And this is what we do

Remember the Chrysler spot featuring Eminem that ran during the Super Bowl a few months ago?

Of course you do - it was pretty epic, and by many accounts it was the one of the best, if not the best, commercial that ran during the game. In case you don't recall, or just need another two-minute fix, here it is again (email and RSS subscribers may need to click through):

Yesterday, the Mashable blog ran a short video piece featuring highlights from 25 Years of Animation from Pixar Animation Studios. Equally cool as the Eminem spot, but for different reasons. If you missed it, the video is embedded below (email and RSS subscribers may need to click through):

While not ostensibly recruiting type videos, they both easily could pass for them, and probably have a kind of ancillary benefit as such. When we talk about recruiting in the context of communicating to prospects and candidates about the 'employee value proposition' and conveying the 'employer brand', it seems like much of the conversation focuses on humanizing the organization - sharing the stories of real employees via video or written testimonials; and encouraging recruiters to develop more meaningful relationships and increased levels of genuine engagement and interaction with their talent communities.

While I agree that this 'humanization' concern is often necessary, and certainly important it might be that all the talk about making the personal connection and driving home the message about 'who we are', can take our focus too far from 'what we do'. And the 'what we do' message might just be as important, if not more important than the 'we have lots of fantastic people working here message.'

Every company has great people, or at least some great people. It isn't all that hard to find and highlight individual stories and achievements that help to drive home that message. But not as many organizations truly set their great people free to the degree that they do indeed create fantastic things, like we see in the Pixar example above.

An aspiring animator or storyteller can watch the Pixar piece above and know that while none of the 'people' that create that kind of magic were featured or even named in the video, that certainly going to work at Pixar would mean being surrounded by incredibly talented colleagues, and better still, ones that have the environment that supports that kind of fantastic achievement. 

Sending out a recruiting message that says 'we have some amazing people here' is good, sharing the message of 'And we do some incredble things here' is better. And a much more challenging story to tell, but if you do, and can shape the story the right way the effect is pretty powerful.

How about you? Could you tell your 'And this is what we do' story in a way that would make us want to come and join you?

You're asking me? Did you check LinkedIn?

Maybe the job market is heating up.

In the last three days I’ve been contacted by three separate recruiters; two agency, and one corporate, inquiring about my interest and availability for opportunities they wanted to present. That’s pretty cool - and probably equals the number of cold calls I have received in the last several months combined.

Each call went more of less exactly the same - (Aside: I shockingly answered my phone for all three calls, which for me is some kind of record):

Recruiter : Hi Steve - this is Joe/Mary/Sue from XYZ Company - how are you today?

Steve - I am fantastic, how are you?

Recruiter - Very well.  Steve, I came across your resume on (choose from the following: Monster/Careerbuilder/Dice/ ‘my files’) and I wanted to talk to you about an opportunity I am working on.

Steve - Sure.

Note - I don’t bother with the silly ‘How did you find me/get my phone number?’ questions. It is their job to find people.  I am pretty easy to find. And I am sure there is a ‘Steve’ resume out there on all those sites, I bet some of them have been floating around for years.

Recruiter - So tell me, what are you doing these days? Are you working full-time? Are you contracting or consulting?

Steve - Well, I sort of do a number of things, I'm keeping very busy.

At this point I am basically stalling, because I genuinely want to know if the Recruiter really doesn’t know what I am doing, or they are using Recruiter jedi mind-trick #7 and attempting to see if what I say matches what they ought to know about me, (that's assuming that since they are calling me about an opportunity, they should know something about me).

Recruiter - Aren’t we all?  Ha-Ha-Ha.  So let me tell you about what I am working on, it is a contract/position/engagement at …..... Is this something you may be interested in?  Can I send some more information to you about the position?

Steve - Sure, send me the information, you have my email don’t you? No? It is steveboese@gmail.com. If it is something I am interested in, I will get back to you.

Recruiter - Great, I will and thanks.  Have a nice day.

Steve - You as well.

And Scene.

Three recruiting cold calls, each essentially following the same script. Sort of indistinguishable from each other, with all three marked by (at least the expressed) lack of awareness by the recruiter of anything about me other than what they have learned from whatever source information or document, some certainly several years old, that they were working from.  Did you take a minute to ‘Google’ me? Scope my profile on LinkedIn?

