If 2020 has taught us anything at all, it’s that we live in a very unpredictable world, and surprises await us at nearly every turn. How good is someone at what they do, and more importantly, how well will they do it once they join our organization? Can we hire people who have never done our desired work and expect …
Hiring Managers Don’t Want More Candidates!
There is a giant mistake most organizations make in marketing. Bad marketers perpetuate this notion that buyers want choice. “What we need is more choices for buyers! If we just had more choices our sales would be higher!” In fact, more choices increase buyer confusion and actually stalls buying decisions for most people. “We” (the collective lot of us) have …
Watch Your Body Language in an Interview & Save the Head Bobbing for Bonnaroo.
I’ve noticed a recent, frightening phenomenon. And I think I may be a perpetrator (heaven help me). In an attempt to stage a preemptive intervention, I thought there could be no better time than the present to address this odd and interesting tick–one that HR professionals, interviewers, and interviewees abuse unabashedly. The head nod. Or as some others call it, …
Low Tide in the Management Harbor
I know. Every post on the internet is now focused on how to respond to these weird and franky, unprecedented times. And as this is a predominately HR-focused site I’m sure you’re seeing all the ways HR should, could, would handle things. Nobody really knows. We are all making it up as we go along because no one has had …
Candidates Who Over-Talk May Need To Work Elsewhere
“You talk too much. You never shut up.” – Run DMC To shut a candidate up or not to shut a candidate up? That is the question. A question, as an interviewer, I’ve contemplated for many years. A question I admittedly flip-flop on. But here is where I am with this now. Candidates, you need to control your explanations. You …
Recruiter Appreciation? That’s Crazy Talk!
Every week in one meeting or another, I witnessed the systemic denigration of recruiting. If the issue was sales were not meeting their goals, it was recruiting’s fault. Customer satisfaction at an all-time low? Blame a recruiter. I believe a recruiter was once blamed for an intertropical convergence zone causing rain; and quite possibly global warming. Enough already! Despite being …
Recruiting Leaders: Stay in the Saddle
We’ve all heard the saying, “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it,” and recruiting is not exempt from this axiom. At one point, I could speak Portuguese and German. Regrettably, I lost most of this ability because I didn’t practice over the years. Good news though, I can still get around with the basics and even order a beer…that’s …
The Unsophisticated Hiring Manager
We spend a fair bit of time in our little shop talking about how to work with sophisticated hiring managers vs. unsophisticated managers. This has nothing to do with liking caviar vs. Cheez Whiz. It has more to do with Sean Penn thinking he’s a journalist. Sophisticated hiring managers have enough reps under their belt to know how to play …
Adjusting Your Attention Is The Key To Getting Great Results
If you run a coffee bean company (which I do), expect more bags of beans to be sold and when Barry complains about doing more work (e.g. more bags of beans to fill), you will need to listen. If you recruit and hire people (which I do), expect that someone (e.g., other Barry) at your client company will spam your …
4 Reasons Why Startups Struggle at Recruiting
In 2019, 63% of startups claim that access to talent as their most critical issue and I don’t see the talent issue getting better in 2020… There are reasons and theories as to why, but here are my top 4 reasons why startups struggle to find top talent. 1–They do not look hard enough and settle for the brother and sister-in-law discount. In the …