states such as California and those in the South or Midwest. Now, with a California executive taking home less pay after the new taxes, it would be even tougher to convince one in a lower tax state you may be recruiting to relocate there.
  3. Executives will want to negotiate for a much larger signing bonus. This is to help them reduce their home mortgage payments as much as possible. Realistically though, unless the signing bonus is in the six figure range, it won’t make much of a dent given the high real estate prices in these high state and local tax states.

The net equality effect

In summary, the new tax bill is expected to impact the recruiting of the top-end of the employee spectrum more so than the low and mid-ends, especially if a relocation to a high state and local tax state may be in order.
What are your thoughts? Please leave thoughts or feedback in the comments below.

How to Spot a Rockstar Recruiter

Ask your investors and Board members. Ask other CEOs. But don’t pick from a Google listing.

You are outsourcing a crucial function. How can you find a Rockstar candidate unless you find a Rockstar recruiter?

You need a recruiter who knows what they’re doing. Your recruiter should have a methodology and a high standard of assessing talent. Speak with a few before selecting one.

Finding a Rockstar recruiter: Key questions you should be asking

Here are the questions you should ask:

  1. What are their metrics? What’s the completion rate? What percentage of searches is actually completed? Numbers in the 80 to 90 percent range are strong. (If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.)
  2. What’s their stick rate? A recruiter’s stick rate is the percentage of candidates still in place after two years. An 80 percent or higher is a good starting point, since 24 months is the current national average for job tenure with a company.
  3. What’s their speed? On average, how many days does it take them to complete a search? The national average is 90 to 120 days. An efficient recruiter who isn’t overloaded with searches can often do it in half that time.
  4. What’s their volume? Ask how many searches they’re currently conducting. Literally find out their capacity. You want to know if your search will be one of 15 they’re working on, or one of three. Some recruiters limit the number of searches they take on, so they can give each one a lot of attention.
  5. Who will be doing the work? You may hire a firm, but you must know specifically who will be conducting your search. Who will do the research to develop the list of potential candidates, and what tools will they use? Who will reach out to candidates — is it someone who will get their calls returned because they have a reputation with Rockstars? Is it someone who is creative and smart about how to message the opportunity? Are they persistent?
  6. What is their vetting method for candidates? You’ll want them to assess based on the competencies and DNA you’re seeking. One of the first things you’ll do with an executive recruiter is talk about the Scorecard, the competencies, and the DNA fit. Who will do the interviews? How many rounds of interviews? Will the interviews be in person, on the phone, or via Skype video?
  7. What’s their recruiting methodology? Focus on selecting a recruiter who recruits consistent with your philosophy.
  8. Do they have an off-limits list? Usually, a recruiter doing a search for a company will agree not to recruit anyone out of that company for another client for a certain period of time, usually a year or two. The bigger the firm you work with, the more clients they have, and the longer that off-limits list grows.
  9. How will they position your company and your opportunity? You want to break through the noise. To attract Rockstar candidates, you need to differentiate your company and the opportunity. Ask the potential recruiter what the message will be and how it will be compelling.
  10. Will they provide visibility and transparency? Does the recruiter provide a weekly report and phone call on the candidates they’ve contacted? If they use an applicant tracking system (and just about everyone does), you should receive a weekly report of the entire pipeline—showing who’s been contacted, who they’ve spoken with, who they’ve vetted, etc.
  11. Do they offer a replacement guarantee? If a candidate doesn’t work out, how long will a recruiter guarantee that placement? Guarantees range from one month to one year. A lot can go wrong in a year; not much can go wrong in a month. This guarantee is worth something, especially when investing a hefty search fee.

Have a variety of search firms on speed dial. Don’t automatically use a go-to firm for every search; choose based on the type of search you need. It’s difficult for a recruiter to be an expert and simultaneously have the capacity to take on all your searches.

Excerpted from Recruit Rockstars: The 10 Step Playbook to Find the Winners and Ignite Your Business, by Jeff Hyman. Copyright (c) 2017 by Jeff Hyman

Every Recruiter Should Walk a Mile in a Candidate’s Shoes

Every recruiter should walk a mile in a candidate’s shoes.

Chances are they have. Chances are even better that at least one of those experiences turned ugly.

Imagine you’re the editor of a recruiting publication and have also served as an adjunct professor at a prominent university. You’ve recruited, hired, and managed many people. You’ve also had more than one baffling candidate experience.

As a former editor, you respond to a vaguely worded ad with an editor’s job description. The location is close to where you’ve always lived and worked. In two weeks, the publisher responds. The publication was quite familiar with your work and was also part of a group affiliated with your former employer. The group had even asked you to come back into the fold at one point.

Like shooting fish in a barrel, eh?

Famous last words: “We’ll let you know”

After the initial call, you spent three days of your time talking with principals and firming things up. One of those days required an in-person meeting at the publisher’s office. You just devoted many valuable hours to the process and afterward, you hear nothing from the interviewer. No status updates. No thanks for your time.

A week passed and you reached out to the publisher who responded that they were “far down the road with another candidate, but nothing final yet.” In closing, the publisher added, “We’ll let you know.”

Famous last words.

No one ever did let you know, but you found out through the grapevine — not from the interviewer — that the position had been filled. To make matters worse, they hired someone who had a lot less experience than you.

Painful and true circumstances such as these travesties occur too frequently in the HR and Talent Acquisition universe.

Companies must avoid these recruiting practices — at all cost. Furthermore, those costs can be staggering. Not only do unpleasant trials leave a bad taste in the mouth of potential employees, but such experiences take a toll on your bottom line.

