The Recruiting Inferno

The world’s been coming to an end for some time now. Read this article keeping in mind that Dr. Michael Teitelbaum, VP of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation said in testimony to Congress this past fall, “No one who has come to the question with an open mind has been able to find any objective data suggesting general ‘shortages’ of scientists and engineers. The RAND Corporation has conducted several studies of this subject [and] the evidence is more suggestive of surpluses.”

If you can’t make it through the article, download the research findings here. 

I spent quite a few days at college career fairs the past few months (not shabby ones mind you – Columbia, Poly, Stony Brook) and stood in front of so many companies with a you-know-what-kind-of-grin on my face as I read in bold letters “United States citizens only” while smart budding techies walked past.

Another factor for “shortages”: quite simply moronic hiring practices that exclude based upon the perfectionism principle when in reality, perfectionism is a very slow death. Every recruiter has these hiring managers who want to hire perfect; can’t find perfect? Must be a shortage of perfect candidates!

Dare I even ask about older techies?

OK, I dare; I don’t know of many politicians who have ever recruited. Yet when they conceive economic stimulus initiatives, these initiatives offer monies for specified skills (ah, the glut of netadmins these reminds me of all the people trained via government money to join high-paying world of information technology) rather than to companies to help defer part of an employee’s salary while these people re-train. Sorry but tax credits just don’t translate into re-employment.

The only true shortage is a shortage of new ideas… 

Whether you agree or disagree with this administration’s position on the Iraq war, I would think that any respectable recruiter would be outraged at the bombing of the Army’s Times Square recruiting station early this morning. The person or group that orchestrated is undoubtedly against the war – as am I – but the act of using violence against violence sure sounds the work of a person(s) who has a few screws loose. I have far more respect for people who protest by standing outside the recruiting stations who peacefully explain their positions to passersby.

For the record, I am a COI – Circle of Influence – who works with AREC to mentor individual recruiters on creative recruiting strategies and tactics; you may think your recruiting job is hard but try standing in the shoes of someone who has to do the same for the military. So yes, I’m against the war but for helping the Army find the best people they can who want to serve (why? because I have friends who ARE serving and fighting and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to help get the best people to serve and fight next to them).

Being a COI also helps me because if what I can offer in insight works for the Army rectruiters, I’m reasonably certain the same insight can be used to help convince someone who is on the fence to come with me.

So if you truly love recruiting, stop in at a station and engage the recruiters in a conversation about recruiting. You might not only learn something but you might also walks away with a very healthy respect for the challenges faced by people tasked with building a military.

Bombing’s however are for cowards.

I will speak with most any recruiter and take most demo that’s placed in front of me; hey, it’s my job to be up on new ideas, tools, and “fads.” So on February 15 – that would be two weeks ago – I saw the demo.

I can’t lie to y’all – for me it was a ho-hum moment. All new recruiting tools are sold as the best thing ever and Jobfox hasn’t taken yet distinguished itself as being better than sliced bread despite the Boston Globe writing that Jobfox is “a hub for passive candidates” – yep, passive candidates who have decided to jump into a database.

You’re definition of “passive candidate” notwithstanding, Jobfox appears to believe its “internals” are second to none. Passive candidates still have to select themselves into the database and assess they skills and abilities according to Jobfox’s “models”; employers do the same when describing the jobs. “Matches” are made based upon these two categories.

For me, externally Jobfox has rasied nothing but eyebrows.

Since my demo I have received two email inquires asking me to demo the site, one additional phone call (none of these emails or call was from the account exec who originally contacted me…through ERE’s mail), and early this week, a letter from McGovern that was sent to me at an address that was eight years old when I was performing some consulting for a company whose name I haven’t uttered in eight years.

Let’s lay this out – two weeks ago I spoke with a rep who knew where to reach me yet two weeks later a letter was sent to a very old address.

I see red flags.

Bob?

Chuck Norris can’t source no matter how tough he is; but Shally Steckerl can…

If at first you don’t find resumes on the Internet, you’re not Shally Steckerl.

If Shally Steckerl were a calendar, every month would be named Shallytober, and every day he’d find more resume better than you.

Fear of not finding enough qualified candidates is not the only emotion Shally Steckerl can smell. He can also detect hope, as in “I hope my company doesn’t hire Shally Steckerl to replace my entire sourcing team.”

Behind every successful man, there is a woman. Behind every fired sourcer, there is Shally Steckerl.

What’s known as the CIR, or Certified Internet Recruiter, doesn’t use its full name, which happens to be “Certified Internet Recruiter, Non-Shally-Steckerl-Trained”.

There is endless debate among astronomers about the existence of the life on other planets in the Universe. Well it does exist because Shally Steckerl wrote a Boolean search and found it.

ERE did not hold it’s first international conference in Europe until 2005 because until then Shally Steckerl was sourcing for all companies in Europe; why have a conference if recruiters would have no opportunity to practice what they just learned?

Shally Steckerl doesn’t use a keyboard; he stares at it until the keyboard types in the Boolean that Shally wants.

