LinkedIn Profiles - More Accurate Than Resumes (Sad But True...)

So I couldn't make it to last week's Social Recruiting Summit at Google to speak, but as an end user I was obviously interested in the conversation, so I plugged in from time to time via the streaming video.  Good stuff, and here was an early takeaway that I thought I would share:

LinkedIn profiles maintained by a candidate are more accurate than the Resume maintained by the same candidate...

Think about that one for a second.  Wait for it - there you go - the clarity and realization that if you're truly looking for "what's up" with a candidate, you need to rely on the LinkedIn profile.  Why is that true?  Because there's a community of co-workers, friends and past colleagues that always have access to the LinkedIn profile, and there's no such community with constant visibility to a random resume the candidate sends in, and you have no means to circulate the resume to that type of community to fact check.

The result?  As Reid Hoffman discussed at the Social Recruiting summit - people won't lie in public via LinkedIn.  With that in mind, the core elements at play in most LinkedIn profiles - the titles, the dates, etc. - are always going to be more accurate than the resume.

Here's the tricky part - when you're looking for a candidate to unfold what they did at ACME Inc., the LinkedIn profile doesn't usually include the 5-6 bullet points you're usually used to seeing on the resume, right?  That's a key component to understanding the context of what they did.

With that in mind, is the day coming (from an accuracy and honesty perspective) when we'll ask candidates to update their LinkedIn profiles with more detailed information on what they did at ACME?

If you have over 100 contacts on LinkedIn, I'd doubt you'll lie in a big way.  Too much crowd-sourcing going on...

Segmenting the Response to Your Employment Brand...

I saw the chart below in this BusinessWeek article on Wal-Mart, and it begged the following question for me.  WalMart has shoppers who break down across the annual income figures illustrated below.  If you looked at the annual household income of the applicants who applied for jobs in your organization, what would you see?

More importantly, what do you want it to look like based on your talent strategy?  Do you want to go upstream, downstream or stay where you are at?  Are you getting flooded with people who, from a career level, aren't a match for who you are?  Why would those not a match on the income side (higher or lower) apply for jobs with you?  What can you change to drive more of the traffic you want?

Empathy and Sympathy in Sales Pros - Don't Confuse the Two....

I'm part of a team that hires sales professionals at DAXKO.  That means I've spent a lot of time thinking and talking to others about what makes a successful sales professional.  I've always thought I had a good line on it, but from the school of "get better or die trying", I'm open to all thoughts on the topics.

My focus has generally been on a demonstrated ability to close, and a level of polish on communication skills that allows someone to represent the company and also be effective when it comes to needs analysis with a wide variety of target prospects.

But you can always learn more, no?  In that spirit, I got exposure to a great Harvard Business Review Article from my new VP of Sales that clarifies the target candidate with even greater clarity.  Here's the abstract from the article, then I'll break down the two big theories from the study, which is 30+ years old, but still stands tall today:

'More than 35 years ago, the insurance industry embarked on an intensive program to solve the problem of costly, wasteful turnover among its agents. Estimates at that time indicated that there was a turnover of better than 50% within the first year and almost 80% within the first three years. After the expenditure of millions of dollars and 35 years of research, the turnover in the insurance industry remains approximately 50% within the first year and 80% within the first three years.

What accounts for this expensive inefficiency? Basically this: Companies have simply not known what makes one man able to sell and another not. As Robert N. McMurry has observed:

A very high proportion of those engaged in selling cannot sell….If American sales efficiency is to be maximized and the appalling waste of money and manpower which exists today is to be minimized, a constructive analysis must be made of what selling really is and how its effectiveness can be enhanced….We must look a good deal further—into the mysteries of personality and psychology—if we want real answers.¹

It was the obvious need for a better method of sales selection that led us to embark on seven years of field research in this area. The article that follows is based on the insights we gained as to the basic characteristics necessary for a salesman to be able to sell successfully. Confirming the fact that we are on the right track is the predictive power of the selection instrument (battery of tests) that we developed out of the same research; see the exhibit “How Well an Instrument Measuring Empathy and Ego Drive Predicted Sales Success.”

So here's what the research says, which applied to the real world totally makes sense:

-Two primary factors drive the profiles of all salespeople - empathy and ego drive.