The messages your recruiting practices are sending candidates

The Talent Board’s 2016 Candidate Research report found that 41 percent of global prospects planned to take their business elsewhere because of a miserable candidate experience. Perhaps you feel this scenario won’t apply to your business. Think again. In 2014, Virgin Media lost $5.5 million when approximately 7,500 applicants switched subscription services after being treated disrespectfully throughout the recruiting process due to their poor recruiting practices

Bad HRBut we don’t have 130,000 applicants per year, you say. Well, it’s all relative.

Don’t expect things to get any rosier on the hiring front. When the process flows smoothly, candidates don’t take to the Internet to extol the virtues of your talent acquisition team. Make a few missteps, however, and you’ll feel the wrath.

A whopping 72 percent of mistreated recruits have either posted negative reviews on job boards or have shared their harrowing stories with friends, family, and colleagues. The message? Don’t walk away from the company in question. Run away. And run fast.

You can’t afford to lose customers, and you can’t afford to keep open positions unfilled.

Fortunately, you CAN take action.

If you’ve received negative feedback on your candidates’ experiences or simply feel that your recruiting practices could use an overhaul, read on.

Streamline the application process

Candidates complain about having trouble merely getting out of the gate. Some application instructions confuse even the most seasoned job hunters. Applicants will quickly sour on the process if presented with lengthy, convoluted details on how to apply.

Condense the instructions to a few simple bullet points. Make it easy to jump in and get started. Don’t require a password to log into the site either. People get clubbed over the head with multiple password requirements every day.

No one wants to spend a lot of time filling out an application. A person’s attention span is 8 seconds, purportedly less than a goldfish. Thus, having applicants trudge through the initial phase of the hiring process won’t bode all that well for conversion rates. Around the 10-minute mark, prospects might no longer be able to ignore their Facebook notifications and the application sits on the back burner.

You should test the average time it takes to complete an application. Like a concise resume, keep it at one or two pages in length.

BNY Mellon recently cut the time it takes for job seekers to complete an app. They shrank completion time from 18 minutes to three minutes by reducing unnecessary information required for submission. Consequently, the company has witnessed measurable success in the number of hires they’ve made from their proprietary platform.

Fostering a humane hiring process

Does anyone like to wait in line? The answer is almost always a resounding “NO!”

Imagine the way a candidate must feel after they apply for a job and wait for weeks, hearing nothing but crickets. Slow or no post-interview follow-ups register as a major issue for recruits who languish while bills need to be paid, and to an employer’s detriment, competitors move in.

Don’t be one of those companies who vanishes after a quality prospect meets with a hiring manager, because it’s a lose-lose situation.

The steps to winning again aren’t that complicated. It simply requires better execution and recruiting practices on the part of the recruiter.

In the movie The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone’s adopted son and personal lawyer, Tom Hagen, rushed back to New York from a Hollywood dinner before finishing his dessert, because as Hagen put it, “Mr. Corleone is a man who insists on hearing bad news immediately.”

Candidates don’t think any differently.

In order to clear their minds and move on to the next opportunity, candidates want to get bad news as soon as possible. So do them a favor: Send out a rejection letter (or email) the minute you’ve decided that they’re not a good fit.

It’s better to face cold reality than have prolonged false hope.

When there’s keen interest on your part, keep the lines of communication open. Interviewers receive thank you emails from candidates all the time. Turn the tables; thank the candidate after each round of the hiring process.

A most gratifying gesture would be to send an acknowledgment the day after the interview. That note will help keep a recruit engaged and perhaps prevent them from seeking another opportunity.

How to conduct a smart and sensible interview

The face-to-face interview is the grand arbiter of many job seekers’ anxieties. Some candidates love them. Other folks would rather stick needles in their eyes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. For example:

  • Pre-interview conversations should extend beyond directions to the meeting site. Let the candidate know if they need to bring anything besides themselves- resumes, portfolios, work samples, etc. Nothing feels worse than getting blindsided by an interview requirement that was never communicated.
  • Start the interview on time, because 20 minutes seems like an eternity to a candidate who is mentally locked-in to pitch their prowess at 11 am. Making someone wait conveys the sentiment that they are just not as important to the company as they’d hoped. It’s not the best foot to put forward.
  • Break the ice. Recruiters should make every effort to eliminate bias, but conversing a little bit about last week’s Game of Thrones episode never hurts matters and breaks the ice. Those chats put everyone in the room at ease and make a perfect segue for the business to come.

From candidate to employee — great onboarding is the key

You’re hired. Who doesn’t want to hear those words?

After all the twists and turns of the recruitment phase, the offer has finally been made.

Once the position has been accepted, start the onboarding process immediately. Communication becomes critical at this stage. As strange as it seems, a great many candidates wander off to competitors in the period between acceptance and the first day on the job.

“Minding the gap” refers to safely navigating the space between the railway platform and the train. Employers would be wise to apply the analogy to the post-offer time frame, lest some of those ideal candidates slip into the cracks.

So keep the fire burning. Brand matters for candidates as much as it does for customers. Welcome packets with additional info and a small gift are a nice touch. In addition to those things, back and forth emails with a few periodic phone calls to check in and answer any questions that may linger help immensely.

Time is always at a premium but the more attention lavished on top talent, the greater the chance they get to that first day and stick around for years to come.

The Final Say on smart recruiting practices

Ultimately, nailing the candidate experience comes down to smart recruiting practices, including details, planning, and some added time and effort. Managing the bulky, repetitive stages of the early recruitment process can prove cumbersome while also trying to onboard top talent.

From a candidate’s perspective, the career search can often be less than pleasant. A Silicon Valley-based recruiting firm conducted a poll that equated the job hunt with a root canal, ranking only behind the death of a loved one and divorce in terms of physical and emotional duress.

