Writing the Winning Resume
Posted Monday, March 15th, 2021

By Bert Sadtler

There are an endless number of opinions about resumes.

Some say that a resume should be limited to 1 page.

Some say to keep as many dates out of your resume as possible in order to hide your age.

Some say to insert a high saturation of key match words.

Remember, the purpose of the resume is to get in front of the Hiring Manager for a discussion. No one gets hired from just a resume.

The first question to ask a so called “resume expert” is when was the last time the expert was directly involved in hiring? The front-line of hiring is where reality exists. A lot of folks may try to position themselves as a resume expert. However, there is a much smaller number who spend their days on the front line of hiring.

As a seasoned professional entrenched on the front line of hiring, the following are my comments from the three scenarios listed above:

– There is no established page limit to a good resume. If you are a professional with a robust work history, then you need to make it known.

– Keeping dates out of your resume could hurt you as much as help you. Your potential employer is smart enough to calculate your approximate age fairly easily. It is possible they are looking for someone with years of experience. In any case, if you are older, you are not going to suddenly become 20 years younger overnight. Embrace your level of experience for what it is. If you are younger, then embrace the upside of developing a career track. My point is to be who you are.

– Hiring Managers who rely heavily on the use of key match words are taking a lazy hiring approach of looking for shortcuts. Shortcuts are a red flag for a broken hiring model and something a job seeker should avoid. Clever job seekers can front load their resume with tons of key match words. That does not qualify them as being great candidates. The Hiring Manager needs to first define the challenge or problem they need solved and then invest time in a process that will acquire the right talent to solve the defined challenge or problem.

What to Include in Your Resume

Consider that if your resume is viewed via a computer screen, only the top 1/3 may be in view on a small screen. Therefore, any fluff makes it hard for the hiring manager.

– Try to create one resume. It is a depiction of your work history. If you attempt to write a resume for each job you are seeking, you will be spending too much time on resume re-writes and not enough on the actual job search.

– Make your resume the constant and use your cover letter to be personalized and responsive to jobs you are applying for.

– Develop a document that contains only empirical data in chronological order about professional accomplishments & education.

– Avoid the fluffy adjectives that can’t be measured such as successful, accomplished and joyful. Empirical wording establishes candidate credibility. It says that all listed items are factual, nothing is subjective. It sets an important tone.

– Write your accomplishments in the format: “CHALLENGE-ACTION-RESULTS”. (What challenge/problem did you face, what actions did you take to address the challenge and finally and most importantly, what were the results of those efforts.)

– Eliminate: Objective and Profile Summary. The Objective is irrelevant, and the Profile Summary is subject to interpretation. These are not a depiction of empirical data.

– At the top of the page: List your name as you are known. No need for legal name, just the name you use. (It is a resume, not a death certificate).

– Make it easy to be contacted. List one phone contact, one email address and home address (optional). Start listing employment history right below contact information.

Tips to Execute Your Job Search

– Take an active role in researching the prospective employer.

– Be very wary of “agents” who get you a job for a fee. They prey on desperate people. It is a scam.

– Do you have any contacts who work for the prospective employer or know the hiring manager? If so, do whatever you can to learn more about the role and learn more about the hiring manager.

–  Identify the hiring manager. This is the “Department of Yes”. Do whatever possible to communicate directly with the Department of Yes. This is where the hiring decision is made. It is NOT made by a headhunter and it is not made by HR.

Focus Your Job Search and Interviewing on These Three Things:

#1) Do you understand the problem/challenge that you would solve by being hired?

Do not move to #2 until you can answer #1. This could mean that you conduct some research or ask questions in order to understand the problem/challenge.

#2) Ask yourself if you possess the qualifications, experience, skill to accomplish #1. If you do not, then you may be better off moving on to another hiring opportunity.

Do not move to #3 until you can answer yes to #2.

#3) Assuming that at this point you have had some interaction with the hiring manager, ask yourself if this is someone you could see yourself working with. Cultural fit is a huge part of successful hiring. You can expect to spend a lot of time with your hiring manager. At a minimum, you should be comfortable with them.