-Empathy means that the salesperson can feel the customer's pain.  Where many sales pros get into trouble is when empathy turns to sympathy, which means (my words) that the sales person is too close to the customer and problem, and sympathy means they won't drive to make the sale.  The customer will love the rep that give them sympathy, but they'll buy from someone else because the rep has ceased to be a sales person.

-Ego/Drive is the indicator that the rep has to make a sale to feel good about themselves.  It's this drive that allows the successful rep to deal with the rejection any natural sales funnel causes.

-Too much empathy (turning to sympathy), and the rep won't be effective.  To much ego/drive without a level of empathy, and they'll come across as caring about nothing but the sale. 

The big takeaway from me is the concept of empathy turning to sympathy, and thus, a likable rep who seems viable in every other way not hitting their number on a consistent basis.  Go read the article, it's worth 10 minutes of your time to reset your view of the profile of a successful rep.

Bonus thought - As I think about empathy vs. sympathy in a sales pro and how I would coach to that, I'm immediately thinking of a money scene with Vince Vaughn coaching John Farueu in Swingers.  The text and audio to that is below, and I'm thinking the video clip should be part of any sales training program.

"Trent I don't want you to be the guy in the PG-13 movie everyone's *really* hoping makes it happen. I want you to be like the guy in the rated R movie, you know, the guy you're not sure whether or not you like yet. You're not sure where he's coming from. Okay You're a bad man. You're a bad man. You're a bad man, bad man."

Another Interview Question I've Never Used That ROCKS....

I'm a behavorial interviewer, so I really don't like questions that don't ask for examples of past behavior.   But this question, tweeted by Harry Joiner of eCommerce Recruiter and Marketing Headhunter, is one that I will add to my portfolio:

""Tell me one misperception people (team members) have of you."

Nice.  As Harry says, this tells if the candidate is self-aware.  Additionally, I think it's a great window to the soul of what the issues might be if you hire the candidate.  For example, the candidate might say, "one misperception is that I'm unapproachable". 

So you get the answer and turn the focus behaviorial with items like the following:

"Tell me about a specific time when you have sensed a team member feeling that way about you.  What did you do?"

I like it.  I'm adding it to my mix.

If You Try to Pimp Someone Into a Reference, You Should Get Drilled....

It's been said, many times, many ways - neutral is the new negative when it comes to references. 

We're all so worried about getting sued, we won't tell the truth when someone's a bad apple.  So we provide the following sell-outs:

1.  A neutral reference (you know, I really don't have an opinion, I really wasn't exposed to their work enough);

2.  A true sell-out - a moderately positive reference that means nothing (Bill has a way with people <read:a toxic way>); or

3.  We do the OJ, the Richard Scrushy, the Mark Maguire <plug in your favorite person who's pleaded the fifth> (I'd really rather not discuss....).

Why's this on my mind?  I recently had the pleasure of being contacted by a company who was trying to hire a former low performing employee at a company I worked at previously.  The former employee/candidate, who was on-site, knew he had a problem making the references work to his favor.  With that in mind, he took what I would call an aggressive approach - he stood in the HR pro's office while she called the references, presumably so he could hear the feedback and if negative, attempt to influence the HR Pro and perhaps even make the reference aware that he was standing there as the reference was being checked.

OK, you're right - that's a weak HR pro to let that happen, but the guy is a bully and she's not at the career level to say, "get out while I do this".

As you might expect, all the references in question were doing everything they could to be unavailable. Still, it goes without saying that for trying to game the system and bully the references and the reference checker, the candidate should get drilled.

Remember, it's only slander/libel if the information you provide is false.  The truth shall set you free.  

So, the next time someone calls you and says "Vandalay Industries", don't say the equivalent of "I'm not here to talk about the past, I'm here to talk about the future"; channel Kramer below and be real.

Being Fair to Seth Godin...

Last week, I panned a Forbes article that positioned the selection process of an intern program by Seth Godin as being bleeding edge.  To reinforce and be fair to Seth, I basically said I loved his work, this site includes 2 books from Seth on the recommended reading sidebar, but I wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid on his survivor-type selection process as a best practice.

