Unfriend
Today the word “unfriend” was announced as the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year (WOTY) for 2009. How fitting.
For those of you living in a cave for the greater part of this decade, “unfriend” is what you do on Facebook to remove a connection to someone else; you “unfriend” them.
If you had money invested with Bernie Madoff – you probably “unfriended” him this year.
Sarah Palin probably “unfriended” Levi Johnston this year – you get the drift.
What strikes me is that to “unfriend” someone from your network is probably the rudest thing you can do in social networking. Unfriend on Facebook and “unfollow” on Twitter mean that you originally wanted to be connected to this person and now find that connection so negative that you are dis-inviting them from your life.
OUCH!
So not only is our WOTY (word of the year) a really negative one, it shines a light on the whole social networking/public facing world the internet has created. One in which we scamper like chipmunks to “friend” everyone we ever knew (and a bunch we don’t know but who know someone who knows someone we know or had dinner once with someone who knows someone we knew in college – Jeez!) C’mon people. Is this really the way of the future?
The internet lives we lead today have so completely removed us from relationships that we now do stuff to each other on the internet we’d NEVER do to each other in person. And through this layer of protection, we now have created words that never existed to describe how rude we can be to each other.
Seriously, here’s a glaring example; you are having a Thanksgiving Dinner party and one of your friends asks if they can invite someone they know to dinner at your house. This person shows up and drinks all your good scotch, eats the last dark meat and sucks whipped cream from the can – you are disgusted. But do you ask this person to LEAVE? No, you don’t, you wouldn’t. You’d be gracious, you’d be kind and you’d never see that person again. You’d talk about it and probably laugh about it later.
But today, we are accepting friend invitations, followers and LinkedIn connections from people we don’t know and some who we probably don’t want to know – all in the name of social networking.
“Old networking” used to be about a mutual exchange of value, either professionally or personally. People in your network mattered and there was benefit to having a network and being in one.
Today, with our newest word of the year, I doubt the value of your network is much or that you consider adding value to your network (telling everyone on Facebook that you had a great cup of coffee is NOT adding value – no it’s not.) on a regular basis.
I think the Oxford Dictionary needs to come up with a new word for “networking” in today’s world. One that actually describes what we are doing. Maybe “friendgathering” or “Followstalking” or “Linkifinity”. She with the most connections wins. Wins what?
Consider this. We’ve lost our ability to communicate effectively face to face because we now do everything on the “net”. We apply for jobs, we update our families, we find old friends (but don’t call), we send invitations, we send Christmas letters, we order pizza, we get educations etc, etc.
The Oxford Dictionary defines FRIEND as;
Friend:
-Noun
1. A person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
By doing all of our connecting electronically, aren’t we “unfriending” everyone?
T.O. of CEO is OK!
For those of you seeking some GOOD news about the economy and the job market, it’s time we started paying more attention to some of the interesting indicators that things are actually getting better.
I read an article on MSN Money that shows there are quiet but measurable signs things are getting better. It’s an upgrade announcement of two major Executive Search Firms, Heidrick and Struggles and Korn Ferry International from “neutral” to “buy”. This is based on a shift from a 0.6 decline in revenue in August to a 2.6 GAIN in revenue in September. Another factor was the reduction in financial sector job losses from 40,000 last December to 2,300 in August to just 700 last month (Heidrick’s #1 segment).
One of the analysts in the article made an interesting statement:
“Our view is that a resumption in executive turnover rekindles growth exiting a recession, which is spurred further by global economic growth in the second half of an expansion,”
So the takeaway is that the job hopping of executives (remember how prevalent it was in 2004-2006?) is a GREAT indicator that business is growing and jobs aren’t far behind.
Don’t be too upset if your CEO or CFO announce they are leaving the company. It may simple be an indicator we are finally pulling out of this recession.
Who Cares?
Just not a nice question huh? Ask someone a question and when you get this response you just feel bad – like they are brushing you off.
Yet this is the response I get most often (verbally, physically) when I ask recruiters about the candidate experience – especially the candidates who apply but are not qualified or have clearly applied for the wrong job.
