I love talking about all things related to recruiting.  Been in the game long enough, and you'll learn one of the touchiest, funkiest items you'll deal with is the psychology of the offer process once you've found the candidate you want. 

I've always been lucky to work for companies that aren't constantly trying to nickel and dime candidates at the time of offer.  Most, if not all, of the people I've worked for in my career wanted to pay people fairly.  But let's get one thing straight - those same people don't just want to accept an aggressive candidate's stated need.  Instead, the smart company (or agent of the company) knows what the market is, and what the candidate's expectations are.

The time of the offer is the point at which the market, the culture of the company, and the psychology of the candidate intersect.  Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it's a car wreck. 

More on the psychology of the offer process from the Marketing Headhunter, Harry Joiner (one of my all-time favorites):

"I wont beat around the bush: Salary ranges are total bullshit. There. I said it.

I mean, what's the point?  When you bought your house, did the seller quote a range?  And if he did, which end of the range did you hear?  The low end or the high end?  The low end, of course, and that became your starting point in the final negotiations -- unless you're smart, in which case you started negotiating below the lowest end of the range, making the seller work you back up to his stated minimum.

ON THE CANDIDATE SIDE: The recruiter must brace his candidate for a low-ball offer and coach him not to take it personally.  Any recruiter worth his salt simply must tell his candidate to expect the client to bounce their first pitch in the dirt.  It's all part of the game, and deals fall apart when candidates take these things personally.  (And they do.)

Beyond that, all candidate's must not only understand what the "market" is for their skills, but also what the client can fairly afford without feeling burned by the process.  To quote any economist worth her salt, "You are looking for the optimal point on the efficiency curve."  After all, candidates, you'll need your honeymoon period in the new job -- and running roughshod over your new employer in a salary negotiation will only shorten it.  Leave a few bucks on the table, but not so many that you feel cheapened by the process."

Here's what all parties (hiring manager, company and company) don't generally understand.  The market level for an offer to a candidate is based on just that - THE MARKET... What's the right comp level for an offer?  One that's consistent with your current comp strategy, fair to both parties, but above and beyond all else - ONE THAT THE CANDIDATE WILL ACCEPT WITH MINIMAL COUNTERS.

Say it with me - the market rate for any candidate is the $$ amount they will accept.  They've got info about what they are worth, you've got info about what they are worth.  When it all comes down to it, ranges give guidance, but you can't rely on the extremes in the offer process.  You use the range to close business.

To be fair, all hiring managers and candidates don't have issues with this concept.  But those who do have a hard time understanding that ranges, and at times pre-dispositions, mean nothing when it comes to the market rate for talent.

The market rate for any candidate is the $$ amount they will accept.  Everything else is noise...

So, if you have a candidate who grudgingly accepts a fair offer, don't feel bad.  Adam Smith would say the acceptance, even with the static, is the free market at work.

Let's face it.  Even if you're one of the best interviewers in the history of that scrum you call a company, odds are you've gone through periods where you just didn't feel like bringing your A-game to the table when interviewing candidates.  It's OK, it happens to everyone who interviews a lot for a living.  You're human.

The problem goes something like this: You've interviewed thousands of candidates, and those candidates tend to cluster around 4-5 basic skill sets, although you might have some slightly different flavors within those clusters from time to time. The limited diversity you see is the issue.  You've done this so many times, you feel like you know whether a candidate is going to be a fit within 180 seconds, so after a while you start going through the motions.

Unfortunately, your human reaction to this dilemma means you'll never be as good in interviewing as you could have been, and here's why: When you phone screen 20 candidates and know within 180 seconds in each interview which 4 are the ones you're going to bring in to interview, you stop trying as hard.

Which means you stop giving valuable opinions to hiring managers on the 4 candidates you bring in for live interviews.  That's a problem.

In my experience, if you are in this type of interviewing rut, there are 3 ways you can shake off the cobwebs:

1.  Go negative.  Use behavioral questions that ask for negative information (tell me about a time when you got fired or removed from a project.  What the heck happened?) to stress the candidate and make it entertaining for you. You'll get great info as a result.

2.  Get aggressive on the money side with the candidate.  Find out what they need and ask them if they would take less, or what they could do to provide more value to your company and earn more.  Nothing perks up the exchange better than a nice exchange about straight cash, homie.

