Monthly Archives: April 2014

5 Helpful Things to Do in a Job Interview

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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<www.abetterinterview.com

<www.abetterinterview.com>

…Okay, so below are a few (top of mind) tips on how you can be a better interviewee. My qualifications here are that I’ve gotten my fair share of job offers in life, and I’ve interviewed a few hundred people for various jobs at this point in my career (first as a full-time recruiter and now as part of my day-to-day whenever I need to fill this or that job for my client group). I also have lots of HR friends and we talk about this sort of stuff all the time (part of the below is attributable to them). Take this advice for whatever it’s worth to you with that context. And without further delay…

1. If your interviewer is talking just be quiet and listen.

This cannot be overstated. If your interviewer spends, say, 80+ percent of the interview talking then that is almost always good for you. At the end of the (one-sided) discussion they’re going to think “That went well” and then project good things onto you and advance you in the process. Actually, if you can get an interviewer in a chatty mood without forcing it (and some people have this skill) then go for it. “What do you like about working here?” and “Tell me about the best parts of the culture?” are softballs that can sometimes invoke this response in a talkative interviewer (because people like talking about themselves and giving their opinions, respectively). But be careful with asking questions like this to a novice interviewer (which you will often encounter during a first round phone screen) because they will often become very uncomfortable if you take them off their list of questions script (which will produce an effect opposite to that intended).

2. Have some rehearsed talking points.

Let’s try not to exceed 3 or 4 minutes on any given bullet point here. What (I think) a lot of interviewees do is spend a few minutes trying to go over their resume/questions they found online in private, stumble through them, and then (because they are uncomfortable with how bad they are) don’t practice anymore. They reason that they will “turn it on” when the time comes, and that it’s a bad idea to “over prepare” and then in an actual interview give long, rambling answers that have their interviewer check out. Don’t do this. Practice talking through your last 5 years’ work experience in 180 seconds, have a good answer prepared for why you want the job you’re interviewing for/are looking to leave your current one, and have a half-dozen great examples (again 3-4 minutes an answer tops) highlighting examples of why you are awesome.

3. If the interviewer asks you a pointless question (like “what sort of animal would you be?”) answer it quickly and then pivot to something that matters.

If this is a phone screen the hiring manager isn’t going to care about the answer you give the recruiter/screener here. And by giving an exceptionally thoughtful answer, you’ll just be wasting valuable time that you could be using to go through your talking points. Conversely. If the hiring manager asks you this then – provided you’d still like to work for this person after – then go ahead and give them a good answer. You want them to like you, and that’s obviously what he/she is screening for (or else they are new to interviewing and working through a list).

4. Mention something that impressed you in the company’s 10k (or 10q if it’s later in the year).

Specific numbers help. Something like (for a hypothetical tech company): “I am impressed your company understands that its user base is shifting to mobile and is making changes to its product offering and strategy accordingly – I think your 10q said 75% of your ad revenue in Q3 was from users on mobile devices (up from 50% in Q1), which shows you’ve been able to quickly alter your business model.” or perhaps: “I love that the company is growing – your monthly active users went up 40% the last 3 months of the year!” Your interviewer probably doesn’t know the information you’re sharing off the top of his/her head, and it will impress the heck out of them that you do. Just make sure you stay away from potentially touchy subjects when showing off company knowledge (like pending litigation or underfunded pension obligations etc.).

5. Ask the interviewer what doubts (if any) they have about your qualifications at the end of the interview. 

If you’ve already bombed at this point the interviewer isn’t going to tell you anything useful (it’s too late), but if you were on the bubble but had one glaring issue (like your salary ask is 5% outside of the position range or they really wish you had more experience using ___________) then they will probably tell you and you can re-assure them (i.e. “I am flexible on salary, maybe we can talk about perk XYZ instead” or “Well, I am doing blah blah blah to close the gap on skill __________.”).