But my answer is always “you need to” and apparently The Gallup organization agrees with me. A 2008 study in The Gallup Management Journal (surveying a targeted U.S. sample of 1,376 adults aged 18 and over who were seeking a job – The sample consisted of those who are currently unemployed and seeking a job as well as those who are currently employed full time or part time and have searched for employment in the past six months) found that if you don’t care and aren’t treating all candidates like customers, you may be significantly harming your recruiting efforts. Continue reading
Job Board Logic
I remember in 1992 when the “world wide web” (the term internet had not been invented yet) was touted as a game changer for recruiting. And it was true…..for a time. There was Monster, then Careerbuilder but two was not enough, the job board industry realized that they could carve up the universe into bite sized pieces and convince recruiting departments that they had to be part of this movement in order to get closer to the talent they seek.
And millionaires were made.
Today, we’ve seen a proliferation of niche job boards (to the tune of over 45,000 available) and the promise of the web (automate and create efficiency) has all but gone by the wayside.
Allow me to explain via example: Continue reading
Zero Sum Game
One of the systemic errors that I see corporations and Recruiting departments making is that they are treating hiring as a “zero sum game”.
The name comes from the fact that there are some games where the sum of the player’s payoffs at the end of the game sum to zero. Poker is a good example. Imagine you and I play head’s up poker. If at the end of the night I’m up $20 then, by definition, you are down $20. Our payoffs, plus $20 and minus $20, sum to zero. The point being that in zero sum games my wins define your losses (and visa versa). Continue reading
A Brand or a Temporary Tattoo?
Ok, I’m from the west. Born in Boulder, Colorado and raised in ski country so to me, a “brand” is a borderline cruel way to mark your livestock – and mark it PERMANENTLY.
You’d never find a steer branded “rocking H” wandering the stables at the “lazy M”. A brand means something very REAL in livestock. It means commitment.
And in Corporate life, a “brand” can mean commitment; commitment to quality, commitment to innovation, commitment to community etc.
But come down another layer to the “employment brand” the whole subject gets pretty “squishy”.
All of a sudden, the term “brand” means more of an aspiration than a commitment. You would never see a steer not living up to it’s “brand” and rarely do you find a company not tied inextricably to it’s corporate brand but in “employment branding” there is way too much gray area. But why?
The essence of employer branding is to attract talented individuals and ensure both they and existing employees identify with the organization – and its brand and mission – to produce desired outcomes for organizations.
The discourse occurs when image triumphs over substance and what is publicly proclaimed is in conflict with reality. Here, employees both tenured and new find the organization lacking in “brand” integrity.
So how do you avoid the “temporary tattoo” employer brand? Simple. Be real. Inspect your brand; what keeps your star employees at your company and what attracts new ones? What causes game changers to leave? Do the analysis, be willing to be challenged and then set programs and culture changes to fix what is broken. In short – live up to what your brand IS, not what you want it to be. In the end you’ll attract and retain the talent you can and not the talent you think you should be.
No War for Talent
After attending ERE last week, I’m convinced that there will never be another “war for talent”.
Having lived through the first war for talent of the mid to late 90’s during the dot.com boom, I can tell you that we were hiring as fast and as furious as possible. Companies were offering 6 month leases on Ferrari’s as signing bonuses and the “war” was on. As employers, we literally battled at offer time against one another – upping the ante’ until one of us blinked and lost the candidate. The emphasis was on closing candidates and building companies.
Fast forward to the recovery of 2010-2011 and you’ll see a very different recruitment scenario. One based, not on fast and furious recruitment but one based on engagement of talent.
We won’t be building companies at warp speed. Most organizations will add strategically instead of rabidly. Continue reading
Job Seeker Advocate
I’m ushering in a new look (Thanks NZ Team!!), new name and new focus on the AllianceQ Blog. I hope you like the changes and enjoy reading “Recruiting on Q”.
Today, my focus shifts to the Job Seeker. Of all the reasons to focus on this population of people, none is more compelling than spending time with Recruiting departments and hearing some of the prevailing attitudes toward them. Wow! You’d think the job seeker was put on the earth to bog down and frustrate corporate recruiting departments. I think your Marketing and Executive teams might have something to say about that!