Worth Noting

– Job seeking today is an active and interactive event, not a passive one. Don’t be foolish enough to think the world will beat a path to your door. There are some bad “agents” out there along with some very broken hiring models. Avoiding the bad options is just as important as spending time on the good options.

– Confident and poised candidates do well. Desperate candidates struggle and are vulnerable to bad hiring practices.

– Interviewing is an active event. Good candidates ask good questions during an interview and are interviewing the employer as well.

– The individual hired will be a combination of: “Meeting the minimal technical requirements and also having the maximum chemistry or cultural fit”.

– If another candidate has one percent more chemistry than you, with everything else equal, you are not going to be the first choice, and there is little you can do about it. Be a professional, thank the employer for their interest in you and realize that you only need one “yes” in a sea of many “no’s”.

– The only way to overcome a hiring outcome you cannot control is having multiple qualified opportunities working and never slow down or relax active job seeking until you have started the first day of a new job.

Summary

Best Practice Hiring is a multi-step process. Many hiring models are broken. Today’s business climate is challenging with employer needs that are constantly shifting.  Employers have to get it right. Candidates need to spend time understanding what the employer will accomplish through successfully engaging a critical hire.

Candidates should position their cover letter and resume with the Department of Yes in mind and use them as an entrance ticket to the overall hiring process. Candidates need to take an active role in developing multiple qualified employment opportunities.

 

 

3 Steps to Eliminate Candidate Ghosting
Posted Tuesday, January 1st, 2019

3 Steps to Eliminate Candidate Ghosting

As 2019 begins, it would be ideal to think that Candidate Ghosting will be left behind with the last year.

Alas, young grasshopper, for it would only be a dream.

The term Candidate Ghosting simply means that candidates who have somehow expressed interest in a job have disappeared without any explanation. In some cases, the candidate was offered and accepted a new job but never showed up. This phenomenon rose to prominence in 2018. Here it is discussed in USA Today. 

Candidate Ghosting is a validation that today’s hiring process is broken and changes are needed.

Some of the blame has been attributed to the very low unemployment rate and the perception that candidates may be receiving multiple offers. Some of the blame has been attributed to those crazy millennials who get blamed for both a good and bad economy and everything in between.

There may be some truth to either of the blame game theories. However, the responsibility to implement best practices hiring is with the business leadership of the organizations that are hiring.

In spite of our title “3 Steps to Eliminating Candidate Ghosting”, there is no guaranteed formula that will 100% eliminate this.  Why, because Candidate Ghosting involves the most complicated and the most complex aspect of all business…which is the people who work for your business and the people who you want to work for your business. 

The People Aspect is exactly the point of this column. What can be done to significantly lessen the frequency of Candidate Ghosting?

 

Step 1 to reduce Candidate Ghosting

This may be the hardest step, but it is also the simplest. It requires the employer to view hiring as being different than any other thing their business does. Hiring must be separated outside of commodity acquisitions.  Everything a business buys or sells has the component of being a commodity. Hiring people is not a commodity experience. No future employee wants to be thought of as a widget or a unit or “human capital”.   

 

Step 2 to reduce Candidate Ghosting

Understand your company’s hiring process from the candidate’s perspective. Why would a talented individual want to work for your organization? What is in it for them? Have you, the business leader, CEO, or hiring manager audited your hiring process recently to really understand what the candidate experience feels like? Do you ask candidate’s for their comments about your company’s hiring process?

Businesses frequently post on their website statements describing how important their people are. Then, they automate their hiring process with robots. Robots can do a lot for businesses today. But using robots for hiring says the hiring process has been developed to hire with the most amount of shortcuts and the least amount of  human interaction.

  

Step 3 to reduce Candidate Ghosting

Remember that your company is adding people to work with the existing members of your organization to ideally deliver a higher collective group output than the theoretical sum of the individual’s output. 

Simply put, it has been proven that chemistry and cultural fit are critical to hiring great talent. As the employer, what are you doing to personally connect with qualified candidates? How are you making them feel involved in the process of joining your organization? Are you asking for their questions? Are you having them meet with several members of your organization? Is the hiring manager (the candidate’s future boss) taking an active role to connect with the candidates?

