Do Amazing Things - E-Book

Chris Ferdinandi from the Renegade HR blog had a great idea a few weeks ago, enlist a number of HR professionals and bloggers and collaborate on an E-book project.

The premise : Write a short piece for the HR practitioner focusing on the question - 'What is one thing that the HR pro can do in 2010 to get better?'

Twelve contributors combined to produce the completed E-Book - 'Do Amazing Things: Things you can do to become a better HR Pro in 2010'.

Chris has a post on Renegade HR with the official announcement here, and the E-book can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

I was really pleased and honored to participate in the project offering a piece on how to better understand and leverage collaboration tools and technologies in the organization.

There is so much excellent insight and information in the E-book and I really encourage you to head over to RenegadeHR and download and share the E-book far and wide.

The contributors you will find in this excellent resource:

• China Miner Gorman from SHRM
• Michael VanDervort from Human Race Horses
• Lance Haun from Rehaul
• Karla Porter from the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber in PA
• Paul Hebert from I2I
• Jim D’Amico, recruiter extraordinaire
• Victorio Milian of Creative Chaos Consultant
• Ben Eubanks from UpstartHR
• Steve Boese from Knowledge Infusion
• Nathaniel Rottenberg from Rypple
• Trish McFarlane from HR Ringleader
• Jessica Lee from APCO Worldwide

Do something amazing in 2010!

Great job Chris and everyone else who participated in the project!

Candidates are Talking

A day or two ago  noticed this news item from Inside Higher Education - Johns Hopkins Shares Too Much Information in Faculty Search.

Essentially, someone involved in the hiring process for a Faculty position in early modern European History at the school sent a 'Thanks for Applying' type of e-mail to 120 candidates for the position, but inadvertently failed to use the email program's 'blind copy' feature thus exposing the names and email addresses of ALL 120 candidates to the entire applicant pool.

Needless to say many of the applicants were a little ticked off that what they had felt was a breach of privacy, particularly for those who are not 'open' or 'public' about their job search. 

To me, much more interesting than the initial story about the e-mail gaffe, was one of the sources mentioned in the Inside Higher Ed piece, a 'history jobs wiki' where candidates for various Faculty positions post (anonymously) about institutions, openings, and the status of the various searches.

Real candidates, in competition with each other for the same position, posting informative status updates on the search, the communication (or lack thereof) from the institution, and offering opinion and commentary about all aspects of the process.

It is quite frankly, cool as hell.

Here are just some of the best comments from the candidate's wiki:

For a position in European History at Ball State University:

That is bizarre. So obviously none of the applications received (and subsequent requested dossiers) were deemed worthy by the SC. I'm not wasting anymore time...

And this gem from a search for a 'collateral' Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University:

I don't blame you - it was one of the most poorly written job ads I've seen and it took me a long time to puzzle it out. I still don't know what they meant by "collateral" professor, either.

And one more from Queen's College for a Professor of French History.  Apparently a phony 'search' was conducted, but there was already a wired internal person for the spot.  Numerous applicants weigh in and express thier frustration with the time and effort spent to apply for a position they had no chance of getting.  This quote sums it up nicely:

I'm consoling myself with the fact that this is evidence Queens would be a crappy place to work.

This particular thread about the Queen's College position has at least 50 individual entries and comments from various applicants expressing various forms of displeasure and outrage.

Scanning through this wiki site it is impossible not to notice a couple of important things.

Candidates can and will congregate online

I know the candidate pool for these jobs is kind of small, many of the candidates know each other, they attend the same events, etc; but the ability for candidates to use wikis, forums, or social networks to talk about their application experience is incredibly easy. 

These sites will effect your brand

Look again at the candidate remark about Queen's College.  The way this particular search was handled did do damage to the brand and potentially to the individuals in charge of the search.  One posting in the comment stream actually calls out the professor in charge of the search by name, with the express hope that this negative comment would appear in a Google search result for the person's name.

