I was reading an article today by Kris Dunn, a fellow Blogger and close friend of mine, and I wanted to pass on for your thoughts and opinions. Put simply, his article was about a company named Success Factors, a firm that claims to sell "Employee Performance Management" software. While they sell technology aimed at increasing employee performance, current employees have numerous postings at GlassDoor.com that suggest the current CEO (and subsequently, most managers) are truly Bob Sutton certified a**holes. Here's what I think:
In this case, the question becomes, "Does a company have to exhibit the
corporate culture, or better, the very value proposition that it claims
it can help you implement?"
If our focus was solely short-term, I'd say no. Who cares, right?
But the issue is this: Corporate culture is an ongoing, highly-fluid
notion. Yes, there are ebbs and flows (for example, depending on the
overall economic condition [i.e. negative chatter will increase during
a layoff period, etc.]). However, there is much to be said about the
overall buoyancy of the employment brand. If it's consistently below
water, something is wrong - it's time to employ some floaties. But
let's shoot straight - if the CEO is a Bob Sutton certified a**hole,
his managers will take the same cue . . . and to a certified a**hole,
it's not he (or she) who is wrong. Nope, it's everyone else.
In that sense, how could any organization, in good faith, buy into a
value proposition from a firm that can't even get it right in their own
house. If I were to attend family counseling of any sort, I wouldn't
want my sales rep or instructor to have 10 domestic abuse charges as
part of their resume package. Likewise, I also don't use workout
programs from people who are clinically obese. In our personal lives,
these decisions are easy to make . . . but when it's the organization's
(or our shareholder's) capital, it's like common sense often goes right
out the window.
You know, I sound like a broken record here . . . and frankly,
I'm sick of saying this, yet it continues to fall on deaf ears: It's
NOT all about the technology. In the HR World, the marketing noise and worthless sales-centric chatter is deafening . . . yet my voice is resisted in my very own space because I don't walk lock-step in line with the formation of toy soldiers. And if you want the truth, the sheep want to follow the other sheep. If everyone is doing it, it must be good, right? Wrong.
So much of corporate culture is about
nothing more than the time-tested 'Golden Rule', yet the sales reps,
vendors, and marketing magicians don't want us to believe that. Hell,
they probably don't even believe it themselves . . . so they're not
lying; they're simply disillusioned and desperate to earn a buck. Don't be a sucker.
So I log into Facebook today and see that a friend of mine completed the quiz, "What Plastic Army Man Are You?" Being a Marine in my younger years, of course I didn't like "Army Man" (you know what I mean if you were ever a Devil Dog), but I was compelled enough to take the quiz for a spin.
And here's where it gets good: The first question of the "What Plastic Army Man Are You" quiz is . . . .
"What nationality are you?"
Now you tell me - what the ^&% does this have to do with anything, particularly involving plastic army men that are all the same shade of green?
Moving on, let me simply say that if you're trying to raise your social media visibility, doing quizzes such as these (whereby they are visible to potential Hiring Managers or HR) may send a message about who you are. If a particular HR rep or Hiring Manager have an aversion toward the military, seeing you take this quiz may be the kiss of death. On the other hand, the HR rep or Hiring Manager may have a personal affinity for the military . . . at which point the quiz may position you beneficially.
Or more likely, perhaps the HR rep or Hiring Manager are social media zombies . . . of which the busier you are, the better.
Just some food for thought this morning - now it's your turn to do the dishes!
Most likely, you're not here to read a long article - you likely want some short thinking points, or better, some food for thought . . . so here you go:
In my line of work as an Executive Recruiter, I have found myself running into interesting interviewing situations resulting from the Global Economy. Many of my Clients are true MNCs', and this means that some interviewers may not have been born and raised here in the U.S. Due to this, I've come to learn that interview preparation must include a cultural understanding of the dominant religions, national issues, and or economy from which your interviewer hails.
For example, if you're interviewing with a Chinese Executive (meaning an Exec born and raised on Chinese soil), you'd be well-served to read up on Confucianism . . . particularly how individuals are taught at a young age to sacrifice individually for the greater good of the group (or the greater good of society.)
Think it doesn't matter? Think that we're taught the same as Americans? Think again. And if you need an example, look no further than our very own Declaration of Independence. C'mon, you remember the old "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness" line, right? Close your eyes and I bet you can hear your 4th Grade Teacher getting the class to rehearse it over and over.
Another example, you ask? No problem. Let's just put it like this: You won't run into too many Chinese Executives that are bumping 50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" in their iPod on the way to your interview.