You’re welcome? Or maybe I have this wrong. As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Managing Turnover in the Middle of the Workforce

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

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<leadershipfreak.wordpress.com

<leadershipfreak.wordpress.com>

…So this morning I had the chance to read a white paper from Payscale focusing on various aspects of turnover. It examines the causal factors behind why people leave (or are forced to leave) their organizations, why they choose to stay, and what those reasons can tell us about the way – for better or worse – a company is run. Finally, as any good white paper does this one goes on to outline what organizations can do to engage (and retain) their best employees while fostering an environment in which bad fits find their way out. There is a lot to love about this one, and I highly recommend checking it out here.

With that said, today I want to focus on a snippet I read in the piece that particularly caught my attention. It talks about Steve Jobs’ famed departure from Apple in 1985. It reads:

Apple would have its struggles in the next few years, however, and in 1996 would rehire Jobs as part of the company’s turnaround plan while acquiring (for a mere $400 million) NeXT Inc., the company Jobs started after leaving Apple. The rest, as they say, is history.

Here’s the point. While many wouldn’t hesitate to call Jobs an extraordinary talent, Apple could and did survive without him for 11 years. In the end, however, the company was happy to welcome him back, because while Jobs was replaceable, he wasn’t expendable.

…This made me think about an aspect of turnover that is often an afterthought to issues such as replacement costs and employee morale; namely, its corrosive effect on team and/or enterprise performance over the long-term.

Consider a scenario where an experienced manager leaves his or her organization. Prior to the manager’s exit, he designs S.O.P.s on major job duties, then spends a week or so training his external-hire replacement. This person is often someone that has much less practical experience (and certainly less knowledge of the culture) than the incumbent. In such a situation – which is far from ideal but better than the one departments often finds themselves in (unable to find a replacement before an incumbent’s resignation and with no knowledge management process in place whatsoever) – the new manager comes in and picks up where his or her replacement left off. There are some minor blips at the start, but things are eventually (seemingly) okay.

…But fast forward a few months/years, and an individual contributor or two leave the organization as well. Team performance gradually declines as replacements make mistakes that their predecessors didn’t. The wheels start to come off of what used to be a high-functioning team. And it becomes easy to blame the last person in the door.

In point of fact, however, the decline in team performance is part of a longer-term slide that began when the initial manager left the department. In groups where work is dispersed evenly across the team the loss of any individual member isn’t always immediately noticeable because the organization is able to move forward without any immediately noticeable consequences. And so at an individual level everyone seems expendable. But a few corners get cut in a former employee’s absence that didn’t get cut before. A few I’s and T’s aren’t dotted. It’s at the margins. But these issues only compound over time. Small problems become big.

…Anyone that reads this blog often knows that I am really big on knowledge management/transfer. So much so that at times I probably under-emphasize the importance of continuity players and mid-performers. But they are really important. While top performers may have an out-sized influence on an organization’s success relative to peers, that doesn’t mean that median performers are expendable. Absorbing significant turnover in the middle of your workforce is almost always going to carry with it performance challenges (unless that group is made up almost entirely of unskilled labor). Which means that it’s important to focus on engagement and retention at all levels.

…This isn’t exactly the post I meant to write today, but let me know if I have this one right in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Quote of the Week: “The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but…

28 Monday Apr 2014

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…to be able to tolerate insecurity.” – Erich Fromm

Image Credit: <theglaringfacts.com

Image Credit: <theglaringfacts.com>

The reason I’m sharing today’s quote (for which we can thank the late German social Psychologist Erich Fromm) is because I have long suspected that it’s a good idea to be at least a little insecure about something, and I wanted to solicit some opinions on the subject. For those that read this Monday space for my 1. All 0.00 of you.weekly advice 1, I apologize but this morning there will be none forthcoming.

…So my theory (or at least I’m attributing it to me) is that insecurity is one of the primary things that sets really smart and successful people apart from people that are simply smart (but less successful). It is insecurity that causes us to push a little bit harder than we are comfortable pushing; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it is a lingering belief that we are not quite good enough as we are that causes us to strive to be better. If this is true, then as Fromm denotes the challenge is not to do away with feelings of insecurity in our lives, but rather to not let those feelings consume us.

I am insecure about little things all the time. To name a few; I worry about if I’m learning enough new things to one day emerge as an expert in my field (and remain one once I get there). I am also worried about if I’m doing the right things to be promoted into the job I want to eventually hold by the age that I want to hold it. And like many, I also worry about the expectations of others.