As Bertrand Russell wrote, “Those who fear life are already three parts dead; those who fear sourcing need to take a course from Shally Steckerl.”

Feel free to add more facts about Shally in your comments.

I should not have been working yesterday; after all, it was a National holiday – the celebration of Martin Luther King, one of the most influential people on my life.

“I have a dream when my four little children will one day be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Most all our country’s State and Federal workers had off yesterday. They were shopping, running errands (you know how working can delay picking up one’s dry cleaning), perhaps even lingering longer at the gym.

“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.”

My Dad came to this country in 1938; at 16, barely speaking English, he was scared but confident young Jewish boy. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School which produced people such as the writer James Baldwin and Marty Glickman, the Jewish Olympic sprinter (and later, a New York sports announcer) who experienced the wrath of anti-Semitism while Jesse Owens “ran down” Hitler and his Nazi ideology.

Who did my Dad pal with while in high school? Not the white boys who teased him for his accent and religion but the young black boys who felt equally similar persecution and negative behavior. My Dad remembered his friends his entire life.

Growing up, it seemed as if I spent more time in Harlem than in the Five Towns on Long Island. Clothes, haircuts, home furnishings and other things purchased came from my Dad’s high school friends. Even as Dad became more successful, he never forgot his friends and he always worked with him in his professional business and our family’s personal life. One generation passes on relationships to the next one.

Just as bigotry is taught and learned, so is righteousness. Yet there are times when to change people’s attitudes, beliefs, and values, it is necessary to create statutes. Hence, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[Within a few hours of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in a nationwide television broadcast from Washington, passionately speaking about why the CRA was required.]

“We believe that all men are created equal – yet many are denied equal treatment. We believe that all men have certain inalienable rights. We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty — yet millions are being deprived of those blessings, not because of their own failures, but because of the color of their skins.”

“The reasons are deeply embedded in history and tradition and the nature of man. We can understand without rancor or hatred how all this happens. But it cannot continue. Our Constitution, the foundation of our Republic, forbids it. The principles of our freedom forbid it. Morality forbids it. And the law I sign tonight forbids it…”

In principle, recruiting is pretty much to most companies about exclusion. You may not want to admit it and HR as a function may not want to admit it, but when was the last time YOU were interviewed and the recruiter actively looked for ways to uncover reasons to include you and move you on to the next step (and further, fought for you because they saw things that the hiring manager has not seen)? Do you actively recruit for inclusion versus exclusion? Or do you bow to the pressures of the hiring manager – or the organization – and (whisper, whisper) keep looking for the perfect candidate?

[Benjamin Mays and the Rev. Martin Luther King promised each other: He who outlived the other would deliver his friend’s last eulogy. On April 9, 1968, Mays made good on the promise.]

“I close by saying to you what Martin Luther King Jr. believed: If physical death was the price he had to pay to rid America of prejudice and injustice, nothing could be more redemptive. And, to paraphrase the words of the immortal John Fitzgerald Kennedy, permit me to say that Martin Luther King Jr.’s unfinished work on earth must truly be our own.”

The fact is that at any point in time, everyone benefits from the CRA. Too young or too old, too black or too white, too tall or too short, too thin or too fat, too much hair or too bald, too placid or too outspoken. As recruiters, we spend too much time working under rules of exclusion as opposed to inclusion. No one said recruiting was easy; you can always find another profession if it’s too much work. Remember what Dr. King died for; remember what LBJ had to do to pass the CRA.

No, I’m glad I worked Monday. As usual, I continued to drill down past the resume looking for reasons to include people. Looking for possibilities is not only civil but it’s my job.

One of my previous posts spoke of Sandra DeChant efforts in helping her “mentee, SiuLan” who “survived throat cancer, an abusive marriage, the loss of her sister to breast cancer and the loss of her career as an IT Project Manager.” I received an update this morning about Sandra and SiuLin. I think it’s a perfect beginning to the holiday season and one which can overcome the brute commercialism of December.

According to Sandra, “SiuLan did secure an apartment, she was able to move in on December 1st – she is now warm and dry. We are beginning to take the next step to prepare her for a new career, SiuLan is very excited about her prospects.”

Through “the kind and generous offer of AIRS , the efforts of the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation “, SiuLan can now see the possibilities in her life rather than the woe. Sandra relates that has “had some positive conversations with some companies who are interested in bringing SiuLan on board as an internet sourcer when she completes her internship and AIRS training.”

I enjoyed Sandra’s editorializing about the positive elements of her association with SiuLan :

You know — we have seen so many companies – Jump on the easy boat of the “buy-pink” bandwagon but we really don’t know these people or where this money really goes! With SiuLan – I see the results of someone who is truly trying to help herself gain her independence again. To me – that’s what really matters in the end. Otherwise – it’s just hype.

I’ll let Sandra’s words do a far better job of explaining how this all came to pass and how she feels about her work with SiuLan:

She wrote me today and said that she is very excited about her prospects, she is more optimistic than she’s been for a long time.