Find a way to ease that pain. This includes:

  • Primarily, recognize that a candidate may be taking time away from a current job to fulfill your requirements. Use that time judiciously to build rapport. Let them walk away feeling massaged and not maligned.
  • Create deadlines for communicating status and/or next steps. Stick to those timelines. Letting recruits twist in the wind creates anxiety and increases the odds that they may seek another opportunity.
  • Finally, if you’ve found the right fit for a position, engage that candidate immediately after an offer has been made. Give them a sense of belonging and set the stage for a fruitful and rewarding career.

Fixing your recruiting practices and paving the path with genuine and timely interactions will ensure that your company attracts, hires, and retains the best talent available.

Want Great Talent? Recruiters Must Get Past the Industry Experience Trap

I recently participated, as the Recruiting representative, on some Skype interviews of candidates for human resource positions for a large power utility company.

The candidates on the screen that day were deep and steeped in years of HR experience, but not at a power utility. They all came from disparate industries and businesses, but none of them ever had worked in energy!

At the debrief session, the Hiring Managers decried the lack of direct experience in the power industry and they criticized the Recruiting Department for presenting candidates without any relevant industry expertise — despite the fact they had pre-screened the resumes beforehand.

I politely disagreed and said that industry experience can be taught and learned by a smart and energetic new hire like the ones we just saw on the screen.

When you find yourself in the Industry Experience Trap

In fact, I said, give the new hire 30 to 45 days with key internal mentors within the organization as part of their 90+ days or six months of onboarding, and that smart, new hire will become proficient in the industry and its jargon, the industry structure, the competitors, industry trends, key industry associations and networks, etc., etc. etc.

What I was telling these hiring managers was that they had fallen into what I call the Industry Experience Trap.

My point was that you must truly examine what an HR professional does and THEN decide if direct industry experience is an absolute must have or simply something that is preferred or “nice to have.”

For example, based on the size of the firm, an HR professional will be involved in:

  • Recruiting;
  • Hiring;
  • Training;
  • Coaching;
  • Organization Development;
  • Communication;
  • Performance Management;
  • Policy recommendations;
  • Comp and Benefits;
  • Team Building;
  • Employee Relations;
  • Leadership;
  • Employer branding;
  • Onboarding;
  • Downsizing.

Ask yourself: Do any of the above areas require deep industry experience to be extremely effective? If you think they do, you’re probably caught in the Industry Experience Trap.

A new recruiting philosophy needs to emerge

Honestly, this kind of specific experience may be only true (in a limited way and not for long) when it comes to Recruiting or Comp & Benefits.

For Recruiting, it’s true in the sense of knowing key recruiting approaches and channels, key recruiting firms, and networks unique to the industry (which is all learnable over time, I might add).

And maybe it’s true for Comp & Benefits in the sense of specific industry pay structures and incentives, and, unique benefit schemes and offerings, which again, are all transferable knowledge and learnable over time by a smart new hire with “core skills” for the job if they get proper study and instruction.

In the increasing tight labor markets in 2018, external Recruiters and internal Corporate Hiring Managers will need to consider/recruit individuals from companies, industries and sectors outside of their niche and captive industries.

A so-called “new” recruiting philosophy or paradigm needs to emerge where we consider hiring smart people with skills that are transferrable — even if it is from another industry.

Transferable skills used to be a big thing – and still should be

Of course, this in fact would not be a “new” Recruiting philosophy/paradigm at all, but simply a return to how recruiting (and hiring) was practiced back during the dotcom boom when talent was tight and “transferable skills” became the big things recruiters were looking for.

We managed to avoid the Industry Experience Trap back then; if we want our recruiting paradigm to change, it’s time we looked back and remember why we did that — and why it worked.

What Do You Do When You Need to Hire But Don’t Have the Recruiting Budget?

The 2017 news cycle was exceptional: Tenuous geopolitical situations. Shifting trade policies. Natural disasters. De-regulation and tax reform.

As we begin 2018, I predict that most HR and Talent Acquisition teams will soon be feeling the effects of last year’s headlines.

For many recruiters, one of the key impacts you can expect from all this uncertainty is an insufficient recruiting budget — particularly in more cyclical industries like energy, construction, semi-conductors and other manufacturing segments.

Why recruiters get hit with recruiting budget problems

Remember the Great Recession of 2007, when big automakers needed bailouts, consumer confidence and credit crashed, and no one was buying cars? Auto manufacturers drastically cut head count. Then, within a few years, pent up demand left auto makers scrambling to rebuild HR/TA departments and forced to come up with hiring solutions on very tight budgets.

And now, the fulfillment center boom is causing disruption throughout the supply chain, forcing HR departments to quickly respond to unbudgeted head count growth. In these examples and others, we clearly see the disruptive influence market trends can have on hiring consistency and the recruiting budget.

There are two main reasons why this happens:

  1. First, and more common, is internal attrition. Unexpected or more-than-expected turnover happens, the replacement hire is not an easy search, and the HR or TA team finds itself under-staffed or under-budgeted to replace that attrition.
  2. The second reason is the impact of an unexpected market disruption or acceleration that was not baked into the current budget plan. If estimates are made too conservatively, most hiring managers have to jump through hoops to get approval for extra hires. Too often I have seen conservative budgets restrain growth despite highly favorable market conditions.

What recruiters everywhere can learn from oil & gas

In no other industry will the problem of unbudgeted head count growth be more troublesome than in Oil & Gas which has, until just recently, been impacted by very low prices, putting extreme pressure on budgets.

