Sounds as if another ubiquitous #CultureChat has taken place at SXSW replete with recycled lines about what culture is to the experts. Could they all be wrong?
While it’s relatively easy in anthropological terms to talk about how culture is passed on from generation to generation (or management team to management team, employee to employee, customer to customer) via things like storytelling or analysis of clay pot remnants, it’s the initial description of “What is culture?” that vexes almost everyone in HR and talent functions.
Almost everyone speaks of their culture in terms of its uniqueness, how special it is, how different it is from all others – using the same words as everyone else.
Well isn’t that special?
When groups of experts gather ’round to discuss the many shades of culture by using the same language how much learning actually takes place?
I think the reason most use the “standard culture word library” is because accurately describing culture is really, really difficult. It’s this “lapse” in analysis and erudition that leads to the typical “I’ll know it when I see it” action taken during recruiting.
“I’ll know it when I see it but I can’t really describe it.”
How frightening is this? Can you fathom how many great people and performers we’re tossing to the side – and yet at the same time claiming to others that we’re experts at recruiting?
I liken it to the saying, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”; in reality, most everyone inside a company either experiences the culture of the company second hand or takes the word of someone else.
Does the tree make a sound? Of course it must. Is our culture special? Of course it is.
It has to be.
How many in recruiting – especially those newer to it – actually spend significant time inside the groups being supported, with enough time spent observing and collecting data like the great anthropologists? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question.
Instead, most all recruiters simply take the word of their charismatic leader/founder, and/or authentic marketing expert, and/or HR branding guru. Think about how long anthropologists study the remnants of a people who long ago perished before they begin to understand the culture. Yet here in HR and recruiting we take the word of an entrepreneur whose company has been in existence 12 to 18 months?
That’s one of the core problems in recruiting – the forest we think we see through the trees isn’t what we’re describing with our words nor actions. If this isn’t what’s real then I posit that the profession is comprised of lemmings and sheep who need to have their collective eyes and ears examined.
As harsh as the last sentence is, it it spotlights that we’re darn near in the middle of a downward spiraling vortex that’s sucking our collective recruiting reputations down the drain then I’ll deal with the fallout. It’s time to plug the sink, hire better plumbers, fix the pipes, and enjoy the outcome.
Yes, the falling tree in the forest does make a sound and it’s time to prove it.
Since there are so many ways that as recruiters we’re not getting an appropriate bang-for-the-buck from our LinkedIn investments (and more importantly, in any way aligned to the heights of their marketing bluster), I’m going to focus this week on the many ways that we are spammed via the LinkedIn messaging systems.
So to my frenemies in Trust & Safety, this blog’s for you!
For this week, I’ll focus on the Spam. You’ve received LinkedIn InMail that is unequivocally spamful. You scrunched up your face two sentences in and thought, “WTF?” You checked to see what level connection you have with this social Charlatan.
“*(^%$$%@#%#$, first degree.” You right click on their name and Open Link in New Tab…
You furiously scan up and down the profile of this person whom you let into your “trusted network” on LinkedIn. Your brow is beginning to sweat and your eyes are shrinking into beady little pools of molten lava that are ready to erupt. As you’re ready to shout out “DOUCHEBAG”, you click on Contact, because you want to call and skewer this bastard.
Only you see this:
opayq.com?
“Opayq.com is a domain used for Masked Emails for Abine’s MaskMe and PrivacySuite products. These are real user email addresses, created by users to protect their online privacy.”
Lovely.
Now Spammers are gaining control of LinkedIn accounts, adding their masked emails to your account, and sending your contacts LinkedIn InMails like this (I masked a few things myself to protect this person’s identity); notice the punctuation and grammar:
“I give you 100% guarantee of their legitimacy, a trial will convince you” – made me smile, because I was thinking of another kind of trial.
I hope Paul Rockwell has someone on his staff at LinkedIn who will forward him this post.
Fake Profiles, Dating Requests, Marketing InMails, Account Piracy – how soon before LinkedIn ends up as a running joke on TMZ?
And this is the ultimate tool for most recruiters?
People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.~Lewis Rothschild
Lewis, we’ve had presidents who were beloved, who couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference. ~President Andrew Shepherd
From where I stand, this also applies to the Career & Job Search Counseling, HR, and Recruiting spaces.
Folks, we can do much better – for everyone’s sake.
There’s a neat little discussion over on Quora about whether the recruiting profession is ripe for disruption. One of my favorite people – period – Glenn Gutmacher weighed in with a great comment about recruiting technology and you really should click over and read it. However, since not everyone has a Quora account, here are my comments to the audience (Glenn knows my feelings on this topic so I suspect he was smiling a bit while reading):
For all the entrepreneurs-to-be in the audience, the mere utterance of the work “disrupt” doesn’t imply that you’ll be able to come up with a sustainable model (oh wait, you don’t want to sustain – you want to build and flip your way into millionaire/billionaire status), primarily because you really don’t know what exactly is “broken” in recruiting.
All the folks who want to disrupt the heck out of recruiting – Uberize it if you want to get all hot and bothered – are assuming that the process is to blame, when in fact most of the process works fine until people get involved.
