#1 Hiring Podcast Designed Specifically For Startup Founders & Entrepreneurs Tuesdays @12PM (PST), LIVE on LinkedIn, YouTube, & Facebook Our mission is to enable values-driven startups to win-win the strongest hires by sharing insights from top-performing entrepreneurs, game-changers, & industry thought leaders. www.hirepowerradio.com www.rickgirard.com
Episodes
Friday May 22, 2020
How to Manage Remote Teams with Shiran Yaroslavsky of Cassiopeia Tech
Friday May 22, 2020
Friday May 22, 2020
A remote workforce has proven to be challenging to a lot of companies who have traditionally run operations from a centralized location. Aside from the technical issues (ie:security and connectivity) productivity, engagement and mental health become more difficult to manage. Today we take a dive into how we can utilize policies, tools and data to create a more engaged remote workforce.
Our guest today: Shiran Yaroslavsky, Co-Founder & CEO of Cassiopeia Tech
A startup that empowers managers that lead fully or partially remote teams to maximize workplace experience. Our solution delivers actionable insights to boost team collaboration, belonging, and mental health by analyzing communications patterns (not content) within and among teams. Shiran is an expert in all things related to data driven products and people analytics and was featured in 2019 Forbes 30 Under30 list.
In this episode we cover
- The problems of managing a remote workforce
- Providing direction on how to fix it
What are the remote work challenges are companies facing today?
- 77% Managers feel it is harder for them to manage their team remotely
- Don't have visibility, water cooler talk
- Creating a sense of belonging becomes more difficult (more than third were affected)
- Needs not being met.
- Need more empathy (fear, uncertainty) (36% of employees would like their managers to be more empathetic to their challenges at home to improve their work experience.).
- Lead with an open approach
- Be more sensitive to employees’ needs and how we interact.
Why is this important?
- Managers need to constantly asses the team pulse
- Remote teams are the future (GitLab report. 86% of respondents believe remote is the future)
- New skills and tools that help to adapt to the new environment
- Challenge with surveys
- People are fearing for their job
Rick’s Input
- Leaders must adapt, or parish
- Changes operational efficiency and the need for more hands on management
- Cuts the need for layers of management
What needs to happen for a company to be successful in managing a remote workforce?
There are 3 main domains companies should adjust in order to be successful in managing remote teams:
- Establish Remote Work policies & culture that are suitable for remote work. There are 3 things we need to pay attention to.
- Rules - We need to establish new rules for gaining clarity
Will we pay people for overtime if they work off-hours? How do we manage security and passwords? - Norms - When do we email, text, or message people? Are cameras always on for online meetings? How do we run and manage meetings?
- Design our broader company DNA -
- Rules - We need to establish new rules for gaining clarity
- How do we communicate when we aren’t satisfied with something? How can we stay connected while working remotely?
Establishing the right culture will help us to foster trust - Training for managers
- My interview with Amy Cappellanti-Wolf. Today the new leader is more about empathy. It’s still about driving for results but in a more collaborative way. Much more listening and a lot more guiding rather than directing.
The new leader also needs to be more flexible and innovative to adapt to the new challenges as the world is changing very fast. - Training can help to gain these new skills.
- My interview with Amy Cappellanti-Wolf. Today the new leader is more about empathy. It’s still about driving for results but in a more collaborative way. Much more listening and a lot more guiding rather than directing.
- Tools needed
- Working remotely is not just working from the office only with Zoom. Working remotely creates new challenges for leaders. According to our data - 77% of managers indicate it’s harder for them to manage their team remotely. There is a workplace experience gap that technology can help in closing.
- Team Insights tools.
It is more challenging to use Surveys for feedback tools (employees are busy and insecure while as a manager you need fast real-time insights to act on).
- Team Insights tools.
- Communication shifted to online - people analytics can empower remote managers.
- Examples from Cassiopeia - We analyze communication patterns to provide actionable insights to improve collaboration, belonging and mental health.
- For example - create a healthy workday balance. Experience of new employees
-
- Communication platforms (zoom, Slack etc)
- Collaboration tools - to share documents, thoughts, goals.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Your policies need to start with your interview process and carry through to onboarding and tenure. Not just when the person is already working for you
- Implement the same management tools in the hiring process. It provides a real life picture of how you work.
Key Takeaways:
- Be Aware of the workplace experience gap created by the shift to remote work
- Design the right policies and company culture to allow your company to prosper while working remotely.
- Use the right tools to boost your teams’ collaboration, communication, and employee experience.
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
There is a flood of great talent on the market and the competition for those limited positions is heating up. With this rise in the talent pool the ability to properly access applications is a major challenge. The bar has been raised! Are you leaving good people on the table?
Our guest today: Shawn Sheikh, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Pivot CMO
Shawn is a Silicon Valley & Beach serial entrepreneur and Y Combinator alumni. His specialty is helping companies scale from $0 to multi-millions in revenue, through both conventional paid acquisition and non-conventional growth hacks.
Apart from Pivot CMO, Shawn loves to work with founders to find creative ways to scale their businesses and owns and invests in a portfolio of small to medium sized businesses
Today we are discussing
- The challenges in a heavy applicant reply market
- How to effectively screen applicants to avoid false positives
What are the issues you are finding in screening applicants
- Quality
- Response rate
- Don't want to do the case study
Right Approach?
- Reply with application (google form)
Phone Screening
- Report to person call screen
Rick’s Input
- Job description- performance metrics and call to action
- CTA: 3 questions for submittal - to be completed for all applications
- Timing of the event…. ie: when to do a test
- Phone screen for Purpose
Current process that works
- Application process does work (cuts from 3k to 300)
- 20-30 people are qualified (phone screen)
- 75-80% show up for phone screen
- 6-8 to interview
- 1-2 to offer
Referrals- from employees
- 4 all hires
- One referral from a person they
Process
- Applicant review/application
- Phone screen -50% technical/ 50% fit
- Walk through assignment
- Test
- Interview
- Offer
Rick’s Nuggets
- Interview Structure & process tied to your Company values
- “What are you capable of achieving?”
- Make the call based on the person’s answers rather than the resume
Key Takeaways:
- Better screening questions during the process
- Addressing people’s needs before money
- Owning who you are!
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Using Assessments to Eliminate the Resume with Josh Millet of Criteria Corp
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
The key to successful hiring is in uncovering evidence in a person's ability to align culturally and professionally with your unique company. … None of this evidence is on a resume! How do we gather evidence? First, not short cutting the interview process. Focusing on deep behavioral questions then confirming your conclusions with data through assessments.
Our guest today: Josh Millet, Founder & CEO of Criteria Corp
Josh started the Criteria Corp in 2006 with a vision to create a SaaS-based pre-employment testing service that would make the highest quality employee assessment tools accessible to companies of all sizes.
Criteria has over 4,000 customers in more than 40 countries across the globe. Their pre-employment tests are an efficient and reliable means of gaining insights into the abilities and tendencies of potential employees.
Today we discuss
- Assessments
- Why and how to use them effectively
- A process to properly assess the person you want to hire
Why are assessments important?
With all the advances in HR tech in the last ten years that have transformed talent acquisition, we aren’t getting better at hiring when you look at results. 46% of all new hires are unsuccessful. The problem is we are relying on 70-year old tools, resumes and unstructured interviews, to gather info on applicants and make hiring decisions. These tools are letting us down. Why is it important? Immense bottom line implications.
Problem with Resumes
- Poor, incomplete, unreliable information that in the end does not predict much
- 85% of resumes contain falsehoods or inaccurate information
- Inject unconscious bias into the hiring process
- Boston & Chicago study
Unstructured interviews don’t work much better. Highly subjective, most interviewees make decision about applicants in first 5 minutes, based on highly subjective Criteria
- Evaluating for good data - using objective data to reinforce your decision
- When you think about how to gather data to make good decisions on candidates you should be focusing on:
- Accurate, reliable info
- Objective data not subjective impressions
- Removing bias from decision-making
- Being forward-looking data: how can this person learn, evolve as job does, rather than just past experience
Why are assessments the answer to resume
- Focus on good reliable data
- Things that are relevant to the job. Data that is not subjective and predicts job performance
- Ie cognitive ability (best predictor or job performance, critical thinking, attention to detail learning ability, problem solving)
- Behavioral or personality assessments - Interaction driven roles
- EQ/EI- overlapping
Rick’s Input
- Confirmation of data gathered minimizes bias
How to do it?
- Moving past the resume
- Use assessments early in the process (high applicant to hire ratio)
- Right after the application
- Resume submittal
- Link to assessment in the job post
- Most common after the application has been accepted
- Passive searches (a bit later in the process)
- Assessment become a resume substitute
Process for Active
- Choose assessments that are job related
- Measuring things important to the role
- 30-40 minutes of assessment
- Tailor the testing for the role
- Run at the Application stage or just after (automated)
- Use results to prioritize the people that are more likely to succeed
- Interview
- Assessment can generate further behavioral interview questions tailored to the individual based off their results
Process for Passive (recruits)
- Smaller number of people
- Lower number of people interviewing
- Use later in the process when the candidate is more engaged
- Assessment after the phone screen
- During the interview or just before
Rick’s Nuggets
- Must gain a personal buy in BEFORE giving tests or assessments
- People perform better when they want something
Key Takeaways:
- Do things in your hiring process to get good data
- Make sure everything you are using has a purpose that measures outcomes related to it
Friday Apr 24, 2020
Friday Apr 24, 2020
How can you tell if someone is good just through a phone screen?
A BIG thanks to our guest today: John Driscoll, Co-Founder & CEO of Naked Development.
Part 1: Outlining Key Points for Episode:
- Phone Screening: From reviewing the application to proceed to scheduling a call should be between 2-4 days (MAX)
- Ideal timing for phone call: 45-60 minutes
Part 2: 3 components of the phone screen (understanding the person) Why, What & How
*PAIN (Why):
- Discussion part 1:
- Pain is the person's reason for talking to you
- Types of PAIN to be aware of from an employer prospective:
- LEGITIMATE PAIN
- Lack of Growth
- Work Content/Technical Exposure
- Leadership Issues
- Unappreciated, Under challenged, Underutilized & Underwater
- Commute
- SELF-INFLICTED PAIN
- More Money
- Personality conflicts
- Always open
John’s role “Hiring Manager”
*DESIRE (What): What is the environment that this person will THRIVE
(This is the part where the employer should look into whether or not the candidate is a cultural fit)
- Things to consider when taking a deep dive into their desire:
- Their Vision for where they will thrive
- Fit to your company
- Important note for employers:
- Cultural fit and Attitude are far more important than skills. Yes, More important than skills! Skills can be taught and acquired. Attitude and cultural fit are often woven into the fiber of who this person really is at their core.
IMPACT (How?) (Identify Level of performance)
- Evidence of Success
- IMPACT - Do they go above and beyond (This should be demonstrated by example they give you of their past success and how they work with others)
- Commitment to Personal Growth
- Phone Screen Script:
- *PAIN (Locate a solid PAIN) …. Dig, dig, dig!!!
- What is happening with your current role that is making you open to exploring something potentially stronger?(Very important one to begin with)
- *DESIRE:
- If you could create your next company, what would that look like for you?
- What is your vision of your next role?
- What type of environment do you flourish? Culture, Size, Role, & Domain?
- *IMPACT:
- Tell me about the most significant impact you had in your current role?
- *SKILLS:
- What are your core Strengths?
- COMMUTE:
- Where are you willing to commute on a daily basis? (push limits)
- INTERVIEWING: Currently: Interested:
- To properly pace out the process, where are you in the interview process?
- CITIZENSHIP:
- What is your current work authorization status?
- SALARY: Looking to make $
- What are your minimum salary requirements?
- AVAILABILITY:
- What is your availability to interview this week? (dates/times)
- ***OFFER ACCEPTANCE MAIN CRITERIA: 1: 2: 3: 4:
- What are 3 or 4 “Main Criteria” that you would need to see in a company for you to accept an offer with them?
Final Step: Connecting the Dots
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
AI: Solving for Ego Hires that Fail with Neil Sahota of UC Irvine
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
Thursday Apr 16, 2020
Is AI the future of recruitment? Better yet, will AI replace the need for a resume? Tools are available to utilize AI in improving workflow and screening applicants. The question lies in their accuracy and viability in identifying the strongest people for your unique organization.
Our guest today: Neil Sahota, AI Expert & Author of “Own the AI Revolution”.
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor, United Nations (UN) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Advisor, Faculty at UC Irvine, and author of Own the A.I. Revolution. He is one of the few people selected for IBM's Corporate Service Corps leadership program that pairs leaders with NGOs to perform community-driven economic development projects.
In addition, Neil partners with entrepreneurs to define their products, establish their target markets, and structure their companies. He is a member of several investor groups like the Tech Coast Angels and assists startups with investor funding. Neil also serves as a mentor in several incubator/accelerator programs.
Today we are going to discuss
- All things AI, What is it, how does it help with hiring
- Why it is important today
- How to implement the effective use of AI into your hiring today
Why is AI important in hiring through today’s landscape?
- People looking for work should be looking for more than just a paycheck.
- Why is this important?
- People quit when you bring the wrong person onto the team
- Productivity plummets
- Ai can eliminate the need for a resume!
Rick’s Input
- Automating workflow
- Sourcing/screening
- Good at all things transactional
How do we start leveraging AI to optimize hiring in today's landscape?
- Using AI to eliminate ego based hiring decisions
- Story of Omelveney (law firm)- use pymetrics
- Testing for cultural value
- Allow you to evaluate for culture and team fit
- Ai tools to analyze how well code is written
AI Tools Currently Available:
- Pymetrics: https://www.pymetrics.ai/
- Paradox.ai: https://www.paradox.ai/
- Ayra: https://goarya.com/
- Eightfold.ai: https://eightfold.ai/
- Xor.ai: https://www.xor.ai/
- Pandologic: https://www.pandologic.com/recruiting-with-ai/
Rick’s Nuggets
- Add CTA’s into your job postings to allow the cream to rise to the top
- Innovation is eliminating the resume
Key Takeaways:
- Elimination of resumes
- Reduced bias in recruitment
- Increased diversity & inclusion (by accessing “non-traditional recruitment pools)
- Quantifying cultural/team fit
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
Thursday Feb 13, 2020
The truth is most of the good players are on the sidelines. Great people are inundated with mindless spam therefore most messaging is getting ignored. Here is the good news, Gallup reports that 7 of 10 people are open to something stronger.
Today’s Quote:
“Great people want to work on things that matter. Inevitably, a great person working on imaginary work will turn into an unsatisfied person.” - Jason Fried
Our guest today: Marc Hutto, Founder & CEO of Reveal Global Intelligence
Marc is the chief architect of Purpose-Driven Recruitment . This methodology focuses the talent acquisition process on the people who are hiring and being hired - as it should be. Revealing hidden and highly-valued talent in this way also aligns to Marc's stated vision for the company of delivering evidential value to every life we touch.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why you believe you can't find people
- The truth behind the myth (79 % of people on LinkedIn, polled, will not see a posting)
- A script to successfully find the people you need - A “pattern interrupt”
Why is the view that company’s can’t find people wrong?
- You can easily believe this because most people are not responding to job postings.
- Mindset - most people need to be approached.
- A lot of people approaching them
- A lot of noise, people not responding
- Only 21% of people are looking at a job posting
Reach out
- Outreach and response is the main challenge
- A lot of the same messages
- Get rid of the hooks and talk to the person
- Pitching the job is the wrong mentality
- Get into career coaching mode as quickly as possible
Rick’s Input
- Treat people all the same, regardless of where they came
- Hit people at their pain point first.
- What could be better?
How to recruit passive talent?
Mindset
- Approach people who did not come to you
- You have to be proactive
- Business owners and leaders take great care when investing in hard assets (equipment, supplies, inventory, etc.) - should we not have the same mindset when investing in a new colleague?
Reach out
- Don't pitch the job (it’s presumptuous)
- Digital video job description (digi-me.com) 1 minute
- Polite, professional, persistent - it differentiates
Coaching call
- Talk to people about them- their career/career drivers
- Look for the opportunity to provide career coaching
- Start a conversation around career drivers
Incumbent interview - document
- Why did you come here?
- Why do you stay?
- Challenges you encounter?
- Want someone to understand what it is like to work for your company?
Reasons why people stay (career drivers)
- Compensation & benefits
- Impact of the work
- Environment - culture, people, space,
- Personal & professional growth
- Leadership or management
Rick’s Nuggets
- On average 7-10 calls to get in touch a person today
- Write 5 email sequences
- Top Desires: Growth, Content of Work, Leadership
Key Takeaways:
- Hiring and being hired are big deals. Keep them humanized. Focus on Career Drivers.
- If you are an employer, you are in sales mode for top talent.
- Post and Pray has to give way to Polite, Professional Persistence.
- Purpose Driven Recruitment Toolkit: revealglobal.com/hirepower
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Thursday Feb 06, 2020
Reference checking is so important... yet so underutilized. Why? Because it is too time-consuming! But when you fail to reference check you are dramatically increasing the likelihood of making the wrong hire. On top of that, you are missing out on a potential recruiting opportunity
Today’s Quote:
"References drive the industry." - Mark V. Hurd
Our guest today: Yves Lermusi, Co-Founder & CEO of Checkster
Checkster is powering talent decisions of organizations and providers of staffing and HR services. The company aims to improve the world's productivity and harmony by increasing job fit and work achievement, as well as personal career satisfaction and fulfillment.