Over the past five years, a variety of disruptive factors contributed to the loss of over 440,000 jobs across this industry.

First, the hydraulic fracking boom led to an explosion of U.S. production. Then the U.S. lifted the ban on oil & gas exports. Next, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to glut the market, driving down oil prices, only to reverse course in 2017.

As it would in any industry, HR and TA teams in the Oil & Gas sector were drastically impacted. Previous efforts to reduce costs and stay viable caused some companies to scale down recruiting teams and cut budgets so deeply that when oil prices began to rise last year and they needed crews, there was no budgeted money for hiring.

The result? Understaffed recruiting teams and companies unable to meet hiring demand.

So, what does 2018 hold for recruiters in Oil & Gas?

The industry is up and now hiring. But there are still problems: Labor has left the industry (and many are not coming back); companies are facing difficulties finding experienced talent; and hiring teams are still dealing with austere budgets.

How to make the most of a tight recruiting budget

While it’s a lot more fun to recruit when you actually have a decent budget, you still need to deliver results regardless of financial resources. In any industry, my first suggestion to recruiters dealing with budget constraints is to try and get more budget room.

It’s possible when you help educate and illustrate cost scenario analyses. For example:

  • Help the Hiring Manager (HM) or executive who owns the budget to understand talent pool dynamics, market salaries for the positions, and time-to-fill for each position category. Offer your assistance to help identify bottlenecks before they happen. Show the HM the ultimate potential cost of not filling roles. Weigh that cost vs. the cost of a hiring solution, either internally or through an external agency.
  • Stay informed of talent pool dynamics and keep the operations and sales teams apprised of what you learn. This can help HR leaders shape budgets (e.g. shift unused spend in one category to another, like recruiting!)

If there is no way to add budget, and you just have to make do:

  • Suggest outsourcing the work and find ways to avoid the hire entirely. This can help shift the spend away from HR budget items.
  • Optimize your existing recruiting budget on ads, email and social media campaigns. Get creative on adding “sizzle” to your campaigns to engage more qualified applicants.
  • If recruiting for a tight profile, spend time with the HM to identify areas where the profile can be loosened up. This can help you identify candidates faster.
  • Save time by optimizing your screening process. For instance, ask tougher questions earlier in the process (e.g. salary preferences) to drill down to the most viable candidates sooner. Minimize time spent on candidates who will not cross the finish line.
  • Leverage existing employees for referrals with constant reminders of openings and internal bonuses.
  • Obtain a seat at the table when the following year’s budgeting is being done!

One more thing: Keep on top of industry trends

Not long ago I worked with a manufacturer that was recruiting for a very specific type of engineer. This company was not used to doing much hiring and the search was difficult.

When a solid candidate was finally identified, one of the managers decided to “keep looking.” It ended up taking two months more to generate the offer to the original candidate who ultimately rejected it. In this case, both HR and the HM failed to grasp the scarcity of talent available — and it cost them valuable time.

Bottom line: My advice to HR and recruiters is to keep up with the trends that impact your industry. Take it on yourself to get a better handle on what’s ahead for your talent pool and keep your Hiring Managers and other executives informed.

Study Finds That a Bad Onboarding Experience May Disengage New Hires

I know this from personal experience: All the hard work recruiters do to land great talent can get washed away if the new employee has a bad onboarding experience when they start their new job.

If you have any doubts about that, a new study from Kronos and the Human Capital Institute — titled New Hire Momentum: Driving the Onboarding Experience — clearly shows that “onboarding is a critical weakness for a majority of organizations that stalls new hire momentum and threatens to disengage enthusiastic employees during their crucial first weeks on the job.”

Yes, a bad onboarding experience CAN really undermine all the hard work your TA pros are doing to get top talent in your front door.

Companies MUST invest more in the onboarding experience

The Executive Summary in the new Kronos-HCI study drives this critical point home. It says, in part:

There are few instances in the employee lifecycle as momentous as the first few months on the job. New hires join a firm with the promise of productivity. They are focused on opportunities to grow and develop in their careers while making a positive impact both personally and professionally. Loyal to their organizations, new hires bring with them an enthusiasm and energy that is contagious.

The anticipation and zeal new hires bring is consistent across industries, location, and size. It is a competitive advantage accessible to every firm willing to invest in the strategic design and deployment of a new hire experience. The monetary investment required can likewise be quite minimal, offering organizations with small talent management budgets the occasion to make a dramatic impact.

But despite this opportunity, research conducted in partnership between Kronos and the Human Capital Institute (HCI) shows that few organizations effectively capitalize on it.”

3 critical findings from the onboarding study

The top-line findings from the study of over 350 organizations can be broken down into three (3) key areas:

74637177 – business onboarding concept. hr manager hiring employee or workers for job. recruiting staff or personnel in company.
  1. Onboarding is critically important, but fundamentally broken — Some 76 percent of HR leaders say onboarding practices are underutilized in their organization.
    • More than half (57 percent) of survey respondents believe that the lack of bandwidth for people managers is a significant barrier to improving the onboarding process.
    • Six out of 10 respondents say the primary purpose of onboarding is to integrate employees into the organization’s culture, however, culture makes up an average of just 30 percent in onboarding programs.
    • Onboarding internal hires – often referred to as trans-boarding – is even more challenging, and 24 percent of organizations have no strategy for trans-boarding either managerial and non-managerial internal hires.
  2. Orientation is NOT onboarding — Organizations place too much emphasis on new hire paperwork, not enough on long-term success.
    • Reviewing rules and regulations (75 percent), the company overview (73 percent), resource orientation – such as technology, workstation, and building introductions (62 percent) – and empowering employees to self-service new hire forms (62 percent) were scored by HR leaders as the most important onboarding activities.
    • Conversely, far fewer respondents highly rated strategic activities linked to helping the employee succeed long-term, such as peer mentoring (32 percent), assessment of future training needs (37 percent), access to self-paced training resources (42 percent), and meetings with key stakeholders/teams (47 percent.)
    • Organizations don’t (or won’t) dedicate enough time to onboarding to fully maximize the potential of new hires. More than a third of organizations (37 percent) say onboarding lasts from just few hours to only one week; a quarter (24 percent) use a month-long onboarding process; while a mere 10 percent view onboarding as a year-long or ongoing activity.
  3. More accountability is needed — Onboarding presents a critical blind-spot as human resources embraces data-driven decision-making.
    • More than half (55 percent) of organizations say they don’t measure the effectiveness of onboarding programs, hindering accountability and opportunities for improvement.
    • HR believes they lack the resources to properly handle comprehensive onboarding, and 39 percent say they do not have the right technology to reduce administrative error, ensure consistency, and improve accountability.
    • More than a third (36 percent) blame insufficient technology for their inability to automate and better organize onboarding programs, further inhibiting their ability to train managers in proper onboarding techniques.
    • Some HR leaders recognize the shortcomings in this area, as 30 percent say they intend to increase their onboarding budget for 2018, with investments targeting program consistency and new software.

Why onboarding is so vitally important

Here’s my take: I’ve been in the workforce long enough to remember when nobody talked about “onboarding” or the onboarding experience when you started a new job, and they would have looked at you as if you had just landed from Mars if those terms even came out of your mouth.

No, back in those days it was mostly just new employee “orientation,” and it was mostly about filling out paperwork and figuring out where you were supposed to sit. Sometimes, you might get taken out to lunch on Day 1, or have a decent conversation about what was expected of you, but mostly, you had to fend for yourself and ask a lot of questions of your new co-workers — IF they were willing to help.

It was sort of like teaching someone learn to swim by throwing them into the deep end of the pool.

Yes, the “orientation” for new employees didn’t make a lot of sense, and thank goodness we now recognize that it wasn’t a particularly effective way to kick start a new employee’s career. But, as New Hire Momentum: Driving the Onboarding Experience clearly shows, even our current focus on onboarding new staffers isn’t being executed very well for a great many organizations.

They run a huge risk when they do that — the risk that all the time and effort your recruitment staff has put in to find new talent and get them in the door may go to waste if some new hires get turned off because your organization doesn’t have its onboarding act together.

A few years ago, I was one of those people who thought that the onboarding experience was an overblown concept getting too much focus … until I started a new job where I asked for a little onboarding and got exactly that — as very little as you can possibly imagine.

As it turned out, I only lasted a short time in the position, and although there were a number of reasons why the job didn’t work out, I can’t help but think that a little better onboarding experience might have helped me get off on the right foot — and maybe I would have stuck around a bit longer.

My friend Sharlyn Lauby writes the HR Bartender blog, is president of the ITM Group, Inc., and a member of the Workforce Institute at Kronos Advisory Board (full disclosure: I’m also a board member), and she had this insight into the study’s findings. Sharlyn said:

We all know turnover is expensive, both in terms of direct costs and intellectual capital. Organizations can increase retention by focusing on those activities that get employees engaged from the start. … Onboarding processes set new hires up for success by building positive work relationships, making good on promises made during interviews, and providing a career road map.”

She’s right, of course. Turnover is expensive, and a poor onboarding experience not only hurts your retention efforts, but it doesn’t do much to jump start all that great talent your recruiters have spent so much time and effort to find.

This survey makes one thing perfectly clear, onboarding is a great concept, but only if you take the time to do it right and get new employees you spent so much time recruiting on the right track from Day 1.

How the research was conducted

The research behind the New Hire Momentum: Driving the Onboarding Experience  study was developed in partnership between HCI and Kronos. Between Aug. 14 and Sept. 1, 2017, a survey was distributed via email to those who opted into the HCI Survey Panel and the Talent Strategy and Development Communities.

In addition, participation in the survey was prompted on social media channels. 399 completed questionnaires were received and 43 respondents who did not qualify to participate were removed. Six in-depth interviews were conducted. The results of the questionnaire, subject-matter expert interviews, and secondary sources form the basis of the research. For additional questions on survey methodology and survey findings, please contact [email protected].

Take the Day Off: Why You Should Appreciate the History of MLK Day

I’m old enough to remember when reasonable and educated people complained about making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday.

That’s right. I have early childhood memories of the 1980s where I’m watching TV and hearing people debate the merits of a federal holiday for Dr. King.

Looking back, it seems so ludicrous. Able-minded adults with jobs and mortgages took time out of their busy schedules to complain about honoring a hero who marched for peace, justice, and equality.

What in the hell was wrong with America?

I didn’t have the answers as a child, and I’m even more confused as an adult. Who protests a day off? What national leader thinks Americans need to work more?

The battle to recognize King Jr. Day

Take a poll and you’ll quickly discover that this country is full of tired and exhausted employees. About 54 percent of workers leave PTO on the table. A little time off never hurt anybody.

Here’s what is even crazier to me: Ronald Reagan initially opposed the holiday for a lot of bogus reasons that were tangentially tied to “communism.” Nobody talks about how insane that is. Remember when communism was a concern? Communism. Yup, we go that wrong.

The part of this story that turns my stomach is the role Jesse Helms played in opposing the holiday. He was a human troll and U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He accused Martin Luther King Jr. of practicing “action-oriented Marxism.”