The job seeker is inextricable tied to your corporate profits. Follow me here; a job seeker applies to one of your jobs – why? Probably for a myriad of reasons but one of them is always “money”. I don’t hang with a lot of independently wealthy folks so everyone I know works for pay. What do we do with that pay? After taxes, we buy “stuff”. Therefore, every job seeker is also a consumer, and a potential consumer of your company’s “stuff”. Or not.
- 1 in 4 job seekers has been badly treated by a prospective employer.
- 53% of job seekers will not purchase products and services if they have been badly treated.
- 55% tell at least 3 people about their bad experience.
There are many ways a company can increase the positive feelings these job seekers have with their brand.
None is more important than simply acknowledging there is more to do and committing to doing it.
2010 Predictions? In July?
I just read a post on ERE by the esteemed Lou Adler titled. “Sourcing Trends and Predictions 2010” and as I read down the list of 10 things to come I naturally had a reaction.
You see, like most of you, I’ve been reading Lou’s and everyone else’s “predictions” for years and what I don’t end up reading is anyone who dares to disagree with the fortunetellers or voices opinions in anyway but “way to go Lou” or “I completely agree”. Well not here my friends. Let me run down the first 5 of the 10 and give you some balance to the first set of 2010 forecasts by ERE Clairvoyants:
1. Lou: Job Boards will soon be archaic:
Phil: They have been for years but they are not going away anytime soon: From my experience both inside Corporate Recruiting and outside selling against them, People have a love/hate relationship with traditional job boards. Recruiting departments hate them and hiring managers love them. Until Recruiting departments can come up with a viable reason to avoid posting jobs on them, they will continue to dominate spending in most departments. Lou’s assertion that they “target C+ type talent” is absurd. Everyone knows that a C to me may be a B to you and visa versa. Classifying talent generically into A, B and C is one of the major problems of traditional Recruiting leadership. Lou, do us a favor and stop using archaic classifications.
2. Lou: The talent hub and spoke model will dominate active candidate sourcing:
Phil: Only if the industry can restrain itself from complexity: I have first hand experience with some early “Talent Hub” vendors who are now out of business. The reason they failed is this; they complicated it so much (Build Big Fast) that it served neither the company or the candidate. It’s one thing to connect people via a talent hub who are banking sales people. It becomes too complicated (and the value is lost) when you connect THAT hub to another hub, say, people who like to garden or people who own classic cars. If the industry can keep it simple and not make it like a gigantic game of Tinker Toys (picture below for those of you born after 1970) then it may work. I’m not optimistic we can keep it simple these days.
3. Lou: Sourcing spokes will come and go:
Phil: Really? That’s a prediction?: Predicting the coming and going of ideas in recruiting is like predicting the rise and set of the sun. No comment on this one.
4. Lou: Applicant tracking systems will eventually react and adapt to the new model:
Phil: ATS systems will still hold no place in sourcing: For the last decade, ATS systems have struggled to reconcile the process management and compliance tracking they were intended to provide and the push toward (and investment in) sourcing solutions. Maybe we should finally realize that a system architected for compliance and process management will never be as effective for sourcing as a system architected from the Sourcing Desk.
5. Lou: Companies will be unprepared for the spike in turnover:
Phil: Completely agree: But would add that the “spike” will be much longer than 6 months. We will hit 11% unemployment in Jan 2010, by January 2011 we will be mired in the greatest job movement in history as underemployed seek new employment and the unemployed are filling roles. People, process and systems will be unprepeared for this historical mobilization and those companies who are caught unprepared will suffer tremendously.
Ok, so there are the first 5 of Lou’s 10 predictions for 2010. It’s hot and sticky here in Charlotte, NC – we’ll see what NEW predictions come out when it’s cold.
Things that make you go “huh?”
I woke up this morning to a world that (apparently to our political leaders) is fixed!
You see, here is what Congress is focused on today:
Typically, I don’t get involved in politics in this blog but republican or democrat this has to make you go “huh?”. To quote Michael Douglas in The American President;
“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.”
So if you already feel that we really don’t have any serious people running this country then headlines like this can’t help.
You can click on the link and read the article. Then, when you are done asking yourself “what the &%^$# are my elected leaders doing to help the economy, decrease the unemployment rate and focus on the important stuff” I hope you’ll write your congress person like I just did and ask them the question!
