Trees, Culture, and Recruiting

Posted by Steve on March 16, 2015
Posted in: Culture, Recruiting, Recruiting Association. Tagged: , , . 1 Comment

552380701_snl_church_lady_xlargeSounds 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.

Starting now…

[cross-posted on RecruitingBlogs.com]

Spamming The LinkedIn Way

Posted by Steve on March 15, 2015
Posted in: LinkedIn, Recruiting. Tagged: , , . 4 Comments

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?

[cross-posted to RecruitingBlogs.com]

Yak Away: Maturity and Entrepreneurism

Posted by Steve on March 8, 2015
Posted in: Character, Culture, Education, Entrepreneurism, Ethics, Venture Capital, Yik-Yak. 1 Comment

I’m concerned about the lessons being taught to young technology entrepreneurs:

Create. Grow. Fund. Billionaire.

Personally, I love the concept of entrepreneurism and growth; and who doesn’t have at least one day every year when they wonder what it would be like to be a Billionaire!

But are having a good idea and being able to initially execute on that idea good enough reasons to become a highly sought after target for VC funding?

According to Jim Goetz, a Partner at Sequoia Capital, it sure is – with an interesting caveat: That the young founders of Yik-Yak can magically change the course of online adolescent and young adult behavior.

Jim Goetz, a partner at Sequoia Capital who recently joined Yik Yak’s board, said the app’s history of misuse was a concern when his firm considered investing in the company. But he said he was confident that Mr. Droll and Mr. Buffington were committed to ensuring more positive interactions on Yik Yak, and that over time, the constructive voices would overwhelm the destructive ones.

Jim, is an environment that inadvertently promotes cyberbullying – even if it wasn’t its intended use – a worthy recipient of $62M in Series B funding? Is your confidence that Droll and Buffington – themselves barely few years north of writing the same yaks appearing on their vaunted pre-IPO platform – can magically re-architect Yik-Yak based on some hidden knowledge of human behavior and rid this VC money-printing machine of “the faceless trolls and jerks that abuse these kinds of spaces”?

Jim, what about Yik-Yak’s history as a platform for abuse and cyberbullying didn’t scare you away? Was it the viral takeoff signaling a treasure trove of marketing targets and an IPO payday? What about Yik-Yak isn’t causing you buyer’s remorse? Is it how the app is now downvoting mentions of competitors?

Jim, they can’t be downvoting competitors because Mr. Buffington claims that Yik-Yak is “delivering organic and unfiltered truths, which cannot be said for other news mediums.”

Jim, what about the phrase “unfiltered truth” means downvoting competitors? I must not be very smart to understand this.

For certain, anonymity apps can be used by citizens living in oppressed nations but heck, these countries are already doing a fine job of blocking access. But if you look at where Yik-Yak’s growth takes place – on college campuses, in high schools, the only oppression that takes place are the targets of the anonymous vitriol.

Jim, a platform that by its very architecture and mission offers an easy way to spew this vitriol with impunity. Please Jim, tell me what is so empowering about this – even if it used by a relatively small number of users? Please Jim, tell me how an app like this can help to bolster the self-esteem of young people whose psyche has already taken beatings from members of society who claim that success can only measured by a pair of three-letter acronyms, GPA and IPO?

Jim, social goodness can’t take place without honesty yet the core concept of Yik-Yak – anonymity – veils honesty.

Jim, what are we going to do?

A guilty pleasure used to be a big piece of chocolate cake; in this social media era it seems that proving one’s superiority has eclipsed food as the new dopamine spritz.

Jim, in case you missed this, Iggy Azalea clearly demonstrates she understands elements of human behavior better than you when she wrote that,

4769294610071552

Blue ribbons and IPOs? What about social goodness?

Some lesson.

Jobseekers Taking Chances

Posted by Steve on February 17, 2015
Posted in: #internpro, #jobhuntchat, #OMCchat, Job Search. Leave a comment

[cleaning out my Drafts and I’m surprised I never posted this – originally written December 2013]

This past Black Friday, I watched as Willie Geist interviewed WalMart US “President and CEO” William Simon and asked Bill (actually, Willie tried his best to “pin” Simon against that mythical media “inquisition” wall) questions pertaining to WalMart’s performance, the paying-a-higher-wage issue and future career plans.