Yves is a well-known public speaker and a Career and Talent industry commentator. He is often quoted in the leading business media worldwide, and has been named as one of the “100 Most Influential People in the Recruiting Industry”.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why checking references is important
- Voice reference checks vs digital reference checks
- The framework for a successful reference check
Reference checking, what’s the issue?
- People don't do
- Or they do totally wrong
Why are they doing references wrong?
- Only speaking to people that are given
- Talking to 2-3
- Talking to over the phone (filtered feedback)
Digital advantages
- Digitally people are more honest
- People pretend to be their own reference
- Consistency in the questions
Rick’s input
- Design references to evaluate against company culture
- Ability to dig deep on the answers
How to do references right
- Peers or managers recently. In direct contact
- Speak to at least 4 references - the measurement of success 80% in making a good hire vs. just 2 references
- Ask the right questions
- Relevant to the job and non-leading, (leading the witness)
- “Would you rehire?”
- Starting broad and going specific
- Do it digitally
- Saves time
Rick’s Nuggets
- How are you able to question deeper to understand the motivation of the answer?
- Written referrals don't give you the ability to recruit the person
Key Takeaways:
- Get at least feedback from 4 relevant colleagues (relevant:recent profesional close experience)
- Ask predictive questions
- Do it digitally
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
The Right Way to Advertise Your Jobs with Kelly Robinson of RedDot Media
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
Posting your jobs can be a very frustrating exercise. Especially when you receive little to no response. Or worse yet, you receive an onslaught of unqualified responses.
Today is all about how and where to post your jobs to attract the right people! So we are going to geek out on advertising and teach the right way to utilize postings in your recruitment strategy.
Today’s Quote:
“Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.” - Marshall McLuhan
Our guest today: Kelly Robinson, CEO of RedDot Media
20 years on the staffing recruitment and recruiting technology.
RedDot media is a recruitment ad agency with a particular skill in programmatic advertising and helping companies socialize their jobs with our Paiger platform. Prioir to RedDot Media, Kelly founded Broadbean.com Inc 2001, which he sold to DMGT in 2008, launched in the US 2009, and lead the strategic acquisition by CareerBuilder in 2014.
Today we are going to discuss
- Why Job postings fail
- Different ways to advertise
- Steps to take to implement programmatic job advertising
Where do people fail while posting jobs?
- Spray & Pray
- Pay no attention to the content
- Not thinking about what the person really looks like
- What is an important Mindset?
- Treating people who apply the same as a direct recruit.
- People who apply are just open, not sold on your company
What are the different ways to advertise?
Post & Pray - what most do now!
- Programmatic advertising
- Rule based job posting
- Only paying for results
- Click bidding to get your jobs on the top of the listOnly paying for results
Rick’s input
-
- Need understanding of what needs to be accomplished
- Performance metrics
- Content rarely touches the individual (never answers “what’s in it for me”)
How to implement programmatic job advertising
- 3 ways to do
- Use an agency to do it
- Buy a system and DYI & hire someone who is dedicated to doing it.
- Effective in duration based advertising.
- Cost per view or cost per applicant
- Best for 20+ jobs per month
Steps to maximize your job posting
- 20 or less
- Java engineer
- One-offs- start with Indeed
- Zip recruiter is good because of their advertising
- 65 mil lookers a month
- Identify 2 of 5 skills and talk to them.
- Write a good job description
- Have a lot of conversations
How to maximize relevancy
- Job descriptions: Talking to about emotional factors
- Dependent on what and where you are looking for it
- Forget the application process.
- *treat people not like an application but like they are part of the conversation
Key Takeaways:
- And as Jim Collins said it’s the Genius of the AND versus the Tyranny of the OR. and embrace the "Genius of the AND.
- Writing job ads is a skill - get better at it, AND have fun with it.
- Understand and qualify your job description ****A good question is what is NOT getting done while you don’t have this person.
- Job Applications are people who have given you permission to have a conversation with them. Your job is to figure out together if they should quit their job and come work from you.
- It’s not all about saving money a 3,6% unemployment rate!
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Thursday Jan 16, 2020
Making a strong hire starts with attracting the right people. Knowing who the right hire is the first step. But in order to attract the right people there needs to be a message that resonates with the individual and motivates them to respond.
Today we are talking about hacking your hiring through the use of communication profiles.
Today’s Quote:
"Hacking involves a different way of looking at problems that no one's thought of." - Walter O'Brien
CEO of Scorpion Computer Services and executive producer of the TV series Scorpion
I’m Rick Girard and welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show. Our mission is to help Entrepreneurs and hiring managers to avoid costly hiring mistakes by identifying a specific problem and provide proven solutions to enable you to WIN the right hire. We share insights from top-performing rebel entrepreneurs, disruptors & industry experts.
Like our guest today: Christopher Hadnagy, CEO of Social-Engineer, Inc.
Chris Hadnagy is a professional social engineer, author of 4 books, and keynote speaker. He’s the CEO of Social‐Engineer, LLC, a company who serves some of the globe’s largest organizations. Additionally, Chris provides free resources, including the world’s first Social Engineering Framework, via Social-Engineer.Org, and heads the Innocent Lives Foundation, a non-profit that unmasks anonymous child predators.
So Christopher knows hacking! Which makes Christopher a perfect expert for today’s topic.
Christopher, Welcome to the Hire Power Radio Show today!
Today we are going to discuss:
- Identifying the right person
- Crafting the right messaging to attract
- Logical steps to weed out the obvious
Problem
- Really bad hires!
- People look great on the surface
- Not showing up for work
- Quitting fast
Why am I having an issue getting good employees?
- *** realize how much time you spend on the back end when you hire with the wrong people
- Aftermath
- Lost over 100 hours and thousands of dollars
- Killed company morale
- Outline the type of person you want before you start interviewing
- Thinking about the work that needs to be accomplished
- Defining expectations up front
- Managing your own expectations- avoid unreasonable tasks
- Experience expected to have
Rick’s input
-
- Create messaging around the personality profile of a successful hire
- Pain, Desire & Impact
How do we fix it?
- Determine the best communications profile first
- Write the job description with keywords that attract the right people
- Describe the words and language to attract the right person.
- Detract the wrong people.
- Logic steps to weed out the obvious
- A list of questions to determine the right fit, video interview to whittle down to 3
- Give the disc test - confirm communication style
- Weed out the wrong cultural fit
- Confirm what is really needed with who the person is
How does one determine the right messaging?
- Disc profiling roles (general)
- D- management, leadership, - Aware D - understands how they communicate
- I- Sales, public speaking, Training
- S- HR, support role,
- C- Accounting, office management - detail & organization
Rick’s Nuggets:
- One size fits all messaging does not work
- Create messaging with a call to action to minimize
- Performance metrics attract the right people
- Plan and put process in place
Key Takeaways:
- Time invested in the prework saves thousands of dollars for the company
- Define what it is that a person must have
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Hiring People Who Are Outside Your Comfort Zone! with Aaron Elder of Crelate
Friday Jan 03, 2020
Friday Jan 03, 2020
It is all too common to look for the person who brings the skills you deem necessary for your role. But the person who brings all the skills may not be the best person in the role. There are a lot of people who are in adjacent industries or sitting on the sidelines who are open to an opportunity like yours.
What does it take to find great people? Looking past the skills for evidence of success that will be transferable to your company. As we all know, past performance is a key indicator of future performance.
Today’s Quote:
“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”
- Dale Carnegie
Our guest today: Aaron Elder, Co-Founder & CEO of Crelate
Aaron is a serial entrepreneur with 4 successful products, 3 companies and 2 exits under his belt. He is a designer, turned coder, turned CTO, turned CEO who is passionate about creating products people love and make the world better.
Crelate exists to help businesses continuously align people with opportunities. Aaron has a passion for taking a chance on people who are changing careers - giving people a shot
Today we discuss:
- Hiring outside the norm to combat the talent shortage
- a recipe to successfully hire
Solution to the talent shortage
- Taking an age blind approach
- Considering the skills level
- Not just a blind hire
Challenges?
- Casting a wider net- seeing through things
- Opening the holes in the net
- Look past skills to the ancillary skills
- Career shows you as a non-fact (switching careers-coming in as a jr person). Measure people based on risk rather than
- A propensity for learning new things, being innovative and growing, you will probably be able to bring that to the table
Issue of Compensation
- Is a pay cut really realistic? Taking a shot
- Until you talk to them, you don’t really know.
- *** Training and investment need to be real. The organization needs to be all in on people development
Rick’s input
- Look for transferable skills
- Adjacent industries
- Evidence of success
How do we fix it?
- Finding the people who are performers and not just seat fillers
- indicator of career changes,
- Tenacity & grit, raw materials
- Look for evidence of past success
- Hide Easter egg’s in the job post.
- Questionnaires
- Invest in Recruiters- matchmakers
- Have more conversations with people and look past the resume
- Internal training programs
- The long game is the only solution he knows.
- Short term road bumps but long term it is an investment in an approach.
- Be self-aware of the game
- optimize for the long game (bring investors on board)
- Looking to solve a long term problem - at least a 2-year problem
- Education & training which require intense focus and investment upfront.
- Benefit? -the path for retention, earned loyalty, path for mutual benefit
- If you are not growing, you will have a hard time keeping people who want to be growing
- Take more chances on people who do not have ALL the skills
- Creating training, review process that career ladder, reviews, culture for people to enjoy
- Invest in systems to automate points 1 & 2 more possible
Key Takeaways:
- Solve the talent gap/shortage by being able to take chances on people, give them a chance to tell their story and see if it fits. Look past skills to underlying achievements, velocity, grit, etc.
- Invest in the long haul - internal learning, time, training, the culture of personal growth and achievement.
- Do what you can to make #1 and #2 more efficient. That means the right tools and processes that fit those goals. Not work against them.
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
How to Pipeline Talent Without a Talent Brand with Jack Copeland of Staffing Future
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
Thursday Dec 05, 2019
How are you going to attract the strongest talent for your company when people have no idea who you are? The truth is, you are not! Passive talent and those who are not on the open job market will just ignore you because you are just another me-too company.
This is why you will rely on the “I know someone” method to hire Your best source for talent is referrals. What if you can gain awareness before you reach out to someone
Today we are talking about How to pipeline talent when you don’t have a talent brand
Today’s Quote:
“Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” - Elon Musk
Our guest today: Jack Copeland, Founder & CEO of Staffing Future
Staffing Future, a website development, and technology stack consultancy, with expertise in building, developing and managing technology solutions. The team has built over 600 staffing Agency websites and deployed innovative technology solutions with a multitude of third-party apps to create a holistic sum of their parts.
Jack has worked and consulted with dozens of recruiting software providers who are inclined to augment and develop the industry, they include top tier originations like CareerBuilder, and Tracker RMS.
Today we are going to cover
- What is a talent brand & why it is important
- Framework to build your talent brand
What is a talent Brand:
The message you want to provide to potential talent about who you are, what it’s like to work for you and why they should work for your company.
What’s the difference between a proactive and reactive Talent Brand?
Most small and medium companies don’t even think about what their Talent Brand is but a proactive Talent Brand is taking the time to understand your message, providing a platform for potential hires to engage before speaking to you and pipe lining potential hires.
Problem
- What is a reactive talent brand:
- Persuade people why you are the right company to join
- You are selling to them
- Happens late in the game
- Spend money to get people through the door
- Eliminated access to Heavily sought after talent
- Not responding, applying or know you
- No idea who you are or your value
- You have no perceived value
Rick’s input
- Talent brand is not as important as answering “what’s in it for me”
- About solving an individual problem
How do we fix it?
- Optimizing the website to maximize attraction offering a place to engage for potential candidates
- Solidify your message around who you are, what it's like to work for you and the ethics and values of your business, make sure your management team and business goals align with these internally
- Identify your target ‘finite’ talent and implement strategies to engage and nurture proactively
What are three practical things I can do:
- Understand who you are? Take the time to evaluate your business. Why would I want to work here? Why would I want to stay here? What kind of people are your looking to engage and fit with your culture? How can you retain and attract them. What kind of people are not a good fit? What is our culture and what do i want out culture to be. Summarize this
- Provide a platform for people to engage on your social and website, allow a place for people to understand your business without talking to you and your team. You have no idea who isn't taking your call, applying to your jobs or responding to your recruiters. It’s a marketing exercise to engage potential buyers just like the product you sell. If you have this is can help your convert taken to the top of the funnel if you don't have this it's a red fag.
- 3. Be proactive. For most SMB companies there is a finite resource of available talent in their location and market. E,G Python developers in Portland. How can you get them to understand you exist? Connect with potential hires on LinkedIn before you ate hiring at a C-level and have an open door policy, push out social content but focusing on working for your company and it’s values, attend or host career fairs and speak to relevant colleges. Find a meaningful way to tap into your employees network.
Rick’s Nuggets
- Perks, benefits and free lunch are not attractors
- Companies rely way too much on perks to retain people
- People development needs to be the focus
- Humanize the messaging
Key Takeaways:
- Understand who you are what your message is
- Provide a platform for highly sort after talent to understand who you are
- Be proactive in pipe lining and reaching your core talent in most cases it;s a finite resource.
Thursday Nov 21, 2019
Thursday Nov 21, 2019
Telling a story is the quickest way to gain a person’s attention. The challenge in recruiting is telling a story that is compelling to the person you need to hire. And to top it off your story is just like everyone else and it is all about you!
What if we wrote each story differently than everyone else. Would we get better results? Damn right you will, and today my guest and I are out to prove it!
Today’s Quote:
"Storytelling is the essential human activity. The harder the situation, the more essential it is." - Tim O'Brien
Our guest today: Michael Goldberg, Founder & CEO of Hiring Transformed
Recruiting Strategist, Talent Finder, and Hiring Manager Whisperer all describe Michael who advises and coaches Talent Acquisition Leaders through roadblocks. The biggest obstacle is the ability of both recruiters and Hiring Managers to tell stories that are authentic and engaging. Michael also assists talent organizations with strategies to increase productivity, create strong recruiter/hiring manager partnerships, and lead change management initiatives.
Today we are going to cover
- The importance of storytelling in recruiting
- How to tell a better story and the framework for recruiting success
Why is storytelling important?
- Give me people now, make sure they are qualified and let’s just get them in the door and we will be able to close them.
- Don’t take the time to engage, just jump in and let’s go
- Don’t know how to kick off relationships.
- Jump right into it about the position
- Most people are not responded
People don’t respond to your messages... Why?
- Very overwhelming
- 4-5 times a day
- Information overload
- The same exact message
- Timing
- Area of interest
- Miss-targeting, misinformed
Rick’s Input
- Text, email, social feeds (paid media)
How do we do it?
- Start with a Story
- The story is told voice to voice!
- Humanize it
- Don’t run the story at 30,000 feet
- Capture their attention in a job posting or messaging
- Could be done as a video or as a blog
- Goal is to get to a phone call
Structure of the story
- Create the Hero- someone within the company
- A successful employee
- Should be a peer
- Makes it more relatable
- Mission or goal and share the obstacles are/were (targeting)
- Immediate and concrete to create rapport to create a connection
- “Have you been in a situation like this before?”
- Resolution (get over the obstacles & hit goals… or it didn’t work out, what would you do differently
- About showing, not just telling
- “Imaging yourself just completing X. You have worked with Sally and Joe and were able to overcome these major obstacles. You were able to deliver X with your team....Like selling a car “Imagine yourself behind the wheel of…”
Rick’s Nuggets
- The story should not be about you
- Try to make the person you are trying to recruit the hero
- Design the story to a specific pain that the person may have
- Make it relatable to that specific person
- Tool for crafting messaging
- Crystal Knows- messaging
Key Takeaways:
- Build trust through strategically crafted stories and will help recruiters differentiate themselves from others.
- Storytelling can take different forms depending on where the storyteller plans on sharing info. Videos, Blogs, & Social Media posts but videos prevail because it is the best way to create trust between the recruiter and the candidates.
- Storytelling should be told throughout the recruiting process. Not only by recruiters but by hiring managers and would-be peers
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
Thursday Oct 31, 2019
In honor of Halloween, we are sharing interview horror stories. We all have heard campfire stories of a crazy interview or even a scary hire. Today we are going to help you identify crazy on both sides of the coin to help you avoid a tragic nightmare.
How not to get hired or have someone accept your job offer
Today’s Quote:
"If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it." - Ray Bradbury
Our guest today: LeiLani Quiray, Founder & CEO of bethechangeHR
LeiLani has a fiery passion for both Human Resources and philanthropy. She believes people are a company’s most valuable asset and they should be cared for as such but no only on a level where the business truly cares but a quantifiable basis where we measure the effectiveness of the programs we put in place to foster a healthy work environment.
be the change HR, Inc., a conscious company and social enterprise, provides fractional HR executive support, strategy and service to businesses in any facet of HR from pre-hire to post-term and everything else that happens in between.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." - M. Ghandi
Yup...she's doing just that!