Employers can take advantage

Every so often on this candidate's wiki, a rep from one of the colleges chimes in to give a status update on the search, or to try and address questions or concerns that were raised by candidates.  These updates are almost always seen as helpful and are welcomed by the candidates.  In this job market, with so many candidates actively discussing your specific organization and position it only makes sense to actively monitor and engage there. 

If you as an HR or Recruiting pro saw these kinds of open and frank discussions happening about you organization and hiring processes wouldn't you feel compelled to jump in to clarify, correct, expound, and yes at times even apologize?

If you know of any other similar 'candidate community' sites like this one for History professors let me know.

When Millionaires bring Guns to Work

Professional basketball players Gilbert 'Agent Zero' Arenas and teammate Javaris Crittenton are under investigation for allegedly drawing handguns on one another in the Washington Wizards team locker room during a heated argument.

The argument apparently involved a dispute over Arenas' failure to settle a gambling debt with Crittenton. It has also been reported that the gambling in question took place on a team flight returning from a recent road trip. Arenas' contract pays him about $15M/year, I wonder what the table stakes were in the card game.

Ironically, the Wizards were known as the 'Bullets' for decades before changing the team name in 1997 When the Bullets were still the Bulletsamidst concerns of the glorification of gun culture and violence.  It would have been a better move for Arenas and Crittenton to draw some magic wands instead of guns I think.

So far the Wizards and the NBA are stepping up to the plate.  And by stepping up, I mean assuming no responsibility, taking no action, and allowing the Washington police to investigate, surely hoping that this whole issue disappears.

I love the story though. Gambling, (alleged) gunplay -  is this an NBA locker room or a saloon in Dodge City?

Yep, gambling and guns in the workplace, and I only have one question - WHERE WAS HR?

Surely there needed to be some kind of policy in the handbook that specifically banned this sort of activity in the workplace. 

Maybe just something simple like - 'Committing a felony on company property is against corporate policy'.

That should cover it.

The Leadership Development Carnival

The latest Leadership Development Carnival was posted over the weekend at Dan McCarthy's excellent Great Leadership blog.

This edition of the carnival had a special 'Best of 2009' theme, and included you will find some fantastic pieces from some of the best leadership writers out there, over 50 articles in all.

Some of my favorites from the Carnival are Mark Stelzner, with Common Sense is Not So Common, posted at Inflexion Point, Jennifer Miller who offered Praising Mastery | The People Equation posted at The People Equation, and Jon Ingham with this: Visa Europe: What do you want to be when you grow up.

Many thanks to Dan for including my piece on a team needing more leaders, The Wisdom of Jeff Van Gundy.

Lots of great pieces to get your 2010 started right, take some time to check it out.

I apologize for being late to post about this, that is what I get for writing about 'me' yesterday.

New Year, New Beginnings

Folks that read this blog and listen to the HR Happy Hour show (hopefully) know that I don't particularly like writing or talking too much about myself. 

I much prefer assessing and writing about HR technologies, evaluating workplace issues and trends, and having the guests on the show express themselves and share their insights. Flickr - Roche Photo

But for today, for this post, I am going to get a bit personal, and I apologize for the indulgence.

Starting today, I am now a part of the Knowledge Infusion family as Director of Products, Community & OnDemand Services.

Knowledge Infusion, I think, is the leading HR Technology consultancy, and I am thrilled and honored to have the opportunity to work with such a collection of talented people. I do plan on sharing more details as time goes on about some of the work I will be doing, it is both exciting and innovative in the technology consulting space, but for now I just want to express how grateful I am for the opportunity and I do want to say thanks to Jason Averbook and Jason Corsello.

For those that are interested, I do plan on continuing teaching the HR Technology Grad course at the Rochester Institute of Technology, as in many ways the development and delivery of that course has opened up so many doors for me, while also proving to be immensely challenging and satisfying.

This blog and the HR Happy Hour show will certainly continue, and I expect that they will both evolve, and hopefully improve over time.  I think that the blog and the show both could use a bit of an injection of new ideas, and I anticipate the work I will be doing at KI will help in that regard.

So I thank you for the allowing me the indulgence of a purely selfish post, and I look forward to a exciting and productive 2010.