 

Summary

All of us are trying to find a better, faster way to conduct business. Technology has delivered terrific tools. But, they are merely tools. Unlike everything else in business, people have feelings and emotions as part of their complex make-up. If qualified candidates don’t feel there has been any type of connection during their hiring discussion, then it shouldn’t be a surprise when they evaporate.

Successful hiring requires a process and the dedication to give the necessary time to make the personal connection with qualified candidates. 

Good hunting in 2019

Does Hiring Faster = Hiring Better?
Posted Wednesday, November 28th, 2018

Along with the seasonal holiday parties and ugly sweater contests, several major employers have announced streamlining their hiring process. What are the ramifications? Does hiring faster equal hiring better?

Quick Background

The US economy is strong. Business is good. The economy is humming. Consumer confidence is at a historically strong level, according to experts.  

One of the direct results of the strong economy is a shortage of qualified workers. It is reported that the Oct 2018n unemployment rate is 3.7% (Click here)  which means that the demand to hire qualified talent is outpacing the supply. In general, candidates come from one of two sources: 1) Candidates that are either unemployed and therefore seeking a new job OR 2) Available to move from a current job to one that they perceive as being a better job. With the unemployment rate at a low level, it means that sourcing qualified talent will largely come from people who are currently employed.

Factors that are impacting employment today include:
– Time of year. The fall season is big for retailers who need to expand their workforce.
– Some large retailers have announced an increase in their hourly wage rate. This impacts any business in any sector that might hire people with similar abilities. It means that to be competitive, employers need to pay more.
– As stated, the low unemployment rate has created a limited supply for the strong demand for talent.
– Finally, most hiring models are broken. Candidates do not like the way they are treated and employers are dissatisfied with their hiring results.

Response from Large Employers

In a Nov 15, 2018 article in The Wall Street Journalseveral large companies described taking a very quick approach to hiring and in some cases, eliminating face to face interviews altogether. Only time will reveal the degree of success from this approach. For now, here are several immediate thoughts:

Impact

Change is a constant theme in business. Compliments and kudos for businesses that will depart from a broken process and embrace a different direction in order to reach a better outcome.

One of the many things that makes talent different then any other part of a business is that people have never been and will never be a commodity. Most everything else in business is a commodity in some form. People have emotion and are the most complex and most complicated part of business. Doesn’t this quick hiring approach make the talent into more of a commodity, not less?

Best practice hiring is evaluating a candidate’s qualifications for a job as well as evaluating their personality to insure the candidate is a fit for the company’s culture. Many hiring managers believe that a cultural fit is the most important aspect of a strong candidate. WIth a quick hiring process, aren’t we abandoning any opportunity to evaluate a personality or cultural fit?

Resume writing has become a niche business. Resume embellishment has become a standard practice. With a quick hiring program, that relies heavily on the candidate’s resume, aren’t we encouraging candidates to extensively embellish their resumes so it will get them hired?

Without having all the details, the quick hiring program sounds to me that for every 10 people hired quickly, a much smaller number of them will really be a fit for the employer and make a great hire. If this is the case, then unqualified candidates would simply be filtered out after they are hired. The quickly terminated hires would then have a short work stint to explain on their resume. They will also feel that they could have taken a different job with an employer who was invested in spending more time to insure they were the right fit. From the candidate’s perspective, are you really better off accepting a job quickly without  having completed your due diligence of the employer?

The large businesses are in a class of their own. They have created a well know brand. They make a significant investment in advertising. They have reached a size where people know them and want to come and work for them. Regardless of the results that the quick hiring program delivers to the large businesses, does the data translate to the typical small business?

Bottom Line

As a business owner or senior leader, it is your responsibility to be implementing efficient and effective tools that automate your business, giving you a competitive edge. It is easy to get caught up in the urgency of right now.

Remember, if you are able to recruit and hire the right talent, the one who can really make a difference …..and….. making that hire takes a little longer …. no one will be complaining.

Rushing into a failed hire has proven to be very expensive.

 

Good hunting.

 

 

 

 

How to Make the “Confidential Search” Easy to Implement
Posted Wednesday, October 31st, 2018

 

The Confidential Search

A confidential search is defined by launching a recruitment campaign to replace an incumbent employee without the incumbent knowing that they are being replaced, while the incumbent remains employed.