- Scary Things people do in interviews
- What scares People from your company
- Avoiding your own horror stories
Warning signs of an upcoming bad interview
- Showing up late, without a phone call
- Typos in the resume- the devil is in the details
- customer experience
- fast paste environment
- Heavy Perfume
Two Stories
- Schwane Schwiley
- Rejection Letter & his response (I have one of the emails!)
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
Rick’s Input:
Company Fails
- Lack of clarity & setting performance metrics
- Constant re-scheduling
- Unstructured interview process
- Arrogant interview process
- Setting the environment to maximize a person’s performance in the interview
- Group whiteboard test designed to make you crack
- Adversarial
- Erase work while answering questions
Two Story Conclusion
- Schwane Schwiley
- Swifter involvement to protect employees (myself)
- Crazy is out there and you can’t control it
- “My Truck was Stolen (and hit by a train) - A case of a negligent hire
- Background checks are key
- Overlooking criminal history = negligent hiring
What do we need to pay attention to?
- The frame of mind (desperation, urgency)
- Over aggressiveness
Rick’s Nuggets
- Diligence in the phone screen
- Uncover the truth & the crazy
- Focus on the person, not the skills
- Skills-based hires breed horror stories
- Pain, Desire & Impact
- 3 behavioral-based questions designed to get under the hood
- Beware: taking credit, playing well with others & the blame game
Key Takeaways:
- Watch out for warning signs in the very beginning
- Sometimes sh!t just happens but you MUST take action quickly
- Background checks are important!
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
Thursday Oct 17, 2019
Founders, the quickest way to attract investment is to already have a team in place and the wheels in motion. People will join your startup prior to raising capital when they are committed to you as a leader and the mission of the company.
You do not need money to hire exceptional talent. You need to know who the business needs first. Then bring value to them personally and/or professionally based on their pains & desires.
Today’s Quote:
"Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team."
- John C. Maxwell
Our guest today: Carey Ransom, President of the newly formed OC4 Venture Studio & Host of Accelerate OC
Carey is an entrepreneurial thrill seeker and company builder, serving team members and customers along the way. He has a founder attitude, even when he joins a business already underway, or take over the reins of a company. Carey excels in business and corporate development, technology and product strategy, marketing, sales, and channel partner development, and has led many startup-to-growth companies to successfully pursue breakthrough business opportunities. He’s done millions of dollars of business via LinkedIn as well!
Today we are going to cover:
- Why you should build your team BEFORE you try to raise capital
- How to recruit people when you have no money to pay them
Why is it important to build your team before you start to raise capital?
- -Sell the idea, gets people excited about it.
- Convince people to join, but the employee experience on the inside suck
Where do Entrepreneurs get stuck?
- Pretending you have it all figured out is really dangerous
- -the opposite of the strong figurehead, being vulnerable
- -we are looking for help and we are willing to listen
Rick’s Input:
- Best way to prove your company has legs is to have a team
- Allow people who are involved to become invested by active participation
- Utilize their talent and keep engaged
- “Once I get the Money” syndrome
Mindset:
- High ego to start,
- Be selfless as you can and give it away.
- Want everyone to be a founder in their mind
- Being transparent & vulnerable
- Not having to make every decision
- Not always having to be right
How does one build a team without having the Money?
- Create a Safe Environment for people to take risks without penalization
- Encouraging risk - leader fails first- set the example
Rick’s two cents:
- Network
- Get to know your teammates before you approach to hire
- Understand their career pains & desires
- Look for alignment (do not force it…. Nurture Campaign)
- Plant seeds
- Seize the Opportunity
- Ask for help!
- Gain involvement (advisory to start)
- Communicate and keep involved
- Allow the relationship to grow & evolve
- Create the ecosystem for each person lean in
- Give what you can
- Equity
- Title
- *maintain high integrity
Key Takeaways:
- Look at every single person as an investor. Be open to different types of arrangements
- Be careful to not oversell/overstate your advisor involvement
- Find people who will be really real to keep you grounded. Ultimately the best team wins!
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
The Challenges & Benefits of Hiring Refugees with Chris Chancey of Amplio Recruiting
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
Thursday Oct 10, 2019
We are in a negative unemployment market and there are just not enough workers on the open job market. The solution might be taking a different avenue... Hiring Refugees.
There is great value to expanding beyond your scope of the limited talent pool into unfamiliar waters. Consider people who are motivated, engaged and reliable to elevate company performance.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We must find a way to balance our tradition as a state welcoming of refugees while ensuring the safety and security of our citizens." Bruce Rauner - Former Governor of Illinois
Guest Bio:
Amplio Recruiting is a staffing agency placing refugees into jobs across the US. Chris Chancey launched Amplio in 2014 after moving into a refugee community outside of Atlanta, GA and now leads a team that has placed over 5000 refugees from 40 different countries into full-time employment at over 300 US companies.
As a social entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author of Refugee Workforce, a book articulating the economic impact of refugees in America, Chris believes in leveraging business to create greater stability for the 70M displaced people around the globe.
Show Highlights:
- Why refugees make great hires
- Dispel some of the beliefs
- Provide a How-to guide to locate and hire
Why is this a good pool of talent?
- Legal to work
- High retention (80% @ 3 months & 70% after 1 year)
- Drug-free- zero
- Increase of productivity - high growth mindset
- Company's reporting back double quota
- Mostly Congo, Burma, middle east
What does a company need to know about hiring refugees?
- Language barrier
- They learn English faster when they have a job
- Software to help train
- Transportation
- Rely on public trans
- Mostly blue-collar
- Only 10-20% have advanced skills
- Cultural Awareness
- Diversity welcome
How does a company tap into the Refugee pool?
- First, open the culture to diversity thinking
- Are safety and other relevant signs posted in the native languages of employees to assure a full understanding of a safe environment?
- Do you have an intra-company multicultural calendar to avoid scheduling important events or meetings on major cultural holidays?
- In the onboarding process, are materials offered in both English and the employee’s native language?
- Are meet-and-greets, building tours, team lunches, and other activities in place to ease the new employee into a comfortable atmosphere?
- Are training materials or presentations reviewed before introducing them to employees of different cultures to see if anything needs to be modified or explained in a different way?
- Top-down approach
- Promote inclusivity: the focus is not diversity, the focus is inclusivity
- Specific examples:
- Systems in place to accommodate onboarding:
- Slow onboarding time: What you would typically cover in two days, with a traditional employee, spread it out over a week or so. It’s better to over-communicate on the front-end than have to make amends for lost time, resources and relationships on the back-end.
- Don’t leave anything to chance: Communicate, communicate, communicate. Be direct with instruction and don’t assume the other person immediately understands. Overstate tasks and ask questions to assess comprehension. Avoid demeaning tones and be patient with questions, and don’t assume employees understand even the most basic cultural norms.
- Second, search “refugee organizations near me” on google to connect with local non-profit refugee agencies. They will be willing to educate you on the community and can invite you to local community events. If you share a job description with them, they can help refer to potential candidates.
Key Takeaways:
- Recognize the value of refugee community (buy the book)
- Connect with your local refugee community
- Consider ways you can employ refugees at your company
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Tapping into Veteran Talent Pools! with Brian Erickson of Vidoori
Friday Sep 13, 2019
Friday Sep 13, 2019
A lot of companies shy away from hiring veterans because they don’t understand the value that they may bring to the table.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Cisco & Walgreens have programs in full force but the majority of startups have yet to really get on board. The diversity in thought that comes from hiring a vet may be the competitive edge that your startup needs to propel your business ahead of your competition.
This show is proudly sponsored by Vidoori
Today’s Quote:
"We hire military veterans because they make great employees. They bring proven technical and leadership skills. They understand teamwork, and they're adaptable. Bottom line, hiring veterans is good for business."
Randall L. Stephenson - CEO of AT&T
Guest Bio:
Brian Erickson serves as the Vice President, Strategy and Solutions at Vidoori, Inc. He leads company expansion strategies bringing the Vidoori brand to the west coast. Brian has over 26 years of experience in Naval Aviation, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Information Operations, Strategic Programs and sourcing/acquisition. Brian is a retired Senior Naval Officer (Captain/O6) with proven experience and expertise across numerous technical domains bringing a warfighters perspective to Vidoori’s mission of delivering excellence.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from San Diego State University, a Master of Business Administration (Financial Management) from the Naval Postgraduate School, a Master of Science (Information Technology) from the Naval Postgraduate School and an Executive Management Certification from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Additionally, Brian holds numerous defense and industry related certifications to include: CISSP, GSLC, CISSO, CISSM, DAWIA Level 3 PM, DAWIA Level 3 IT, CKM, ITIL.
Show Highlights:
- The benefits of hiring veterans
- Challenges in the crossover
- What is needed to hire veterans today
Why hire veterans?
- Advantages of hiring veterans
- Hard workers
- Trained
- All the same, competencies that civilians do +1
- Life experience
- Much harder workers, disciplined
Why do companies not hire veterans?
- Language Translation - understanding of Military terminology
- Skills Mismatch -
- Negative Stereotypes / Bias - too rigid, formal, chain of command
- “Alpha” mentality
- Aggression / PTSD / disability fears
- Cultural Fit
- Fear of future deployments
Rick’s Input:
- Military ranking & conditioning
- Diversity in thought
- Requires a shift in mindset
- Impactful behavior transfers
How to Successfully hire Veterans
Preparation is Key!
- Process & Structure
- Checklist oriented
- Understand rigidity in the government process
- Outline the Framework, Training & Direction
Rick’s two cents
- Embrace the differences in Mindset
- Seek to understand the mindset
- More important to have a structured interview process
Key Takeaways:
- Have an established interviewing team that works well together; bring in a technical “ringer” as required to round out the depth and breadth of conversation.
- Hire military...highly technical, lots of experience, trustworthy, bang for your buck
- Transactional vs relational (stick with relational)
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Thursday Sep 05, 2019
Have you ever looked at a resume and thought this person is perfect! Only to find out after you have hired them that the person is a total mismatch to your organization. This is the result of being “Shopping Hungry” for the hire.
This is totally avoidable! By keeping the interview process consistent regardless of who the person is, where they came from you will serve you well!
NEEDING to fill a seat is not enough evidence to warrant making a hire!
Today’s Quote:
"If you take shortcuts, you get cut short." - Gary Busey
Guest Bio:
Kevin Castle is the Managing Partner and Co-founder of Technossus. He is responsible for motivating and leading an organization of technology experts who are laser-focused on exceptional client outcomes.
A highly engaged entrepreneur, Kevin has driven the Company’s strategy and supported the expansion of Technossus’ footprint from one office in Irvine to three worldwide. The firm has been recognized three times by the Orange County Business Journal (“OCBJ”) as one of the best places to work and four times by INC 5000 as one of the fastest-growing companies in America.
Show Highlights:
- The pitfalls of being “shopping hungry”
- How to avoid this pitfall
- A process to cure being shopping hungry
What is “Shopping Hungry” for last-minute hire? Why does this happen?
- Challenge - at the time you need to hire someone, you scramble to find them, make a hasty decision and do not go through all the of the checks and rigor to make sure they are the true long term fit and strategic hire for you
- Short cut the interview process
Why is it important not to shortcut the interview process when hiring?
- Hiring the right culture Fit
- Challenge - you hire someone who has the skills, knowledge, experience - but fails to make sure that they are the right culture fit. Hard to deal with, hard to get them out, and often can have a lasting impact of damage made with internal and with external people who interact with your company.
- Personal - hired someone that was not rooted in the same values - meaningful relationships, trust, sincere kindness.
Rick’s Input
- The purpose of the interview… The Truth!
- Short cuts get cut short … like the quote
How do we solve this problem?
- Acknowledge that you were the culprit of the mistakes made
- Solution - spend 5-10% of your week passively recruiting. Meet key persons, spend time networking and reaching out to people to learn more about background, desires. When you need to bring someone in, then a couple of friendly calls can get you moving quickly. Networking with people who may know other people like you may hire is a key strategy to get some great referrals
- Side benefit - a great way to get market aware (can teach you a lot). Also helps to give you a broader breadth of the skills in the market for the position.
- Solution - be clear
- Important - to only hire people that represent your values
- Trust your gut
- Incident - several years back. Hired someone that I just knew was not going to work well. Did not click with me, and could not get through and understand why. I could not articulate what it was that made us not connect. The team was ecstatic in interviewing this person, all thumbs-up, and ultimately hired this person.
- What happened - It completely did not work out. Had to let them go and nobody was happy in the end. Did not get the job completed, trust was an issue from the start, had to let them go.
- Important - to click with the people who work for you. To start off with a genuine interest in someone is critical for them to be successful.
Having to let someone go who is loved by all - but is not performing
- Solution - having metrics-based performance tracking - we have this @ every single level in our organization - where goal setting, outcome, performance can be quantified - at times this ends up having to trump likability which is very difficult for people, companies, for us all.
- Have specific questions around the culture.
Rick’s two cents
- Performance-based metrics.
Key Takeaways:
- Passive recruiting- Network 5-10% of your time
- Cultural alignment matters
- Trust your gut
Thursday Aug 29, 2019
Thursday Aug 29, 2019
We have all experienced it….Trying to coordinate calendars to accommodate an interview. It is a BIG time suck from someone’s day!
How to eliminate some of the administrative tasks and shift into more productive work that moves your business forward.
Today’s Quote:
"There's a lot of automation that can happen that isn't a replacement of humans but of mind-numbing behavior." - Stewart Butterfield
Guest Bio:
Olivia Melman leads DigitalOcean’s Recruiting Operations team, having joined the company as the People team’s first Program Manager in March 2017. In addition to managing the Recruiting Coordinators, Olivia is focused on automation and collaboration within the full-cycle recruitment process, and owns all data and tooling associated with recruitment strategy. She also manages DigitalOcean's external partnerships with talent acquisition and branding vendors, and runs point internally on headcount planning alongside the FP&A team. Olivia started her career in Financial Services as an HR Management Analyst, and most recently, was a Customer Success Manager for LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions business.
Show Highlights:
- The issues around Calendar management
- The challenges with just coordinating & scheduling interviews
- Solution to optimize your interview calendaring issues
What are the challenges in scheduling interviews today?
My team’s responsible for coordinating interviews -- at a really high volume (averaging 200 hires a year), but the challenge we’ve run into is really how to maximize time in meaningful ways.
- Limited interviewer availability and limited candidate availability -- coordinating calendars effectively becomes really difficult
- 70% of my team’s days are spent browsing Google calendars to schedule interviews (more specifically, onsite interviews where we are bringing candidates in to meet several people from our hiring teams)
- Interview scheduling ties to candidate experience, employee experience (hiring teams) and the experience of those on my team (it’s frustrating staring at Google Calendar all day!)
Why is it important?
- Time spent where people are not contributing their maximum potential/value to the team -- once you’ve mastered how to schedule, you don’t learn from each instance
- At this kind of junior level role, it’s important to me that my teams gaining relevant experience beyond the task at hand (scheduling) -- and is in fact as an operations leader, I need them to gain system implementation experience -- program management and change management experience so that I can effectively delegate down the road
- (personally, I want to make sure that everything my team is doing is contributing to their individual growth and development).
- Navigate gaps- communication upfront
Rick’s Input:
- Always one person- have an alternate
- A bench of back-up dancers (interviewers)
How do we solve this problem?
- Using a new technology platform to automate interview scheduling and eliminate the “calendar Tetris” of trying to schedule onsite interview panels / back to back interviews.
- The tool essentially enables the user to build the interview panel or team (select interviewers, interview duration, format, location -- set times) and then the tool does the work for us by using AI to pull in Google Calendars and find time slots where the selected interviewers are available back to back and for the assigned formats/durations.
- Cut to 40% of the time using system administration skills rather than scheduling role (30% time savings)
How did we go about finding a solution?
- Discovery and assessment -- figuring out exactly what the workflow looks like now (in terms of people, process, and systems)
- People -- do we have the right people executing? Who are the stakeholders? Is that who they should be?
- What activities are these individuals working on that isn’t adding value? For example, what is being executed that doesn’t bring 1) learning 2) development or maybe 3) revenue or however YOU define value for your org
- Let’s break out those individual activities we identified and first, look internally to solve with automation (an example where we did leverage internal resources was with a web-based candidate resource library -- so that we could stop attaching docs to every email and updating links in a zillion place, just have one link do.co/candidates)
- If nothing internally available, then go to market to see what external vendors or technology partners exist
- Vendor selection: Speak to DO philosophy on vendor selection (simple and elegant, ability to inform product design, contribute to vendor success) → this led us to Interview Schedule!
Rick’s two cents:
- Standardize a process where anyone can step in
- Assign questions to each person in the process
- Evaluate based on the company values
- Pre-schedule days for interviews
Key Takeaways:
- People, process, then systems -- nothing will work if you don’t have the right people in place
- Implementation -- making sure you think through user adoption and change management
- Metrics for success -- any time you are investing in automation ($$), making sure you have a clear vision for what success looks like
Thursday Aug 22, 2019
Thursday Aug 22, 2019
We are talking today about the importance of keeping your people informed about what hiring is taking place and allowing your people to become brand ambassadors!
The benefits of keeping your people informed are tremendous as employee referrals harness the highest ROI. Reduce time to hire (55%), Cost of Hire ($3k), improve the quality of hire by 88% and increase retention @45% (after two years).