Glenn identified many a tool that presumably uncovers talent but as I demonstrated at a recruiting conference back in October, identifying is an ocean apart from engaging. Let me explain because there are two important parts of this.
Jobmatching has a tremendous amount of future utility but ONLY if specific skills, knowledge, and experiences can be matched to actual performance on the job. After all, the reason we hire people is to solve the problems that need solving, to develop the products that need developing, to service the customers who need servicing. Being able to find the “perfect match” – as the datingpreneurs like to call it – can’t be effective unless you have a frame of reference against which to measure how much of a perfect match it really was.
That frame of reference is called future performance (this is part one). Technology surely can help us here.
Can you develop a predictive model to get you part of the way there? Sure can. But there are many factors that weigh into the model and in the recruiting profession we’re just starting to collect the data.
Which points to a critical limitation in developing the model.
The recruiters (this is part two). Technology can only help so much here. This is the problem.
My talk at SourceCon back in October focused on HOW talent should be engaged by the profession. Many of the tools Glenn writes of can help produce great lists of people whose content is available somewhere online. I offer the word “online” because there’s a growing segment of people who are cloaking their online behavior, even eschewing online altogether for any number of reasons.
This is where a vocal segment of the profession has begun investigating what goes into becoming and retaining one’s stature as a “great recruiter.”
Personal experience aside, you need to understand that merely “disrupting” recruiting won’t change some of the statutory obstacles nor will it make average (or worse) recruiters anything more than average performers.
Disrupting won’t make your candidate experience great; people still have to be part of the equation. Disrupting won’t turn a bad hiring manager into Warren Buffett. The delicious part that everyone sees in the Tinder, Match, and eHarmony commercials is offset by what you don’t see – the mismatches, the ugly meetings, the divorces. Tools can help but tools don’t recruit – people do.
Glenn’s point about offline partnerships has tremendous possibilities. If you study the past “demise” of many industrial trades jobs like model making, welding (can’t print everything in 3D yet), woodworking, HVAC, etc., you’ll notice that we nearly “computerized” these to death. Rather than becoming extinct, a few companies are doing what he speaks of and creating their own corporate university around training people for these scarce jobs.
It’s really a question of creating content and being able to deliver them on platforms such as the one that’s been created by Kaltura. To this end, the talent model is “build from within.”
More, more, more. Every day dear LinkedIn, come a new batch of fake profiles, fake profiles attached to “companies” (like GreyCampus). Why? Likely culling our private information and selling it to other marketers.
Your response? Crickets.
If you need assistance recruiting better security and algo folks than the ones you have entrusted to maintain the “integrity” (yeah, I’m chuckling a bit as I write this), let me know. After all, you have quoted me in YOUR Modern Recruiter’s Guide monograph – so perhaps I know what I’m taking about.
Oh, and you now owe me 3 InMail credits for reaching out to these #FakeProfileMiscreants. Please email me at the gmail account associated with my profile to confirm this.
Have a nice day.
Steve
[added more stuff to this post over on RecruitingBlogs – here it is]
Another day, another 2-3 LinkedIn connection requests from fake profiles. Every day they’re received and every day they’re reported to LinkedIn.
Yet more continue to find their merry way into my Inbox. Like this one today from James Owens who’s in the “Millitray”:
So I sent an InMail (LinkedIn, you now owe me one InMail):
Of course, Captain Owens of the United States of America, responded back (100% unedited):
Dearest One, How are you doing ,My name is Captain James Owen an
American soldier based in Afghanistan on peace keeping ,Being so
ignorant of the internet since but a friend has opened my eyes about the
internet and that is why i am writing you as i have already gone
through your profile and found you very attractive and interesting
It’s
very hard for me to tell you this but I do not have a choice now. I am
just hoping you can keep secrets.Please, read the next paragraph
carefully and comment.
About ten days after I arrived here in
Afghanistan, I was attached to a special tactical unit as a command
relay engineer for an operation which busted a Taliban bunker and the
troop that went for that operation looted the bunker before setting it
on fire. They recovered over 150 million US dollars of the Taliban
funding. The commander agreed with the rest of the troops not to return
the money to the authorities. They split the money among themselves and
in other to have me keep my mouth shut; they gave me 15 million dollars
which I rapped up among my clothing and have been hiding it since then. I
knew it would never be possible for me to leave the base with the money
myself as they have all kinds of security laser scans.
Right now
as I am about to leave Afghanistan, I arranged with that security
courier company who brings medical supplies in and out of the base from
the US to the RED CROSS without security checks to deliver it to you as
my personal effects. The box I mailed to you contains 15million dollars
carefully wrapped up in my clothing and paintings in a luggage sealed
and stamped in your name as the receiver.
There is no other way I
could have been able to bring it out from Afghanistan. I cannot bring
it with me because I will be searched and scanned before I leave the
base. There is no risk involved at all because the courier company is
reliable and will deliver it to you safely without knowing what is
contained underneath my clothes. I would also like for you to honestly
and fairly tell me how much of the money you would like to have as
compensation for the receipt. This is not stealing Friend because
the money is better in our hands than being used for guns and suicide
bombers. We can give a substantial amount to charity to clear our
conscience. Please, be honest with me on this and do not disclose this
information to anybody else until the delivery is made.