With all the talk about the necessity for teamwork and collaboration given the further decentralizing of the Global Economy . . . then why are resumes all about marketing our individual accomplishments?
As an Executive Recruiter, here's the true irony I can pass on:
If a candidate or job seeker has the word 'team' in their resume more than 2 - 3 times, HR often perceives that the individual is stressing collaborative accomplishments because they have none to claim as their own.
Yes, unfortunate . . . but perception dictates whether you're selected or not. In this case, it just doesn't make sense.
A Buddy of mine, Jason Davis, today started a conversation over at RecruitingBlogs.com about "Building a Successful Job Board." After pondering this for a few, I added the following. So, am I on the right page . . . or am I barking up the wrong tree?
"It's all about Locality + Niche and/or a Hybrid Combination of those two.
However, I don't like the word "Board". Boards are archane and yesteryear; networks and communities are today and tomorrow.
Boards are a one-sided push of information; Communities are a two-way dialogue (or n-way, depending on the number of people chiming in . . . )
I could go on, but you get the picture. The Job Board is dying -- not dead yet, but dying slowly . . . just as every product moves through a product lifecycle (introduction, growth, maturity, decline). Sure, there are new versions and iterations, but the further along the PLC we move, the more the savvy entrepreneur focuses on creative destruction (thereby becoming an acquisition target down the line).
Of course, this is just speculation, but I think the "job board" of yesteryear will morph into the "opportunity community" of tomorrow . . .
The "Oppormunity", if you will ;)
P.S. If you're a recruiter or talent acquisition professional (or a vendor in the space, etc.), you should join RecruitingBlogs.com. This is not an endorsement as if I have anything to gain - I'm just trying to share a cool talent-centric site for all of you that have given up on the notion of new and fresh content in and around the talent acquisition world. Oh, and if I didn't mention, please check out FistfulofTalent.com - it'll be worth your morning read over a good cup of java (or green tea) :)
Talent acquisition. What should a company's priorities be. Acquiring talent, or managing talent? This post discusses the HR role in managing talent successfully by realizing that not everyone is created equal.
The new McKinsey Quarterly came out today, and thus, it is a good day. Of particular interest is the article titled, "Making Talent A Strategic Priority", by Guthridge, Komm, and Lawson. For those of you who, much like me, have trouble digesting 3,000 any later than 2 hours post-coffee (or Green Tea for the caffeniatically-challenged), I'm going to translate and focus on those elements to purely Talent Acquisition. (Yes, the entire Talent Mgmt continuum interests me, but I don't play in the cradle-to-grave talent cycle today, so I'd be off-base to offer any misguided musings.)
The authors early on point out that the notion of Talent Mgmt is nothing new - their reference to McKinsey research published back in 1997 made me feel old :) You mean talent was important last decade when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth? [Sure it was!!!] Just like back then, the following mantra that "people are our greatest asset" still pointless flows through the annals of Annual Report MD&A corpses. Different Day, Same %^$# if you know what I mean . . . and then they dropped the bomb on us:
"The widespread belief that expensive efforts to address the problem have largely failed compounds the frustration of many senior executives. In the past decade, organizations have invested heavily to implement human-resources (HR) systems and processes, and talent issues have unquestionably moved up the boardroom agenda. Although these moves are laudable and necessary, they have been insufficient at best, superficial and wasteful at worst."
*/ But how could this be? That sales rep at the last trade show (I mean, "carnival" or whatever neuro-linguistics-phrase-du-jour is used to subconsciously suggest networking/partying trumps learning nowadays) told me that there would be 1000% ROI if I purchased by the close of the show! And that "thought leader" who just presented last week told me that process improvement was the key . . . he even had some whitepapers for me to buy at $149 a piece. Both those parties told me that their process improvement ideas (and their unique techonology) was immune to the widespread failures of their forefathers. Were they lying to me . . . or just themselves?
"To manage talent successfully, executives must recognize that their talent strategies cannot focus solely on the top performers; that different things make people of different genders, ages, and nationalities want to work for (and remain at) a company; and that HR requires additional capabilities and encouragement to develop effective solutions. Only in this way will talent management establish itself at the heart of business strategy."
*/ Really? You mean that all people aren't created equal . . . and for that matter, all market segments and/or talent segments? Let's wake up, Everyone - we can learn a thing or two from our marketing cohorts. It's called market segmentation (or in this case, talent segmentation), which I'll be discussing at Sourcecon and the Kennedy Info Recruiting Expo (and I'd be remiss to mention that there are also some cool topics that look to be on the slate about these issues at RecruitFest). This peanut-butter mentality of spreading the whole talent acquisition investement (or better, costs) evenly among all talent pools is about as "Industrialization Era" as it gets. It's almost as if Henry Ford's ghost is running the Talent Acquisition function with the ever infamous mindset, "Why is it that I always get the whole person when what I really want is a pair of hands?"