This all starts with continually marketing internally first, then expanding outward!
Today’s Quote:
"Internal marketing is probably much more important than external marketing. That's even more true today than it's ever been."
- Tom Stewart
Guest Bio:
Angelo Ponzi is the Founder & President of The Ponzi Group. He is a marketing and branding strategist that works with small to middle-market companies as their fractional Chief Marketing Officer in defining market opportunities, developing competitive profiles, audience personas, brand realignment, and strategies, to strategic, integrated marketing plans that help businesses compete in an ever-changing marketplace.
He focuses on three strategic pillars for success: Insights, Brand, and Plan to develop effective and efficient programs for building enduring brands and sustainable business growth.
Angelo is also the host of the radio show/Podcast, Business Growth Café.
Show Highlights:
- Employment Marketing
- What is it? Why is it important
- How to Structure a solid marketing campaign
What is Employment Marketing?
- Promotion of the company’s mission, values, products/services to its own employees
Why is it important?
- Improve employee engagement
Problem
What are the challenges facing today
- In most companies, this is non-existant
- Marketing is left up to recruiting
- When it comes to marketing, companies focus externally and do not educate everyone internally.
- Internal marketing
- Creating brand ambassadors for hiring
- Everyone has a role in marketing, and need to get involved in what is happening. Get everyone to embrace what they are doing.
- Huge risk of alienating potential hires because they do not know how to market the company. Internal communication, internal operations, functionality
- Avoid potential issues
Who’s responsibility is it?
- C-suite & Marketing
- Recruiting
Rick’s Input:
- Internal referrals are your strongest source of talent
- Informed employees are continually on the lookout
- Required Talent Acquisition & Marketing collaboration
- Cultivate a referral program
- Brand messages reached 561% further when shared by employees vs the same messages shared via official brand social channels (Source: MSLGroup)
- Content shared by employees receives 8x more engagement than content shared by brand channels
Ingredients for good candidate Experience
- How to deploy an internal marketing program
- Set up a monthly meeting- internal chat or social platform to
- Get information to everyone
- Make the messaging visible as possible
- Internal email
- Exposure to marketing materials
- Educate employees on how the work they do fits into the overall business to build a better understanding of their contributions.
Steps for executing a plan - Process
- Conduct an internal survey to better understand the level of knowledge
- Develop an internal marketing plan, similar as you would for external marketing
- Empower an individual to be the internal marketing champion...not just an additional duty, but true responsibility with KPI’s
Rick’s two cents
- Align recruiting & marketing
- Cultivate a referral initiative
- Encourage promotion through social channels (Gamify)
Key Takeaways:
- Incorporate information about the company, markets and brand into the on boarding process
- Update employees at least once a quarter, if not monthly on any changes that can impact their jobs and/or give them the ability to talk about the company beyond their function
- Make sure employees are marketed to first, so they are aware of campaigns prior to the external marketing activities. This builds loyalty and inclusiveness among the staff.
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Ryan Malone: Building a High Scale, High Performing Remote Company!
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Wednesday Jul 31, 2019
Today we are talking about building a high scale remote company. Try this on for size, a 75-person company without an office! The advantages are different than you might think yet you really must be mindful of who you are hiring.
A remote workforce is a time to talent advantage not a save money advantage
Today’s Quote:
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” — Stephen Covey
Guest Bio:
Ryan Malone is the CEO of SmartBug Media, which he founded to give clients amazing results and employees a lifetime of memories. Before SmartBug, Ryan ran marketing at several venture-backed and public companies. Ryan enjoys the gym, live music, people watching, and playing terrible guitar. He lives in Orange County with his wife and two amazing daughters.
Show Highlights:
- Challenges & benefits of a remote organization
- The importance of cultural fit
- Interview structure for hiring remote employees
Challenges:
Why??
Building a business is hard enough. Why make it more difficult by building a remote business?
- Be part of the team and be part of the family
- Hire better and faster by being able to hire talent from around the country
- Only option to build the tribe
Talent Strategy:
- Recruit ahead- create a waiting list. Always interviewing.
Building a Marketing culture:
- People are bought in when they join
- Structure work culture
- Deep challenging relationships
- First people hired should be a marketing/pr person. Attract people who are already qualified to the process.
- Peer-based reference reviews prior to the interview. Inbound recruiting, skill survey
- Video submissions
Benefits of building a remote workforce:
- The talent pool is vast
- Work/ life integration-
- Flexibility
- The world will not end if you are not at your desk
Interview process:
- Inbound resume flow (into ATS)
- No headhunting
- ATS- kicks out instructions to make a video to submit
- Schedule an interview
- All video interviews, mix of behavioral interviewing
- One person focuses on skills, values, tools, cultural
- Look for Clean work environment, evidence of value, perseverance, curiosity
- Are you an additive to the culture?
Interview structure:
- A 30-minute call with everyone on the team
- Flexible work model
- Psychological permission be available for your customers/ team but the schedule
Key Takeaways:
- Hire marketing & pr first
- Use video as a screening tool
- Reference peer review early in the process
- Designate people to be experts in the interview process
- Always be interviewing
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Martin Herrington: I'm Down With H1B... Yea, You Know Me!
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Thursday Jul 25, 2019
Going old school with the title, don't judge!
STEM (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) hiring today is brutal as there are just not enough people to support the demand. Without bringing policy into the conversation we are going to tackle the challenge of how to hire around the limitations.
Today’s Quote:
"To maintain their own competitiveness, workers need to attain and stay current on the qualifications needed to advance in a constantly evolving economy." - Elaine Chao - Secretary of Transportation
Guest Bio:
An avid entrepreneur from University onward, Martin Herrington established a service industry business before graduation, partnered a real estate development company, and co-founded The Herrington Teddy Bear Company to move to the United States, creating a multinational sensation. As Chief Financial Officer and Managing General Partner, Martin was responsible for all aspects of the business including Sales, Production, HR, IT, and operations of the corporation before seeking additional challenges. Mr. Herrington holds a very distinguished record of service in non-profit organizations in Canada and the U.S. with his most recent focus growing the Youth Motivation Task Force of Orange County. An entrepreneurial graduate of the prestigious Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Commerce, Martin also advanced his education credentials into the Series 7 and Series 66 US Securities Licenses and held the Wealth Advisory Associate role with Morgan Stanley before becoming a Financial Advisor as part of his creation strategies.
Martin is currently a founding partner and Vice-President with TEKCORUS Consulting, a Recruiting & RPO Agency based in Orange County, California specializing in recruiting high tech talent Recruitment Process Outsourcing Services. Martin has been a Toastmasters International member for many years, and speaks regularly at community events, business meetings, and consistently competes in Toastmasters International speaking contests.
Show Highlights:
- What an H1 is
- The benefits & challenges to hiring
- How to effectively hire someone under H1 status
Problem:
What is an H1?
- Long Term but not permanent work authorization / visa that is sponsored by employer.
Benefits of Hiring an H1
- Already has an h1b-
- wider pool of talent
- 3rd party intervention
- Better technical skills/expertise
- Better rate
Things to be Aware?
- Beware of agents
- Lying
- Different people showing up for different parts of the interview
- H1B is looking for a path to Green Card only
Quirks of Engineers - Knowing the individual to prepare for the interview
- Biggest challenge
- -Technically sound
- -asking basic questions
- -build a database of technical questions
How to sniff out the quirks, personality & culture fit
- Problem lies where
- Creating the right environment for an interview
- Knowing enough about your clients to be able to properly prepare candidates for interviews
Rick’s Input:
- Hire people who are already holding an H1b- Transfer
- Timing is S L O W - elimination of premium processing
Steps to Hire H1’s
First step - Go over resumes
- Watch for duplication - some resumes look too “familiar” or even identical!
- Look for excessively long resumes - ie. filled with same info. at each job experience
Second Step - initial phone call - screening for good communication skills - can be a challenge and if you cannot understand them, then your client or the team will likely not be able to either
- Go over each job experience by asking what they did and what technologies were used - making sure that it matches the resume, dates, etc.
- Listen for delays or background talking; candidate should know all details her/himself
- Confirm relocation details - do they have friends/family in New City; what is the likelihood that they will actually show up in New City? (ie. verify “Relocation Anywhere” and vet out tire kickers.
Third step - in-person or Skype interview
- Making sure the same person from phone call shows up for the in-person/Skype
- If by Skype - Watch for lip syncing, other people in the room speaking or signalling;
- Screening for communication,
Fourth step - get commitment for duration of contract;
- If necessary, contact Agency holding Visa to confirm
Rick’s two cents
- Communicate!
- No assumptions
Key Takeaways:
- Be diligent in your communications
- Find out Visa details; request copies of Visa/paperwork; allow extra time!
- Coach candidates through interview process
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Lorraine Ladd: Learning Your ABC's. Always Be reCruiting!
Friday Jul 05, 2019
Friday Jul 05, 2019
That's right people, today we are talking about our ABC’s!
The reality of the talent market. Creativity and Contact are the keys to winning talent. We are going to clue you in on where the gold nuggets are and why you are missing out on great people.
Today’s Quote:
"Great vision without great people is irrelevant." - Jim Collins - Author: Good to Great, Built to Last
Guest Bio:
Lorraine Ladd is the Associate Director of Talent Acquisition for alliantgroup.
She is an experienced sales and Talent Acquisition executive with a demonstrated history of working in the staffing and recruiting industry. Strong professional skilled in Customer Acquisition, Sales, Executive Search, Customer Relationship and Executive Coaching. Lorraine started her career while in college in radio and was a successful radio morning show personality before deciding to go into the world of staffing and recruiting.
Show Highlights:
- Why you should always be recruiting
- The Truth about responding to your job postings
- Where to find great people now!
Problem:
Bold Statement: Recruiting is easier today than it ever has been!
Why is it important to be continuously recruiting?
Creative ways to recruit talent
- Not enough talent - Why?
- Low unemployment, not tapping into the right pools
- Active candidates
The Truth: where you are missing people … about responding to Ads
- There really is enough talent, people are just not tapping into it
- A lot of people that are out of work 50-65 can't really find a job as a white male.
- Perception: Less flexible , set in their ways
Rick’s Input:
- Requirements are FLEXIBLE
- Look for reasons to screen people IN
- My experiment…. Sent out resumes
Solutions:
Where to find good people now?
- Unexpected places to recruit talent
- Retail, cold calling, conferences
- Using every tactic you can
- Pick off the 50-65 talent pool
Rick’s Answer
- You are missing the people closest to you
- Applicants, former applicants, former employees
- Target Passive Talent
- Requires different positioning
- All about “what’s in it for them”
Key Takeaways:
- Always be Recruiting
- Hire people, not roles
- Network
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Thursday Jun 27, 2019
Engagement!
Well, not the type of engagement you might be thinking of.
Engagement in the business sense. Employee engagement is the one critical element that leads to the success of your business! Which I believe starts from the first point of contact with your organization… yes before someone is hired!
Today’s Quote:
“Not what you say, not what you do but how you make people feel.” - Maya Angelou
Guest Bio:
Steve Higginbotham is the Branch Manager of Volt Workforce Solutions. As an executive business partner and inclusive leader, Steve brings two decades’ of experience leading organizational transformations with leading companies. Changing the way Staffing Companies engage with their customers is vital. Having a deep connection with your business and an inclusive approach will continue to add value through a Total Talent Management partnership. Steve has expertise in Technical Recruiting, Business Development, Technology Consulting and Human Capital Solutions. He continues to deliver immense value to companies and business leaders through his strategic partnerships. Steve believes in a customer service approach for business success.
Steve has experience leading multiple types of organizations from Fortune 100, mid-market, private equity, & VC backed start-ups. In addition, Steve has developed 15 different divisions within eight different businesses while managing large business units & increasing enterprise accounts. His track record includes leading, coaching, mentoring and developing people into highly successful business leaders.
Steve has spent his career aligning business professionals with career opportunities. The value that he brings to companies identify with their strengths and opportunities for growth. Steve's experience coaching individuals helps improve communication. He has also conducted numerous presentations to board members and C-Level professionals with highly respected clients and industry associations.
A people oriented leader who drives business collaborative to maximize team performance while mentoring & coaching individuals through aligned approaches to achieve desired results.
Show Highlights:
- What Engagement is, what it isn’t
- Why engagement is critical today
- How to engage people to create emotional attachment!
What is engagement and why is it important? Engagement
- How you communicate with your company
Hiring managers - I want to hire the best talent, retain top talent
- What happens in the middle from what you want vs what you are getting
The company gave 3 hours of training, no orientation, on the job training.
- Employees responsibility - Who owns engagement??
Problem
3 sides of the engagement - Who’s responsibility is it these days
- If a person is not engaged correctly, they are going to bounce quickly… first 30 days.
- The company needs to train leaders to be better leaders
- The dual partnership between the company's & managers
People leave quickly or they stay and are just there because of the paycheck
Belief in mission, vision values.
Outlining issues that you cannot control
- Employee: losing engagement with the job… nothing more that is being contributed
Rick’s Thoughts
- Engagement starts with your job posting, email or phone call
- Critical in attraction & retention
- When you care, you win
Human Contact is the key
- 1:75 people call back.
- There has to be a personal approach.
Steps to maximize engagement
- Sources are not recruiters…
- Everyone with at least relevant experience NEED to be called
- train recruiters on what needs to be asked
- Discuss career worth
- Poor career planning. No mentoring, support or growth
Once they start:
- Not scaling back on your onboarding process
- Social media posts are not onboarding
- Clearly, have a process
Train your recruiters
- What information to gather
- The importance of a conversation
- Reward finding gold nuggets!
- Create a hiring bonus for people who were passed over because of a resume but are actually good
Pick up the phone and call people!
Key Takeaways:
- Differentiate yourself from the standard hiring process
- Create a structured and standardized interview process
- Train your employees to be Talent minded
Remember in engagement – how you make the candidate feel is more important – please be genuine in your approach, efforts and ensure timely and responsive feedback – always
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Ken Middleton: Thank You for Ghosting Me During Your Interview Process
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Thursday Jun 13, 2019
Ghosting has come full circle now that it is a talent-driven market! There is no excuse for ghosting someone on either end of the hiring spectrum. It is a vicious circle that just breeds ill will.
Frankly, as a recruiter, company ghosting helps us to lure your best people out of your company.
Why do companies engage in such behavior? We are going to figure that out today!
Today’s Quote:
Your brand is your public identity, what you're trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.
Lisa Gansky
- She was the co-founder and CEO of Global Network Navigator, the first commercial website, which was acquired by America Online
Our guest today: Ken Middleton, DevOps Recruiter of yourdevopsrecruiter.com
Ken M. Middleton spent 10 years working for the largest IT staffing company in the world before deciding it was time to bet on himself. He started YOUR DevOps Recruiter to focus on connecting the best DevOps candidates to the best DevOps companies while evangelizing DevOps to the masses.
One way he accomplishes this is through his YouTube channel, The Dhub Repository, in which he posts weekly DevOps career tips, rants on what bugs him about the recruiting industry, and interviews DevOps SME's on different DevOps topic, in a segment known as DevOps Defined.
I have heard Ken rant about ghosting which is what makes him a perfect guest for today’s show!
Today we are going to cover
- What Causes Ghosting?
- How to Stop Ghosting
What is the problem?
- Clients ghosting candidates.
- No feedback or super slow feedback after long extended amounts of time with no updates along the way.
Why might companies’ ghost?
- Litigation fears
- Running too fast to pay attention
- Just lazy, inconsiderate or Arrogant …
What are the causes?
- HR representatives being overworked with numerous positions.
- Not considering quick and timely feedback is important to the candidate experience.
- Not have a clean process in place to follow up with ALL candidates, not just the ones they want to hire.
- Not giving a sh*t about candidates who they don't want to hire and just letting it fall by the wayside b/c of a feeling of superiority and snootiness towards candidates that apply to them. (i.e. they came to us for a job, right?)
Rick’s Two Cents
- Communication
- Ghosting occurs on the company side when companies are unsure about a person.
- Interviewers do not know the right questions to ask, how to dig so they did not gather enough evidence to make a decision.
- The key indicator of a bad hiring process.
- No clear structure on the information that needs to be extracted
- Without direction, people fall back on what they know.
Side Note: Your Bad Glassdoor reviews are a recruiter's best friend… How to treat people interviewing at your company
Solutions
- Stop having your HR representative work on so many positions at one time - Prioritize what's important...not what you MIGHT need down the road or later.
- Create an automated process to respond to applicants - There are CRM's that have this functionality where you can send multiple emails to candidates. Avionte, what I use, is able to do this.
- Create a better follow up process for quick feedback - Schedule the feedback meeting within 24 hours of the interview. Don't let it happen by chance. It needs to be planned and everyone has to understand the importance of it.
- Create standards for feedback to all candidates and an update process/rhythm - Just because you don't have an answer doesn't mean you shouldn't communicate with your candidates. At least once a week is a good rhythm that will keep them engaged and protect your company's brand to not be a "ghoster."