Let’s stop for a second and unpack that phrase. What the hell is action-oriented Marxism? Honestly, who says that stuff?

Racist people do.

State governments weren’t much better. A few enacted Lee-King Day because, when given the opportunity to demonstrate decency, some Southern states clung to the last vestiges of the Civil War. Places like Idaho were incapable of honoring Martin Luther King Jr. without adding an asterisk, so they call it “Martin Luther King, Jr. – Idaho Human Rights Day.” And, surprising just about nobody, South Carolina only recognized the MLK holiday, finally, in 2000.

We now have a MLK holiday, but we still have struggles

The controversy around the King holiday reminds me of the clumsy conversations around race and privilege in 2018.

Statue in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr.in Washington, D.C.

We’re stumbling through debates on the national anthem, gun violence, and police brutality without thinking about how history will judge our words and actions. We’re choosing fear over progress. And far too many of us donated to racist politicians during the past few election cycles just because we wanted to kill the estate tax.

Thankfully, business intervened back in 1990 when Americans were too stupid to make the right call on social justice issues. The National Football League moved the 1993 Super Bowl out of Phoenix because Arizona wouldn’t recognize MLK Jr Day. holiday. In light of the current controversy around Colin Kaepernick, the NFL is still intertwined with the history of Dr. King.

Some 25 years later, companies like Patagonia and Starbucks and Nordstrom put their money where their mouth is. They aren’t afraid to exercise power and make political statements about everything from animal rights to the environment to refugees. There are even companies who offer perks like “Social Justice PTO“ to accommodate workers who feel passionate about specific causes and want to use time off to volunteer.

You still need to do your part

So, while we no longer discuss the merits of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, America still struggles with racism, sexism, ageism and xenophobia.

At a minimum, many of us work with adults who are leading teams and saying racist stuff when no one is listening. And sometimes companies can’t implement programs and policies to address systemic issues.

In honor of today’s holiday, do your part.

Be brave at work and call out bigotry and bias. Educate colleagues who “aren’t PC” and use words and phrases that are offensive.

And, if your employer doesn’t offer a paid day off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, take the day off.

Celebrate it. Honor it. Volunteer or don’t. Just make sure you appreciate the history behind it, and how hard it was to get the day off in the first place.

What I Reflect on Today on MLK Day: Yes, Leadership IS Hard

“In the light of King’s powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head and shoulders above all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now… as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.” — from an Aug. 1963 memo from William C. Sullivan, head of the FBI’s Intelligence Operations.

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which many use to remember his contributions to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

Media outlets will focus on his stirring speeches, or his doctrine of non-violent protest. Others may choose to use this opportunity to question whether or not we’ve achieved the justice and equality he fought for.

Progress, yes, but still work to be done

For me, the above quote is what I choose to reflect on. It’s from an FBI agent named William Sullivan. He was head of a department that monitored (and often worked to undermine) political and social groups in the United States, including Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Sullivan’s statement was in response to Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech, which he gave at the 1963 March on Washington.

Let Sullivan’s words sink in:

We must mark him now… as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation.”

This person whom we have dedicated a national holiday to was once “marked” as a threat to the interests of the United States. With that designation, resources and efforts were brought to bear against Dr. King and others seeking to obtain civil rights for African Americans.

Fortunately, that didn’t stop him nor the Movement. In spite of this as well as other obstacles, we’ve moved forward as a nation. African Americans (we’re no longer Negros) now have the legal ability to be fully engaged citizens. There’s so much work still to be done, but it’s progress, nevertheless.

3 leadership lessons from Dr. King

What leadership lessons do I take away from this?

  • Leadership is hard — It requires effectively articulating a vision, one compelling enough to convince others to support it. It’s even harder when you are competing not only against hostile forces, but indifferent ones.
  • Leadership is hard — It requires faith and intelligence. It also requires a certain vulnerability, as those who oppose you may do whatever it takes to thwart your efforts, including exposing your shortcomings or threatening what you value. A leader must be prepared to accept the risks as well as the rewards.
  • Leadership is hard — It may mean staying the course, even when those that say they support advise you not to push forward. It means hoping that it’s all worth it, because it may be that only after you’re gone that your efforts may bear fruit. Yes, may.

I hope I’m never tested in the way in which Dr. King and others like him were. If I am, I hope to be up to the challenge.

Regardless, I have no excuse not to be the best leader I can be, right now. Fortunately, those that came before me have demonstrated why it’s important, and how it can be done.

This post is dedicated to all those that demonstrate quality leadership in the face of adversity. May you find success.

Is It Finally Time for More Nurses to Get Into Leadership?

The results of a newly released national survey showed that registered nurses have a lot to say about health care leadership issues, most notably that more nurses are needed in high-level executive positions. Nurses also expressed mixed emotions about their current leaders, with nearly half saying they don’t feel supported by their leadership.

These were just two of the many leadership insights from the 2017 Survey of Registered Nurses conducted by AMN Healthcare, health care’s innovator in workforce solutions and staffing services.

AMN Healthcare conducts the biennial RN survey to provide the health care industry with immediate and up-to-date information directly from one of its largest and most influential workforce sectors.

In the wide-ranging survey, the 3,347 respondents provided their views on staff shortages, retirement, the delivery of care, work environment, leadership and other issues. Here are some of the leadership highlights:

 1 — More nurse executives are needed

One area that has become increasingly important to success in health care is leadership, and nurses have their own very clear preferences on how organizations should transform leadership. An overwhelming number – 82 percent – say that more nurse leaders are needed in health care, and only 5 percent disagree.

This is not surprising considering this sentiment has been widely championed by nursing associations and other industry leaders over the last decade.