I only require your
1) Home Address
2) Full Name
3) Telephone Number
4}Your email Address
Please do reply to this my email Address for security reason owenjames123123@gmail.com
Mind you all this re-gusted from you did not post any risk but only needed for documentation and delivery up keeping
Your Friend
James Owen
Linkedin is unequivocally a fine tool – but it’s certainly not the only tool in both the recruiters’ and jobseekers’ shed. Most of the fake profiles are so painfully easy to spot; many are not. For the ones that are easy to spot – like the one above – I have to wonder about the “expertise” of the people who accept requests from the miscreants who create fake profiles of those currently serving in our Military (notice the spelling).
It’s time that we let our connections know if they’re connected to people with faux LinkedIn profiles; if any of your connections scoff at the notion of eliminating a connection, then I say simply remove them. If you have to use up an InMail in the process of verifying the #LinkedInLiars, then be sure to let LinkedIn know you want an InMail credit.
Above all, we need to keep letting LinkedIn know about fake profiles and the impact they have on our craft both in time and money.
LinkedIn – this problem is beginning to grow legs – and it’s time for you to stop running in the other direction.
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the 15 minutes of social fame window closes and the Principal is back to influencing by herself. This isn’t me being cynical – I’m just recognizing the transience of social enthusiasm. It’s not bad nor good – it’s simply how much of society has been technologically conned into believing that multitasking is life. Next task!
I’ll write it again: For all the irrational exuberance behind technology startups that young entrepreneurs and VCs believe will disrupt and magically produce millionaires and billionaires (a wee bit of dripping sarcasm here), keep in mind that real disruption is called love and it only takes place one person at a time.
So wake up, smell the coffee, and really speak with the person next to you (sorry but texting doesn’t count).
Below is the audio and text of Dr. King’s “Drum Major Instinct” sermon given on February 4, 1968; it was the last sermon he gave. Most scholars agree that he was eulogizing himself for he saw the cultural acrimony caused by the confluence of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war – and his own impending assassination.
I’ve read this sermon countless times and I still I cannot read it without tears welling in my eyes for knowing how far we’ve come but how far we truly have to go, for what was gained and for what is still being lost. At the core of Dr. King’s teaching was not black or white but of taking down the barriers that prevents every person from contributing to the growth of the human race. Call it Pollyannish if you’re a cynic but life isn’t all about accumulation of wealth and wearable technology.
We’ve managed to place a premium of power and influence on the shoulders of those who have disrupted taxis, hotels, and social voyeurism. We regale those whose IPOs have made billionaires out of millionaires; we genuflect at the portfolios of serial entrepreneurs; we view life in terms of skinny jeans, red-soled shoes, and hoodies.
Where do these points of view stand in the shadow of a man whose vision helped people see people for who they are?
The man and his movement has been the most disruptive social force I’ve experienced in my lifetime. I hope you both listen to the audio and read the words.
And tomorrow – take a moment to reflect on the person in the mirror.
This morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach: “The Drum Major Instinct.” “The Drum Major Instinct.” And our text for the morning is taken from a very familiar passage in the tenth chapter as recorded by Saint Mark. Beginning with the thirty-fifth verse of that chapter, we read these words: “And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him saying, ‘Master, we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire.’ And he said unto them, ‘What would ye that I should do for you?’ And they said unto him, ‘Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.’ But Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye know not what ye ask: Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ And they said unto him, ‘We can.’ And Jesus said unto them, ‘Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized withal shall ye be baptized: but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.’” And then Jesus goes on toward the end of that passage to say, “But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your servant: and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”
The setting is clear. James and John are making a specific request of the master. They had dreamed, as most of the Hebrews dreamed, of a coming king of Israel who would set Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion, and in righteousness rule the world. And they thought of Jesus as this kind of king. And they were thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new king of Israel. And they were saying, “Now when you establish your kingdom, let one of us sit on the right hand and the other on the left hand of your throne.”
Now very quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John, and we would say they were selfish. Why would they make such a selfish request? But before we condemn them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves, and we will discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition, for importance. That same desire for attention, that same desire to be first. Of course, the other disciples got mad with James and John, and you could understand why, but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John qualities. And there is deep down within all of us an instinct. It’s a kind of drum major instinct—a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life.
And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.
And you know, we begin early to ask life to put us first. Our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention. And all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major obsession. Children ask life to grant them first place. They are a little bundle of ego. And they have innately the drum major impulse or the drum major instinct.
Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it. We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don’t believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don’t deserve it and even if they don’t believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. (That’s right) But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.
Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are “joiners.” You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it’s really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the “Grand Patron,” and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the “Most Worthy of the Most Worthy” of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.
Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. (Yes) That’s the way the advertisers do it.
I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, “Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say.” Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]
But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It’s nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You’ve seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don’t earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.
You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn’t cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That’s just good economics. And if it’s a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it’s often inconvenient. But so often, haven’t you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That’s a fact.
Now the economists also say that your house shouldn’t cost—if you’re buying a house, it shouldn’t cost more than twice your income. That’s based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it’s kind of difficult in this society. But say it’s a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn’t cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I’ve seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.