Seth checked in with a comment, which is worth republishing here:

"Thanks Kris, I appreciate the feedback.

I need to start by challenging the tone and nature of the Forbes article. It was really hurtful to me and my team, mostly because it wasn't true and also because I invited them in as a favor. We weren't seeking to hype what we are doing here.

I don't think I ever said that people should hire the way I chose the people for the program. What fascinated me is that the nine picked PRECISELY the same nine people that I had already picked. The gulf was obvious and the crowd (the 27) saw that.

I can tell you that getting into Stanford Business School was not only less organized than my process was, it was also significantly less effective. Every single one of the 9 in the program are amazing. Not one bad pick. Maybe that's luck or maybe Stanford ought to consider something similar...

But no, I'd never do this for "real" long term jobs, mostly because it's unlikely a real long term job would be as parallel a process as school is."

In the spirit of focusing on additional thoughts, reader Michelle chimed in with thoughts similar to Seth's regarding using the exercise as an evaluation, rather than selection tool:

"I think it would be crazy to let the group make the final decision, but it is an interesting concept. One thing I do like is learning how each candidate would assess and select individuals. I think their recommendations along with how they developed those decisions would provide insight into their own skills and what they look for when selecting talent."

Good thoughts.  Don't rely on the method for selection, but it certainly could be used if you have the time to evaluate the judgment and decision-making criteria of the candidate's concerned.    

PS - for my money, if you read one Seth Godin book, it's "Small is the New Big".  Find it on the left sidebar on this page.

When Too Much Seth Godin is Too Much Seth Godin...

I love Seth Godin as much as the next person.  I think I have all his books (you'll see many of them listed on the sidebar of this blog as suggested reading), although I still have yet to read "Tribes".  When it comes to keeping you on your feet related to marketing, brand and the new age of social media, there's no one better.  He's the gold standard in that area, OK?  Now on to the meat of the post.

Sometimes too much Seth Godin is too much Seth Godin.  Especially when he bounces into the area of talent, specifically selecting talent, and the pundits covering him brand super smart marketing and PR techniques (which Seth is very, very good at) as innovative selection processes for talent. 

Am I grumpy, cynical, jealous and/or "on the money" with this one?  You decide.  More on the cult that is Seth Godin from Forbes:

"Seth Godin sits at a table surrounded by nine aspiring entrepreneurs. Emily Kate Boyd, a songwriter from Atlanta, shares her idea for a new venture: a nonprofit that will expose wealthy donors to fledgling artists who need their support. "How do you use 'groupthink' and wisdom of the crowds to do this?" Godin asks her in his signature marketer's jargon. Boyd, 28, says that when prospective patrons are together in one room they will inspire one another to participate.

Boyd and the other folks, most of them under 40, are participating in an "alternative M.B.A. program" organized by Godin and held in his office in the sleepy town of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. The Godin followers are spending five days a week for six months, until mid-July, soaking up marketing insights from the speaker and author of marketing advice books. The program is free--sort of. Four of the participants gave up their jobs; two quit; two are taking leaves of absence to spend time with Godin, who pads around in mismatched socks and quirky glasses and fixes his followers' lunch almost every day. Allan Young, one participant, quit two part-time gigs, which paid him a total of $170,000 a year, to hang out with Godin. Boyd is racking up $1,000 a month in debt to participate.

Godin, who typically works alone and admits that he gets lonely, came up with the alternative business degree program in November. He initially hoped to find people he could teach who could also help him work on his Web site (Squidoo.com) and other projects. He sat down at his computer and dashed off a posting on Squidoo. The heading: "Don't go to business school. Instead of getting an M.B.A., consider spending six months in my office." He was looking for "brilliant, charismatic" people "on a mission, moving fast, filled with passion and empathy."

Even he was surprised at the number of responses he received. ("The danger of the Web is that you can go from idea to public announcement in under ten minutes," he says.) Godin says 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. In December he invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. Then they, and Godin, wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the 9 chosen showed up at Godin's office."

Here's what drives me crazy.  I've seen a couple of posts related to the selection process and got the article forwarded to me a couple of times.  The gist of the posts/emails from my talent peers?  "Seth is freaking brilliant, look at how he arrived at the nine". 