For the employer, it is the ideal scenario . The employer enjoys an immediate transition between the outgoing employee and the incoming replacement without lag time and lost productively in between.

What business wouldn’t want to have a plug-n-play exchange or a seamless transition when it is time to replace one employee with a new one? What employer wouldn’t want to hire before they fire?

While it sounds great, is the confidential search easy to implement? Can it be accomplished at all?

Can the confidential search incorporate the critically key aspects of a successful recruitment?

Perhaps employers should abandon any effort at attempting the confidential search and consider an alternative.

Key factors leading to a successful recruitment 

– Trust should be a key aspect of any recruitment campaign. Attracting the top talent and highly qualified candidates involves the aspect that the employer has established that they are a trustworthy organization.
–  The newly hired employee should have a clear understanding of the new employer’s culture and should have physically visited the new employer at least once during the hiring process.
–  The hiring of new talent is visible to all members of the organization. For the balance of the employees to remain engaged and motivated, they need to feel that the work they do delivers value and their employment status is secure.
–  Successful recruitments involve the announcement of the open position and the consideration for internal candidates to be considered as well as broadcasting to external candidates that the position is open. This step also provides the hiring manager with the sense that the best available candidates are being considered.

Conflicts of the Confidential Search

–       Hiring involves people. People are the most important and the most complicated part of any business. They are not a commodity. The hiring process has to be a win for the employer and a win for the new hire. The dynamics surrounding a confidential search returns today’s broken hiring model to making hiring a commodity event, not a personal event.
–       The lack of “Trust”. What does it say about an employer who is going to be sneaky enough to hire the replacement before firing the incumbent? Is anyone’s job safe? Are employees going to be spending a lot of work time looking over their shoulder thinking they might be the next one out the door? Can you really attract, recruit and hire top talent under those conditions?
–       What confidence does the hiring manager have in hiring the best talent if the hiring manager is limited to only the few candidates who can be confidentially contacted?
–       Successful recruitments need the transparency for a qualified candidate to make a visit to the business and meet with members of the company. This is not possible during a confidential search. Top candidates are going to walk away once they are denied the opportunity to “meet the company” and get a first-hand feel for the culture.

A Better Alternative

–       We are back to the basics. Treat people as you would want to be treated. Remember, the entire company (all employees) are watching how their employer handles hiring and firing because they all know it could be one of them, some day.
–       If it has been determined that a termination is in order, handle the process with the highest degree of professionalism. This may not be because the departing employee deserves it but it is because your business should always be demonstrating a best practices standard.
–       Approach the departing employee with the news that their role will be ending with your business. Tell them that you would like for them to assist with the transition for their replacement and that they will be compensated for their efforts and will also receive a favorable recommendation.
–       In some cases, the departing employee will elect to leave immediately. If that is the choice made, they probably were not bringing your business value anyway.
–       In most cases, the departing employee will appreciate your direct and respectful approach, accept your proposed transition plan and put your business in the ideal situation where the new replacement arrives while the incumbent is still ‘formally” in place.

 

Good Hunting !

Recruiting is simply a transaction, isn’t it?
Posted Friday, September 14th, 2018
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Recruiting and Hiring is not a simple transactionWhat’s so special about adding talent to your business?

Recruiting is simply a transaction, isn’t it? How complicated can it be?

– Businesses negotiate to buy products and services all the time.

– The internet has automated the transaction process to a couple of key strokes and in some situations, orders are delivered the same day.

– Recruiting is a easy as a job posting with a few keywords and presto, you have great candidates. Right?

– Shouldn’t this level of hiring automation be celebrated?

What makes recruiting a non-transactional event?

Of course, hiring is not simply a transaction. Adding the right talent to your business can deliver significant on-going value. It is all about the right “fit” which is where everything gets complex.  This is the point.

Regardless of how complex or how complicated your product or service are, there is nothing more complicated or complex than the people who work in your business and the people who you want to work in your business.

Recruiting is the very first step in what could become an employment relationship? Why would any employer want to approach it as simply a transaction?

