In Episode 15 of BEST HIRE EVER, Kris Dunn chats with Siadhal Magos, co-founder of Metaview, on using a data-driven approach to make Hiring Manager interviews more effective. Siadhal and KD talk about how voice to text transcription of interviews can enable AI,  giving Hiring Managers feedback on their effectiveness and improving an organization's selection process over time.

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SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

2:00 - KD asks Siadhal (based in London) to set up what Metaview does with transcription and analysis, which is the basis for some of the great data observations on hiring manager interviews Siadhal will share.

6:49 - Siadhal and KD talk about his experience at Uber, where he built and led product teams in a period when the company grew from 7,000 to 17,000 people in under two years and learned a lot about where organizations struggle with interviewing.

12:00 - Siadhal breaks down what the data says about where hiring managers struggle the most in interviews related to getting the info they need.

19:33 - KD and Siadhal talk about what is a good goal for interviewer speaking time (vs candidate "air"/speaking time).

25:33 - Siadhal talks about what the data says related to the sweet spot for the right number of questions in an interview.

29:15 - Siadhal breaks down Metaview learnings for follow up question count - what's the floor and the ceiling for follow ups from Hiring Managers? 

34:00 - KD and Siadhal discuss where companies struggle most post-interview when it’s time to make the hire/don’t hire or go/no-go decision?

RESOURCES AND SHOW NOTES:

------------

Siadhal Magos on Linkedin

Metaview

------------Kris Dunn

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Kinetix

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kris Dunn on Twitter

Kris Dunn on Instagram

Referrals - We love them in the talent world.

Ideally, referrals are made by employees/team members who understand the culture we've created at our company, and only refer the best in their network to us. That's generally true, and even if there's a few referral spammers in your company, we're better off with referrals than without them.

You know what types of referrals we hate and are suspicious of?

THE REFERRAL FROM SOMEONE IN OUR ORGANIZATION WE DON'T LIKE.

If you've got enough experience in the recruiting/team building game, you've been there before.  You've got an open spot on your team, and you're doing your normal recruiting game.  Then it happens.

Rick, a guy you detest, sends you a referral and vouches for the candidate.

Damn. That's the last thing you needed. But the intensity of your discomfort is directed by the following determination:

--The candidate isn't good. AH HAH!  Rick is clueless. Order has been restored to the universe.

--The candidate is really, really good.  Whoops!  Shit just got complicated.

Why does the candidate being good make it problematic? Well, you hate Rick. That means the following things are in play:

1--If you don't interview a great candidate, you're the problem, not Rick.  That's never been a part of the narrative you had related to your relationship with Rick.

2--If you interview the great referral from Rick and don't hire them, it gives Rick an avenue to criticize the selection you do make. 

3--If you interview the candidate and hire them, have you just hired someone sympathetic to Rick when he's kind of been your nemesis during your tenure at ACME.com.  That seems like it might be problematic.

All of these things go through our mind when we get a referral from someone in our organization we don't like. The blind spot is simply to ignore the referral, because you won't engage with a person you don't respect and trust. But if you do that, you're playing small. You're better than that.

The real talent magnets understand that quality internal referrals from sworn enemies or simply people you don't like are GIFTS.  You should absolutely interview them and hire them if they're the best person for the job.

Whether you simply interview or actually hire the quality referral from a known enemy inside your company, you're playing chess - not checkers - with your engagement with this type of candidate.

Mine the candidate for info about Rick. You may learn they don't know Rick as well as you thought they did.  But if they do, be sure and drop some details to Rick about your conversation.  It's fun to watch Rick be a little bit uncomfortable.

Can you hire this candidate?  That really depends how good you are at your job.  If you're great at your job, they're going to enjoy being part of your team and Rick's not a threat.  Rick may actually end up hating the fact that he gave you a great referral, which is a gift in itself.

Great referrals from sources you hate are an opportunity. Play chess, not checkers.

A recent lawsuit filed versus United Airlines shows how complicated/dangerous staffing decisions involving customer-facing positions can be.

A rundown of the lawsuit appears below. Embedded in all of this is the perception of what customers want, the concept/definition of bias, and the obligation a company has across employment law when staffing decisions for premium assignments are made in a manner inconsistent with established norms.

For years, attractive people (both female and male) have had an advantage in the workplace - that's documented through research. However, there are attractive people across all races and nationalities. Good luck to the organization/company in 2020 that identifies the "right" kind of attractiveness as belonging to young, white blonde females.

The answer to this for United is pretty simple. Work through the lawsuit and work with sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL) to ensure inclusivity. Trust me, those sports leagues don't want anything to do with media attention that suggests they're requesting the stereotype outlined below.