Seth is brilliant at many things, including marketing and PR.  When it comes to selecting multiple candidates for your company, are you really willing to let finalists vote for their favorites and live by that for your business?

You're not, because you know better than that.  I'm sure Seth could have made all the selections himself and done very well based on his hiring instincts.  But don't look at a "Survivor" type of process and tell me Seth's brilliant because of a PR/Marketing gimmick.

Seth's brilliant in a lot of ways.  This selection process isn't one of them.  If you believe the selection process above, just start allowing anyone who submits a resume to vote for their "top 10 candidates to phone screen" and see how that works out for you.

Crowd sourcing - good for many things, selection isn't one of them.

The Job Section of HR Magazine - Will the Last HR Team Without Any Ideas Please Turn Off the Lights?

By now, you've heard the rumors - print is dead.  Right?

One of the fascinating areas to watch this is in the Help Wanted ads of your local paper.  If you're a HR pro or recruiter who has to attract talent for a living and you've been doing it for some time, you probably have grown to rely on help wanted ads less and less - or not at all.  Online is wheres it's at these days.  Post and pray via Monster and CareerBuilder, right?  All the job seekers go to those destinations anyway, so it makes sense to spend $200-$400 with the destination job boards if you're looking for volume over quality.

Here's the dirty little secret.  The newspapers behind the help wanted ads aren't responding to the market shift by slashing prices.  Nope - they're actually keeping prices the same because they know that while revenue is down, they still have core customers (think production, nursing, etc.) that will pay full freight regardless of the other options - those customers still believe print is a cornerstone of their recruiting strategy.

I know because we recently did an immigration related posting, and I was shocked at the cost of a line (not a display ad people!) ad.  It has nothing to do with the market.  The newspapers are simply going to milk what's left of this market all the way to the bottom.  Which means the last customer left will still be paying $1,500 for a standard line ad with a good bit of text in Birmingham. 

I can't be critical of folks who still use print as a part of their recruiting strategy.  Wherever the candidates are, you should be from a recruiting standpoint. If that's newspapers, play on.

But one thing I can't understand is how someone would make the decision to post a HR Job in the "HR Jobs" section of SHRM's HR Magazine.  Understand upfront that I'm not being critical of SHRM with this post.  If they can drive revenue via print ads in HR Magazine, more power to them.

But what does an ad like that cost?  More importantly, what type of hiring organization thinks it's a good idea to find a HR Manager for a local position via ad insertion in a national magazine like that?  Here's how my thought process has usually worked when I've seen a HR Job posted in HR Magazine:

"Hey, that HR Director gig looks and sounds pretty sweet.  Too bad I really don't want to live in Tulsa or work for a lighting contractor..."

Oddly enough, I was thumbing through HR Magazine this month and noticed what I thought might be a first - no "HR Jobs" section in the back.  Could it be that everyone has figured out the obvious?  That Time Magazine or HR Magazine isn't a great place to recruit from for a location-specific, mid-level, HR position?

I suspect not.  I fully expect that next month may find a utility in Walla Walla recruiting for a Safety Manager via HR Magazine with the important, yet ironic information, "relocation not provided".

Will the last HR organization to use the HR Jobs section in the print-based HR Magazine please turn off the lights?  Let's be green when you leave a room, people.

Need You to Move for Lower Pay - Why 3 Million Open Jobs In America Can't Be Filled...

This just in - there are over 3 million open jobs in America, but the right talent isn't in the right place.  In order to plug people into those roles, retraining is probably needed, and then (and this is the big kicker), the talent has to be mobile to go where the jobs are.

It's a mess, and odds are the skills/location gap (and you can't say one without the other) is going to get  worse once the economy cranks back up.  Bet on that...

More on the recession-based labor market that could create such a situation from BusinessWeek:

"Surprising statistic: In the midst of the worst recession in a generation or more, with 13 million people unemployed, there are approximately 3 million jobs that employers are actively recruiting for but so far have been unable to fill. That's more job openings than the entire population of Mississippi.