Again, I have never been a recruiter, so maybe that feigned ignorance is a standard trick to feel out a prospect, and to get them talking about themselves in hopes they will reveal some insights that will help the recruiter make a quick decision whether to engage or to cut and run and move on to the next call.

But to me, the ‘prospect’, it just seemed lazy.  In a world where information - updated, real-time information at that, is everywhere; the notion that a prospect should have to update a cold-calling recruiter as to ‘What they’ve been up to’ seems almost archaic.

These days, and certainly for professionals that are candidates for the kinds of jobs I was called about, shouldn’t the recruiter have told me all about me? Are my eyes really blue?

Heck, I am the last person you should ask if you want to know what I am up to.

1/2 Man, 1/2 Amazing

This may be a surprise to some, but I do appreciate (sort of) that not everyone that reads this blog is as fully invested and familiar with the nuances of sports, and in particular professional basketball.  1/2 Man

So you may not have realized that the title of this post, 1/2 Man, 1/2 Amazing was not just meant as a general descriptive phrase, but rather was/is the nickname of an actual person, legendary street and playground legend Anthony Heyward.  The nickname stems from a famous Heyward slam dunk over a much taller player. The full details of Heyward's nickname from Hoopedia:

An original member of the AND 1 team he earned Street Name, 1/2 Man balling at Rucker Park. After driving the lane and dunking on a dude that was much bigger then him, Rucker MC Duke Tango called him 1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing. The name has stuck ever since and we all know who was the first player to have it was (sorry Vince Carter). 

Like many of the other streetball legends that have come before and since, 1/2 Man never has 'made it', that is, obtained the highest level of accomplishment in professional basketball, a contract with an NBA team.  There are various theories why fantastic street ball talents like 1/2 Man have largely failed to make an impact in the Association, from lack of experience in structured offensive and defensive systems, to games that are kind of one-dimensional and thus easily defensed at the NBA level, or to a perception that the street or playground game is simply inferior to the NBA game, and consequently its stars, while talented, are by and large a level (or two) below top professional caliber.

I suppose it is debatable whether or not any individual playground star like 1/2 Man was or is talented enough to make it in the NBA, logically you would have to assume that if indeed an NBA contract were offered guys like 1/2 Man would jump at the chance, since even the minimum NBA salary (between about $500K and $1.4M based on experience) is bound to be far greater than what can be earned in the playgrounds and on barnstorming tours playing in local gyms.

But more interesting to me in the case of the NBA largely ignoring the playground legends, is considering how much of the snub is due to pure basketball ability and potential, and how much is based on these players not having the 'correct' background and more typical developmental experiences of NBA players. Even today, most new NBA players compete in American colleges, even if for only a year or two.  Non North American players usually have experience in high-level professional leagues in Europe. With only the occasional exception (e.g. Rafer Alston, AKA 'Skip to my Lou' ), no one steps from the playground to the NBA.

Ok, so you are not in the business of stocking and NBA team. Sadly, neither am I. But chances are you and your organization is looking for help right now.  Chances are even in a recession, your company has to fill and back fill jobs. 

Chances you are looking to the same sources (Top 20 colleges, LinkedIn, or employee referrals) that have always worked for you in the past.

Chances are you don't have a scout watching the talent on the playground.  And that is too bad.

Because that is where 1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing plays. 

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The Screening Machine

College and University admissions departments are faced annually with the challenge of sorting though what are often many thousands of applications for what are significantly less available positions in the incoming freshman class.   

In fact, establishing and maintaining a low percentage of 'accepted' applicants, or conversely a high percentage of rejected applicants, is perceived as a sign of an institution's selectivity, quality, and impacts positively on those 'Best Colleges' lists that are extremely important to college administrators, current and prospective students, parents,  and alumni.

It's kind of a virtuous cycle - improved institutional reputation --> more applications --> greater selectivity --> higher ranking on the lists --> improved reputation.  And so on.  Mix in a successful sports team once in a while, and the school is on its way to more donations, more research grants, and a spot on the Presidential debate hosting roster.