But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. (Amen) They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary’s coat. And I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car. (Amen) I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don’t know where he’s going to end up if he’s going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.
There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn’t harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I’m sure you’ve met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. (Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast, and that’s the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.
And then it does other things to the personality. It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) There are some people who are influence peddlers. And in their attempt to deal with the drum major instinct, they have to try to identify with the so-called big-name people. (Yeah, Make it plain) And if you’re not careful, they will make you think they know somebody that they don’t really know. (Amen) They know them well, they sip tea with them, and they this-and-that. That happens to people.
And the other thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention. Criminologists tell us that some people are driven to crime because of this drum major instinct. They don’t feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and so they turn to anti-social behavior in order to get attention, in order to feel important. (Yeah) And so they get that gun, and before they know it they robbed a bank in a quest for recognition, in a quest for importance.
And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, (Glory to God) he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up. (Amen) And whenever you do that, you engage in some of the most vicious activities. You will spread evil, vicious, lying gossip on people, because you are trying to pull them down in order to push yourself up. (Make it plain) And the great issue of life is to harness the drum major instinct.
Now the other problem is, when you don’t harness the drum major instinct—this uncontrolled aspect of it—is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism. It leads to snobbish exclusivism. (Make it plain) And you know, this is the danger of social clubs and fraternities—I’m in a fraternity; I’m in two or three—for sororities and all of these, I’m not talking against them. I’m saying it’s the danger. The danger is that they can become forces of classism and exclusivism where somehow you get a degree of satisfaction because you are in something exclusive. And that’s fulfilling something, you know—that I’m in this fraternity, and it’s the best fraternity in the world, and everybody can’t get in this fraternity. So it ends up, you know, a very exclusive kind of thing.
And you know, that can happen with the church; I know churches get in that bind sometimes. (Amen, Make it plain) I’ve been to churches, you know, and they say, “We have so many doctors, and so many school teachers, and so many lawyers, and so many businessmen in our church.” And that’s fine, because doctors need to go to church, and lawyers, and businessmen, teachers—they ought to be in church. But they say that—even the preacher sometimes will go all through that—they say that as if the other people don’t count. (Amen)
And the church is the one place where a doctor ought to forget that he’s a doctor. The church is the one place where a Ph.D. ought to forget that he’s a Ph.D. (Yes) The church is the one place that the school teacher ought to forget the degree she has behind her name. The church is the one place where the lawyer ought to forget that he’s a lawyer. And any church that violates the “whosoever will, let him come” doctrine is a dead, cold church, (Yes) and nothing but a little social club with a thin veneer of religiosity.
When the church is true to its nature, (Whoo) it says, “Whosoever will, let him come.” (Yes) And it does not supposed to satisfy the perverted uses of the drum major instinct. It’s the one place where everybody should be the same, standing before a common master and savior. (Yes, sir) And a recognition grows out of this—that all men are brothers because they are children (Yes) of a common father.
The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism in one’s thinking and can lead one to feel that because he has some training, he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it. Or because he has some economic security, that he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it. And that’s the uncontrolled, perverted use of the drum major instinct.
Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and we’ve seen it happen so often—tragic race prejudice. Many who have written about this problem—Lillian Smith used to say it beautifully in some of her books. And she would say it to the point of getting men and women to see the source of the problem. Do you know that a lot of the race problem grows out of the drum major instinct? A need that some people have to feel superior. A need that some people have to feel that they are first, and to feel that their white skin ordained them to be first. (Make it plain, today, ‘cause I’m against it, so help me God) And they have said over and over again in ways that we see with our own eyes. In fact, not too long ago, a man down in Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council. And so God being the charter member means that everybody who’s in that has a kind of divinity, a kind of superiority. And think of what has happened in history as a result of this perverted use of the drum major instinct. It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the most tragic expressions of man’s inhumanity to man.
The other day I was saying, I always try to do a little converting when I’m in jail. And when we were in jail in Birmingham the other day, the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the cell to talk about the race problem. And they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating. And they were showing us where segregation was so right. And they were showing us where intermarriage was so wrong. So I would get to preaching, and we would get to talking—calmly, because they wanted to talk about it. And then we got down one day to the point—that was the second or third day—to talk about where they lived, and how much they were earning. And when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You’re just as poor as Negroes.” And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”
Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out. (Amen)
And not only does this thing go into the racial struggle, it goes into the struggle between nations. And I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter, colossal contest for supremacy. And if something doesn’t happen to stop this trend, I’m sorely afraid that we won’t be here to talk about Jesus Christ and about God and about brotherhood too many more years. (Yeah) If somebody doesn’t bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today, none of us are going to be around, because somebody’s going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb somewhere. And then another one is going to drop. And don’t let anybody fool you, this can happen within a matter of seconds. (Amen) They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia right now that can destroy a city as big as New York in three seconds, with everybody wiped away, and every building. And we can do the same thing to Russia and China.
But this is why we are drifting. And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. “I must be first.” “I must be supreme.” “Our nation must rule the world.” (Preach it) And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I’m going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken.