3. Make the candidate think a lot more than they want to.  Break out some questions that tell you how the candidate thinks and how they attack problems.  You always learn from this type of exchange, whether the candidate implodes or waxes poetic for the next 15 minutes after you ask the question.

Need an example of how to make the candidate think?  Try this story from Silicon Valley Insider about interviewing at Google:

"About ten minutes in, Oliver turned the tables.  “I’m going to ask you a few questions that may sound strange,” he premised.  I paused.  Is there really any good response to a comment like that?  He seemed to read my mind because he elaborated: “These questions are meant to test your analytical thinking.”  Oh no.  He was about to ask me the famous, ridiculously impossible Google questions I had been reading about on-line.

If you’ve never interviewed with the Internet giant, you may have never heard the types of questions they ask their interviewees.  The searches I had done warned me that Google might inquire how much I’d pay someone to wash all of the windows in Seattle or what I’d do if I was shrunk to the size of a nickel and placed in a blender with churning blades.

“I want you to estimate,” Oliver began, “how much money you think Google makes daily from Gmail ads.”  Oh. My. GOSH.  Was he serious?  The answer depended on so many different factors, none of which I had any clue how to guesstimate." 

Click through and read the exchange for fun.  The key isn't the answer, it's the depth of the explanation the candidate gives about why they would approach the problem a certain way.  If you use the approach, look for the following two fail points: quick answers and little explanation for why related to your follow-ups for more information (they've given up and just want the bells to stop ringing), or a fifteen minute term paper that leaves you wanting a nap.

Hard on the candidate, but good for you to use to break out of your rut.  Don't let yourself quit on trying to get the best information possible about every candidate - it's the only way you stay world-class as an interviewer.

I'm Gen X, which means I'm...ahem...maturing...

One of the things I've learned?  Email wars don't really benefit anyone.  I know, I know, you're right about your issue.  No one cares, especially if you start heaving email barbs around Outlooksphere.  Especially if you try to call out those who outrank you, even with a veiled barb.

Case in point, this direct report of Marc Andreessen, who thought he had the high ground, as reported in Fortune:

"Ben Horowitz was toiling as an unheralded product strategist at Netscape Communications when he opened a scathing e-mail from his boss, Marc Andreessen. It was the winter of 1996; Netscape's public offering, several months earlier, had ignited the dotcom craze, and co-founder Andreessen had just appeared on Time's cover, sitting on a throne, feet bare -- the very portrait of a cocky 24-year-old tech wunderkind.

But Horowitz was irked to learn that Andreessen had leaked news to a trade publication about an upcoming software release Horowitz's team had been working on. So Horowitz sent the Netscape co-founder a note that simply said, "I guess we're not going to wait until March 7" -- the date of the planned announcement.

The blast back from Andreessen: "We are getting killed killed killed by Microsoft! You're destroying the value of the company and it's 100% server product management's fault. I'm just trying to help. Next time, do the f***ing interview yourself. F*** you. Marc."

Hello... Questions?  No one wins in email wars, except maybe those who have so much power they can tell you that without fear of reprisal.

Thinking about sending the email?  Don't.  Just Don't....

Are you Bill O'Reilly or Tom Brokaw?  Jim Rome or Bob Costas? 

Think about the HR people you know and respect and pick a pack of adjectives below to describe the image that comes to mind:

Adjective Group #1 - aboveboard, conclusive, dependable, determinative, honest, imaginable, likely, plausible, possible, probable, probably, rational, reasonable, reliable, satisfactory, satisfying, seeming, sincere, solid, sound, straight, supposable, tenable, thinkable, trustworthy, trusty, valid

Adjective Group #2 - activist, , devotee, enthusiast, extremist, fiend*, fool, freak, maniac, militant, monomaniac, nut*, radical, ultraist, visionary, zealot

Most people would pick Group #1 to describe the HR people they know and respect in their lives.  The point?  Group #1 is a list of adjectives for "credible" and Group #2 is a list of adjectives for "activist".  Put them together and you have the term "credible activist", a competency listed by Dave Ulrich as being the top indicator in predicting outstanding performance among HR professionals. 

Ulrich is in Birmingham today, so his work is top of mind for me.  And the credible activist tag is my favorite snippet of Ulrich's work.  