- Give a sh*t - Not Just because it's the right thing to do but because it protects/helps your company's brand and ability to recruit in the future. Understand that feedback is part of the candidate experience (some would argue the most important since primacy and recency (first and last) is often what people remember about most experiences)
Rick’s Process to eliminate ghosting
- Eliminate the transactional mentality
- Protect your company brand
- Understand the Reality of the Talent Market
- Breed the right culture
- Communication, gather feedback quickly *** Realtime Feedback!!
- Process for quick decision making & feedback
- Lead person monitoring the interview (founder, HR, Recruiter, Admin)
- Build in Knock-Out questions
- Debrief each interviewer as they exit the interview. (Max 10 minutes) - add that to the managers calendar
- Evidence to support a “No”
- If they dont pass the knockout, let them go
Key Takeaways
- Feedback (good or bad) is super important to candidates and if you want to attract the best talent and protect your company brand you need to get great at delivering this in a timely manner.
- This doesn't happen unless you make it a priority as part of your candidate experience process, and if you don't think you have a process, you actually do and I'm pretty sure it's BAD.
- We all need to CARE more. Looking for a job is sometimes one of the hardest and most difficult times in someone's life, and we need to treat people with that in mind in relations to our interactions, as opposed to just focusing on fill another job for your company.
Thursday May 30, 2019
Thursday May 30, 2019
Attention comparison shoppers... waiting to see a “few more people” to compare before deciding to hire? Bad Idea, Time kills hires!
Riddling your interviews with randomly placed hurdles is just madness. Making the interview process challenging is essential but there is a correct order to the journey you create. Each step in your interviewing process must be intentional.
Today we are going to help you bring order to your interview process.
Today’s Quote:
"Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But it's even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul."
- Ann Voskamp
Guest Bio:
With the resurgence of Big Data and AI, Shane Bernstein realized the tools needed to scale the effective outreach approach were finally available! His C-level customers were continuously frustrated with no viable and consistent solution, and unable to build the teams they needed in order to have the global impact each of their businesses required. So Shane founded Rolebot.
Utilizing the power of AI, he and his team have developed software enabling companies and staffing firms to reach their goals and measure ROI. As a result, Rolebot eliminates the way in which we traditionally pre-qualify talent, from days/weeks to seconds, and increases recruitment output and engagement results by 10x.
Show Highlights:
- What is making it impossible to hire Great people
- Over Interviewing- How much is too much
- Efficient Solution to come to a decision quickly
Problem:
Over interviewing is a direct result of Not having a solid hiring Structure
- Clarity of Intention
- Clarity of Values, Cultural & Skills Alignment
- Not Knowing how to ask the RIGHT Questions to gather clear evidence to support a decision
Where are the Obstacles?
Over interviewing makes it harder to get the hire.
- Timing (time kills placements)
- Too much time kills interest.
- Time allows time for competitors to steal… not an if, but a when
- Feedback channel
HR prescreens
- HR assesses for culture fit.
- The Team should screen for culture, not HR
- Take home assignments- Give BEFORE you get… mentality
- Pre-screen is a big waste of time.
What is Over Interviewing?
Reality vs. Perception
- Comparison Shopping
- Hurdles - Mindset Issue (You are not the only pretty girl in the bar)
- Demonstrates weak leadership
- Feedback channel. Is slow when the process is slow
****people hire on gut feeling…
Rick’s Input
- Why? Company does NOT have a strong interview structure
- Treat each person as though they are your Only option!
Solutions
The Set Up
- Recruiter - recruit & ask questions
- Is the recruiter/hiring manager bringing value?
- Manipulate time to gain accepted offers
- Someone needs to own the process
Interview Process
Two step process
Phone interview - lead, manager (not recruiter or HR)
- Credentials
- Technical skills assessment
- Skills-based conversation run by a team member
Onsite
- Get it done in 1 day… do not bring them back
- Has to be vesting on both sides.
- Have a hiring team & a process in play
- Put the decision makers and the people who will have to work closely with them
- Make sure the people can sell the position & the company
- Be able to sell: Why should I take this role?
Rick’s Input
- What’s in it for me???
- Phone Interview Establish -Why, Cultural Alignment, Impact
- Point person (CEO, Founder, Recruiter (not a farmer)
- Onsite
- Timed
- Structured (3-5 person Interview team)
- Challenging
- Knock Out Questions- aligned with Core Values
- A decision in 24 hours!
Key Takeaways:
- Assess the current process, does it align with the current marketplace, what ROI does each component bring, what is % of rejected offers, etc…
- Figure out what must stay, what can be omitted, or moved around and integrated
- The goal is to strike the right balance for your organization
Thursday May 23, 2019
Marinela Gombosev: An Alternate Route for a Startup to Hire Salespeople
Thursday May 23, 2019
Thursday May 23, 2019
Alternative ways to hire salespeople when your company is getting started. Sales are the lifeblood of a company but what do you do when you need to grow revenue but have a limited budget? You get creative. Today we are talking about an interesting alternative to driving sales in the form of Independent sales reps.
Today’s Quote:
"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, 'Make me feel important.' Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life." - Mary Kay Ash
Guest Bio:
Marinela Gombosev is the President & COO of Evoke Neuroscience, a commercial-stage diagnostic company focusing on early detection of Alzheimer’s and other dementias with a vision of ultimately eradicating dementia. Marinela is a roll up the sleeves leader who strives to work across all levels of the organization, lead from a place of authenticity, and effectively represent the company to its clients, partners and investors.
Over 50,000 patients have been assessed using Evoke’s technology and under Marinela’s leadership, the company has twice been ranked in the Inc. 500|5000 fastest-growing private companies.
Show Highlights:
- The good bad & ugly of hiring independent sales reps
- How to hire them in the most efficient manner
Problem:
Why hire Independent sales reps?
Independent manufactures reps?
- Upside
- No money to spend, a great way to get growth
- Don't pay anything until they close a deal
- Fast
- Rephuner.net
- Downside
- Control or visibility
- Way to monitor, don't want to be managed
- Misunderstand the product, regulations, Get burned a lot
- Can put you in a legal liability
- Misrepresentation of contacts & skills
Solutions
How do you hire them?
- Dirty secret: You are buying their relationships
- Hiring because they are trained. Many are pretty bad. Where she has been successful are the ones with relationships. Once they sell their relationships.
- Similar types of products.
- Who are your call points? Personal network? Other reps that work with you?
- Place an ad and make sure profile is written for reps
- Who are you selling to, what are you selling, how much $ am I going to make
Schedule call
- Evaluate call points
- Level of interest
- Product Understanding
- Amount of time they can invest
- How many other clients they have
- Where am I on the priority scale
Hire
- Sign NDA
- Disclose comp plan
- Sales rep agreement
Comprehensive Training Plan
- On boarding program & test
- Access to all the training materials
Rules
- No exclusive territories
- Lead registration program / lead protection
- Demo product
- Short term play once the network is exhausted they usually burn out
- Internal expertise helps to close leads
- *One to Two phone call hire
- 3-4 hour time investment per person
- Product margins to support it
- A revolving door of recruiting. Have to constantly recruit
- Need 50 because most of them are not selling
- 80/20 rule
- *** Prepare for a love/hate relationship
Thursday May 09, 2019
Lee Caraher: Boomerang Hires Knock Out All Others!
Thursday May 09, 2019
Thursday May 09, 2019
Is it a good or bad idea to hire former employees back? In today's job market, people may exit a company to experience life at a startup, change industry, or even go back to school. So why would you have a no-return policy?
Jack Dorsey left Twitter to found Square between his two stints as CEO of Twitter. And Steve Jobs was a boomerang hire. We need to start treating departing employees as future brand ambassadors, potential customers, hiring references, and even boomerang — returning employees.
Today’s Quote:
"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
- Nelson Mandela
Guest Bio:
Lee McEnany Caraher is the founder and CEO of Double Forte PR & Digital Marketing, a 15-year-old national agency that works with beloved and up- and-coming consumer,technology, and wine brands. An acclaimed communication strategist, Lee is known for her practical solutions to big problems. Lee has a reputation for building cohesive, high- producing teams who get a lot done well and have fun at the same time. She is a straight talker who doesn't hold too many punches, although she does her best to be pleasant about it. Her big laugh and sense of humor have gotten her out of a lot of trouble.
The author of Millennials & Management: The Essential Guide to Making it Work at Work, Lee based the book on her experience with epically failing and then succeeding at retaining Millennials in her business. Her second book, The Boomerang Principle:Inspiring Lifetime Loyalty From Employees, published in 2017, is a pragmatic and actionable guide to creating high-performing work cultures ready for the future (available on Amazon).
Lee is a popular guest expert on leadership, intergenerational workplaces, public relations, crisis communications, social media and integrated marketing. She splits her time between San Francisco and New York City, and puts her medieval history degree to work every day.
Show Highlights:
- What a boomerang hire is
- Why you should absolutely integrate this practice into your talent acquisition process
- How to acquire boomerang hires
Problem:
Why would you hire someone again?
- If they come back to you it means they liked it there
- Not going to hire them for the same job
- They will be even more valuable to your company the second time bring something of value to your company
- Take less time for them to come up to speed 2-4 months (up to 12 months for new hires)
- Boomerangs are the highest performing hires at google
- More than 45% of millennials say they would absolutely return to a former employer
What would make someone eligible for rehire?
- Anyone who leaves in good standing
- Building loyalty beyond employment
Rick’s Input
- Already familiar with the culture
- Boomerang trend pioneered by millennials
- Rehires are less risky-
- would not choose over someone outstanding (rockstar)
- The decision should be made based on the exit interview
Solutions:
Mindset:
Understanding why people left
- Take a long view
When they leave
- Be happy for them
- Never counter
- Ask “how can I help you?”
Steps to create a re-hire program:
Create a program or environment - keep in touch with the people who left on their own volition
- Set up an Alumni program (company run) facebook group (not a Linkedin group)
- Content engagement
Keep the universe up to speed with what you are doing….media relations
- Birthday card
- Share wins
Interaction… stay close to the universe of potential
Hiring- share new roles with the alumni group letting them know that hey can came back.
How is Onboarding different?
Rick’s Input:
- Why did people leave in the first place
- One survey found 70% of employees say job related training and development opportunities — or lack thereof — impacted their decision to stay at their job.
- Growth & training
- Leadership does not have their back
- Trust - transparency, communication, investment (not perks)
- Consider re-hiring people who left due to a poor leader (toxic executive)
Key Takeaways
- If we aren’t open to hiring former employees you are SHRINKING your potential talent pool of great employees
- Everyone who leaves you can hurt you or help you. Do everything you can to let them help you! Help you find new employees, help you spread the word, help you find good partners.
- Take the long view – your business will be BETTER all the way around if your employees are loyal to you – NOT because you pay them but because they WANT to. And then every time someone leaves the company you are actually GROWING your footprint not shrinking it.
Wednesday May 01, 2019
Mitch Balzer: Comparison Shopping has No Place in Your Hiring Process!
Wednesday May 01, 2019
Wednesday May 01, 2019
Not making a decision quickly is one of the biggest mistakes a hiring manager makes. Often the fear of making the wrong hiring decision leaves people in limbo and ultimately turns them off from working at your company.…....Wanting to see a “comparison candidate” is a clear indicator of a broken interview process!
Today’s Quote:
"Passion provides purpose, but data drives decisions." - Andy Dunn - CEO of Bonobos
Guest Bio:
Mitch Balzer is the Co-Founder & Executive Vice President of Agema Technology Inc, an Orange County based Professional Services focusing on enterprise business systems like Oracle and SAP, Virtualization, and IT Security. Since starting Agema in 2012 he has overseen many of the Fortune 500 clients in the Information Technology, Government, Insurance, Finance, Utilities and Oil & Gas industries ultimately delivering a 77th ranking on the Inc. 500. Prior to Agema, Mitch started his career with a national, publicly-traded technical services firm rising quickly through the ranks. In 2002 he helped start another staffing company driving revenue and delivering a top 100 Inc. 500 ranking before departing to cofound Agema. Mitch Balzer and Agema also hold a Secret Clearance.
Show Highlights:
- The Comparison Syndrome
- Why this is detrimental to your business
- How to structure your process to avoid this costly mistake
Problem:
Why is this important? FEAR
- Fear of a bad hire for a mid-level manager.
- Want to see another resume, comparison candidate
- **Making a decision on the hire - biggest mistake a hiring manager makes!
- Setting expectations- pre-commitment, you trial close a candidate (at least you should be) when you have them interview by asking will you take this job if offered? You need to do the same with the hiring managers, if a great candidate that fits X, Y, and Z comes in tomorrow can you offer them the job right away?
- Ham & Egg - one good resume with one the recruiter knows isn’t a great fit
- Resources
Why this is Bad for your business?
- Ramifications of waiting – time kills all hires
- Outcome - sent lesser people
- Prioritization of the roles – your openings will be a much lower priority whether its an external or internal recruiter
Rick’s Input
- Stalling the process kills Momentum, Interest & Engagement
- Result of poor planning
- Defining “WHO” is needed
- The reason you are unsure is due to the poor interview techniques/process
- Gathering the right EVIDENCE in the interview
Solutions:
How to Structure for a decision
- Who has the ultimate authority to make the decision?
- Disconnect in communication and should be involved in the process
- Clearly defined process. Get commitment to timelines on resume review, interview scheduling/process, and feedback and final decisions on a candidate.
- Feedback channel (ghosting)
- Pulling the trigger! Close, Close, Close
Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die -Tom Delaney… you all want the best candidate but you can’t be afraid of making a decision.
- If you are not sure… try contract to hire or hourly w2 consultants
- Don’t treat people like everyone else. Keep it tailored to the individual
- As a recruiter or service provider ask your clients what turns you off and then make sure you don’t’ do that?
- Also, make sure you know how you can provide the most value to them.
Rick’s Input
- Mindset:
- Approach each person with Intention to Hire
- Only Choice
- Easier to say Yes than No
- Plan & Know what you need
- Structure the interview to surface:
- Cultural / Values alignment
- Evidence of transferable accomplishments/impact
- Skills
- Behavioral interview structure to make a data-driven decision
- Communicate: pace, timing & what happens next
- Unsure?... follow up call to address the issue (next day)
Key Takeaways
- The harsh reality is that all sales/hiring processes have a cadence. If you have properly qualified your target, and then stay within that cadence, there is a reasonable chance you’ll get to “yes.” But if not, you are almost certainly going to, eventually, get to “no.”
Friday Apr 26, 2019
Diane Lee: Interviewing Etiquette Brings Out the Truth
Friday Apr 26, 2019
Friday Apr 26, 2019
No longer can you, Mr. Hiring manager, get away with bad behavior in an interview and think you will be able to hire the person across the desk from you. When your offer gets turned down and you think it was because of a higher offer, know that was probably not the case. It’s you, not me!
Today’s Quote:
"Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential." - Will Cupp
Guest Bio:
Diane Lee is a foremost expert in providing professionals, specifically millennial workers, with the business etiquette best practices needed to successfully present themselves in the workforce. Diane founded Street Smart Etiquette in 2011 to empower millennials beyond the theoretical, offering hands-on workshops and individualized etiquette courses to help them master business soft skills, and ultimately achieve career success. She has conducted business etiquette classes on California State University campuses at Fullerton, Long Beach and Northridge, along with El Camino, Long Beach and Pasadena community colleges. Diane has been a featured speaker for many Los Angeles and Orange County community, civic and business organizations.
This venture builds on Diane’s successful career in journalism and business marketing. After graduating from California State University, Long Beach, with a degree in public relations and business, Diane made a career in Maui, Hawaii, where she played many roles in the hospitality industry and television, and was a freelance writer. In the consumer food product industry, Diane expanded the production and distribution of many Hawaiian brands throughout the Pacific Rim and western United States, and achieved millions in annual sales for her clients.
After relocating back to the Los Angeles/Orange County area in 2008, Diane found herself at the Disneyland Resort, where she discovered her passion for training and development in the Guest Relations department. That’s where the light bulb went off and the urgent need for interpersonal communication skills was identified. Diane earned her credentials as a certified trainer at The Protocol School of Washington, and is also a certified training designer through the Association of Talent Development (formerly ASTD).
Show Highlights:
- Why it is important to develop your interviewing etiquette
- Provide a checklist on what to do first
Problem:
Why is this important?
- The market is demanding it
- Evidenced by turn downs
How should you treat people in the interview?
- How do you get someone in the right mindset for your interview
- Get people comfortable
- Mindset: get the best out of the person by giving them the most
- Charismatic listing
- Good first impression & look credible
- Duschene smile - smile with your eyes!
- Offer a drink of water
- Be punctual:
- Discuss & contrast - 10 minute cutoff
- Story Bad experience:
- Kept waiting 45 minutes & had Dodger game on the whole time
Rick’s Input
- The people you are trying to recruit are the decision makers (Sellers Market)
- An accurate picture of what daily life is really like. Own your culture
- Be present
Solutions:
How does a hiring manager use Etiquette to their advantage?
Here is a checklist of what to do to maximize your interview experience.
- Greeting
- Personal presentation- etiquette is making the other person feel comfortable
- An air of credibility, one chance to make a first impression
- Remember the person’s name
- 5 minutes of small talk
- Ease the nerves
- Then get into the meat of the conversation
- Art of listening- leaning into the conversation
- Your Physical Cues
- Body posture, body language,
- 70% of people fail the interview due to lack of eye contact & smiling
- Charisma- everyone should walk out feeling like they really want to work for you
- Setting the person up for success - preparation, sending email re Parking.