God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now. (Preach it, preach it) God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the war in Vietnam. And we are criminals in that war. We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I’m going to continue to say it. And we won’t stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation.
But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. (Amen) The God that I worship has a way of saying, “Don’t play with me.” (Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews, “Don’t play with me, Israel. Don’t play with me, Babylon. (Yes) Be still and know that I’m God. And if you don’t stop your reckless course, I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power.” (Yes) And that can happen to America. (Yes) Every now and then I go back and read Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And when I come and look at America, I say to myself, the parallels are frightening. And we have perverted the drum major instinct.
But let me rush on to my conclusion, because I want you to see what Jesus was really saying. What was the answer that Jesus gave these men? It’s very interesting. One would have thought that Jesus would have condemned them. One would have thought that Jesus would have said, “You are out of your place. You are selfish. Why would you raise such a question?”
But that isn’t what Jesus did; he did something altogether different. He said in substance, “Oh, I see, you want to be first. You want to be great. You want to be important. You want to be significant. Well, you ought to be. If you’re going to be my disciple, you must be.” But he reordered priorities. And he said, “Yes, don’t give up this instinct. It’s a good instinct if you use it right. (Yes) It’s a good instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it. Don’t give it up. Keep feeling the need for being important. Keep feeling the need for being first. But I want you to be first in love. (Amen) I want you to be first in moral excellence. I want you to be first in generosity. That is what I want you to do.”
And he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness. And you know how he said it? He said, “Now brethren, I can’t give you greatness. And really, I can’t make you first.” This is what Jesus said to James and John. “You must earn it. True greatness comes not by favoritism, but by fitness. And the right hand and the left are not mine to give, they belong to those who are prepared.” (Amen)
And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important—wonderful. If you want to be recognized—wonderful. If you want to be great—wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. (Amen) That’s a new definition of greatness.
And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.
I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I’m talking about as I go down the way (Yeah) because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, (Yes, sir) the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. (Amen) Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn’t have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. (Yes) He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. (Glory to God) He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. (Amen) One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. (Lord help him) When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together (Yes) have not affected the life of man on this earth (Amen) as much as that one solitary life. His name may be a familiar one. (Jesus) But today I can hear them talking about him. Every now and then somebody says, “He’s King of Kings.” (Yes) And again I can hear somebody saying, “He’s Lord of Lords.” Somewhere else I can hear somebody saying, “In Christ there is no East nor West.” (Yes) And then they go on and talk about, “In Him there’s no North and South, but one great Fellowship of Love throughout the whole wide world.” He didn’t have anything. (Amen) He just went around serving and doing good.
This morning, you can be on his right hand and his left hand if you serve. (Amen) It’s the only way in.
Every now and then I guess we all think realistically (Yes, sir) about that day when we will be victimized with what is life’s final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don’t think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, “What is it that I would want said?” And I leave the word to you this morning.
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)
I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)
I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that’s all I want to say.
If I can help somebody as I pass along,
If I can cheer somebody with a word or song,
If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong,
Then my living will not be in vain.
If I can do my duty as a Christian ought,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
If I can spread the message as the master taught,
Then my living will not be in vain.
Yes, Jesus, I want to be on your right or your left side, (Yes) not for any selfish reason. I want to be on your right or your left side, not in terms of some political kingdom or ambition. But I just want to be there in love and in justice and in truth and in commitment to others, so that we can make of this old world a new world.
So be proud that people call you a disruptor but weep knowing you haven’t paid the price to be called a Drum Major. Yet.
As a Boomer I shouldn’t admit this, but I like reading The Daily Muse and the Savvy Intern. While this admission is likely to cause of few of my more opinionated folks to publicly guffaw, no worries – I’m a recruiter and my skin is thick.
But when I read The Muse’s post on 30 Things You Should Never Say in a Job Interview, the experienced recruiter in me cringed a thousand deaths at the apocryphal wisdom conveyed by the article. This isn’t to say there aren’t elements of truth in the points made by The Muse and the people they interviewed to glean the pearls of wisdom – it’s just that the underlying interviewing strategy employed by most recruiters and hiring managers is downright wrong. It’s the weakness of the strategy that has produced such bad job search advice.
Most recruiters and hiring managers interview to exclude rather than to include. Do they realize how much talent is not being brought to companies because of this flaw?
It takes extraordinary interviewing skill to be able to look for reasons to include someone in the next step; when the work load piles up, hiring managers start complaining about “no flow”; inexperienced or harried recruiters then begin to take shortcuts to cull the herd.
I can certainly understand – yet not agree with – this approach. It’s based on three flawed premises:
The resume is an accurate depiction of the person;
The candidate is an expert at interviewing;
The recruiter and hiring manager are experts at interviewing (and of course, know little things like marketplace salaries and the quality of the company’s employment brand).
Many of the very best people I’ve hired had résumés so bad that even the most junior career advising expert would have made the four-year-old-eating-broccoli-for-the-first-time sourpuss face when reading.
Ask any recruiter to honestly answer this question: In your entire recruiting life, how many of the people that you have interviewed would you truly consider to be experts at the craft? How many were average – or worse?