It was strongly supported in the Institute of Medicine’s 2010 landmark study, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, which called for more nurses in leadership roles to meet the changing demands of the health care system.

2 — Many nurses don’t feel supported by their leaders

An important reason for RNs’ desire to see more nurses in positions of leadership is their ambivalence about how much support they get from leadership. A bare majority of nurses reacted positively when asked about their feelings about the trust and support they receive from their leaders.

When asked whether their leaders were people they trust, good at what they do, care about them, and support their career development, half of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed, while one quarter neither agreed or disagreed, and one quarter disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Breaking down the information further:

  • About half the RNs (53 percent) agreed or strongly agreed when asked to respond to the statement, “My leader is someone I trust.”
  • Another 22 percent were ambivalent, stating that they neither agreed nor disagreed.
  • And, 25 percent responded negatively, saying that they disagreed or strongly disagreed that they could trust their leader.

Collectively, these responses indicated that nearly half of the RNs (47 percent) didn’t feel or weren’t sure that they could trust their leaders.

The results suggest a disconnect between leadership and a large segment of the nursing workforce, a critical challenge considering that nurses are one of the most important factors influencing patient experience. Studies have shown that nurses’ feelings of lack of support can impact job satisfaction, which in turn can affect patient satisfaction.

3 — Nurses are reluctant to pursue leadership roles

While a vast majority of RNs would like to see more nurses in leadership positions, only a small percentage indicated their interest in entering such positions themselves.

When asked about leadership pursuits, 61 percent said “no” they are not planning to pursue a leadership position and only 22 percent responded “Yes.” Another 17 percent said they were already in a leadership position.

Reasons given for their lack of interest in leadership positions included not wanting to deal with the politics of leadership structure and a desire to remain at the bedside.

When broken down by age group, the results provide a more revealing picture.

Millennial nurses (ages 19-36) were significantly more interested in moving into leadership positions, with more than one third expressing interest. This compared to one-fourth of Gen Xers (ages 37-53) and only 10 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 54+). However, Baby Boomer nurses had a much higher percentage of RNs already in leadership positions compared to their younger counterparts.

Final thoughts

In looking at the survey regarding nurses’ views on leadership, three (3) key points were clear:

  1. RNs want to see greater nurse representation among executives.
  2. Only a small percentage of RNs actually want to pursue leadership roles (although interest is higher among younger nurses).
  3. Nurses are somewhat disenchanted with their leaders.

The mixed results suggest that health care providers face challenges in ensuring that nurses feel cared about and supported by their leadership.

Steve Jobs Was Right: We Should Really Be Recruiting For Experiences

There are two concepts we can somewhat conclusively believe to begin this argument:

To quote Varsity Blues: “Things change, Mox.”

And for the tech industry, the one thing that could kill it was actually predicted in 1995 by its greatest icon, Mr. Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs had this view of why experiences matter

See if you can follow the bouncing ball:

  • I read this article on Forbes recently about “The No. 1 predictor of career success.”
  • That article doesn’t teach you that much about career success, admittedly, but it does contain a quote from Steve Jobs in a 1995 Wired article.
  • That quote? Here we go: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it. They just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while; that’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences.”
  • To wit, look at some of the experiences in Jobs’ own life — and what they potentially led to:

  • Now think about today’s tech world: it’s quite insular. Look at LinkedIn job stats, or read this article. (Or this one.)
  • Think about Mark Zuckerberg, one of the “tech titans” to come in the wave after Jobs. He basically created Facebook at age 22 or so. Even if he pulls a Bill Gates and walks away sometime in his 50s to pursue other things, still essentially all he’s known is the Silicon Valley tech world, that culture, those types of jobs, those types of experiences.
  • There are more and more people probably thinking that way — despite the cost of living in San Francisco, there’s a population boom. Those people are (likely) predominantly entering the tech industry, and doing so at a young age too.
  • There’s no “living on an apple orchard” or “taking a calligraphy class” for these people.
  • Without an experiential base, topics like “curiosity” and “synthesis” become harder to pursue.
  • Without diverse experience, or curiosity, or synthesis — essentially, in a world made insular — the creativity and the functionality of the product will decline. As it declines, other nations and other industries can rush in to fill the tech industry void.
  • A doomsday scenario? Of course. Would this take years to play out? Naturally. But Steve Jobs, way back in 1995, may have pinpointed the exact thing that will bring down the industry where he made his fortune.

That creates a whole different doomsday scenario, to boot.

Maybe experiences really DO matter

Here’s the bottom line for recruiters: We sometimes get caught up in concepts like “the resume gap” or other assorted time functions. Maybe we shouldn’t.

Maybe we should think about this instead: The man who shepherded some of the most world-altering products of all-time got to that perch because of his experiences, not because he was consistently toiling in an office from the age 18 to 28, and that somehow made him “a better potential employee.”

See the disconnect?

A Recruiting Lose-Lose: When You Can’t Put Your Bias and Prejudices Aside

Here’s a question for every recruiter and Talent Acquisition professional: Do you ever step back and consider what prejudices and bias you bring to your job as a hiring professional?

My guess is that not many TA pros spend much time thinking about their prejudices, but the topic popped up recently when I read a LinkedIn post from Brigette Hyacinth. She has a big audience — over 442,000 followers on LI — and she’s an author and keynote speaker who wrote The Future of Leadership: Rise of Automation, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

In other words, she’s a smart, thoughtful lady who stays on top of current workplace trends. That’s why this current LinkedIn discussion she started really got me thinking, and I bet it will get you thinking too.