Rick’s Input
- Approach each interview with Candor & Curiosity
- Hiring manager needs to set the example by being prepared
- No cell phone
Key Takeaways:
- Prepare for the interview, read & organize your info & questions. Check your personal presentation
- Make a genuine smile, positive body language, eye contact and active listening techniques automatic habits
- Get the most out of your time by ensuring the candidate is comfortable and you are relaxed & focused
- Set your candidate up for success with appt details, beyond time and place, such as expectations, as well as, traffic & parking tips to alleviate pre-interview stress
Thursday Apr 18, 2019
David Ferguson: Do Personality Assessments Create Lazy Interviews?
Thursday Apr 18, 2019
Thursday Apr 18, 2019
Do personality assessment tests really work? We are going to discuss the why, when & how to give assessment tests. Personally, I am not a big fan because they do nothing to develop the human connection which is so important in today’s hiring landscape.
Today’s Quote:
"Body language and tone of voice - not words - are our most powerful assessment tools." - Christopher Voss
Guest Bio:
Founder and original software developer, David Ferguson, was born into a manufacturing family by virtue of his father, the owner/operator of a fabrication job shop that still operates today. Now, with over 25 years of experience working in and writing software for the fabrication industry, David is considered an expert in the job shop arena. A sought-after speaker, he has consulted with numerous manufacturing companies around the globe, guiding them to become more efficient and cost-effective.
In the early 80’s, David created and sold his first computer program, Arrow Data Systems, a CAD/CAM system for the Apple IIe computer. During this time, he observed his father coming home late each night, only to begin the estimating process for his shop. David saw an opportunity to automate the estimating process using technology. As a result, the “Quote It” estimating package was born, becoming one of the leading sheet metal estimating packages in the world. Shortly thereafter, wanting to expand its capabilities, David developed the FabriTRAK Production Control Package. Over the years, it had been licensed to both METALSOFT and Amada America.
By the end of 2007, David had regained control of all FabriTRAK licensing agreements, completely re-wrote its production control offering, creating MIE Trak Pro. MIE Trak Pro is a state-of-the-art ERP system ideally suited to manufacturing businesses. It was designed to accommodate most production cycles and optimize the capabilities of repetitive, custom, quick-turn, and mixed mode operations. To launch his newly optimized program, he partnered with Don Clutter and founded MIE Solutions.
Since its inception, MIE Solutions has grown over 500 percent. In addition to North American sales and support locations, MIE Solutions operates offices in Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.
Show Highlights:
- Are personality assessments worth the time?
- What are the true results you can expect
Problem
- Personality Assessment Tests - Why should they be given
- Measuring against what you are looking for in a person.
- personality, Based on traits they think will be successful.
- Screening tool
- Do they damage the personal connection?
- Cultivate the transactional relationship?
- Create a lazy interview process?
- What if you are wrong about the traits?
- Judge against the company values?
Rick’s Input
- Assessments are not an identification tool
- The best tool is still a conversation
- Assessments are Transactional
- If used too early in the process, kills the human connection
- Personality traits do not ensure a successful hire
- Great to tell you how to manage after they have been hired!
Solutions
- Order in which tests should be given & Why?
- When should tests be given
- For skills, onsite after talking to a live human and engaged
- For personality, at the end.
- How should they be given
PXT test - cultural fit
Provides more confidence in the hire.
- Felt confident in a hire even though the personal side was not as clear
- Additive to what they feel they can do
- Flags people who give contradictory answers
Willingness to take the extra step has really amplified the level of quality and the people they hired
Results for David’s company
- Lower attrition
- Better employee treatment based on their understanding of the individuals
- Management tools for the tenure of the employee
- The exam is essentially the behavioral test?
Rick’s Input
- To Judge against a cultural fit, you must know your corporate values first!
- HUGE mistake - when company’s use it too early in the interview process.
- Must have a person emotionally engaged first
Key Takeaways:
- The assessment is just another tool in your arsenal
- If you are not comfortable with it, don't hire the person (rash decision)
- Don’t be rushed. Hiring is not an emergency
Friday Apr 05, 2019
Friday Apr 05, 2019
Diversity & Inclusion is critical to your company’s success but it is not a strategy. Here’s why... D&I needs to be built into the DNA of your company instead of being treated with kid gloves. Besides, hiring like-minded people is bad for business!
Today’s Quote:
"Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same." - Angelina Jolie
About the Guest:
Mike “Batman” Cohen is the Founder of Wayne Technologies, a recruitment training and search firm. Mike has over a decade of experience placing technologists, recruiters, and business development professionals, and has conducted training for Corporate and Agency Recruiters.
Throughout his career he’s learned several things that he’s committed to paying forward:
- We can’t make it on our own - we need community
- There is no “secret sauce” - we should be sharing our skills, tips, tricks, etc. openly
- Data is extremely important
- Being a good human is more important than data
He has worked with a diverse group of clients ranging from GIPHY, Spotify, TripAdvisor, Digital Asset, MacDonald Miller, etc.
He contributes articles to SourceCon, has a chair in the Program Committee with ATAP, helps run SourceHouston, and is a Brand Ambassador for ERE.
Mike has spoken at:
- Talent42 (June 2019)
- TechRecruit Los Angeles (July 2019)
- TechRecruit Chicago (September 2019)
- HireConf (October 2019)
- HRTX Dallas
- RecruitCon
- ATAP Webinars
- TalentNet
- SourceHouston
- ERE
- HR Houston
- Scala Up North
- Scala.io
Show Highlights:
- Why Diversity & Inclusion is not a strategy
- How to embed diversity into your Company's DNA while staying true to your company values
Problem:
Why is Diversity & Inclusion such a hot topic?
-
- Diverse communities are growing and matriculating faster than any other
- Organizations are realizing that diverse thought doesn’t just come from people who went to different schools or studied different subjects, it comes from background, upbringing, etc.
- We all want females, minorities & orientations.
- Candidates are placing a large focus on organizations that put a value on D&I - if you want the best candidates - this is one of the things that’s important to them!
Why is this important to organizations?
- Are we hiring because of D&I to check off boxes?
- Shouldn’t we be looking deeper into diversity of thought rather than physical characteristics?
- Hiring people who are different from you and are included in your culture
Shouldn't we just be concerned with hiring the best person?
- Just start hiring people who make you uncomfortable
- Embrace the differences
- Hiring like minded people is bad for business
What about the alignment of core corporate values?
- Define corporate culture.
Solutions:
If Diversity & Inclusion isn’t a strategy, how do we accomplish it?
- You don't want to hire someone just because they are a certain classification
- It has to go beyond “skin deep” - this isn’t about the way someone looks, it’s about integrating all different walks of life or trains of thought or images into your brand.
- Not to diversify to make things different, but to create a culture where diversity is the norm - that is how you create inclusion
- The desire to have different people is not a business strategy
- It is a top-down mind-set as to how the business operates and what it considers important, successful, and a good fit
- Vetting issue- how does one determine who the best person is. Not the values or mission
- Grey area- Defining the gray area or you will fail.
- Focus for cultural alignment vs skills
- Perks that attract like-minded people, like Ping pong and foosball tables & kegerators, reduce D&I.
- The Strategies to achieving D&I are merely the execution of a goal.
- Companies aren’t built on strategies - they are built on vision and mission - Strategy is simply how we get there - is your company built on top of a foundation (mission and vision) that doesn’t celebrate diversity, but instead values it as a competitive advantage?
- These values and mission themselves should come with a very diverse perspective.
- The more avenues of thought the quicker and higher quality it will take you to that mission.
Rick’s two cents:
What should be your strategy?
- Hire People who perform
- Hire People who bring different perspectives
- Hire People who will challenge you
Key Takeaways:
- D&I isn’t a strategy, it’s a business mindset
- Dissonance is a good thing! Just be respectful
- Diversity is a mindset, Inclusion is turning that mindset into the norm
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Special Event: Erik Huberman from TiECon SoCal
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Friday Mar 29, 2019
Erik Huberman, Founder and CEO of Hawke Media, Managing Director of Nest Equity Partners, and Operating Partner of Arrowroot Capital Management
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Special Event: Beerud Sheth from TiECon SoCal
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Thursday Mar 28, 2019
Beerud Sheth, Co-Founder and CEO of Gupshup
Thursday Mar 21, 2019
Ernie Basulto: Non-Verbal Clues to Discover the Truth in the Interview
Thursday Mar 21, 2019
Thursday Mar 21, 2019
Non-verbal communication and digging for clues to get to the root of who people really are. 93% of our communication is delivered non-verbally. Extracting the correct information starts with your openness and then observing how things unfold.
Today we are going to hone your ability to read people better in an interview!
Today’s Quote
"You don't have to tell me what your limits are when the decisions you make, your actions and body language says it all."
Show Guest
Ernie Basulto developed an early interest in cultural and human relations as he grew up in two separate countries. He was inspired by his father to develop the ongoing needs of the Hispanic workforce, and has done so by providing support and guidance to both business leaders and employees throughout his 26-year tenure in Human Resources. Ernie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from the University of Phoenix.
Recently, Ernie was a Senior Human Resources Business Partner at the 5th largest retail mortgage lender in the nation, and is currently the Director of Human Resources at Antis Roofing & Waterproofing. At Antis he provides leadership in all aspects of HR including hiring practices, establishes company culture, and guides employees to find their Purpose at work.
Episode Highlights
- How to build rapport
- Reading verbal and nonverbal cues (body language)
Problem
Focus on “Skills” clouds our vision so we misread people. Why is this such a problem? First, we need to get people comfortable in a manner that is congruent with your environment
- Open interaction
- Ask a Basic question: walk me through your resume to gather a baseline.
- Settle the nerves, get comfortable
- Observe & Mirror to build rapport
- Listening to them
- Experience questions where they tell him stories to evaluate thought process, how the person treats others, react under stress. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they tell a story
- Depends on the type of role they are hiring for.. Look for little signs, hints
- Example: story- stories focused on complaining about their company throughout the story. Pivot into what did you do to fix the problem. Tone of arrogance. He released him from the process and gave him the feedback.
Solutions
How do we structure the interview and what should we be looking for?
- Opening question to behavioral
- Company values, requirements of the position, Fit with the team (cultural fit)
- Hiring Manager > on occasion they meet with the team.
- So important at all levels, especially where you are exposed.
- Raising the bar on performance
Reading Body language
- What to look for?
- Depends on your culture/environment
- Positive body language
- Body Language flags
Rick's Points
- Be Aware of your own body language! Open & Positive
- Past nervousness, fear & discomfort
- Important to make people comfortable first
- Get past
- Mirroring- Unconscious sometimes
- person trying too hard to build rapport
- Shoulder movements communicate emotions
- Positioning & movement
- Uncertain or lying -slow rise - lack confidence
- Extreme behaviors- pay attention
Key Takeaways
- Observe & Mirror
- Get past the nerves
- Shoulder movement tells all!
Thursday Mar 07, 2019
Tevis Trower: Re-Humanizing the Interview Process By Shifting Our Language
Thursday Mar 07, 2019
Thursday Mar 07, 2019
We don't hire for human competency but for skill set. Our language is inhuman in spite of the very real experience of working with HUMANS. People want Connection and Authentic Interaction. We need to understand What makes you, you?
Today’s Quote:
“Learn everything humanly possible about everyone you do business with." -Harvey Mackay (Swim with the Sharks)
Show Guest:
CEO of Balance Integration Corporation | Advocate for Corporate Culture & Employee Engagement
Tevis Trower is a pioneer in optimizing corporate cultures. Heralded in bestselling Megatrends 2010 as “corporate mindfulness guru for the new millennium”, Tevis has assisted powerful organizations ranging from Disney to Morgan Stanley in optimizing their most precious assets: human beings. She has created and facilitated global executive immersions for prestigious organizations including Harvard Business Review Events, Young Presidents Organization, PWC, Bloomberg LP, Viacom, Google and The Economist on issues including mindfulness, executive lifestyle, personal mastery, innovation, and the role of consciousness in creating radical success.
You can find profiles and expert advice from Tevis featured in respected media outlets including Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, Glamour, YogaJournal, CIO, Pink, RealSimple, Crain’s, New York Post, Financial Times, WWD, New York Observer, MSNBC, FoxBusiness, NY1 and Martha Stewart. As NYU Faculty teaching Business Creativity & Personal Mastery, Tevis has also served as worklife expert to WebMD and Huffington Post. Tevis lives what she teaches spending time in NYC, Montauk and Woodstock, enjoying surfing, snowboarding and entertaining friends at home with her dachshund, Ruby.
Episode highlights:
- Why it is important to re-humanize your hiring process
- Changing the mindset by shifting the language
- The formula for a successful shift
Problem:
Why is this important?
- Because we focus upon skill development to get into the roles we aspire to, we buy into the notion that work and life are separate. But the reality is that we are only one person, one being.
- Through this buy-in to self-abnegation, we leave ourselves out of the workplace and all but guarantee to burn out and disillusionment. When we approach interviewing that way, we’re bound to forget that the person across from us is first and foremost a human being.
- Impostor syndrome of the interviewers (hiring managers!)
- IS-is there a place for me here? Everyone feels a little like a fake/fraud.
- Myth: This person is only as good as their resume.
- Truth: Most of the best people, have the worst resumes
Mindset
- Creating a corporate culture happens one conversation at a time. Talking about what you are passionate about, what matters to you.
- Work is home
- It is a demand market.
- * we forget we are hiring a human being… not filling a seat.
- Bring an entire life into the company
Rick’s Thoughts
- Stay away from “stinkin thinkin” - Transactional thought
- Judging people based on a piece of paper
- Restructuring the recruiting department to touch those who apply
Solutions:
By shifting the language we begin to shift the mindset.
Changing the language - humanize
- What does it mean to be human at your company?
- Don’t talk headcount, filling a seat
- life count, heart count.
- Talk about finding the “right new colleague”
- Not filling a seat or role, rounding out our community
- Shift to human terms
The breadth and depth of this person.
- Talk about the eulogy and not the resume
- Think of everyone in terms of a peer
- Values -
- The framework is in the questions, not the answers
If the adage is that people leave managers, not companies, they probably refuse offers from managers as well. Foster a culture that supports the value for success. Are they Google-ly? And what happens when being googly becomes a weakness? Homogeneity can be a downfall.
Rick's Plan
Cut out words like “candidate”, Job Description, industry terms
Key Take Away:
- Tune into your own Humanity
- Humanize the language
- Slow down the interview process to give more room & space
Thursday Feb 28, 2019
Thursday Feb 28, 2019
Before you hire, you need a clear understanding of what you need and Why. What is required needs to be focused on the work that needs to be accomplished. And that’s Why it helps to prioritize the level of importance.
The most crucial part of the recruiting process is understanding why this is really needed. It is often overlooked.
Today’s Quote:
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." -Colin Powell
Show Guest:
Greg Toroosian has spent the best part of a decade recruiting for technical positions across software, IT, and hardware verticals. He also has experience building non-technical teams including finance, marketing, business strategy, legal and operations. His career started in the UK as an agency recruiter working with companies in various industries and at different growth stages. He’s currently the Director of Talent Acquisition at sweetgreen where he oversees the team that manages all corporate hiring for technical and non-technical teams. sweetgreen is set to grow rapidly this year due to their focus on technology and the recent large round of investment they received.
Episode highlights:
- Defining what is needed and why
- Our Methods for defining and prioritizing your roles
Problem:
- Hiring managers don’t really know what they need
- Understand the gap, skillsets, and planning for growth
- I need another one of this person
- Job description we used last time
- Factoring in lead time to make the hire and then bring someone up to speed.
- Realistic Timelines
- Inefficient time spent on the wrong people because the hiring manager is really not
- Sitting down and outlining the work that needs to get done
- Prioritizing the work
- Setting performance benchmarks
Solutions:
Focus on the What and then the Why
- Greg’s Intake Process to define the What & Why - Request Greg's Intake Form: andrea@stridesearch.com
- Prioritization: is this really needed?
- What will the person be doing?
- How will that add value here?
- How is the work being done right now? (light bulb of urgency)
- Forward-thinking- hiring ahead of the plan
- Hire toward the body of work
Rick's Input:
- Write down the actual work that needs to be done with a timeline
- Define the expectations by setting at least 3 Performance metrics for the first 90 days
- The Problems that need to be solved help to gain emotional buy-in
- Tie the work to Growth - Impact
Key Take Aways:
- People are attracted to the problems you solve
- For hiring managers: Upfront time spent configuring the process and fleshing out then real need is crucial to a successful, smooth and efficient process. Give your recruiting partner adequate time, think through the real need and purpose of the role, and be clear on what the success criteria is.
- For recruiters: Know that this is where you can add a lot of value as a partner. Be confident in the questions you ask, be inquisitive, think about what you need to align on and focus on unearthing that information. This document and the information it contains will be what you refer back to throughout the process to make sure you’re on the right path and to push back when necessary.
Thursday Feb 21, 2019
Thursday Feb 21, 2019
Employer branding is a very hot topic! Today we are here to challenge conventional wisdom and say that people pitch their company and themselves wrong.
