Remember all the rules you were taught about how to find a new job? (sorry, I meant "an exciting new opportunity"!) Well, "Lies, they're all lies". Well, that's not saying we were necessarily lied to . . . so let's term them 'soundbites of yesteryear's thinking'. The problem is that yesterday's strategies barely worked yesterday, let alone today!
C'mon, you know the rules I'm talking about - apply online with a targeted resume that has every keyword under the sun in it, send a knockout cover letter, "smile, but don't look the interviewer in the eye for more than 2 seconds", dress conservatively for the interview, send a "thank you" letter, etc. Think about it for a minute: Each time a candidate turns around, they see an article or a blog post (or overhear a conversation at a coffee shop) suggesting how to play the job-hunting game.
Well, I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll just say it: Rules aren't your friends. Rules exist to keep you out of consideration. Rules make it easier for lazy recruiters to stay lazy. Luckily, rules are meant to be broken . . . that is, considering you're actually looking for results.
Here's a hint: If you walk up to a tree with a sleeping monkey in it, you probably aren't going to wake him up by calling his name, offering him a fruit, or tossing little pebbles at him. You have to shake the tree - and I don't mean just push on it a little bit . . . I mean shake that sucker!
So today, I'm looking at a few different alternatives - I might make some podcasts and/or video as text is old news . . . but I'm going to feature it right here Fast Company.
After all, Fast Company is all about "Where Ideas and People Meet" . . . so I want all of my fellow FC fanatics to have first exposure to the ideas that win in today's game of job hunting!
Stay posted, Fellow FC Members: Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel.
I often say the same to organizations looking to re-architect their recruiting model/function . . . or to those who have attempted to shift their model and have little to no results to show for it.
Agent Orange was deployed to remove foilage from trees in an effort to better identify the NVA and Viet Cong - in essence, however, they weren't hiding in or under the trees . . . they were hiding under the ground.
The corollary is that recruitment models have shifted to accomodate Sourcing 1.0 (Sourcing as Name-Generation Assembly-Lines), however the coinciding effect has been greater fallouts, no increase in QOH or decrease in QOH, in addition to less relationship-building (i.e. "candidate development").
Sourcing 1.0 is, in my best estimation, the following in military terms:
In a somewhat interesting conversation on ERE, I've observed a trend in response to a Talent Acquisition Director seeking information on how to implement a Sourcing Process into the current mix. Fellow TA Directors seem to be extremely guarded against any non-TA thought processes or insights from 'outside-the-bubble' per se. Being a vendor in the space is met with near-immediate disqualification, which is greatly unfortunate, however not for the reasons that might immediately meet the eye.
(For a disclaimer, trust me that I understand the guarding against being continuously sold. It's the same exact scenario for me as well. Every time I turn around, there's a new product, service, or solution being presented to me.)
Personally, I would encourage Directors of Talent Acquisition to be careful of the exact opposite. I wrote a blog post the other day about "Blindly Worshipping At The Altar of Best Practices", and I would caution Talent Acquisition professionals against doing so.
We are in the early throws of a function that does not (yes, does not) have a seat at the executive table for a number of reasons. One of them is because there is a bias that the best and brightest do not man the TA or HR function. A portion of that stigma is due to TA professionals blindly following the 'best practice' or fad of the day, not because it stands to enhance overall organizational performance, but because it stands to improve otherwise myopic objectives (i.e. those specific to departmental performance only).
A perfect example is an overview of the demand that exists in our space for circa-1930 marketing solutions and 1950s Henry Ford assembly-line recruiting process improvement. Despite having more information about our customer segments (candidate pools, if you will) than any other business function (yes, including marketing), we continue to operate with outdated and archaic philosophies.
There is a great deal to be learned from great business minds outside solely the HR and TA functions. I would encourage all of us to read more of Malcom Gladwell, Tom Peters, Peter Drucker, Seth Godin, or anyone else that piques your curiosity.