If we can agree that human beings are very complex, can we also agree that humans are the only part of a business who possess emotions? What other part of your business has emotions? Human emotions make this a game changer, where the traditional transaction does not work.

Can we also agree that hiring the right talent involves multiple “fit” factors, including meeting the technical requirements as well as meeting the cultural fit of the employer.

 

Where does today’s recruiting fee model get it wrong?

The total fee for almost all of the recruiting models today is based on a percentage of the compensation earned by the newly hired candidate. You could also refer to the fee as a commission. Therefore, the higher the first year compensation earned by the newly hired candidate, the more money the recruiter earns.

As for a typical business transaction, this makes perfect sense. For example, when a product or a service are sold for a higher amount, the sales person stands to make more in commissions which motivates the sales person to make the sale for the highest possible amount. As it relates to recruiting, ask yourself if the most expensive talent is always the best hire? Of course not. It is about the right fit being the best hire.

While there are multiple fee structures within recruiting, the most common fee structure is called “contingent”. This means that the recruiter is only paid a commission fee when the candidate they submitted is hired. The contingent recruiter is frequently called a Head Hunter. Could there be a more classic example of a transaction then the head hunter recruiting model?

With respect to the talent being recruited, the contingency fee model turns the candidate into a commodity. How many talented professionals want to be regarded as a piece of meat or a commodity? What many business leaders fail to see is how poorly the qualified candidates are treated and how poorly this treatment reflects on the business. Why would a candidate be treated in any other way than a commodity if the recruiting model is a transaction model.

The contingency model fails on two major levels:

– It fails to serve the employer who wants to hire the best fit, when the contingency model rewards the recruiter for hiring the most expensive.

– It also fails to serve the candidate who is pursuing a human interaction/employment discussion but is positioned to be nothing more than a commodity in a classic transaction.

Is there another way?

The first step is recognizing that recruiting and hiring humans can’t be approached as a transaction. A change to today’s broken hiring efforts is needed. Recruiting should be a process and a deliberate departure from a transaction.

An example of a process approach might include:

– Develop a recruiting fee structure that does not have a commission aspect.

– Clearly define the business challenge that newly hired talent would need to solve.

– Implement an interactive process with qualified candidates that measures for technical and cultural fit.

 

For more information about Boxwood Strategies, CLICK HERE.

 

 

How Are You Flying Your Airline?
Posted Monday, July 30th, 2018

How does your business deliver, from your audience’s view?

Is your audience:

1) Your customer

2) Your employees

3) The people you want to hire?

 ….”Yes” to all.

One of the biggest challenges of every business leader is to maintain direct contact with the customer experience. On July 24th, 2018, Scott McCartney published an article in the Wall Street Journal about several CEO’s of the major airlines who fly in their airline’s economy seats.

Worth noting:

– Not all of the invited Airline CEO’s accepted Scott’s invite for an interview.
– The CEO’s who were interviewed stated that they flew in economy seats for short flights only and flew in larger seats on longer flights.

The CEO’s mentioned the policy of requiring their executive team to take the economy seats in order to maintain a connection with the customer.

TakeAway:

– The CEO’s acknowledged that economy seats weren’t for everybody, adding that roomier seats were available at a higher price point.

While this is a topic most business leaders can relate to, since flying is part of conducting business, how exactly does: How Are You Flying Your Airline relate to the business growth of your company and the candidate experience during hiring?

If airline CEO’s are sitting in the economy seats, why shouldn’t CEO’s experience their company’s hiring process first hand?

What does the marketplace tell you?

While focusing on the customer experience must be considered a top priority for all business, attracting and hiring the right talent must also be considered just as important for company’s needing to grow. It has become a more significant priority while the economy is healthy and the unemployment rate is low, meaning that demand for talent is outstripping the supply.

I hear stories everyday confirming that the hiring process is broken. Here are two examples:

– I recently spoke with a highly qualified professional who had been contacted by multiple contingent recruiters (head-hunters) for the same position. Since the head-hunter only gets paid when their candidate gets hired, each of  the head-hunters needed to have this candidate list them as his recruiter.  The situation quickly navigated away from being recruited for a position to an arm wrestling match between head-hunters with a candidate stuck in the middle. As a result, this candidate withdrew, and the employer may have lost what might have been a great hire.