Of course, Gen-Y comes up: "HR professionals say that these workers demand more flexibility, meaningful jobs, professional freedom, higher rewards, and a better work–life balance than older employees do. People in this group see their professional careers as a series of two- to three-year chapters and will readily switch jobs, so companies face the risk of high attrition if their expectations aren’t met. The Gen Y cohort, already representing 12 percent of the US workforce, is therefore perceived as substantially harder to manage than its predecessors."
*/ This goes back to a similar post I made referencing Stoic philosophy. If a dog is pulling a cart, and the cart starts rolling down hill . . . yes, the dog can resist cooperating, but it will likely just wind up in the bushes. What am I suggesting? Simply, I recommend acknowledging that Gen-Y'ers might leave no matter what you do, so understand that it may be nothing more than an example of currency risk in other form. Do what you can, but live with it because you're going to lose more than you win (Vegas, anyone?)
"Finally, knowledge workers, the fastest-growing talent pool in most organizations, have their own demands and peculiarities. By one estimate, 48 million of the 137 million workers in the United States alone can be classified in this group . . . Knowledge workers are different because they create more profit than other employees do—up to three times more . . . Yet the performance of knowledge-intensive companies within the same industry varies significantly, which suggests that some of them struggle to extract value from this newly enlarged type of workforce."
*/ Yes, I do admit this is a "hindsight is 20/20" moment . . . but this comment hit me hard the more I thought about it. What is suggests to me is that there can be an organization with greater talent and more knowledge workers, yet still underperform a competitor with less talent. This could be a premise for an entirely new post, but I imagine that a mediocre car-driver in a Ferrari could outrace a professional in a Honda. This may perhaps be the #1 point that is most heavily rejected and resisted by the Executive Search community.
"When companies do make talent a priority, they often fall into another trap: focusing narrowly on HR systems and processes, which divert attention from the place where most of the obstacles lie: people’s heads. “Habits of mind are the real barriers to talent management,” one financial-services executive confided."
*/ Well stated - such is a fact of life . . . as well as business.
"Recent UK salary surveys show that senior sales, finance, marketing, and IT managers earn up to 50 percent more than their HR counterparts. Our research confirms the idea that HR’s influence is declining. The executives we interviewed criticized HR professionals for lacking business knowledge, observing that many of them worked in a narrow administrative way rather than addressing long-term issues such as talent strategy and workforce planning."
*/ Isn't it ironic that the same organization touting "people are our greatest asset" in the annual report significantly underpay those who spearhead Talent Management? Fat bonuses, lavish stock options, golden parachutes, and underpaid HR Execs.Color me surprised . . .
I'll be back with Part 2 over the next 48 hours - I hope my ramblings were worth an eyebrow raising, a smirk, a laugh, or above all, a thought . . .
I met with an interesting candidate yesterday - let's call him an Alpha Baffoon. When sitting down for lunch, he threw his folder on the table from 3 ft out, making a loud "thud" . . . which was an instant red flag. At a later point, he berated a waitress because his food wasn't "up to par." The other interesting form of body language was him stretching in such a way as to claustrophobically impend on surrounding patrons . . . and it was obvious he enjoyed barreling through the crowds like a Berzerker on methamphetamines.
Now that I've painted a picture in your mind, let's consider our own psychology for a moment: As a Third-party Recruiter (or even an Internal Recruiter), should I disqualify a candidate because I get a laugh when observing Alpha-Baffoons? Is my ego so big that I would potentially jeopardize a client's performance because my personality type doesn't play well with Bullys'?
Let's face it: There are Alpha-Baffoon Hiring Managers out there that would see "fit" of a mini Alpha-Baffoon favorably. Furthermore, Alpha-Baffoon Hiring Managers don't like Beta-Baffoons; they see them as 'weak-minded'. In actuality, an Alpha-Baffoon HM looks more favorably on a mini Alpha-Baffoon (read: 'Mini' in this case means younger or physically smaller - yes, I've seen Alpha-Baffoons HMs' pass over Alpha-Baffoon candidates because they feel physically threatened the Alpha-Baffoon candidate.) Why? Well, with Alpha-Baffoons comes the understanding that the group may coalesce into a huge Battle-Royale cage match from time to time . . . it's just how Alpha-Baffoons play the game. In fact, this testosterone-enraged frenzy into chaos is a trait seen as a "right of passage" into Alpha-Baffoondom.