They pitch what the company does and the perks they offer rather than the problems they are solving first. Talented people want to solve challenging problems!
Now I am a huge believer in looking at what everyone else is doing and doing the opposite… it works for me!
Today’s Quote
"A problem is a chance for you to do your best." - Duke Ellington
Show Guest
As a global Keynote Speaker and Managing Partner of InfluenceTree, Ryan Foland helps executives harness the power of vulnerability and authenticity to build better, more relatable, more profitable brands. Recognized by Inc. Magazine as a Top Marketer and named a Top Personal Branding Expert by Entrepreneur Magazine, Ryan is the inventor of 3-1-3® Method, a discovery process that helps communicate ideas into three sentences, which is condensed into one sentence and then ultimately boiled down to three words. His book Ditch The Act: Unleash the Surprising Power of the Real You for Greater Success, will be published in October 2019 by McGraw-Hill. When he is not speaking, he is likely sailing.
Episode highlights
- Why the positioning of your messaging does not attract people to your company
- Share our methods for engaging talent to be drawn to your company
Problem
- No one cares what you do or who you are.
- Try instead promote the core problem you solve.
- Lack of Aspirational influence.
- People not Inspired by the impact your company will have on the world
Psychology
- The mindset of the person you are talking to when presenting your opportunity
- Reptilian brain- in charge of our survival
- Fight or flight, sexual behaviors, anger & fear reside
- Keeping people out of the fear zones
- Rick’s Switch theory
- The words that you chose to come out of your mouth either turn people on or off
Solutions
3-1-3 process - Tease out the problem you solve to uncover the actual pain! Solve the problem of.....
- 3-problem you solve in one sentence (problem, solution, market)
- 1- condense to 1 sentence
- 3- Words (Marriott of marketing)
Pain being solved by the position & pain of the company that they solved by their customers. Alignment of pain points.
Eliminates being another me too company
Example of a good 3-1-3
The difference between success and failure hinges almost entirely on a company’s ability to hire the right team. One bad hire can destroy the company. We provide a step by step process that eliminates wrong hiring decisions. Startups need a competitive advantage when fighting for talent.
Rick’s first step
- Open with a slap in the face by Locating a career wound!
- Locate the pain first. Match the problems solved with the solutions the person can gain by joining your company.
- Lead people down a path and let them draw their own conclusions
Key takeaways
- Nobody cares about the words coming out of your mouth
- People are attracted to the problems you solve
- Change your messaging! Problem, Solution and Market
Ryan's Social Media
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
Chris Russell: Better Ways to Post & Pray Your Job Descriptions to Life
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
Thursday Feb 14, 2019
"Post and Pray" yields mediocre results and yet It is the go-to method for most companies, especially startups. Look, dating apps have evolved so let's take a page from them and figure out creative ways to attract talent. After all, your companies success or failure hinges on it!
Today’s Quote:
"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work." - Aristotle
Show Guest:
Chris Russell is the Managing Director of RecTech Media. He is a digital recruiting expert. He began his career as a job board owner where he first learned the craft of attracting talent online. He's also a former corporate recruiter with real-world experience in the recruitment process and technology implementation.
As as a recruiting technology/marketing consultant he advises both employers and vendors on how to attract candidates or clients. He frequently blogs on the news site, RecruitingHeadlines.com, podcasts a weekly show called “RecTech” and conducts live video training on recruitment marketing tools and tactics at RecTechLive.com.
Episode highlights:
- Why you should look at approaching job postings differently
- The best ways to market your opportunities
- Tools available to help you automate the process
Let’s talk about the approach almost all companies take
- Write “job descriptions” (wish lists)
- Do Not copy old ones!
- Post on job boards
- Farm the Job boards
- Passively work employee referrals
The Job Description Format
- -short 300 words or less - According to Linkedin?
- Employer value proposition
- Q&A job descriptions
- Video
- Cybersn.com
- Harry joiner - long form job
Rick’s Format:
- Build your job descriptions around uncovering a Career Wound
- Build in Performance Metrics! - Let people know how they will be evaluated in their first 90 days
Tools to Use
- Ripl- social media video slideshows
- Buffer, deliverance, smarterqueue
- Legend.im- turns text into animation gif
- clipomac
Where & How to Post
- Indeed- biggest board out there. - active candidate pool
- Linkedin-
- Facebook job board-blue-collar, hear
- Google for jobs - Take advantage of all the free avenues
- Take an Omnichannel approach- you need to be on all the channels. Be where your candidates are and continuously add content
- Automate the flow of content out.
- Be resourceful - text or email creative pictures (you next to a whiteboard with the person’s name written on it)
- Angelist?
- **Pushing out to facebook, twitter & LinkedIn. Video gets the most engagement and exposure
- Times to post 4-6 pm at night FB- 3 pm on Wednesday
Key Take-Aways
- Go Short or Go Long!
- Re-format your job descriptions to Attract people! Define the % of time spent on tasks as well as performance metrics
- Market your jobs by taking an omnichannel approach
- Get Creative & use Tools to automate getting out your message
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Monday Feb 11, 2019
Today we are discussing the Steps to building & scaling headcount in growth mode. Making sure that execution & time to fill are aligned.
Today’s Quote:
"Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together." - James Cash Penney
Show Guest:
Brendan Rogers, Co-Founder & Leading Recruiting of Wag Labs, has raised over $360 million in venture capital, most recently $300 million from Softbank's Vision Fund. Wag! connects pet parents to dog walkers and is currently live in over 110 U.S. cities. He co-founded a social discovery service to meet new people which grew to over 50 million users in over 10 countries and was acquired by IAC in 2014.
Brendan's next big event will be speaking at the ERE Conference on April 22-24th.
Episode Highlights:
- How to ramp up from 0 to hero
- Steps to put in place to avoid making hiring mistakes
You company closes your first round of funding
- 10 -12 roles from Nothing
- no resources & no systems in place
- Spreadsheets, manual task-oriented, process
Preparation before go mode
- Building out pipelines, similar spaces, consumer-related companies.
- How to avoid making the wrong hire.
- How to scale for maximum impact
- Tools needed. Process in place, a foundation to scale.
- Get really good at identifying the right people, connecting the dots, sourcing- research
- He does a ton of research, knows his space.
- Strive to keep quality really high. Target specific businesses.
Action Plan & Execution
- First hire should be a recruiter
- Identify what is needed & write job descriptions
- Right messaging
- Tackled building pipeline, hired.com
- Spreadsheet
- Hired a recruiter, brought in an ATS (applicant tracking system)
First:
- Get an ATS system first! -like Newton, Google (hire with Google) Greenhouse, lever
- - take open requirements and intake with each hiring manager. Know the roles from top to bottom
Second:
- Build a pipeline, training managers on how to use the ats, become partners with the hiring managers
Third:
- Hire a recruiter only after 5+ open roles.
- Admin- for cost savings
- Having a foundation will only help you to scale.
Key Take-Aways
- Be best friends with your Hiring Managers
- Be on top of everything
- Always be available
- Invest in the right tools
Thursday Jan 31, 2019
Shannon Johnson: Having the Right Mindset to Get Hired
Thursday Jan 31, 2019
Thursday Jan 31, 2019
A great hire happens when Career & Hiring objectives are in alignment.
Now more than ever, people want to feel whole in their careers and personal development has taken the lead in the decision-making process. Today we are going to look at hiring from the Interviewee’s perspective.
Today’s Quote:
"The things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose" - Jack Canfield
Show Guest:
As a Success Mentor, Shannon Johnson's passion for people has been the common denominator of her success throughout her 25 year career in corporate America. Today she is founder of her company, Stand Out and Get Hired, inc...taking one of her most successful achievements in launching best-in-class products to market, to now, launching the most exciting product of all...our future leaders.
Shannon worked for leading Fortune 500 companies in the retail, staffing, and pharmaceutical industries. Holding positions in marketing, management and sales, she has always been attracted to innovation and addicted to influencing others to think differently and get better every day.
Her mission is to inspire ambitious, driven, college students to take action in preparing to embark on their careers where they will thrive. She knows that Everything is possible when you believe in YOU FIRST & take action!
Episode highlights:
- How to hire & get hired in the right role
- The 3 pillars to “Stand Out & Get Hired”
Mindset
- Getting your game plan together to successfully get hired
- Settling for a “job”
- How do you get the interview first?
Preparation
- Not performing at 100% in an interview kills your confidence
- Interviewing burns people out, then you lose momentum
- Emphasis on the Resume- important but not
- The resume is really a screening tool for the company!
Why is this important
- Being sold on the Mission!
- Bring your value and strengths to life
- Mastering the skill of interviewing
- Prepare for what will happen
- Practice- mock interviews
- Put your “Game face” on
How does a person/company stand out to make the right decision
- Know your values
- Your Why
- Target what you Desire
- Take Action
Shannon’s plan
- Building your Brand
- Expert in You… values, vision, strength building
- Strength dashboard- strength finder assessment
- Grow your quality network
- Linkedin network, utilizing, leveraging and maximizing relationships that already exist
- Sharpen your Interview Skills
- Skills to beat your competition
- Fundamentals: approach the opportunity, preparation (dress, execution)
- Interviewing is a behavioral test. (highlight stories around 10 different behaviors)
- Practice, follow up (stand out and be memorable)
- Be relentless with follow up!
Rick’s Input
- Identify target companies (no spray and pray)
- Utilize Linkedin, Separate yourself from the pack (rise above)
- Be pleasantly persistent & ask for the Interview
Key Take Aways
- Align with your purpose
- Take action to beat your competition
- Self Awareness, Grow your Quality Network, Sharpen your Interview Skills
Thursday Jan 17, 2019
Liran Kotzer: Will AI Really Keep People Engaged with Your Company?
Thursday Jan 17, 2019
Thursday Jan 17, 2019
What do perspective Employees really want? A Personal connection or an automated interaction? I argue personal connection!My hope is that AI will be the disruptor that eliminates the transactional relationship from the recruiting process. AI is here and already starting to affect the way in which people interact with potential employers.
Today’s Quote:
"Automation is going to cause unemployment, and we need to prepare for it." - Mark Cuban
Our Guest:
Liran Kotzer, Founder & CEO of Woo.io. A serial entrepreneur, Woo.io is Liran’s third startup. For the past decade, he has been immersed in helping redefine and advance the online tech recruiting and hiring market sector. Liran spotted a market gap for helping employers and tech talent find each other much more efficiently, without all the hassles and wasted cycles between the two groups.
Show hightlights:
- Where AI is already having an impact & where it is REALLY useful
- Should you Leverage AI to maximize your impact (employment brand awareness)
What AI can and cannot do NOW in terms of recruiting
- very interaction is totally transactional- can not be humanized...yet
- Can’t yet fake a “Personal” connection
- The nuances of human interaction
- @scale- need technology to do the heavy lifting
- Continuing an ongoing relationship
- Automation using AI & ML
- What do people (candidates) really want?
- Personal connection to release or an automated release?
- Communication, feedback & closure
- Cultivate a relationship for relevant skills for future
- Can automation REALLY cultivate relationships??
- No- Neither can email or texting
What recruiting functions is AI replacing
- Transactional components
- Sourcing, Gathering intel (contact information), Farming
- Process
Where is AI in recruiting relevant now
- AI & ML to keep a pipeline warm.
- Ability to create communication with the candidate in a unique & personalized way to help them to keep them engaged. To be able to recognize changes in behavior.
- Understand your relevant audience. Can do the job and feed the culture (flexible)
- Expand your target audience ("official" resume vs. True Skills)
- Content?
- Skills-based recruiting
Take Aways
- Shifting from transactional recruiting into a long term relationship is a critical component for winning the right talent ahead of the competition
- Technology can mainly assist you in maintaining long term relationships with your pool of talent and also with scouting the right people at the right time
- Technology will not replace human interaction.
Thursday Dec 20, 2018
Christian Spletzer: Managing Expectations of Time to Hire Key Talent
Thursday Dec 20, 2018
Thursday Dec 20, 2018
After years of experience in the challenging world of executive search, Christian Spletzer founded Clockwork Recruiting to improve how search firms and their clients work together on retained search projects. He designed Clockwork to help recruiters demonstrate their consultative value to their clients at every stage of each project.
Prior to founding Clockwork, Christian worked as a recruiter and in operations at CT Partners, a Top 10 Global Executive Search firm. Previous to that, he worked within the Private Client Group of Merrill Lynch, and in an e-commerce start-up, 86.com, where he met his Clockwork co-founder, Jay Greene. Christian has a BA in Economics and a Juris Doctorate, and is a licensed attorney in NY, CT, and SC.
Today is all about Timing! Managing expectations for time and performance to make a key hire is more important than ever. The data is in and we are going to give you performance benchmarks of what your expectations should be.
Today’s Quote:
“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” - Colin Powell
Show highlights:
- The challenges and data to support today’s hiring challenges
- Measurement for performance and what a Great search looks like
Measuring your search performance
- Data from over 30,000 search projects
- Placement rate
- Days to Placement
- **Missing: Quality of Hire
- Key hires are taking an average of 123 days with a 71% placement rate on retained search
- People don't know how to pick a retained search firm. Most buyers of a retained search run off of bad data. No objective criteria to measure a search firm.
- Time matters- the longer it takes to get the seat filled, the shorter the ROI. Amazingly costly if a search fails.
- 22% failure rate
- Motivations may be wrong.
- The company is 50% of the equation in a successful outcome
Companies can go to:Benchmarks - Clockwork Recruiting
What good search looks like and how to choose the right partner
Detailed analysis
- Great- Average under 115 days and over 83% success rate
- Seniority
- Managers- lowest placement rate, 80+ days to place
- C-Level 130+ days, 78% placement rate
- Department
- Industry
- Region
- New York City - 60% success rate with longest days to hire
- Seniority
What to look for in a search firm
- Judge on time/success rate. Buy based on the experience and track record of success.
- Access to that information. Pick based on the one best suited for the search.
- Do not bet on the relationship only. Find the company with the track record- if you don't know where to look, you don't want to be sold. Getting more data before buying
- Track record
- Specialization in that particular department
- Inquire about Success rate/Stick rate: good hire vs. bad hire. Still around after a year, two years.
- Expectations: are very different than contingency search
- Meta data on actual projects. Who does it the best
- Hire the firm who brings value above and beyond just presenting candidates
Thursday Dec 06, 2018
Brian Breth: Sourcing the Right Players Creates a Company of Legends
Thursday Dec 06, 2018
Thursday Dec 06, 2018
Sourcing! Knowing who to target is far more effective recruiting strategy than casting a wide net when it comes to hiring correctly for your company. Even without a recruiting team, business leaders must be sourcing to engage and hire the right talent.
Today’s Quote:
"Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story." - Casey Stengel
Show highlights:
- What is sourcing and why is it so important
- Sourcing strategies
- How to execute on your strategy!
What is sourcing?
Sourcing Definition according to SHRM
“Sourcing is the proactive searching for qualified job candidates for current or planned open positions; it is not the reactive function of reviewing resumes and applications sent to the company in response to a job posting or pre-screening candidates.
Sourcing is typically part of the recruiting function performed by the HR professional, but it may also be conducted by managers within the company. Sourcing can identify either candidate who are not actively looking for job opportunities (passive job seekers) or candidates who are actively searching for jobs (active job seekers).”
- Identifying your players
- Building your ShortList
- Collecting data needed to engage them
- Figuring out your Positioning
- Where is time best spent?
- Most important capital investment is your people. Good hires always provide ROI
Sourcing Strategies
- ATS (applicant tracking system) /Database …
- Job boards are recruiting databases
- Social Media
- Job Postings
- Misc. (recruiter networks, internal, alum networks)
- Referrals - Should be the place you start
Where does Sourcing fit into the recruiting process?
- Brian’s formula
- Kick off meeting- Identifying needs
- Sourcing -a place (ats, rolodex, spreadsheet)
- First Contact
- Rick’s Formula
- Understanding your core values
- Benching needs of the work to be done
- Sourcing - building contact collateral
How to Source (Small company sourcing/business leader sourcing)
*** Plan and develop the relationship before you need to hire the person.
Database/Referral Network first-
Best Methods for sourcing:
Under limited resources (self-recruiting)
- Identify competitors - Your Talent competitors
- Connect and network with everyone to become known and build brand awareness
- Give before you take
- Do your homework on the person, let them opt out then ask for referrals
Best tools for Sourcing
- Referrals - internal/external
- Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram
- Sourcing Tools: Hiretual, Entello
- Resume Data Bases - Internal ATS, Angellist
- Archives
- Portfolios - Carbonmade, Github
- Creative sources
- Meetups
Here’s How I source
- Identification of Source companies
- Target list
- Define what to look for in potential people
- Contact directly outside of social platforms and augment with social connections
- Personal email, text messaging - Highest response rates
Engagement
-
- Marketing/Messaging aligned with company values
- Job Descriptions with clear performance metrics
- Application process…. RESPOND!
Brian Breth is a talent acquisition leader and US Marine Corps veteran with proven of experience forging, adapting, and applying best practices to complex business challenges in recruiting. He has a proven track record as an entrepreneurial leader whose ability to align teams, enact change, and build sustainable frameworks enables businesses to attract top talent and become more efficient, productive, and competitive. Brian currently leads recruiting for the Publishing and Esports teams at Riot Games.