Some great insight into recruiter prejudices

Here’s what she wrote about recruiter prejudices:

I HIRED someone with an UNEMPLOYMENT GAP of 3 years. You can’t imagine the resistance I had to overcome. He took the time off to be a stay-at-home dad for his kids.

You can’t imagine the resistance I had to overcome.

His resume had, “professional sabbatical to care for my family.” Life happens. I do not penalize people for a career gap. I admire people who show commitment, integrity and values.

All that should matter is if the candidate has the right skills and attitude to do the job.

There are 2 major prejudices that no one discusses or cares to. One is the unemployment gap and the other is absolute age discrimination (OVERQUALIFIED).

Our society needs to change. A gap in employment history should not discount someone’s experience or abilities.

There are many people in this position which is a waste of talent.

Agree?”

How do TA pros feel about prejudice when it comes to candidates?

Would you be surprised to know that this simple LinkedIn post from Brigette Hyacinth has generated 210,177 “likes” and 10,581 comments to date. As people like to say, Brigette seems to have touched a nerve.

Although a great many of the comments seemed to come from frustrated job seekers who identify with it, a good number of recruiting and TA pros weighed in on the subject. Here are some of the comments I found interesting:

  • From a Senior Manager at a tech company in Wilmington, Delaware — “Absolutely agree. Companies who limit the candidate pool because of the reasons you’ve listed are missing out on experienced resources who could bring a wealth of talent and experience to their organization. Oftentimes, online hiring tools eliminate qualified candidates, preventing the company from even being exposed to these quality resources. Bring back the human interaction and eliminate the biases from the hiring process.”
  • From a Compliance manager, New York, New York — I’m tired of the “overqualified” rejection. That tells me the business, corporation, etc.. prefers to hire young inexperienced people because they will work for less money, will less likely have children that may cause scheduling conflicts, and bring little knowledge with them of what a great work environment is truly like! It shows every day though, when I find a genuine person working anywhere that takes 2 minutes to listen to me it’s like I’ve found the Golden Ticket! It should not be this way! Solutions??”
  • From an Executive at a Fortune 100 tech company based in Dallas, Texas — “It’s not society that has the problems but the evil (companies) that do. They always want someone who can do it cheaper and younger personnel typically do it cheaper. Culture and (undocumented) policy shift needs to happen at evil (companies), not the people that work there. Oh and remember, corporations are people!!”
  • From a Recruitment marketer in London, England — “This is something we actively encourage our clients to look at. Traditionally, a lot of talent has been dismissed because of career break discrimination. Let’s make 2018 the year to change this around.”
  • From a Recruiter in Raleigh, North Carolina — “I encounter this problem all the time with my candidates. It is completely unfair and discriminatory to penalize someone for being a seasoned professional. We need to value the skills, experience and loyalty these individuals bring to the table and not discount them for being older adults. These professionals bring integrity, loyalty, experience and massive potential to the table, contrary to the less seasoned and younger individuals who are more likely to think of personal successful versus team success.”
  • From an Independent consultant in Los Angeles, California — “Unlike most who believe an unemployment gap is a kiss of death, I actually contend it’s a very good thing. Nothing like it to bring new perspective to a situation. This robotic continuous employment habit is so industrial 2000 and late – -especially when you factor in the false separation between a job and work, usually of the unpaid, caring kind.”
  • From an Office manager from New York, New York — “Thank you very much for this. I have been unemployed for 8 months and every interview starts off with “you are overqualified.” But I hang on to my faith that the right position will come along.”

Every recruiter brings their experiences AND biases to bear

Here’s my take: Just about everybody has biases that they bring to the table. The problem for recruiters and TA professionals is when those biases get in the way of making good candidate decisions.

Part of the problem is that EVERYBODY draws on their experiences, their background, and yes, their unconscious biases, when they evaluate candidates. The trick is to find a way to put all those things aside when it comes to candidates that don’t quite fit the usual profile for a given position.

I saw this story on SocialTalent a couple of years ago titled How Badly Is Your Unconscious Bias Affecting Your Recruiting Skills?  It did a great job of listing the many biases that TA professionals can bring to the table when they recruit and hire, and how those biases affect our actions.

My friend Kris Dunn, a veteran HR leader and recruiter deluxe, dug into the issue of recruiter bias a few months ago when he wrote a blog post titled Sit Down Old People — I’d Hire You But You’re Not “Digitally Native” … that called out job ads that are blatantly discriminatory by using terms like “digital native” to indicate that they only want people of a younger age applying. His view came down to this:

I’ll assume the reason you don’t want old people is because you think they can’t hang. A lot of times, you might be right.

But older workers are a value play in the talent marketplace right now. If you’re looking for great talent, you might want to figure out a way to sort the player/non-player thing out across older workers. I’d hire all of the older people I saw this week – without hesitation.

Are they “digital native”? I don’t know. But if you’re discounting the whole class due to that factor, I’ve only got one thing to say … You’re wrong.”

Turing a lose-lose into a win-win

Kris is right, but this is not just about older job candidates. It’s about ANY kind of candidate you quickly pass over for reasons like age, gender, race, regional origin, sexual preference, political persuasion, or anything else that’s not relevant to the job and their ability to do it.

Not only is it morally wrong and highly illegal to do that, but it also means you’re blowing past a lot of potentially great hires because you can’t put your bias and prejudices aside.

These are probably the two WORST qualities for any TA pro to have, and the better you are at putting them behind you, the better a recruiter you’ll be.

Hiring prejudices make for a lose-lose situation. The candidate loses … and your organization loses as well.

The quicker you can make your hiring decisions a win-win for both candidate and recruiter, the better job you’ll do and the happier everyone — candidate AND recruiter — will ultimately be.