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United Airlines Holdings Inc. packs its charter flights for sports teams with young, blond crews and bars older flight attendants from working the plum routes, according to a new lawsuit.

If there's one thing I learned in the last recession that's going to help me this time around, it's this:

All things being equal, when we are deep in a recession, reasonable people in stable employment situations are less likely to jump to a new job.

I know what you're saying - you've got multiple examples where that's not the case. I hear you, but note the start of the statement above - "all things being equal."

When we're in a recession, which we are as I write this in 2020 (pandemic, even!), it's harder to get stable people to move. Good boss, decent job, seems stable - why would they take a chance on you, especially when the pandemic flavor of the recession we're in makes them even less confident your company is going to survive?

Candidates ALWAYS have imperfect information on the companies they're moving to.  Will the company make it? Is my new boss secretly a crazy person?  The unemployed are relatively easy to recruit in recessions - they need a job, and they need it quick - the employed are harder to move when times are tough.

Your best chance is really good, incredibly transparent marketing related to your open job. Think job postings and everything around it.

That's why I recently chatted with Katrina Kibben, CEO and Founder of Three Ears Media, on my podcast BEST HIRE EVER. We talked at length on the value of great job postings and marketing materials, and I had Katrina break down the elements of a job posting that generates results and talk about influencing candidates through great copy writing across all job marketing materials.  

Please subscribe, rate and review (Apple) and follow (Spotify) to get the latest Best Hire Ever podcast delivered to you.  Click here if you don't see the podcast player below.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:05 - "What up, KD?"

1:30 - KD is a ray of sunshine as he delivers the Q2 GDP numbers and connects it to great job postings.

2:52 - A bit about the artist known as Katrina and Three Ears Media.

5:15 - KD wants to know about the the decision for Katrina to specialize and go DEEEEEEEEEEP in the job posting/job attraction space – why?

9:30 - What are 3 things people can improve on related to their job postings?  Katrina breaks down the problems with 1) content being way too long, 2) bad intakes lead to bad content (buzzwords), and 3) Guessing and winging it.  Katrina goes deep in each area and drops incredible knowledge.

16:10 - KD asks Katrina for the most challenging personas across hiring managers. A story about Missouri is part of the magic!

19:30 - KD focuses on what he views as the the pandemic/recession dilemma. You’re a hiring manager and need great talent. How do you convince people that your company will make it through and they can jump from where they are and be OK at the company you’re a part of?  Katrina acknowledges the challenge but talks about people who have great jobs who are looking for more.

22:25 - Katrina and KD talk about the isolation via the Pandemic creating time to complement career paths with talented people.

24:00 - Katrina gets technical and breaks down the "Human About Us" portion of a job posting as being the place to create confidence in your company. Don't cut and paste a press release. Talk about where you're at right now. Acknowledge the past, talk honestly about the bounce back, etc. #transparency

29:00 - KD asks Katrina how hiring managers can make candidates believe in them as a candidate. 

35:10 - Katrina and KD wrap it up with WNBA talk.

RESOURCES AND SHOW NOTES:

------------Katrina Kibben

Katrina Kibben on Linkedin

Three Ears Media

------------Kris Dunn

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Kinetix

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kris Dunn on Twitter

Kris Dunn on Instagram

Short post today, but an important one. I belong to multiple online groups covering HR on a variety of platforms - you know the type - people can post questions on problems they're having in their HR shops and get help, advice and recommendations from their peers.

On one of the big forums on Facebook, a HR Director posted about problems she was having recruiting for the Distribution Center she supported, and reported that she believed that part of the issue was that many candidates who would normally be under consideration were recipients of the $600 weekly employment benefit that's part of the COVID stimulus program. The theory, which many of you know, goes like this - once a potential candidate adds up the state and federal unemployment and is earning the equivalent of 40-55K annualized (depends on your state benefit level), it's hard to get them to come back to a $15-20 an hour job.

That's more than a theory, that's likely reality in many cases.

So our friendly HR Director asks for guidance, and I'd say 20% of the responses went something like this:

"You should look in the mirror and pay a living wage."

There were different versions of that, but they all shared a common belief. The problem wasn't the incentive, it was the company.

What planet did I wake up on as I navigate the 5th month of the COVID experience? Mind you, this wasn't a random message board, it was a members only HR forum. You know, HR people. 

It's a tone deaf, light form of shaming that we've become all too used to in the cancel culture we live in.  How dare you not pay your employees enough to incent them to come back from a historically rich form of government benefit designed to keep the economy going in a pandemic?

Man, those shaming style commenters in a HR forum. Talk about not understanding the business as a limiting factor to HR success.

I'm still a fan of what the US government did. They moved fast, and while it wasn't perfect, the stimulus did what it was supposed to do.