Not only is (Brian etc) speaking at the ERE Recruiting Conference in April in San Diego but yours truly is too! Join both of us there.
Friday Nov 30, 2018
Sang Huynh: Extreme Transparency, Tech Startup Style
Friday Nov 30, 2018
Friday Nov 30, 2018
The good and great results of full company transparency. There is a growing movement for full openness within companies which is pretty common in Tech startups. The more open you are, the more engaged your people become!
Today’s Quote:
“A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.” - Dalai Lama
Show highlights:
- What is Transparency & Why it is important
- What works & what doesn't
- Transparency in the hiring process
Let’s start by talking about your experience at Tint
- How was the company transparent?
- Open door meetings
- Open Financials
- Employee compensation
- Group decision making
- Different levels of Transparency
- Extreme transparency
What works and what doesn't?
- Ownership
-
- Decision-making process
- Compensation Transparency
- Reduces distractions
- Open venting/surveying
- Open transparency to customers did not work so well
Process for transparency in the interview process
Structure for Transparency
Preparation for roll out
Engagement
- Job postings
- Personal awareness with an assessment to determine the data
- Contact - demonstrate transparency
- Managing expectations- positive experience… expect to hear from us by x date
Interview
- Interview process
- Discuss people challenges
- Product/company challenges
- Preparing the candidate,
- What happens when & time frame
- Lower the barrier of nervousness - must get them comfortable
Sang Huynh is a Mentor at Quake Capital Partners and former COO for TINT (tintup.com), A marketing tech startup in SF that recently exited. One of TINT’s guiding principles is to “cultivate transparency both internally and externally.” From open door meetings, exposed financials (including compensation) and group-based decision making. Prior to TINT, Sang was a VP in the Global Security Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch which has the traditional corporate culture. He’s here to share his experience as a former leader at two organizations with polar opposite approach to culture.
Friday Nov 23, 2018
Monica Lukoschek: The Immigration Mess!
Friday Nov 23, 2018
Friday Nov 23, 2018
The Immigration Mess ie: Immigration 10.142! Turning away great people due to immigration issues is just tragic.
Today’s Quote:
“The U.S. immigration laws are bad - really, really bad. I'd say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government's name.” - Bill Gates
Show highlights:
- The current immigration landscape
- Changes in policy for 2019
- Creative steps to navigate today’s immigration laws
Quick breakdown on the different types of Visa:
- Hirable visa categories
- E1, E2, - investor visa
- F 1 Visa- Student visa practical training
- H1B – Specialty Occupation (Cap vs. non-cap) 65,000, plus 20,000 for US masters/PhD last year 190,000 petitions filed. Highest in 2017 236,000 filed (historical: annual cap to 115,000 for Fiscal Year 1999; 115,000 in Fiscal Year 2000; and 107,500 in Fiscal Year 2001. The cap would return to 65,000 starting with Fiscal Year 2002.
- J-1 Visa- exchange visitor can work, receive training, study or do research
- L-1A/B- Intracompany Transferee (manager, executive, specialized knowledge)
- O-1 Extraordinary Ability in the arts, science or business.
- TN Visa- NAFTA
- R-1 Religious Worker
Immigration policy
April 18, 2017 Executive Order Buy American, Hire American – seeks to create higher wages and employment rates for U.S. workers and protect their economic interests
Allows for rule-making, policy memos and operational changes. Ensure H-1B visas go to only the highest skilled and highest paid.
- The H1 B Visa Changes
- Focus on wages is a Level I wage a specialty occupation?
- Challenging if a degree is necessary for the job… specific degree required? Can you prove alternative eligibility requirements?
- Computer Programmer Analyst – March 30, 2017 Rescinded 2000 memo. Now stating that Bachelor’s not required for job. What other computer-related occupations could this extend to?
- Third party worksite/direct employer/employee relationship. i.e., even accountants at an accounting firm. February 22, 2018 policy memo supersedes prior memo
- Rescission of guidance allowing USCIS to defer to prior
- *Change in the information required for approval
- Policy changing almost daily and hurts smaller companies most
Just last week, the DHS and the DOL proposed new regulations:
- Electronic Registration for Cap subject petitioners by next April. Initially Proposed in 2011
- Only open two weeks?
- Multiple registrations?
- Elimination of work permits for spouses of H-1B workers waiting more than 6 years for green card (taking more than 10 years for certain countries)
- Hiring challenge- Foreign workers need H-1Bs
Missing out on A-players
What we need to do to navigate this mine field:
- Consult your attorney before investing too much time
- What to ask? What to look for?
- Does the position require a degree and does the applicant have the specific degree?
- Will the employer be required to seek a work visa? H-1B employers required to pay for attorney’s fees and filing fees. Can employer wait until October 1 (or beyond) for the employee to begin working?
- If transferring from a previous H-1B – how many years on H-1B, do they have an approved immigrant petition (could extend time beyond 6 years). Premium Processing suspended until at least February. Will employee risk transfer?
- Will the employment be “off-site”? Must show proof of right to control the employee and cannot “bench” Can you provide SOWs, itinerary, etc. See itinerary requirements.
- Creative solutions to still be able to hire the person your company needs!
- Is the applicant from Chile, Singapore, Northern Mariana Islands, Canada, Mexico, Australia? May be other alternatives.
- Is spouse on a visa category which extends work authorization to employee? (E-3, L-1, etc.)
- STEM OPT extension to 36 months.
- 3rd party firms as a protective layer?
- Offshore options - Canada or Mexico?
- Work remote
As a founding partner at U.S. Immigration Law Group, LLP, Monica Lukoschek’s practice focuses on employment-based immigration law, assisting businesses in hiring and retaining foreign personnel and managing their immigration compliance programs, assisting entrepreneurs and investors in the United States, and providing advice to employers and employees with all aspects of immigration law compliance.
Thursday Nov 08, 2018
Lindon Crow: The Anatomy of a Recruiting Call. Stop Triggering Fight or Flight!
Thursday Nov 08, 2018
Thursday Nov 08, 2018
The Anatomy of a Recruiting Call. People do not respond to you because you are sending the wrong message! What do You Say that is Triggering a person’s Fight or Flight Response?
Today’s Quote:
“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”. - Plato
Show highlights:
- What happens in the brain when someone is trying to recruit you
- What Triggers Fight or Flight response
- Techniques to approach the conversation to avoid triggering negative responses
I call you to recruit you for a new job.
- What happens in the brain
- What is naturally desired by people - intrinsic desire
- What choices or options mean to a mind. What too many/too few options means
- What motivates people - primal instinct, reptilian brain
- Tune out to the sales pitch
- How do I get rid of this person?
What triggers Fight or Flight response?
- Recruiting is disruptive to the brain. It breaks safety
- Create environment of loving, self esteem, self actualization
The Conversation
- Creating a process that creates a sense of Familiarity & Achievement
- Authority (achievement) Daniel pink's Drive
- $ is a motivator up until $70k
- Positioning:
- Purpose of the call is to get to the Truth
- It’s not about you!
- Listening:
- Stop Fishing
- People are busy and don't care about what you are selling
- “What's happening in your current role…”
- Test the waters - Question the timing & the Why
- Lead the Path:
- What problem needs to be solved?
- How they desire it to be fixed?
- Wound, Desire, Achievement - like Plato’s emotion, desire, knowledge
- Celebrate their wins
Lindon Crow is the President of Productive Learning. As a workshop facilitator and trainer, he has helped more than 2,500 clients achieve higher levels of emotional awareness, self-mastery, and personal fulfillment. Lindon is known for his provocative, straightforward, and compassionate communication style and his keen ability to forecast potential outcomes. This helps his clients make better educated decisions about their current directions and opportunities for growth.
Thursday Oct 25, 2018
Sherry Benjamins: Build a Strategic Plan to Avoid Costly Hiring Mistakes
Thursday Oct 25, 2018
Thursday Oct 25, 2018
Do you and your company have a strategic hiring plan? If you are like most companies, you don’t. Today we are going to help shift your model from a reactive to a proactive hiring model and change your world!
Today's Quote:
“Everyone chooses how to approach life. If you're proactive, you focus on preparing. If you're reactive, you end up focusing on repairing.”
― John C. Maxwell
Show highlights:
- Why you hire poorly
- A structure to build a strategic hiring plan
The problems with a reactive hiring process (why you can't hire):
-
- Transactional
- Paying too much for people
- Not solving a problem
- Your company is just a paycheck
- High failure rate
- 67% of people earning $100K+ plan to make a job change in the next 12 months.
- Companies in React mode all the time
- Forecasting recruiting like you forecast your finances
Creating a Strategic Plan for Talent
Five elements you must have to develop a solid strategic plan:
- 1) Define your value agenda –
- what is the source of value in your business? Is it in operations
- How you structure the teams,
- Where the highest value resources are in the organization?
- How are you dealing with automation, big data, AI, innovation, customer satisfaction.
- 2) What is your leadership agenda?
- Do you have the right people in the highest impact roles
- 3) Strategic priorities –
- what is the hottest priority for success given where the value will be most critical?
- Does the leadership team agree on these?
- 4) A Winning culture – with this focus, is everyone ready and believing and behaving in what it takes to win?
- Energy required – where is the energy and if there are “vampires” sucking the energy from the team, truly evaluate the pay off or drain
- 5) Road map
- Specific & Actionable… Need to get some early wins
- Send a message to the organization
- Accountability & results
Ricks Input:
- Know who you are- Company values
- Break down the work that needs to be accomplished & timeline
- Establish Performance metrics 90/180 day
- Establish Interviewing strategy and process
- -Closing the hiring managers and candidates for mutual success
Sherry Benjamins has over 25 years of experience in business management, HR, consulting services and helping companies solve for their talent challenges. Her expertise is helping clients shift from the old model of reacting to talent needs to starting a new conversation that is forward looking and focused on adding value to their business.
Sherry is the President of S.Benjamins & Company. Her company does three things; they find management talent for their clients, they help clients create a strategic talent plan and lastly, she brings talent together in quarterly executive learning sessions. Her experience includes work in the HR corporate world, P&L leadership of a regional career services firm, and founder of her own firm for the past 21 years. She has an MBA from Pepperdine and speaks frequently to new MBA graduates about the world of work today.
Friday Oct 05, 2018
Kathy Dawson: Capitalizing on Current Employer Fails to Win Critical Hires
Friday Oct 05, 2018
Friday Oct 05, 2018
Are you shocked that your offer was turned down? Today, We are discussing the reality of the current hiring landscape.Spoiler Alert: It is ultra competitive and it is a employee’s market! We are going to teach you ways to capitalize on the current conditions and have your offers accepted.
Today's Quote:
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” -Walt Disney
Show highlights:
- The current talent landscape
- Where your company is screwing up (why you lose great hires)
- Teach you how to take advantage of the current market to land great people
What is the current landscape:
- Unemployment rate
- All time low (3.9% in US)
- OC 2.9% -Mar 2018
- Job Satisfaction
- 51% people looking -all time high
- 71% disengagement
Where companies are missing the mark:
- Not understanding the person …. Just the demographics
- Job descriptions not in alignment w/ actual role
- Engagement with candidates
- Interviewing strategy and process…. It sucks!
- Closing is a transactional process
How do we take advantage of this disparity to dramatically improve YOUR ability to hire talent:
- Change your mindset
- It’s Not about you! -You are not that special
- Flip the script
- Making a person whole in their career
- Locate the Pain (Career Wound)
- Growth
- Content of Work
- Leadership
- Engagement of the candidate
- How You Represent your company
- 1st contact with the candidates
- -Interviewing strategy and process
- -Closing the hiring managers and candidates for mutual success
Kathy Dawson serves as Founder and CEO of Dawson & Dawson, Inc. She is the firm’s Nonprofit Liaison, and oversees the Executive & Retained Search, Temporary & Contract Staffing, and Business Development practices. She is a CSP (Certified Staffing Professional) with over 36 years of experience in the local and national market place. Prior to establishing Dawson & Dawson, Kathy served as a Regional Vice President for a National Search and Staffing firm. She managed 120 employees with revenues up to $120M while developing a forte in the search and staffing industry.
Kathy has had the pleasure of helping thousands of business owners hire the right employee at the right time. Her business approach involves a genuine understanding that every client is unique and every candidate is an individual. Her years of experience in making great connections consistently is a highly sought after skill. Her clients get to enjoy quality matchmaking at the highest level. Her hands on involvement and partnership approach makes her a sought after talent broker and business partner. What sets her apart is an innate ability to develop long-term growth oriented strategies to make lasting placements as though it is her own firm. She is a well-known speaker and trainer in the industry, traveling locally and nationally.
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Shawn Andrews: What Is Emotional Intelligence And How Is It Relevant To Hiring?
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Thursday Sep 20, 2018
Why should we care about Emotional Intelligence when building a company today? People with high EQ, work better with others, manage customers more effectively and cultivate an accepting company culture.
Today's Quote:
“Emotion is more powerful than logic” - Albert Einstein
Show Guest:
Dr. Shawn Andrews is a keynote speaker, organizational consultant, and the founder and CEO of Andrews Research International. She serves as adjunct professor at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, where she teaches courses on Organizational Behavior, Women in Leadership, Diversity in Organizations, and Leadership and Ethics. She was the 2017 Diversity & Inclusion columnist for Training Industry Magazine, and is the author of the book, The Power of Perception: Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and the Gender Divide (Amazon.com)
Episode highlights:
-
- EQ, What is it?
- How to you get it?
- Incorporate into your hiring
What is EQ?
Set of emotional and social skills that collectively establish how well we:
- Perceive and express ourselves
- Develop and maintain social relationships
- Cope with challenges, manage stress and make decisions
- Use emotional information to guide our thinking and action
- Managing emotions
- Manage stress
- Overcome obstacles
- Inspire toward collective goals
- Self perception, Self expression, interpersonal, decision making, Stress Management
- Tied into core company values
Why is it Important?
- Low Emotional Intelligence breeds bad cultures
- “Hire hard, manage easy”
What if you don’t have EQ? How do you get it?
- Get EQ assessment
- Read a book
EQ for different roles:
Leadership:
- Interpersonal relationships
- Assertiveness
- Self-awareness
Sales:
- Self-actualization
- Assertiveness
- Happiness
Marketing / Creative:
- Optimism
- Reality testing
- Independence
Customer Service:
- Stress tolerance
- Assertiveness
- Happiness
Product Development /Manufacturing:
- Flexibility
- Problem solving
- Independence
Interviewing for EQ
- Behavioral Interviewing
- Comfortable candidate- feel conversational, warm & informal
- Start: difficult challenge that was solved, commend… then go granular
- “Hire hard, manage easy”
- Deep reference checking
- Evidence of low & high EQ behaviors
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Darrell Gurney: Breaking Bad, Career And Hiring Habits!
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Thursday Sep 13, 2018
Why is it that we put more thought into lunch choices than we do our career or hiring decisions?
Today we are going to discuss the top three bad habits that both candidates and companies do throughout the hiring process that kill their ability to make a smart decision.
Today's Quote:
“To change habits, we must study the habits of successful role models.” – Jack Canfield
Show Guest:
Darrell Gurney is a career expert, executive coach and authority in supporting people through successful transitions. He brings back the power of social connection by teaching professionals that you’re simply one face-to-face relationship away from your dream job life.
He is the author of the Amazon bestseller “Never Apply for a Job Again: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest."
As founder of both CareerGuy.com and TheBackForty.com, Darrell’s motto for both career and life is, as Frank Sinatra sings, “the best is yet to come, and won’t it be fine!”
Episode highlights:
- The top 3 bad habits we need to stop right now!
- Why these habits are so detrimental
- Good habits to replace the bad
Hiring bad habits from both sides:
Darrell’s top 3:
- 1. Looking to see what jobs are available & Going through the front door by applying for open positions.
- Take charge of their career path vs be at the effect
- Get out of your box: the house, the computer screen, the phone, and get in front of people.
- 80% of all jobs are filled before they are ever advertised by the people in the know bringing in the people they know
- 2. Failing to develop relationships beyond the job search process.
- Never submerge in your job or your life. Get out, be making connections, be talking to people about your interests and passions
- 3. Not treating yourself like a business
- Realize that you have your own business, and you always have -- you simply lease out your employable assets
- A business owner is always concerned first and foremost about two measures: ROI (Return on Investment) and ROE (Return on Equity). You want to similarly always watch, manage and monitor your own Return on Individuality and Return on Effort.
Rick’s top 3:
- Winging it-
- company values -clueless
- Not clear on what the business needs
- Work that needs to be accomplished
- Listening!
- Interview Process
- Not clearly defined
- Following the pack -
- Accepting the Status quo
- Testing people before engaging
- Transactional relationship
- Not understanding the person across from you
- Focus on skills
- Protective of the culture
Why are these habits bad?
- How can you get where you are going when you don’t know where you are?
How do we fix these habits?
- Winging it- not clear on what the business needs
- Build preparation time into your schedule
- Define what the business needs (not your wants) and who you need to take you there
- Interview Process
- Structured, Organized, Timed & Purpose Driven
- Get to the Truth!
- Transactional relationship
- Heal the person’s wound with your opportunity