Then there are the hiring managers who take the “I’ll know it when I see it – so keep sending me more résumés” approach. My response to them has always been, “If you can’t describe it to me, how will you know it when you see it?”
Do you really believe that most involved in the talent acquisition assessment process know what they’re doing? I don’t – and I’m in the business! I’ll even bet that the ones reading this post are wondering if they’re an excluder or an includer. Good – introspection is good for their soul and their employer.
The crux of the The Muse article is that the result of the interview is all up to the jobseeker; this couldn’t be further from the truth. If I look at the core logic behind their 30 Things, I’m offering you this thought:
Most interviewers assess you on traits, characteristics, and quirks that play into well-developed biases and old wives (and husband) tales about work and performance, and far more often than they realize, mimic the traits, characteristics, and quirks of the people they work with – and actually get along with.
Things like school, gender, body type, job title, and current employer are all used to shade the person to the point where it’s “easier” to make a go/no go decision on everything except performance.
Why? Because true assessment of past performance and future performance potential is really hard and takes a great deal of time – something few actually have (or believe they have). There’s a tried-and-true recruiting metric called Time-to-Hire (AKA Time-to-Fill) and recruiter performance is partially assessed on this: Who has time to interview to include when their compensation is partially based on “time” metrics?
In other words, these talent acquisition “rockstars” are taking the easy way out and shoveling a big load of crap.
So while The Muse’s 30 Points of Fright do a fine job of highlighting to the jobseeker the fluffier elements that inexperienced recruiters and hiring manager can latch onto to make “excluding decisions”, frankly these pale in comparison to discerning about performance. While it’s human nature to focus on like/dislike when relationships didn’t work, deep analysis almost always reveals that one or both of the people didn’t perform. Snicker away.
Here it is straight from the an experienced recruiter who has learned that since talent rarely behaves the way you expect them to, you have to poke, prod, and pry if you want to make the very best hiring decisions: You have to actively search for reasons to include someone past the first step of the interview process, lest you passively exclude them for reasons other than performance.
The job title of your interviewer tells you nothing about the specific problems they’re tasked with addressing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. When I’m asked about this, I actually think it’s a good question, an opportunity to explain the complexity of my special recruiting environment. Research will only tell someone so much – but if you want to slant the question a wee bit, ask me, “So, tell me about a problem that keeps you awake at night.” It’s still the same question.
“Ugh, my last company…”
“…was such a mess that it caused everyone to look elsewhere. Would you mind if we chat about how similar – or dissimilar this company is to my soon-to-be former employer?”
I know when you’re perfuming a pig and I guarantee that I will get you to talk about the hostile work environment because I know from experience how these things can impact performance. Do you really think you’re the only person to ever work for a Neanderthal? Do you really think that a just reward for 80 to 90 hour weeks is a proposition and an attempted good night tonsillectomy? Neither do really good recruiters or hiring managers. I prefer honesty to perfumed ungulates. “Ugh” doesn’t bother me one bit.
“I didn’t get along with my boss.”
Look, I’m going to call your former boss one way or another (relax, it won’t be until you join me). Might as well be upfront so we can discuss why. Do you really think you’re the only one who didn’t get along with their boss?
“I’m really nervous.”
If you only knew how many first time recruiters call me every week; in many cases I’ll let them prattle on for about one minute before interjecting with, “Can I ask you a personal question?” Their nervous reply, “Sure. Anything” (a typical response from inexperienced recruiters). My question: “What’s your name?”
Amy says “Fake it ’til you make it!” – I call this lying. If you tell an experienced interviewer that you’re nervous, they’ll calm you down so the interview can focus on the substantive content. The inexperienced recruiter and hiring manager will exclude you. They lose.
“I’ll do whatever.”
Frankly, if you’ve brought someone in for an interview and they say, “I’ll do whatever”, then it’s your ability to discern what that is. This happened to me a few days ago as I was writing this novella. Someone connected with me on LinkedIn and pretty much said, “I’ll do whatever.” Told her to check out Kaltura’s Career page and let me know which roles interested her – and why. I’m speaking with her in a few days. Your solution? Exclude. My solution? Mining a potential diamond-in-the-rough.
When an interviewer hears, “I don’t care what jobs you have available – I’ll do anything!” that’s a sign that another human being with some kind of talent is asking for help to focus. Interviewers might be quite surprised about the talent hiding behind “whatever.” But no – they have Time-to-Hire metrics chasing them around the office and it’s so much easier to shoo these people away.
“I know I don’t have much experience, but…”
Unless the recruiter or hiring manager is a psychic (not psychotic) and they fail to discuss problem-solving performance, hearing these words can only lead to the exclude conclusion if they’re interested in passing on potential talent.
Since you really don’t have much experience, I’m more interested in your words after the “but…” Telling me that you don’t have much experience is you being honest; the next step – the “but” is as much my responsibility as it is yours. I’ll help you while the inexperienced recruiter or hiring manager will exclude you.
“It’s on my resume.”
FYI inexperienced recruiters and hiring managers, “It’s on my résumé” is like saying something goofy on the first date. What do you do then? Do you say, “I’m sorry but I’ve allotted one goofy statement on every first date and you just made yours. Now take me home.”