I know some former CEOs of F500 companies and current VPs of Marketing that would absolutely blow us away with their 'outside-the-bubble' insights and observations. Please, please, keep an open mind and don't put up immediate blinders because the point of view or paradigm isn't directly from someone in HR, Talent Acquisition, or Organizational Development. Again, please keep an open mind - it's the only way to leapfrogging our current state of growing innefficiencies. We're smarter than Upper Mgmt gives us credit for . . . but it all starts with us recognizing and embracing that fact.
Take a good look at the attached image and you'll begin to understand the analogy between Job Board resumes and Re-circulatory Garbage . . .
Take another look at let it sink in a little bit. Many candidates I speak with do not truly understand the ramifications of having their name, address, and phone number, etc. public on a board like Monster, CareerBuilder, etc, for the whole world to see. Think about it: Do you really want your information to be used as wallpaper for every corporate and third-party recruiter out there?
Sure, I appreciate that by doing so, an opportunity may find you - after all, maybe you hate your job so much that you're willing to take the risk . . . and although this comment might sting, maybe you're part of that 10% of the job market that is simply ALWAYS looking for a new job (or new boyfriend/girlfriend, new home/apartment, etc., thinking that the solution/perfect job/soulmate is out there for you somewhere!)
If that's the case, I'm not a pyscho-therapist so I hesitate to provide advice . . . however, if this doesn't describe you, consider the following:
a. Your resume may have been auto-downloaded by HR through a job-board bot - if you don't have the keywords necessary in your resume, you never wind up in anyone's email account or on their applicant-tracking system desktop (i.e. your resume is never physically seen, yet alone reviewed, however HR "owns" your resume for 12 - 18 months). What this means is that you did not make it through the keyword criteria in the first place, and if a recruiter presents you, HR steps in and says, "We have that resume in our system and they were passed over due to lack of match."
b. An unscrupulous third-party recruiter (exec search consultant / headhunter / etc.) may have submitted your resume to a position without your approval. Yes, there are dirty recruiters out there that will do this in order to get the OK to work on a position. They may attach your resume in an email to the hiring manager ("I found this candidate who may be a good fit for your open position"), and then when they get approval to work on the position, they then say, "Oh, that candidate failed a background check", or "That candidate took another job". In other words, your resume became a marketing piece for a dirty recruiter to fill the position through one of his/her own candidates . . . to earn a fee on the placement.
c. You may have inadvertently submitted yourself to a position a recruiter is working on, meaning in addition to the client company (as a headhunter's job is to find the passive seeker, not the active seeker) - If so, we will be given the red light by HR. I hear things like, "That candidate has already submitted themselves to 4 open jobs - they don't even know what they are looking for". What happens? It's simple - the headhunter is not able to create an aura of mystery and confidentiality regarding your candidacy.
There is a perception of the boards that great candidates don't put their information out there for the world to see - the perception is that the best candidates are happy where they are and are not looking for a competitive opportunity. The other perception is that, at any given point in time, 10% of a given workforce is actively looking for a new opportunity, whether they are unhappy or improperly matched, etc. - the question for a prospective employer is, "Since this 10% makes up the job board resume database, is this the 10% you want working for your company?"
While I can personally say that while these perceptions are true 95% of the time, there are anomalies. Not everyone on the job board is a mediocre candidate - it's just that it's hard to find the good apple in the bunch. Worse, the good apple is seen with a skeptical eye. If you sleep with dogs, don't complain when HR or the Hiring Manager thinks you might have fleas.
At the end of the day, Monster (and the other boards) make their $ by selling two things:
a. Access to the site by HR and recruiters (meaning access to the 5 million resumes), and
b. Job advertisements.
The more people that post resumes on the site, the more they can 'cost-justify' their pricing. The best analogy I can make is nightclubs that realize in order to get the guys to come and spend some serious cash, you have to give the girls free admission and free drinks (well, maybe until 11pm or so!) Without the women, the guys won't show up. In the same respect, a database of 5 million resumes is quite the attraction to HR and 3rd party recruiters.
Moral of the story: If you're going to put yourself on a board, at least put your contact info as 'Confidential' - it's a small conciliation, but at least communicates that you're aware of the re-circulatory garbage floating around in your midst.
Rant of the day: Clowns and/or A**holes are self-appointing themselves as Mentors.?. !!!