But artificially propped up comp can't last forever, and while I write this it's unclear what type of Federal unemployment benefit will emerge in August after the $600 benefit expires at the end of July. It's likely to be significantly less. There's likely to be pain as a result of the benefit being reduced, and I don't take that lightly.

HR trolls suck. The world has enough trolls - our profession doesn't need our own version.

First up, the term "athlete" in this post is meant to describe hiring those who are generally smart, intellectually curious, quick on their feet, learn quickly, are great communicators and have DNA for drive/initiative - rather than hiring someone with domain experience in a job as your first concern.

With that description in mind, do you and/or your company favor athletes over specialists? Sometimes? Never? In what circumstances?

I'm drawn to the question since I read this passage from Diary of a Very Bad Year: Interviews with an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager by Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager:

When you think about hedge funds, the book quote above displays a common trend. In the early days of any industry or specialty, it's easier to hire the best athlete available, mainly because domain experience doesn't really exist or is generally unavailable. The industry is too young.

But as the industry matures, risk taking on new hires goes down - because candidates with domain experience are widely available.

We could all probably stand to hire more athletes who are capable of not only doing the job in question, but become an agile talent asset for the company. But just saying that you're open to hiring an athlete doesn't mean you'll have success.

For best results in hiring "athletes", you'll need to define what makes someone an athlete. You won't generally find that on a resume, you'll need an assessment package.  For me, a candidate would qualify as an athlete if they have a high cognitive capability, low rules orientation (because I want to throw them at anything I want, they can't be hung up on that), high details (drives execution) and great writing and verbal skills.

They'd also have to be familiar with the term, "fake it 'til you make it", which I think is the mindset of any "athlete" worth her salt as defined by this post.

What did I miss?

In a word, yes.

I've written about the NFL's Rooney Rule here. Go dig into that for a primer. 

The whole point to the Rooney Rule is opening up the perspective of a walled-off hiring manager/executive.  That's why WMware announced a new commitment to include a minority and female candidate in every search at the company.

We're talking about this at length this week on The HR Famous Podcast. Take a listen below!

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In episode 21 of the HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to talk about The Rooney Rule and VMware’s new commitment to include a minority and female candidate in every search at the company. The gang also discusses how often they’ve filled up their car tanks during quarantine, and something called Generation Zoom.

Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player below) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights:

1:30 – How many times have you filled your gas tank during quarantine? Jlee has only filled her tank once since March!

3:00 – Who doesn’t love a best friend duo that runs together? KD and Tim went running in Celebration, Florida together. KD was on Zillow on his phone the entire time they ran in the community and Tim was dying.

5:45 – KD has been reading a lot about “Generation Zoom”; our younger generation that has been learning through distance learning. Jlee talks about how her young kids may have trouble learning in the future since they are losing a lot of development time in school.

9:00 – Do you think there will be a dip in SAT and ACT scores in the coming year? Tim is interested to see where the data falls.

10:45 – First major topic of the day: The Rooney Rule. This NFL rule places interview quotas for minority candidates for coaching positions. Tim talks about how more minority candidates have been put into the interview process and what it’s meant in hiring minority coaches.

16:00 – Jlee discusses her own personal experience getting an opportunity that she might not have based on her resume and how she relates to the experience of Mike Tomlin.

18:00 – Tim talks about some negative views on the Rooney Rule and how often coaching positions are planned and picked out far in advance.

20:00 – KD and Jlee bring up another positive of the Rooney Rule, in that it forces forcing hiring managers to look harder and potentially finding special people that they may not have been able to find before, even if it’s not for that particular position.

22:30 – Second topic of the day: VMware’s CEO (Patrick Gelsinger) announced their company would commit to interviewing a POC and a woman for every single position. KD thinks this sounds similar to the Rooney Rule. KD and Tim praises VMware and other companies who have come out recently with new processes and practices to help diversify their workforce.

26:20 – Jlee brings up potential backlash from recruiters and other hiring managers. She notes that leaders need to give recruiters some leeway in order to reach performance metrics and new interviewing goals.

29:40 – How will this new hiring practice work in practice? KD brings up the self ID process and when it comes into play in the hiring process. Jlee discusses the data recruiters will be giving to hiring managers and how they will report that they are meeting a certain requirement.

33:00 – KD reads VMware’s CEO statement again to Tim and gets his reaction. Tim thinks there are many aspects to this new rule that need to be addressed in order to be successful in finding the best possible candidates.

36:00 – Pat (CEO of VM Ware) is a new best friend of the pod!

36:20 – Jlee and KD praise the leadership at VMware for going ahead with this announcement and implementation of the rule instead of getting bogged down in details and complaints.