Objectively, I recognize that these are silly things to worry about: Becoming a subject matter expert in a field is undefined in most cases, and difficult to 2. …Or along, I suppose.quantify in instances where we know what it looks like. And climbing up 2 the corporate latter to the job of your dreams is governed by luck and circumstances beyond our control to a greater degree than many realize. And of course, worrying about other’s opinions and expectations is a delightful waste of time; most people are not giving all that much thought to us on a daily 3. They are thinking about what they are going to have for lunch/if they are good parents/if person XYZ is attracted to them/what other people are thinking about them etc..basis 3, and if they were it would be besides the point – it’s impossible to be everything to everybody all the time.

…And yet I make a conscious choice to allow such insecurities to remain a part of my day-to-day thought stream. I could do away with them… I really, really 4. Probably. >_>could 4, but I like (crave?) feelings of doubt; they instill in me a sense of fear and urgency that I don’t think would be there otherwise. Doubt keeps me sharp and learning and growing when I might otherwise be content and stagnating towards obsolescence.

…Or that’s my theory, anyway.

With that said, as we get started this week I want to ask you – do I have this right? How much insecurity is healthy? Any at all? Or should we be letting it govern our actions (and if so to what degree)?

Happy Monday,

Rory

Sunday Reading: April 27, 2014 – The Sharing Economy

27 Sunday Apr 2014

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<thenextweb.com

<thenextweb.com>

Sunday reading for April 27, 2014:

Zachary Karabell, Head of Global Strategy at Envestnet, recently wrote a piece on Linkedin challenging us to think about innovations in business as opportunities to expand the economic pie as opposed to zero sum gain situations in which incumbents that can’t evolve fast enough die and the remaining players fight for their share of it.

Karabell cites instances where companies like Airbnb (a peer to peer house rental company) and Uber (a transportation network of car renters and car rentees/drivers) are having the legality of their business models challenged in the court system by regulators and competitors as examples of the establishment fighting change as opposed to flowing with it. He then goes on to point out that using the courts to fight innovation seldom works – as a cautionary tale reminding us that the music industry failed to protect their business model in the 90s by using the legal system to fight disruptors like Napster instead of changing their business model or partnering with them.

…This piece especially resonated with me because soon after reading it, I spoke to a friend that told me about a new referral system her company was thinking about implementing; anyone – be they an employee or not – could refer candidates for hard-to-fill jobs posted on a company website and receive a payout if one of their candidates was hired. If the system gained broad utilization, she hoped it could dramatically decrease fill-times and mitigate the need for technical sourcers and recruiters. The HR function – like other professions – is constantly changing; and like established companies, we have to continue to change with the world or else find ourselves displaced by something more efficient. And so we can’t rest on our laurels, and we have to keep moving forward.

…As you can see from the giant walls of text above, I really enjoyed this one. I highly recommend checking it out here.

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Best,

Rory

Spotlight Friday: An Interview with Paul Hebert, Vice President of Solution Design at Symbolist

25 Friday Apr 2014

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Paul Hebert

Paul Hebert has over 20 years’ experience designing and presenting incentive, recognition, rewards and loyalty strategies to C-level audiences at Fortune 500 firms.

He has been interviewed by the BBC as an expert on influencing behavior and been quoted in USA Today (three times) regarding incentive travel. He has authored a monthly online column for Incentive Magazine (Mach 2007 – August 2009 ), wrote the Incentive Intelligence – a top-rated blog on incentives and influence for employees, distribution channels and consumers, and is a contributor at Fistful of Talent – a blog about talent management.

Paul also provides services as the Social Media Editor for the Enterprise Engagement Alliance. You can read some of Paul’s thoughts about recognition, incentives, and rewards at Symbolist here. You can also find Paul on Twitter here, Google+ here, and Linkedin here. 

1. Most job postings cite “X” years of relevant work experience and specific education criteria as requirements to be considered for the position. With this in mind, what prior work experiences and degrees/certifications/training helped prepare you for your current role?