Yes, yes, this is truly a growing problem . . . word on the street is that in the recruiting and business world, Clowns and/or A**holes (in the Bob Sutton sense) are appointing themselves as Mentors. I had to restate this as just saying it once doesn't let it sink in enough.
This kind of reminds me of John Adams episode #2 on HBO where Abigail tells Johnny-Boy, "You have overburdened your argument with an ostentatious erudition. You do not need to quote great men to prove you are one."
You see, this was years before Bob Sutton came around and popularized the A**hole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE) . . . and 1775 was a couple centuries prior to Al Gore inventing the Internet . . . so identifying Clowns and/or Assholes was contingent mostly on face value.
Nowadays, with the advent of Social Networking and the coinciding self-aggrandizement, it's just easier to do.
Words of Wisdom: Thought leaders are only Thought Leaders when recognized by others . . . not themselves.
Ok, 3-min rant on people that choose to put "MBA" after their names:
You're not impressing anyone.
If it's an issue of insecurity, see a therapist, buy a Corvette, or start working out - just do something other than be so transparent as to put "MBA" after your name.
I had a conversation with a guy (yes, a Clown) a couple weeks ago in which I advised him that it's still a huge business faux-pas to include those 3 letters after your name. To this he commented, "Well, it's too bad you haven't gained anything from earning one yourself." Of course, this came after the stale-toast aggrandizing sales pitch, "After finishing my MBA with a 4.0 GPA, I was even recruited out of the blue for a very justified professional move." Yeah, sure. My guess is that he heard that line years before even starting biz school, but in his mind, it somehow means more once you get an MBA . . . sorry, but no, it doesn't.
This is the deal about an MBA: Business school is a new phenomena, having started in the 60s'. As Seth Godin says, 'Biz School's time has come and gone.' It's pretty simple why: Because times have changed. About the only thing I picked up in biz school was some debt, less of a tolerance for bureacracy, and a few statistical equations that mean nothing to a small business owner. This is what should be taught in biz school, and isn't:
1. Sales, and more importantly New Biz Dev.
2. Finding & Hiring Superstars.
3. Burning up red-tape . . . and firing anyone who thinks it's necessary. ("MBA" might as well stand for 'Master of Bureacratic Astrology').
4. Learning to dump Big-Company groupthink and realizing that success in the entrepreneurial world is about shifting gears on a dime . . .
5. More sales.
Sure, if you went to Kellog, Wharton, or Harvard, you can get an interview just about anywhere in the world . . . and you also have a network that will forgive you a few addt'l times if you're a clown. But a Clown is still a Clown -- you can put a lemon on 22" rims and at the end of the day, it's still a lemon.
In closing, I understand that those 3 letters might make some feel better about themselves, but the truth is that they mean nothing anymore. Just use the letters CLC instead -- "Confidence-Lacking Clown".
P.S. What was interesting about this clown was that he didn't delineate where he got his MBA in his resume or his professional profile on LinkedIn, social networking sites, etc. So I had to ask about 5 times, assuming it must be a top-flight school to justify putting the letters after his name in the first place . . . to which he finally replied with what sounded like a simultaneous cough and whisper: . . . .
"Strayer Online . . . but I had a 4.0!".
It suddenly all made sense to me, the planets suddenly aligned, and I imagine he understood the subsequent 'click' and dial-tone a few seconds later. The easiest way to failure is to waste time speaking with Clowns.
Pop quiz: What do donuts and national security/intel have in common? Better stated, what do Dunkin' Donuts and Booz Allen Hamilton have in common?
Answer: They may soon both have the same owner, the Carlyle Group. Carlyle purchased Dunkin Donuts for a discount at $2.4 Billion back in December of '05 . . . and now is eyeballing BAH's government contracting business for around the same purchase price, speculatively valued at approximately $2 billion.
As they say, "Only in America" . . . Yes, you have to love the private equity game!
Notably Booz Allen is a key adviser and prime contractor to all of the major U.S. intelligence agencies – the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the National Security Agency (NSA), and – as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and most of the Pentagon’s combat commands.