38:45 – Jlee and KD talk about the concept of equality vs diversity, with KD bringing up Salesforce’s move years ago to grab the high ground of equality.

41:00 – HR Famous would like to congratulate Patrick Gelsinger from VMware on a job well done with their new version of the Rooney Rule.

In episode 19 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss a number of topics about diverse hiring. The trio talk about Adidas’s new hiring goal, tech companies’ contribution to the BLM movement, and Starbucks’ uniform debacle. Later in the episode, Tim is joined by HR leader Jonathan Zoob about hourly hiring and sitting courtside at an NBA game. 

Click through if you don't see the player below, and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:30 - The gang is finally back together! It’s been a few weeks, but Tim, Jlee, and KD are all back on the podcast this week!

2:30 - First topic of the day: popular brand pronunciations. Apparently, the US says everything different than the rest of the world. 

3:45 - Adidas has announced that 30% of their hires will be diverse hires. The gang praises Adidas for putting a number out there to start progress but they question where the hiring is going to cause change. 

8:40 - Tim discusses a goal that he had at a previous company for diverse hires in leadership roles. He talks about push back from hiring managers and other certain people that feel victimized by diversity hiring goals. 

10:30 - KD talks about his favorite “Tim working at Applebee’s” story. Tim says that Applebee’s restrooms are like “a war zone”.....

11:30 - CNBC compiled a list of different tech companies and what they’re doing to support the BLM movement. Every company on the list contributed lots of money, but only one organization announced a change in leadership, when the CEO of Reddit stepped down from his board seat to fill it with a POC. Tim accuses many tech companies of “buying their way out of this conversation” instead of making real change happen. KD thinks that monetary contributions are still commendable but they need to effect real change too. 

14:45 - “You have to have money but you also have to have tangible movement”. 

16:30 - Starbucks’ employees were told that they could not wear apparel supporting BLM to work. They received backlash because Starbucks’ allows their employees to wear Pride-related uniforms in the month of June. They have pivoted since their original decision. Jlee praises them for pivoting and listening to their employees and what they want. 

20:00 - Tim thinks that Starbucks’ and other companies that enforce uniforms should standardize their uniforms and not allow anything other than a standard option since it is easier to manage and can raise many issues. He says that you can support diversity and other causes and keep a plain uniform. 

22:00 - “Print the shirts” -KD

23:30 - Time for this week’s special guest! Jonathan Zoob from Fountain has joined Tim for the second half of this week’s episode to talk about hourly hiring. 

25:00 - Tim and Zoob talk about their bucket list to sit courtside at a NBA game. They’re both Golden State Warriors fans!

27:00 - Back to business talk. Tim discusses hearing about pre-pandemic struggles to hire hourly workers and he asks Zoob what is going to change about hiring hourly workers. 

30:00 - Tim asks Zoob why companies should use different systems for hourly workers. 

32:30 - Are new hiring practices for hourly workers causing companies to lose the traditional experience of finding the best candidate? Zoob discusses how his company’s work allows non-HR professionals to find more and better candidates. 

34:30 - Tim brings up issues about hiring to create a diverse workforce and how training hiring leaders may not be enough. Zoob discusses how often those doing hiring won’t get diversity and bias training. 

36:00 - What do Fountain’s clients see getting better when using the Fountain system? Zoob says their time to hire decreases significantly. 

37:15 - Tim asks Zoob how fast time to hire should be and Zoob answers that companies must engage candidates in the application process to really get them to stay interested. 

39:00 - Last question of the day: will mass hiring start to happen without interviewing in the coming years?

40:20 - Find Jonathan at fountain.com for a demo or on LinkedIn! 

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

Updating this post for COVID-19, although most of you are bigger than that. But that doesn't mean we're not all small in some way...

I'm asking. You know you have some type of petty thing - that's caused you to rank a candidate lower than they should have been.

Candidates who got impacted by COVID? You'll get through that and not hold it against them. But you'll still be holding something small against a cross-section of candidates.

I'm not talking about bias with a capital "B".  I'm talking about bias with a smaller than lower case "b".   It's so petty that the "b" in bias is actual two font sizes smaller than the rest of the word.  

Mine?  I have a hard time with candidates who take me out of my normal messaging environment.  Namely, the ability to use iMessage across different devices and communicate with team members is a preference - not a necessity.  I've hired people that I can't message on the iMessage platform before, and will in the future.  Best candidate wins. 

But when I pick up my phone to SMS a candidate rather than iMessage from my mac, I need to remind myself best candidate wins.  Twice.

What's your pettiest reason for being lukewarm on a candidate?  Hit me in the comments, or message me.  Unless you're not IOS - if that's the case, definitely hit me in the comments.