It's all good except for the folks in the admissions departments that are tasked with most of the work in awarding these highly sought after slots in the incoming class to the select 10% or even less of the applicants that will make the cut. And as most of us who remember the college application process and experience, either our own or our kids, the applications are complex, long, and contain a complicated mix of standard measures (SAT tests), sort of standard measures (comparative GPA's), and completely non-standard and subjective measures (essays, recommendations, after-school activities). The Admitulator

All in all, a difficult recruiting and 'hiring'process, not that unlike what happens in corporate recruiting every day.  Companies often have hundreds of applications for a position, the evaluation criteria is a mixture of standard (advanced degrees), and non-standard (impressions left after an interview), and making the right selection has important and long-term impacts on the organization.  In both college admissions and corporate recruiting, making the 'right' choice isn't easy.

That is why I thought a new, experimental program called the 'Admitulator' looks so interesting.  From the copy of the tool's designer Golan Levin:

The Admitulator is a custom tool for quantitatively evaluating university applicants according to a diverse array of weighted metrics. A pie chart is the core interface for ranking, sorting and evaluating applicants; it allows faculty with different admissions priorities to explore and negotiate different balances between applicant features (such as e.g. portfolio scores, standardized test scores, grade point averages, essay evaluations, etcetera).

By attempting to reconcile both the wide variability of prospective student's achievements, capabilities, and potential with the selector's differences and biases in their beliefs in what makes a successful student, (and one that contributes to the overall institution in a positive way), a tool like the Admitulator has the potential to really inform the college about its admission practices, decision processes, and their relative success or failure.

The tool doesn't 'tell' the college which students to admit, but rather provides insight as to the impact biases and widely-held (but never tested) beliefs in the admission process have on the composition of the incoming class.  Then, when later applied to the academic results of students admitted in this manner, it can help educate the admissions and faculty groups as to what screening metrics are more likely to identify successful students in the longer term.

It is kind of a neat tool.  

We all have our biases and preferences in the hiring process - advanced degrees trump skills (or vice versa), we only hire from certain colleges, or we only like to poach from a select few competitors.  But do we really know the impact of these biases? Do we know if there is a correlation between what we 'feel' and what actually happens?

Do we need a big, bad screening machine?

Hard Knocks - A Recruiting Tool?

A senior leader of your organization joking around with the administrative staff, an exchange highlighted by the staff mercilessly riding the leader over his weight.

A leadership meeting with the company owner and several high-ranking executives discussing (ad nauseum), how to deal with a high performing employee that has refused to come to work in a dispute over compensation.

An employee openly sharing, really oversharing, significant personal information including the fact that he is really not too sure how many children he has, and what their names are.

These scenes, and more, were all a part of the HBO Series 'Hard Knocks:Training Camp with the New York Jets', the latest installment of a long-running documentary series that gives football fans a look at the internal, behind the scenes, and normally hidden from view world of a professional football training camp.

What would compel a team to be willing to participate in such a project, and to possibly be exposed and potentially embarrassed by such a public airing of their normally private, and often highly secretive preparations for the upcoming season?  

Is it for the team's fans?

The show provides really interesting, and compelling entertainment if you are a supporter of the Jets, or even a fan of professional sports in general.  It is a way to kind of 'give back' to the fans, by sharing so openly at least some of the inner workings of the organization and its leaders, staff, and players.

The show does give fans a glimpse into the plans and strategies that the team hopes to employ, a view of the leadership and motivational methods of the coaching staff, and how ownership and executives evaluate talent, and make hiring and firing decisions.

Is it for the publicity?

Maybe.  But realistically in the US, everyone knows about the National Football League.  The start of the season is incredibly anticipated, and the season ending Super Bowl game is perennially the top rated television broadcast of the year, and is a de-facto national holiday. Truly, the world doesn't really need another show about football.

Is it for recruiting?

Bingo.

Jets Head Coach Rex Ryan described the show as a 'recruiting tool'.  The idea being that by participating in the show, and making visible all this behind the scenes information and making open, and really transparent coaching tactics, leadership styles, and the attitude of ownership towards staff and players, that potential new recruits to the organization will have a much, much better of how the team operates, what the coaches and players are like, and will be able to make a significantly better informed decision about their ability and willingness to 'fit in'.

Making a mistake in the hiring process is expensive for any organization.  For NFL teams it can be a million dollar mistake. Making a few potentially embarrassing documentary shows could be a small price to pay to avoid paying a bigger price down the line when some high-priced new talent doesn't pan out.

How far would you be willing to go, how honest and open are you willing to be to communicate what it is really like to work at your company, to be a member of the team, and what it takes to 'fit in' in your shop?

This far?