– I hear from candidates about the lack of follow-up from the employer during a critical hiring campaign. As a result, qualified candidates become frustrated and loose interest.

As the CEO or business leader, can you avoid these types of broken hiring examples by “thinking about flying your airline” ?

Are you auditing the execution?

While business leaders agree that acquiring talent is a top priority, how frequently is the current hiring process being audited?

The hiring analytics tell a partial story. Statistics may show a 30 day hiring cycle or a high rate a candidates accepting the offer of employment.

However, the critical question involves the candidate experience. Hiring the best talent requires having a proven hiring process with a strong candidate experience.

If airline CEO’s are flying in the economy seats, then why shouldn’t CEO’s experience first hand their company’s hiring process and ask questions like these:

– What is the business challenge being solved as a result of this hire?
– Is the hiring manager taking an active role in the hiring process?
– Does the hiring process leave candidates with the feeling of confidence in the employer?

Summary

If running a business was easy, everybody would be a CEO or business leader. Business is challenging.

Remember, the most complicated parts of every business are:  The people who already work there and the people who you want to work there. A weak hiring process can make all the difference between having or not having an advantage over your competitors.

Are you focusing on the importance of hiring’s relationship with the customer experience?

Good Hunting!

Higher Compensation to Add Talent in a Tight Market
Posted Sunday, July 1st, 2018

Higher Compensation in a Tight Market

What are the Options in a Tight Market?

Maybe in  market with a significant supply of talent, some employers can “get away” with paying a lower than market compensation.  That is not the case in a tight job market. The current low unemployment rate has resulted in the demand for critical talent outstripping the supply. Normally, qualified candidates come from one of two populations which are: The unemployed candidate and the employed candidate. With the limited supply of talent, there are very few qualified unemployed candidates. This means that most qualified candidates are actively holding a job. They have less urgency to need a new job, are getting paid market price and focused on their day job with little free time available to consider a new job. They might consider leaving their current job for a new job once they are convinced that their new job is better for them than their current job. “Better” might be defined by having a better job title, more responsibility, opportunity for advancement, etc. The common measurement for “better” is usually as simple as more compensation.

The options to attract and hire talent in a tight market are limited. Compensation is an important part of hiring. (Please Click) The employer can obviously raise the compensation, offer some type of new employee spiff, maybe offer an attractive title, etc. In reality, the options are limited to attract “already employed talent”.

Finding the right solution is complicated. Let’s review the challenges.

Just Pay Employees More! It’s Easy to Solve This.

It is easy to just pay employees more. After all, one aspect of a tight hiring market is that the economy is humming along and business is good. Good economy usually means more revenue and higher profits for businesses which allows them to afford to pay higher compensation as long as the economic factors remain favorable.

No! Not so fast…. The reality is that when you hire new talent at a rate that is 5-10% higher then what you have already established as the baseline for current employees who have the same role, you have a compensation correction issue. On one hand you could wait until the current employees find out that the newly hired talent is getting paid more than the current employees are making, (and the current employees will find out sooner or later), OR you could raise the compensation of the current employees to be at the same level as the newly hired employee. Now things are getting complicated.

For example, let’s say the newly hired talent will be making $150K per year and the current five other employees who have the same role are each making $136K. Raising up each of their compensation by about 10% would cost their employer $14K x 5 = $70K per year. Can that company really justify adding $70K of additional compensation expense in order to hire one new person at $150K? Any business out there will tell you that this decision makes little to no financial sense.

It is the Economy

The same current economic factors that have driven the demand up and the supply down for new talent will also shift at some point when the supply will be strong and the demand for new talent will be weak. Once the demand for new talent softens as a part of fiscal belt tightening by companies, those who were earning above market compensation will be too expensive for their employer and will be “laid-off”.

While we can look at year over year economic trends and clearly see that the economy goes up and down, I have not met any business professionals who are comfortable being paid less this year than they earned last year just because they economy softened. There is no easy compensation model that can be tied directly to the economy.

What is the Solution?

Finding the right solution is the hard part. Ideally, when business is booming, companies should be positioned to pay more to add critical talent…..until the bubble bursts and the economy slows down where business are making less and they need to pay their employees less.