Rather than getting a hair on their ass over nothing, the interviewer should smile and ask the person to explain. But exclude someone because of this? Fine. I’ll speak with them.
“Yes! I have a great answer for that!”
I enjoy candidates with enthusiasm and will go along with their energy – and then I’ll drill down. It’s the fault of job search experts for blurted out comments like this one by “prepping” them with answers to typical (read as pretty much useless) interview questions when their job should be to give jobseekers interview strategies (I almost guffawed as I wrote that); mine is extract the wheat from the chaff. Too many interviewers choose to exclude people with too much energy (some recruiters and hiring managers even believe that too much energy means the person has “emotional issues”) but I’ll keep the conversation moving. Bring on the energy – it’s better than another cup of coffee!
“Perfectionism is my greatest weakness.”
Me: “Then can you explain the algorithm you used to decide which accomplishments you ended with a period and which ones you didn’t?”
Candidate: [look of terror]
Me: “Think we can forget everything your career advisor, best friend or parents told you interviewing and start having a real conversation?”
Silly Interviewer: Exclude.
Me: Potentially hire.
“I’m the top salesperson at the company—and I have two semesters worth of Spanish.”
This is a combination of being nervous and receiving bad interviewing advice. I’d probably ask if they used their two semesters of Spanish in making a sale and watch them squirm a bit – then give them the chance to make again whatever statement they had in mind. Right now I’m thinking about how much I’d like to interview the experts quoted in this article to see how they’d do under pressure.
“I think outside the box.”
Do you know where people get these overused words and phrases from? Experts.
I’ve heard this one before and once responded with, “But we work in boxes here.”
Exclude? No. But instead of getting all eyerolly about it, the interviewer should ask what is meant by outside-the-box.”
“I, like, increased our social following, like, 25%…”
Fact: At some point during the interview, I will tell you how many times you’ve used “like”, “um” or “basically” – and simply suggest that it’s something you might want to work on decreasing. Not a big deal for the early careerist. Definitely not “exclude” worthy.
“On my third goose-hunting trip to Canada…”
Fine. If you ‘re interviewing at PETA, it might not make sense to talk about boar hunting. That faux pas is on the candidate.
I recently hired a sales executive who was especially chatty about his hunting. So we talked about it – and it led to a real substantive discussion about sales. Do you know why? Because he was comfortable with me because I didn’t go ballistic over things others might.
Folks – people are diverse, their experiences are diverse. Funny thing is that we categorize sales people into Hunter and Gatherer categories yet cringe when some make hunting or gathering references. Give holier-than-thou a rest, okay?
“I built a synergistic network of strategic alliances…”
If this emanates from your mouth during an interview with me, I will tilt my head like a Golden Retriever and say, “Huh?” then stare at you.
Problem solved.
“I pulled together the STF reports.”
Oh, you like “Office Space” too…
I hope that I’m lucky enough to one day hear this during an interview. Instant hire.
“Um, I don’t know.”
When I hear this, it’s my time to facilitate. Sorry Brainiac Job Search Advisor, but I’m going to ask your prized pupil WTF questions (you do know what this acronym stands for, don’t you?).
Instead of thinking, “Ah hah! Another one I can exclude!”, the interviewer should adopt the role of the creative talent scout they believe themselves to be and ask, “Okay, let’s work through this together” and jump start the conversation from “I don’t know” to “Okay, I really don’t have any experience in that area but here’s how I might solve that problem.” Hey – this might even lead to an include decision!
“How much vacation time do I get?”
We all know there are some greedy folks out there. The role of the interviewer is to differentiate between those who are greedy and those who are simply nervous. My suggestion to the interviewer is defuse with laughter or humor and find out why vacation is so important.
I’ve asked them if vacation time is more important to them than the work they’ll be performing; can’t recall someone ever saying it was. At least if they say, “Yep” I’d know for sure they’re not the person to hire.
“How soon do you promote employees?”
While it might not be the best way to ask it, someone asking this question is actually getting at an important element of an organization – the reward and recognition philosophy and policies of the company. Tolan’s way of asking is just another way of perfuming a pig. I’ll take the honest approach and answer it honestly. Others can exclude. Fine with me – I’ll just chat with you about your definition of performance.
“Nope—no questions.”
Me: “None whatsoever? Like what I ate for breakfast?”
You: “Really – no questions because this has been the most unique interview I ever had.”
Again, the recruiter has two choices: They can be snippy or they can ask the candidate once again if they have questions. I’ve found that the second time around dislodges the cobwebs of the interviewing and often leads to more talking.
Why so quick to kick someone out of the interview? Oh, it’s that Time-to-Hire thing again.
“Then, while I was at happy hour…”
Oh, I see the logic: It’s off-limits to discuss things like this during the interview but not once someone’s an employee and out with the gang after work for a night of festivities?
SMH. I think I’ll exclude the interviewer who gets upset over this.
“I’ll have the steak and a glass of Cabernet.”
It’s not the cost of the meal that concerns me but the complexity of it as it interferes with your ability to have a conversation.
Unfortunately, there are meal interviews where the interviewer will order something expensive just to see if you’ll order the same thing – then exclude you because you didn’t order on the cheap. These folks have rused you into exclusion.