For me – almost all of my work experience has been designing influence, incentive and reward and recognition programs for employees and dealer/distributor organizations. I can say that the biggest thing that prepared me for doing this successfully is failing a lot in little ways and in controlled situations. I’ve had great managers that gave me plenty of space for experimenting and for seeing the results of my efforts – good and bad.

My college degree is in mathematics and statistics so I was always the “rational” guy – planning and designing based on rational responses. However, we now know that the irrational brain drives more of our decision process than we expect and learning that through trial and error was key.

Also – I have had many positions where I was the manager and my role was to get things done through other people vs. doing them myself. I had great managers in my career and they all gave me the same advice – as a manager your job is to help others get what they want and need WHILE getting what the company wants and needs. That is what managers need to do to be successful.

1B. What (if any) additional knowledge or skills that you don’t currently have would make you even better at your job?

I think some sort of formal education and degree in psychology would be extremely helpful – for all managers or anyone involved in shaping behaviors in an organization. The units of production today are human beings and understanding the user’s manual would be a huge asset. 

2. Some jobs require the incumbent to be very analytical. Others require one to be a strong communicator, and others still require traits like patience, the ability to multitask, self-directedness, comfort with ambiguity, and exceptional attention to detail. Are there any behaviors and/or attributes that you would say are essential to performing the work that you do?

All of the above. I don’t think any job today is one-dimensional. We work so often in teams with diverse groups of people on very complex stuff so being analytical and in tune with others’ emotions and points of view is critical. The days of being able to shrug off an employee’s shortcomings are over I think. We used to be able to say – “ignore him – that’s just his way.” Now we don’t have that option – we need everyone to be better equipped. I’m not saying we don’t have dominant abilities – but we have to have some or all of what you mentioned if we’re going to be valuable to an organization. Unless you just lock someone in a room and have them slip code out from under the door. 

3. Jobs guru Lou Adler says there are only 4 job types of jobs in the world (producers, improvers, builders, and thinkers). Which type of job are you in?

Speaking like a consultant – it depends.

For my team I’m an improver. For some of my clients I build – for the HR community when I write and speak I’m a thinker. My job varies day to day and person to person. I know not everyone has that in their career but my current role is such that I get to bounce around and be many different things. It’s one of the reasons I’m happy all the time.

4. Does your job involve either directly or indirectly supervising or managing people? If so, how many direct (or indirect) reports do you have?

Indirect in my current role – in that I am a subject matter expert but rely on others to help me get things done. We have 20+ people who I could theoretically have involved in a project but realistically my normal scope of influence is three or four maximum.

5. How does what you do impact the business? Think complexity (different types of impacts) and scale (degree of impact). Put another way: Who and what would be impacted if your job wasn’t being done well, and why would it matter that they were impacted?

My overall role is one of brand evangelist, company mouthpiece, experimenter and point guy. In other words I’m the guy who worries about what is new and different and what is old and reliable and how to put those together to help our clients. If I do my job right we get more conversations with clients and potential clients about new business. If I do my job poorly we have fewer conversations – we have less business and we end up having to work harder at “selling” versus helping.

My goal is create information about our company’s point of view and allow like-minded clients to find us and engage in conversations that ultimately will improve their business.

I’m the guy that reduces sales friction I guess.

I believe and my company believes that we like to do business with people we like and respect and are following similar work/life paths. My job is to make sure those that think like us (and like the way we think) find us.

6. Is your job safe? Rate its safety on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being “seated all day in an air conditioned vault” and 10 being “I’m an astronaut going into space”. If your job isn’t safe, what working conditions (specifically) make it hazardous?

Yeah – I’m very safe. I work from home but travel to HQ regularly down in Dallas and to client locations. My biggest worries are infected paper cuts and getting struck by lightning while on a conference call.

Although – I am prone to “sitting disease” which is a real thing and something that they say impacts more people negatively than being overweight or smoking. I have to be cognizant of that and I have therefore begun looking into a stand up desk and using an app from a friend Fran Melmed ( @femelmed ) called HotSeat which reminds me to get up and move regularly.

7. Is there anything I missed that people should know about your job? Is there anything else you want to say about what you do?