There is no practical working model that pays employees more in really good times and pays less in really bad times. Understanding this is the first half of finding a solution.

One partial compensation solution could be to establish a rewards based / performance based bonus model where the achievement of specific goals drives the payment of a predefined bonus amount. It may be possible to develop bonus payment amounts that can somehow deliver a higher reward during stronger economic periods and a lower reward during weaker economic times. (Please Click for Business Growth Column)

The solution is also recognizing that nothing is more complicated and more complex than the people working in your business and the people who you want to add to your business.

 

Good Hunting!

 

To contact Boxwood Strategies, please click here.

Two Ways to Protect Your Business when Employment is High
Posted Friday, June 1st, 2018

Protect your business during low unemployment

Why “Showing some love” matters

In April of 2018, the unemployment rate dipped below 4% (Click)which should be a call to action for businesses to recognize that their best talent may be on the menu of other organizations.

While most businesses are enjoying prosperity and growth, let’s not forget that major challenges don’t take a break during good business cycles.

A key aspect for continued business growth involves acquiring the critical talent who can continue to fuel the properity. With the supply of talent very limited during this period of low unemployment, the obvious avenue to source critical talent will come from recruiting currently employed professionals away from one company and into another. “Poaching” has nothing to do with it; all members of the business community have the responsibility to consider opportunities that can advance a career and deliver higher rewards.

From the perspective of the growing business, a great defense may be just as critical as a great offense. How would you protect your business during low unemployment? or How would you protect your business when employment is high?

Factors to protect your business

Think about your employees as either being loosely connected to your business or glued-in to their work. The loosely connected ones are the most likely to be recruited away. What can be done to lower the possibilities that your employees will take another role and what can be done to reduce the element that you will be surprised when the leave?

Worth noting, I have yet to meet a business leader who enjoyed being surprised by an employee’s departure. Shouldn’t protecting your business include reducing the surprise factor? If you can reduce the surprise of a departure, your business will focus more on functioning on the business at hand and less on reacting to responding to the departure.

Here are two tips to protect your business when the demand for talent is greater than the supply:

Tip 1)

As a business leader, when was the last time you audited your company’s hiring process? During times of low unemployment, the number of qualified candidates for any given role will be a small number. This is the time when it becomes very important for your business to attract and acquire top talent in beating out other employers seeking them.

Do you, the business leader have a first hand appreciation for what potential candidates experience when interviewing with your business? Are you implementing a structured, proven hiring process? Is the hiring manager directly involved? Does your process include a clearly defined path for the newly hired talent to be successful in their new role?

The auditing of your business’s hiring process will reveal the areas that need to be adjusted in order to best identify, attract and hire the best talent.

Tip 2)

How well defined is your employee rewards program? This is really an alignment question. For companies who lack alignment and reward all employees when and only when the company reaches profit thresholds, the net result is that the super achievers become frustrated because their efforts are supporting the average achievers. This type of model leaves a business with mediocre level talent.

An aligned rewards program or a rewards based compensation model serves several purposes that include:

a) The implementation of a structure with goals that have been defined for each employee and specific rewards for the achievement of each goal.

b) An aligned program measures and rewards the employees who are delivering value. The good and great employees receive rewards for their contributions and are more likely to remain an engaged employee.

c) A structured rewards based program requires interaction and communication between the employee and manager. One important result of the outcome of the communication is that when the employee’s performance declines, the manager can clearly see it. Under this process, it is much less likely that the manager will be surprised when the employee leaves.

 

While you are thinking about landing that next contract or landing the next great client, what are the efforts that your company is making to insure your existing talent remains engaged?

Good hunting.

 

Why Hiring Fails, What is The Problem?
Posted Sunday, April 29th, 2018

Hiring is about Problem Solving, What is the Problem?

Why are you in a business?

In the simplest form, the answer is that your business solves some type of problem or problems. As an employee, you are compensated for solving a problem or solving multiple problems. Of course we can talk about making a difference and delivering value and liking what you do, but business is about problem solving.

Today’s business world has become so layered with various issues, it is easy to forget that at the core of why you run your business or why you work for a business is the question: What is the Problem?