From my vantage point, Willie sure seemed to bear his teeth at Bill, pressing him to disclose on public television if (a) he was annoyed at being passed over for the newly available global CEO spot, and (b) if he would raise minimum wages at WalMart. As Willie continued to press, Bill held to the corporate positions but in my opinion, did so in a far softer than the outgoing CEO ever did. Click here for the interview.

At 7:25 AM, right after the interview, I sent off this email to Bill – whom I don’t know – and shared with him my thoughts:

Subject: Your Today Show “interview” – Willie tried but you didn’t budge

Morning Bill-

1. You realize that you’re now the most recruitable CEO target in retail, right?

2. Willie sure doesn’t understand #1 nor does he likely know what succession planning means.

3. Paying above the 50th percentile is all you can ask for as an employee; garnering a higher wage is all about performance – not a Common Law right.

4. People are free to better themselves via a range of education and self-learning channels – leading to potentially higher salaries; Willie might not know this…

5. Good job on the interview – but you should have been firmer with Willie and emphasized #3 and #4. Honesty is a trait that is in short supply in business.

By the way, I know quite a few folks on your recruiting team – good people.

Best regards and revenues,

At 10:03 AM, I received a simple email back from Bill:

Thanks for the kind note.

My message here is not that I reached out to the WalMart US CEO but that I had something to say; rather than keep it between my ears, I elected to act upon it. What’s the worst thing that could have happened?

If you’re a jobseeker seeking to engage a hiring manager or a recruiter trying to engage a passive superstar, what do you notice from what I did?

A customized Subject line?

Some real understanding about your target’s hot buttons?

Statements that support your target’s point of view?

A few sincere platitudes?

Humor and Humanity?

As a jobseeker, would you write something like this? Why – or why not?

Drinking The Sand

Posted by Steve on February 17, 2015
Posted in: Careers, Character, Human Resources, Leadership, Recruiting. 1 Comment

From The American President:

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.

Raise the bar (no, not the way Amazon does it ;)

A Recruiting Disruption

Posted by Steve on February 15, 2015
Posted in: Future, Recruiting, Training. 5 Comments

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.”

Very smart move.

What do you think would truly disrupt recruiting?

Dear (Fake) LinkedIn

Posted by Steve on February 11, 2015
Posted in: Recruiting. Tagged: , , . 2 Comments

Francis Mona - LinkedIn.clipularMore, 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]

Faux LinkedIn

Posted by Steve on February 3, 2015
Posted in: LinkedIn, Recruiting. 4 Comments

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”:

LinkedIn Profile - James Owen

So I sent an InMail (LinkedIn, you now owe me one InMail):

Inbox - LinkedIn.clipular
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.

For a great tutorial on how to spot fake LinkedIn profiles, you must read John Thomas‘ piece, Dubious HR Profiles & Unrealistic Job Offers At Companies That Don’t Exist.

One Person, One Teacher, Many Lives, One Love

Posted by Steve on February 1, 2015
Posted in: Recruiting. Leave a comment

Last week I was smitten by the picture and words of a young boy who viewed his Principal as the person who has influenced his life the most. For me, it resonated like a volcano because of how one particular teacher continues to add clarity to my thoughts and actions even as gray begins its hostile takeover my beard.

Today’s NY Times article, A Boy Praises the Principal of His Brooklyn School, and a Fund-Raising Campaign Takes Off, continues the story and details the impact on people touched by the message, particularly from the standpoint of social fundraising.

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).

One Person, One Teacher

Posted by Steve on January 25, 2015
Posted in: Character, Culture, Heroes, Teachers. 3 Comments

NadiaLopezVidal

I’ve been accused a few times of being a cynic which is understandable if you simply read my words as words without bothering to ask what influenced a Tweet, a Comment, or a Blog Post. However, those who do ask for the back story will likely conclude that I am, in fact, a hopeless romantic who believes in honesty, goodness, grace, and purpose.

Especially when I read stories like this.

“Who’s influenced you the most in your life?”
“My principal, Ms. Lopez.”
“How has she influenced you?”
“When we get in trouble, she doesn’t suspend us. She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built down around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”

I know the power of an educator to be true because it’s been a single teacher who taught me more about myself – I hear her voice and words every day – than anyone before, and likely more than anyone ever will.

It’s not technology that disrupts, it’s people. One at a time…