A lot of what I do is based on what I am exposed to – what I hear, read, see and discuss with others so my job is very dependent on social media and being plugged into various steams of thinking. I don’t think many people realize how much time is spent just researching and finding information that shapes how one thinks. So a lot of what I do is curate and sift content for my clients and potential clients. That takes up a lot of time and energy –more than most people think.

Social media is a huge bonus. But having conversations is the real killer app. I’m convinced that social networks are the gateway drug for real life conversations. Therefore, feel free to connect and hit me up – as Frasier Crane said – “I’m listening.”

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

Infographic Thursday: In An Office Far, Far Away…

24 Thursday Apr 2014

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Top Management Degrees has a great infographic up on their site postulating what communication will look like in the workplace going forward. Among other things, it suggests that the prevalence of telework will dramatically increase going forward. This is a really well done infographic, and I recommend checking it out below. Additionally, you can check out Top Management Degrees’ website here.

Future Office
Source: TopManagementDegrees.com

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Best,

Rory

Good Organizational Change Looks Like…

23 Wednesday Apr 2014

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1. Apologies for the misleading topic title. I typically come up with these after I’ve written my post. But today I lead off with writing the title and then went in a different direction as it concerns content when I realized I didn’t have an answer. I like the title too much to change it though so……Full Disclosure up front: I don’t know. 1 So if you are seeking a one-size-fits-all answer here you will not find it (if it even exists).

With that said, I wanted to write about this topic today because of an interesting post I recently read from Ilya Pozin (CEO of greeting card company Open Me) highlighting some of the more unique company perks organizations have implemented to attract and engage talent. As I made my way through the list of perks on his list, I found myself passively asking myself if – setting aside potential value add – each one of the perks could be implemented effectively at an organization similar in size and industry to my own. There were things like:

…An annual all-expenses paid international trip (this certainly could not be done enterprise wide at a big company – it’s more of a start-up perk); flex hours (maybe one day, but probably not practical on a large scale right now due to sector/customer needs); free gym memberships (sure)…

This was a fun exercise, but most of the impractical ones were obviously so because of common-sense business reasons. As I worked through the list, however, I encountered several perks that might succeed or fail largely and/or exclusively on the basis of how the change was introduced:

…Video game day (not likely, but more so because generating a high degree of participation might be difficult at a big firm); Unlimited vacation days (this could theoretically work, but if rolled out poorly it could just as easily lead to abuse by a select few and/or else be under-utilized by others because of the potential stigma)…

In some of these cases it turns out that cultural fit challenges would be as high a barrier to implementation as any other factor. This is in many respects all well and good – a change that would have difficulty generating cultural traction in an organization internally is often simultaneously bad for said organization overall… and yet as any seasoned HR person will tell you, good and needed changes are also sometimes painful to implement in the beginning. To this point, many organizations across time have abandoned change efforts not because they weren’t needed, but because the associated growing pains weren’t properly managed. But how should we know when we are dealing with the former versus the latter situation? How do we determine if a change is failing in our organization for fundamentally irreconcilable cultural fit reasons versus just being poorly implemented?

…As I said at the start, I don’t know. There is a lot of literature out there on how to effectively lead a change management effort (get buy-in from leadership at the top down etc.), but not so much on how to know when to forge ahead when faced with adversity.

To those with experience effectively leading large-scale change efforts, how did you know you were on the right track once trouble spots cropped up? And for those that eventually abandoned large change efforts, when did you know you needed to do so?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Best,

Rory

A Few Thoughts on Good Resume Writing

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Resume

This morning I read a post from Linkedin resume writer and best-selling author Jim Giammatteo on the utility of listing responsibilities on resumes. Giammatteo suggests that if you’re going to use precious page real-estate to list out what you were responsible for (as opposed to what you did) that you keep it short and concise because the value add is limited. This is a really good post, and I recommend checking it out here.

With that said, having filled well over a hundred jobs over the past two years spanning a wide range of complexity and scope, I would like to share some personal insights on this particular topic as well as – by extension – the value add of a well written resume.