My advice for candidates: Meal interviews are not for eating; order something small and easy.
“I’d like to start my own business as soon as possible.”
Since, most employers know that long term tenure means nothing but a pipe dream anymore, if you say this you’re giving me so much interviewing material to ask. Business plan, competitive landscape, strategies – all areas I can use to really get to know you.
I thank you for being entrepreneurial while my competitors exclude you for being ambitious.
“What the hell!”
I’ve said far worse. Even during my interviews. Sorry. Want to exclude me?
“So, yeah…”
So, yeah, we just had an incredible 30-minute back and forth about content marketing in the OVP space when you gave me an awkward pause.
OMG, should I exclude you because of this?
Please.
“Do you know when we’ll be finished here?”
Funny how many candidates believe that the length of the interview is proportional to likeability and hireability. Know the phrase, “If you gotta go, you gotta go”? There’s nothing wrong with telling me that time is tight because I can always schedule more time with you later – whereas others have already written you off. Fools.
“I’m going through a tough time right now.”
Not discussing important life events during the interview – or worse, being advised by experts that it’s a bad thing to do – is not giving me the parts of you that are likely impacting your interview performance. Interviews are pressure vessels in their own right; adding things like death or divorce (I know) can take an otherwise great person to places they’d rather not go.
At least with knowing I can discuss these things and ask you how much they’d be a distraction. I’ll look at your performances and your abilities to solve my problems. Then I’ll make my decision. Take a person who’s thinking “despair” and raise them up with some confidence and see how hard they’ll work. Be kind. Be human.
“Sorry I’m so late.”
Anyone ever get stuck for hours in the car or mass transit? Just call and let me know. Because you know, I’ve never been late for anything because I am an expert…
“Sorry I’m so early.”
I actually think early is good idea – to view the place as it happens. Many years ago I interviewed at a well-known company to possibly run their technical recruiting. Arrived early and noticed how the Receptionist would answer calls that were clearly from folks interested in working there. With her friends gabbing with her, this went on for 25 minutes, with each time the Receptionist making a disparaging comment about the person who called.
Leaders don’t have to be arrogant; I didn’t want to work there.
“Would you like to see my references?”
Me: “Yes I do.”
Gee that wasn’t too complicated, was it?
“I just wanted to follow up—again.”
“I know it looks like cyberstalking but in the recruiting world it’s called research” ~Me @SourceCon 2014
On some levels, pushy candidates are a bit like four-year olds:
“Why? Why? Why? Why?”
Yet we manage to get these lil’ tykes through to their next stage in life.
Geez, you’re interested. If the company isn’t, tell them – that’s the job of the recruiter or hiring manager. In many cases your’re pushy because the recruiter or hiring manager said they’d have an answer for them in two days – and it just hit the four-week mark. Once again, there’s that word for that.
It just boils my blood to read what passes as expert advice…
I got carried away with my comment and this morning realized it should be a post here on The Recruiting Inferno.
So read the post first, then the stuff below…
Fail No. 1: “I will find my next job by applying to a job online”
What this means is that after exhausting your ability to get to the hiring manager or recruiter via networking means, you really have to apply. Shoot, even a blind squirrel catches a nut from time to time (15%). Besides, many companies actually allow hiring managers to search the ATS – and if you’re not in there, you’re SOL.
Fail No. 2: “I expect to hear a response (either yes or no) soon after I apply”
If you receive an auto-response, please give it one week before you begin to barrage the company with calls, emails, text messages, and carrier pigeons.
This being said, I wish more companies were honest with feedback; it’s so simple. But you know why many don’t? Aside from the ones who are crappy recruiters, there are many jobseekers who simply won’t take “No, you’re not someone we’re going to hire because you have no experience doing the job – and no, despite being a fast learner, we don’t have 2 years to wait while you learn”; so many companies say nothing until the “Thank you for your interest” email is sent.
Fail No. 3: “My cover letter always will be read in full”
Think about this: If you hired someone to write you a professional resume which presumably explains “everything” and puts on you a demigod pedestal – why do you need a cover letter? To explain things not explained in the resume? Huh?
My order: Resume, online, LinkedIn (or equivalent), and maybe, just maybe, a cover letter.
Fail No. 4: “I’m networking…with people in Human Resources”
Unless you’re looking for a job in HR, no more than 25% of your networking efforts should be with HR folks. Do I really need to explain why?
Fail No. 5: “I can only network AFTER the job has been posted”
No one can manage your career better than you. Remember this advice after you land: Spend 2 nights EVERY month at a professional association endeavor.
What this means folks is that YOU ARE ALWAYS NETWORKING.
If you do, you just might be one of those who get the job before it gets posted anywhere. Joy.
Fail No. 6: “I’ll land an interview for every job I apply to”
Well – some people do. Some people got into every school to which they applied. Some folks are 4% body fat.
Most don’t and aren’t.
Fail No. 7: “My resume is the most important job search tool”
Your resume is one tool – one arrow in your quiver.
The best two tools are still the telephone and the handshake.
It's very big of you to take responsibility for your failed strategy – so why are you still the CEO?
Why not put p… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… ✪ 1 week ago