Ulrich laid out the research study entitled "New Competencies for HR", in HR Magazine a few years back.   See the entire list here.   Since Credible Activist represents the top indicator in predicting who's a player in your HR department, here are some cliff notes on what it means -- According to Ulrich, the Credible Activist is respected, admired, listened to and offers a point of view through the following behaviors as described by the study:

• Delivers results with integrity
• Shares Information
• Builds relationships of trust
• Does HR with an attitude (taking risks, providing candid observations, influencing others)

The problem?  HR is famous for being credible (at least in a HR kind of way), but having opinions, taking risks and being generally dynamic is in short supply.  With that in mind, here's my punch list for getting in the mindset of being an activist:

1. Have an opinion (hopefully one that's credible)
2. Share it before you are asked (in a sharp/outspoken, yet professional way)
3. Be ready to defend it (in a sharp/outspoken, yet professional way)
4. Don't cave when defending it
5. Understand that the operations people you partner with can disagree and go another direction - but that doesn't mean you have to fold as a result.  Support their decision with your opinion intact.
6. Repeat - Often

Of course, that feels like confrontation, and most HR types don't like that.  Tune into a point/counterpoint type show (try PTI) to get into the groove....   

Interesting stuff going on in the sports world related to recruiting, talent and finding the right leader for your organization.  By now, you know the Notre Dame saga, where Charlie Weiss is being fired, with six years remaining on his contract, at a nice tidy sum of 18M (that's million for you Dr. Evil fans out there).  The nice thing is that the Notre Dame Athletic Director can make it sound like a death in the family when he talks about the decision and how much respect he has for the guy he's firing:

"“We have great expectations for our football program, and we have not been able to meet those expectations,” Notre Dame’s athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said in a news release. “As an alumnus, Charlie understands those goals and expectations better than most, and he’s as disappointed as anyone that we have not achieved the desired results.”

Here's what I find interesting in parallel to the business world.  When a SVP makes a critical hire and it doesn't work out, the process is usually pretty similar to what's going on at Notre Dame (minus the public scrutiny).  The SVP makes a tough decision, then dials up a search firm and starts the process of backfilling the spot in question.

BUT WAIT: In a down economy, companies haven't been so quick to allow the SVP or senior executive in question to backfill the spot.  When the backfill doesn't happen, it's usually for one or two reasons, or a combination of both reasons:

1.  Money is tight.  The company wants to hold the backfill before they hire again; and/or

2.  The senior executive in question was the architect of many of the organizational details for which he held the fired executive/manager accountable. 

Point #2 is pretty interesting.  If the SVP in question had the battle plan, called many of the shots and is now holding the fired manager/executive in question accountable, guess what's happening more and more often?  The following conversation:

"Mike, I know you thought it was the right thing to do to let Jim go.  Before we backfill the spot, I'm interested in seeing what you can do with the team since we built the organization based on many of the things that worked for you so well at ACME.  Let's plan on you sitting in as the acting executive for that Division/Department for the next two to three quarters and turning it around."

Translation:  You built it, now run it and prove it can work.

As always, sports provides a lot of visibility into managerial theory.  The New Jersey Nets of pro basketball just fired their coach, Lawrence Frank, after a long, successful run.  Rather than move to backfill the spot, they're putting their equivalent of the SVP, General Manager Kiki Vandeweghe, into the coaching role for the remainder of the season:

"Combining a soft voice with hard arguments, Kiki Vandeweghe made his case for trading Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter during the past 19 turbulent months, and then helped Nets president Rod Thorn expedite the rebuilding process by getting young talent in return for their gigantic contracts.

Now, with the team’s rebuilding phase stuck in a record-tying, 0-17 quagmire, Thorn figures the general manager who brought the younger players to New Jersey should be responsible for getting them to grow up a little faster.

The 51-year-old Vandeweghe has never been a coach, and team officials who are not authorized to speak for the Nets say he was initially reluctant to take the job. But Thorn mandated that Vandeweghe occupy that role, if only because his imprint on the roster is indelible, as he is especially close to Devin Harris, Yi Jianlian and Courtney Lee – the three young players acquired for Kidd, Jefferson and Carter."

Translation:  Thanks for building it.  Prove the plan is better than 0-17.  Just like we're seeing more and more often in the business world in a bad economy.

Good luck Kiki.