…So as a caveat to the advice/thoughts I am about to share, I will first say that a shocking number of job seekers apply to jobs for which they have no directly applicable experience while simultaneously failing to qualify why they are a fit (via either a cover letter or their resume itself). Ergo – and this varies by job posting – generally speaking a large percentage (in some cases upwards of 40%) of applicants automatically DQ themselves from the process simply because they don’t effectively communicate in their resumes that they have the skills, experience and capabilities required to do the work as described.

What this means in practice is that if you are selective in the sorts of jobs you apply to and know how to get your resume in front of a hiring manager/decision maker then the responsibilities-listing approach may very well work for you; simply by applying for jobs for which one has directly applicable experience, the odds of being considered for a role are better than those of a big chunk of applicants.

…But I will also say (to Giammatteo’s point) that anecdotally speaking, candidates that take the time to qualify and quantify their achievements in their resumes typically interview better than those that just lists their job duties and responsibilities. To be sure, if my applicant pool for a role is thin enough (as it has often been filling jobs in rural and undesirable locations) then I will interview both sorts of candidates. But the former sort are often better prepared, and have a greater handle on how exactly they can add value to the position for which they are interviewing.

With that said, perhaps a balanced mix works best here. Below is one of the jobs on my resume/LinkedIn profile. Note that I take a few short sentences to explain what I do (complexity, accountability, scope) and then list out my accomplishments (actions and deliverables/results) in bullet-point form:

As an HR Generalist, I serve as a primary HR point of contact to a client group of approximately 270 operations, commercial, and support employees at ____’s division headquarters. I manage employee relations, employee discipline, site investigations, site communications, recruiting, labor contract interpretation, safety, training, and workforce/staff development. I also supervise (workforce direction, payroll, compliance, etc.) a seven person department of hourly employees. Some of my accomplishments to date include:

•Decreasing year over year average job time to fill 100% by streamlining the onboarding process
•Partnering with the local union and site management to successfully negotiate a labor agreement extension
•Optimizing the knowledge transfer process by partnering with managers to design SOPs and train new employees on work procedures
•Developing and implementing new recruiting processes, expanding both the pool of talent and quality of final round applicants for historically hard-to-fill positions
•Driving employee participation in the location’s safety program, conducting internal studies to assess program engagement and leveraging the results to implement changes which increased participation by over 20%

Is the above a good way to write a resume? I don’t know – you tell me.

And if you’re a recruiter, what do you think when you see a responsibilities laden (but achievements light) resume?

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments sections below.

Best,

Rory

Quote of the Week: “I’m pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going…

21 Monday Apr 2014

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…by writing everyday, even if it’s only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.” – James Rollins

<en.wikipedia

<en.wikipedia>

This quote has been attributed to American veterinarian and best-selling action-adventure novel writer James Rollins.

When we begin a new undertaking – be it something like a personal diet, learning a new skill, or even leading an enterprise-wide change management initiative – the beginning is often fun. When we start new things we typically do so with a lot of energy and optimism. This makes sense because once we recognize the value add of something it is normal to jump into it with a great deal of zest and gusto.

With that said, it is much harder to maintain that momentum over time. Because once we get past the initial excitement over the major improvements we’re going to make to our lives, the lives of others, and/or our organizations, the high octane enthusiasm that accompanied us at the start of our journey is replaced by the sobering reality of the (often difficult) work ahead. Adding to the challenge, the further along we advance in a process the fewer easy victories we get.

James’s quote speaks to what it is to recognize this reality and keep moving forward. See, the truth of the matter is that no matter how wonderful our intentions are, some days it is simply much easier to be our best self than others. This is normal as life has ebbs and flows, and such things play a role in the degree to which we can give our best effort on any given day.

…So as we get started this week, I would like to ask you to establish a zero marker. If you’re working on a novel like Rollins it might be writing a paragraph a day no matter what, or if you’re learning a new programming language like me it might be exposing yourself to (and executing) one new piece of program functionality per day. If you’re on a diet then maybe it’s a 10 minute run in the morning. Or if you’re implementing (or learning to live with) a new system – then perhaps it means trying to do one thing a little bit differently than you did the day before.

…This zero marker will be different for everyone. But – regardless of what that step looks like for each of us – if we take at least one step forward every single day then we will keep making progress. 

…And yeah, it will just be incremental.

But change always is.

Happy Monday,

Rory