Sound like good news? It's not. Instead, it's evidence of an emerging structural shift in the U.S. economy that has created serious mismatches between workers and employers. People thrown out of shrinking sectors such as construction, finance, and retail lack the skills and training for openings in growing fields including education, accounting, health care, and government. At the same time, the worst housing bust in decades has left the unemployed frozen in place. They can't move to get work because they can't sell their homes."

Of course, you and I have heard about the skills gap for some time.  That part, we get.  Production workers need to be retrained, right?  The big eye-opener for me in the BW report is the impact that reduced mobility is having on the workforce and the country's inability to fill those 3 million open jobs. Take a taste of this from the BW report:

"One reason the jobs misery index is so high: The housing bust has reduced Americans' mobility. The Census Bureau reported on Apr. 22 that the percentage of the population that moved was the lowest since record keeping began in 1948. Home-owners, the Census found, were only one-fifth as likely to move as renters. The upshot is pockets of persistently severe unemployment—coincident with places such as North Dakota, where the 4.2% jobless rate is the nation's lowest. Sykes Enterprises (SYKE) plans to close a 200-person call center in Minot, N.D., on May 10 for lack of workers, and fast-food restaurants there are putting workers on overtime to cover shifts.

Immobility is sometimes a matter of choice. Dean Drako, the CEO of security and network appliance company Barracuda Networks, has been hunting for months for a vice-president of worldwide sales, as well as other key positions. Out of desperation he gave up a Friday night with his family in April to attend a mixer heavy on Ivy Leaguers at San Francisco's tony University Club, certain he could poach some talent there. When Drako handed his card to a potential recruit who had been out of work for six months, the person looked at the company's Campbell (Calif.) address and sniffed: "Oh, forget it, you're geographically undesirable." Says Drako: "He practically handed my business card back to me!"

Even some people from hard-hit cities such as Detroit and Cleveland have passed up well-paying jobs with medical device companies in places like North Carolina because they don't want to move, says Lisa Mesnard, an executive recruiter with the Wellington Group in Fuquay-Varina, N.C. "I find it daily," she says. "They're ingrained in the community. [Although] they don't have a job, they're willing to wait it out."

Here's another harsh reality of the skills/location gap.  There are jobs available, but folks need retraining.  Even if they get retrained, they need to be mobile to take advantage of where the job is.  But often times, the retraining means they need to take a step back in their careers to take two steps forward.  That means that a lot of professionals will be asked to move in order to take a job for less money than they're used to making.

Retraining means you usually drop down a couple of rungs on the ladder to learn a new skill, functional area and/or industry.  When you add a physical move into the equation with LESS money, it's more than the ego of most professionals can bare.

That stipend of human nature - the ego - is why the skills/location gap will be around for a long time and why the coming economic recovery will only make it worse.

Closing point - retraining = less $$$, so people generally won't move for less $$$

Recruiting Funnel? How About the Job Hunt Funnel?

I love to talk about the recruiting funnel.  The recruiting funnel is a version of the old sales funnel. A sales funnel report presents a "snapshot" of your sales function at any given point in time.  It looks at the leads your sales organization is generating, then tracks the conversion rate as those leads are turned into prospects, then gradually converted to the final stage where they become customers.  To end up with one customer at the end of the sales funnel, you'll need multiple leads.  Knowing how many leads you need to get one customer lets you plan your sales activity to hit your budget.

I like to twist the sales funnel around to talk about the recruiting funnel (resumes, phone screens, interviews - needed to equal one hire), but after seeing this blog post, I suppose it's time to stop and consider that every candidate out there should have their own "job hunt funnel', and should be prepared for a long "cycle time" in their job search.

One man's "job hunt funnel" as described by Dot Tom:

"Last year as the recession took hold my employer took drastic action cutting back the marketing team.  I was out of a job. In 25 years of working, it was the first time in my life that I needed unemployment benefits. While I didn’t keep an exact count, I suspect that I applied for over 300 jobs in the past 11 months. I’ve worked with at least 20 recruiters; done 150 phone screens and probably 100 face-to-face interviews. Today, 347 days after my search began, I start a new job with a great company that I’m very excited about!"

150 phone screens and 100 interviews over the course of a year to get a job he could be proud of.  That's some lead time right there.  Check out the post to see Tom's "five lessons from the unemployment line", which are pretty interesting...