And in that sense, is it really up to recruiters (internal and external) to natural order of such male behavior? Are we now the police?
In that sense, let me ask the tougher question: How many recruiters have you seen "flex their muscles" due to "lack of fit"? . . . thereby lubricating themselves in the endorphin-releasing 'power' that comes with having a badge and a gun. Really think about it for a minute: I have seen, on many ocassions, Recruiters (internal and external) object to "fit" . . . when "fit" is more about their own psychology than it is what is truly best for the organization.
Perhaps something to think about on this wonderful Wednesday morning in 2008 . . .
Take a bite out of this scenario and chew on it for a minute:
The time has come for the recruiting awards presentation and the recruiting clan is rushing from the tradeshow floor to see who won what and the coinciding presentation on best practices. As the zombie-like audience pours in, several fall over the piles of worthless marketing brochures collected over the last 48-hours. Then, several recruiting organizations are enshrined eternally and given a "Golden Candidate" award . . . while the drooling and semi-conscious audience scribbles down best practices in a reverent frenzy.
They're using that technology? We better buy it! They mail garden gnomes to interviewees? We should do that, too! They give a $5000 spiff for employee referrals? Maybe that's why ours doesn't work! They've created a 37-step recruiting process? Wow, we only have 20! They're actually "business partners" with their hiring managers? Yeah, that's the ticket!
If you've been to any of the 5000 annual conferences each vying for our attention year in and year out, you've likely witnessed the above. The minute an organization wins an award (recruiting or otherwise), other business people working for other companies scramble to adopt their Commandments of Best Practices . . . assuming that copying them will offer the same results (and/or assuming that they'll look good rolling out Google's or MS's recruiting best practices at their own mid-size organization).
There is only one problem: They're not Google or MS! They don't have the brand in the talent marketplace. Put simply, they don't have the margin for error.
Sure, the notion of best practices is a sound one - considering we live in a mechanical, clock-like business universe (Rene Descartes, anyone???) of inanimate objects and constants (Isaac Newton, anyone???) . . .
And I don't know about you, but that sure doesn't sound like the global economy (and/or the nature of the business or natural world) to me.
I came across the following interesting article here this morning on FastCompany.com (color me surprised!) titled, "The Texas Rangers' Young GM".
I'll admit - as a baseball fan going back to the Mets title in '86, I never thought I'd see a 30-yr old GM (Jon Daniels). This certainly breaks my perception of the old Salty-Dog ballplayer with gray hair, a potbelly for the ages, and a pack of chew hanging out of his pocket.
The more I think about how Daniels could be promoted to GM after only 3 years of experience (literally, he started out at a salary of $30k in October of 2005), the more I reflect on the notion of "fit". I say that because, obviously, Daniels was not a "fit" in terms of widely accepted baseball norms. However, he was a "fit" in terms of the change needed for the Rangers - sometimes, you have to overtly shake the foundation of blindly accepted Sacred Cows in order to create change. It's not easy to permeate a shift in mindset when the new leader looks and acts just like the old, regardless of their actions or schools of thought.
Sometimes, just sometimes, you have to shake up the comfort zone - and people have to see it happening. Will there be resulting turnover? You bet. Will there be fan defection? You bet. But you have to be willing to go through the surgery if you want to heal yourself - it's uncomfortable in most cases, but necessary.
Beginning a job search when you don't have any idea of what your web signature looks like is analogous to applying for a mortgage loan without knowing your credit score.Bottom line: Don't do it.
Perform a simple Google search to see what is out there. It's real easy to do - just use quotes. For example, if you name is Jim Smith, use the following strings: "Jim Smith", "James Smith", "Jimmy Smith" Xyz Company, etc.
The goal here is to find what your web visibility looks like. Are there any flaming threads? Any questionable political statements? Sure, perhaps a Recruiter won't even search, but why take the chance?
Next, inventory your social networks. Are there any half-clothed pics of you out there? (C'mon Gen-Y . . . you know exactly what I'm talking about!) Any pics of you doing beer bongs during college days a couple years ago? Any pics of you in Goth or sporting a gold-and-diamond grill?
Look, I want to help you . . . But first, you have to help yourself by deleting anything questionable. Maybe this process takes 20 - 30 minutes, and trust me that I can't overstate the importance here. Don't roll the dice on this - you just might come up snake eyes.
So today, swallow the frog and get it done. Then tune back in - Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel.
Yours in Breaking the Rules,
Joshua Letourneau
Managing Director, LG & Assoc Search / Talent Strategy
BLOG: www.lgexec.typepad.com
email: jletourneau(at)lgexec.com