You see, I was introduced to SiuLan when I came across her resume sometime ago as she was seeking to get a job – I was sourcing for an IT Project Manager. She was very upfront in her email coversations with me about her disability – I admit, I shyed away from her because I knew that I couldn’t find an employer in the IT Profession who would hire her – her work history was a mess due to the illness and she couldn’t speak verbally. 

But as much as I thought it would be easy, I really couldn’t forget how she tried so hard to get me to meet her, how much she wanted to work again – she really persisted. That’s what stuck out in my mind – and even though I had lost track of her resume – I found myself going through extreme measure to try to find her. I thought – this is the kind of stuff that makes a good recruiter, that gutsiness that we need to get past all the “no’s” . So, after several phone calls, emails and calling in a few favors – I was able to locate her through DVR and we did meet. It was something about her willingness and courage to ask me to just meet her..  And now you know the rest of the story.

So my friends, what are you going to do to make someone’s life better?

I just violated one of the key rules of recruiting…

Thou Shalt Not Make Calls When in a Bad Mood

Made a call to a friend and spoke with this person’s “0” contact; I suspect that not only was I unclear with what I wanted but I’m know now that because I’m in a bad mood, I ended up being rude.

So to Maya…I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.

To all those sending out LinkedIn if-you-know-someone requests, can you please start including the location of the position? Even better, how about the type of company? I understand how possessive recruiters are about not giving away too much info but how about letting us know whether it’s a start-up, growth, mature, or turnaround situation?

I know quite a few folks who I would recommend if you’d just give me more info. Don’t make me do the hunting – that’s what you’re getting paid to do.

“Workers who help process millions of visa and citizenship applications for a federal immigration agency are getting pay reductions just as the agency is facing an enormous surge in those applications.”

“The workers whose wage rate will be cut are contract employees in document processing centers in St. Albans, Vt., and Laguna Niguel, Calif., that are part of Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency responsible for deciding visa applications and citizenship petitions. Some 280 of approximately 1,000 contract workers in the two centers will receive lower wages after a new contractor, Stanley Inc. of Arlington, Va., takes over tomorrow.”

So today’s article in the NY Times, we find out that INS has granted a contract to Stanley, Inc. to provide clerical work at the St. Albans and Laguna Nigel centers (Stanley’s original press release on 24 September can be viewed here). Why is this so interesting? Obviously from an a recruiting POV, we’re concerned with the fact that these centers alone handle millions of Visa apps. From an HR POV, this new contract has many existing workers now facing significant wage cuts based upon the contract numbers. Again, so why the issue?

Seems as if no one at Stanley bothered to ask about existing wages when they placed the bid. So naturally, a low bid would have been appealing to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and obviously less appealing to those who would be earning these wages!

Even more, “the new contract is based on performance and does not specify how many workers Stanley should hire. But Stanley is required to pay according to federal regulations that classify jobs and set their hourly wages.”

Oy vey!

Nothing like more agita when it comes the visas…

In today’s High Tech Recruiting Group thread, I read about Sandra DeChant’s exceptionally noble effort to assist a cancer survivor assess their vocational strengths and assist in getting her back on her feet. I had to call Sandra and see if I could do something.

The woman – her name is SiuLan – “survived throat cancer, an abusive marriage, the loss of her sister to breast cancer and the loss of her career as an IT Project Manager. She is now seeking to rebuild her life – she is interested in becoming a researcher. SiuLan is an intelligent, caring person.”

What cut to my heart was how Sandra has gone out of her way to help SiuLin with career counseling. One area of interest is Sourcing – Internet Sourcing. You see, as a result of the cancer, she is unable to speak. Sandra has made arrangements with the State of Wisconsin to help pay for SiuLin’s AIRS training and our friends at AIRS (Chris Forman, CEO of AIRS and Laura Stoker, AIRS’ Lead Training Goddess – thanks for helping out) have cut the cost of the program. I’m hoping our great community can help SiuLin find a place close by to work as an Internet Sourcer.

In speaking with Sandra, I discovered that SiuLan also needs:

• A place to live. Her only income is disability and she cannot raise enough money to get an apartment. She lives in a warehouse with no hot water and obviously doesn’t have a reliable source of heat. She did find a place to rent but is short on income to pay for it.
• She needs food. Again, disability only goes so far.
• She has a pet dog and two pet birds.
• She needs to get an Internet connection, computer and Blackberry-type device to get her training program underway – she can’t speak but is a mean typist!
• She has no transportation to get to work/training.<!–
• She is currently on Medicare but there are “holes” in the program and some of her medications are not covered.<!–
• Legal help as a result of an abusive ex husband. She is attempting to get some kind of legal settlement from their 15 year marriage.<!–

My friends, let’s help SiuLin! Brookfield, WI is about 90 miles from Chicago. As far as computer, internet connection, and phone, we have many great recruiters who work for companies who can provide these – I know people will step up to the plate. This is a place for us to help right now.

If you can help, either post here or contact Sandra DeChant of Insight-ITC, LLC at 262-782-7255; her email is sdechant@insight-itc.com.