 

What does “What is the Problem” have do with Hiring?

Assuming that solving the problem is at the foundation of business, what does it have to to do with hiring?

Most failed hiring efforts start at the beginning. Instead of asking “What is the Problem” that the newly hired talent would solve, hiring starts as soon as someone says “We need to hire more people” or “We need to hire that person because they have been good in the past” or “We’ll know the right person when we see them”.

“What is the Problem” has everything to do with hiring. In order to bring in the person who can solve your problem, logic would dictate that the first step would be to declare and define the problem you want them to solve. While this may appear to be very elementary, in my experience, not defining the problem has become a critical issue today and has become a major factor in why much of today’s hiring efforts are broken.

Is this a symptom?

When attempting to define the problem, make sure that you aren’t being confused by the symptom. For example, the company who starts meetings late and repeatedly misses deadlines doesn’t necessarily need to hire someone who can deliver structure and planning. The lateness issue may be the symptom for ineffective leadership. The problem, could be as simple as needing stronger leaders who can execute on their plan and lead by example.

How many of your business thoughts start with “What is the Problem” or “What is the real business problem that needs to be addressed and resolved”?

Are you allowing yourself to get pulled into the weeds and disconnected from the basic business foundation?

What is the problem that is keeping you from asking the basic question: “What is the problem”?

Good hunting.

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Why Change Your Business Niche
Posted Sunday, April 1st, 2018

What is your Business Niche?

Are you spending your time standing still or trying to expand your market reach where you as an individual or as a business can deliver value?

Isn’t business really about having a niche? If you own or run a business, you need to understand and define your target market, your target customers and what it is your business does to deliver value to them.  If you are the professional, employed by a business, you need to define what your unique qualifications are and the respective value that you deliver to your employer.

On a personal note, as a consulting recruiter, I am frequently asked: “What is your niche?” and my response continues to change or evolve. 

Change is a constant force that drives why you would change your business niche. How you “scratch” your business niche requires an adjustment both from a philosophical perspective as well as from a execution perspective.

If your business once upon a time involved the manufacturing of buggy whips, perhaps today, your business might involve the manufacture of fine leather goods for numerous markets. Had you remained “The great buggy whip maker”, you would be working in a very limited market sector.

What’s driving the change and where is the benefit from embracing changes?

The Information of Change

In my experience, unlimited access to information has redefined how business is being conducted. There was once a time when the value of a business or the value of an employee was protected information. In other words, the unique information being held by the employee or the business could be kept privately or shared based upon the decision of the holder of the information. This was during the pre-internet period.

What made the buggy whip company valuable was no one had easy access to their business information. Today, much of what anyone would want to know about that buggy whip company is accessible on the world wide web.

As a business leader, are you still answering the “What is your business’s niche?” question with the same answer from 10 or 20 years ago?

As the professional employed by a business, do you still answer the “What is your niche?” question with the same answer that you have always given?

If you are answering “Yes”, then the many changes happening around you may be leaving you stale and a  less than relevant player in the today’s business landscape.

Taking the nimble and agile approach

One of the great advantages of today’s unlimited access to information is also the unlimited access to connect with an unlimited number of people and connect with an unlimited number of markets. This access offers us the avenue to change how you can refresh and update your business niche. Change the way how you think about what you do and you have dramatically widened your lane for business and widened your opportunities.

Let’s say that for the most part, business is about solving some sort of challenge by delivering a solution or a value. Let’s say that buggy whip company recognized many years ago that the horse was being replaced by more advanced means of transportation. If the buggy whippers broadened their philosophical approach, they could transition their craft into many different relevant ventures and would have unlimited access to identify target customers and numerous means to reach their target audience.

They would no longer describe their niche as serving the horse drawn market sector with a product but instead serving multiple markets with knowledge and valued proven experience.

Wider view equals evolving niche

I see today’s marketplace as a 360 circle that wants help with challenges that a business does not have it’s own answer for.

– Businesses want help with challenges that they can’t solve. The help could come in the form of the product or service that your company provides or in the form of  hiring the talent who can fix the issue.

How do you define your business niche and more importantly can you define how it continues to evolve in our changing marketplace?

Good hunting!

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