#HRHappyHour LIVE Tonight - 'Recruiting in 2013'

The HR Happy Hour Show is back and this week we are really excited to welcome back to the show the great Gerry Crispin - an industry thought leader, influencer, and the man who has the pulse of the world of corporate recruiting. 

Gerry's influence in the world of recruting is immense - his firm CareerXRoads issues the definitive 'Source of Hire' report each year that is widely regarded as the industry benchmark.

Addtionally, Gerry is one of the driving forces behind the new Candidate Experience movement - spearheading research and awards that are pushing the recruiting community to improve and enhance how candidates are treated in the recruiting process.

This week we will talk with Gerry about some of the big-picture trends in corporate recruitng, hit upon what technologies are having the most impact, and what we can expect to see in the world of recruiting in the future.

You can catch the show in a few different ways - listen to the live stream starting at 8:00PM ET on the show page here, or using the widget player embedded below:

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

You can also listen via the call-in listener line - 646-378-1086, (if you are brave you can even join the fun).

After the show, you can access the replay anytime from the show page, or from the Apple iTunes store - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' in the podcasts area and download the show for free to your iDevice.

And just this week, the HR Happy Hour has made it on to Stitcher Radio - the leading iPhone and Android app for podcasts. Just download the free Stitcher Radio app and search for 'HR Happy Hour'.

I know it will be a fun show tonight - even if you are not a huge sports fan I think there will be some insights on how sports and HR and talent and recruiting and work are all interrelated that you will find interesting.

So this week we think you wil enjoy the conversations on all things recruiting with the great Gerry Crispin, of course also joined by the HR Happy Hour hosts - Steve Boese and Trish McFarlane.

It should be a fun show and I hope you can join us!

If the manager is so important, why does no one make it part of the ad?

I read a really interesting piece from Scott Berkun last week titled - 'Why You Should Pick Your Own Boss' where he lays out a case that the most important aspect in any job is the boss that you will be reporting to. But according to Berkun, most people don't evaluate a new job or a transfer with the 'boss' as the primary consideration, rather we think about compensation, job titles, and assignments first, (in varying orders, but these are the most important considerations), and maybe, if we can get a feel in the interview, think about the personality of the hiring manager/boss.

While I am not totally sure the boss is the most important element of a job, there is no doubt that the boss, your relationship with him or her, their talent, and probably most of all, their willingness and ability to help your development and learning is one of the critical aspects of any job, and as Berkun suggests, one that new employees and candidates often can find out the least.

External candidates can learn quite a bit about a company from reviews on Glassdoor, can examine career profiles and arcs of potential future colleagues and bosses on LinkedIn, and perhaps if they are lucky or persistent enough, talk to someone actually working at a company to learn more about the culture and the feel of a place. But rich information an details about a prospective boss - how are they as a people developer, how many of their past direct reports were promoted, how many internal people try to transfer in/out of their group, etc. - this kind of data is really difficult if not impossible to ascertain.

And, what I think is even more curious, is that if the 'boss' is such an important element for attraction, performance, retention, etc. why don't more companies actually talk about the boss in job advertisements? I mean, if your company did have a rockstar hiring manager, that everyone wanted to work for, wouldn't you want to emphasive that in the job ad? Wouldn't that be an incredible source of competitive adavantage in recruiting?

Because when you think about it, very few jobs are 'unique' in that there are not any other similar jobs at other companies. Every company has accountants, marketers, operations people - you get the idea. The differences between any of these jobs at Company 'A' v. Company 'B' boil down to tangible things like compensation, benefits, schedules; and intangible things like company culture, mission, and the personalities and talent of the actual people you will be working with and for.

But most job advertising is about 80% job duties and requirements, 15% generic pablum about the company, and maybe with 5% of the content that actually tries to distinguish the job or role from the hundreds or thousands of similar jobs at other places.

Just once I'd like to see a job ad that said something like - "Look you can get an accounting job anywhere. Take this accounting job, and you'll learn from the best Division Controller our organization has ever had, who has placed her last 4 lead accountants in bigger and better roles in the company. This gal is a star, and she will get the best out of you.''

I'd apply for a job like that, and I hate accounting.

You call it 'culture' - to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Fresh off last week's launch of The 8 Man Rotation, 2012 Season free Ebook on all things Sports and HR, I am stocking the pond for the 2013 edition with another dispatch from the sports world - but one that I promise has more broad relevance and applicability.

In baseball, and perhaps in all of North American major professional sports, the New York Yankees are the most famous, most successful, and most storied franchise in history. Legendary players, achievements, 27 World Series championships, and the occasional bit of controversy have been the hallmarks of the team throughout its long history.

With this long history comes tradition certainly, and traditionally the Yankees have continued to reinforce elements like their uniforms, which are the same design, more or less, as they have always been, and with no player names on the back, only numbers. The Yankees shun most of the other 'entertainment' elements that have become a fixture of professional sports - they have no costumed mascots or cheerleaders. They try for the most part to project a sense of professionalism in how they play the game, and how their players, (employees really), also project themselves when they are representing the team.

For players this means (among other things), an 'appearance' code - uniform shirts buttoned and worn a certain manner, and curiously enough still in 2013, a ban for players on facial hair.  Yep, you read that correctly. If you want to play for the Yankees that means no mustaches, beards, goatees, Van Dykes or facial hair of any type.

The Yankees ownership obviously feels, and has for a long time, that the facial hair ban helps to ensure and support their company brand and culture - professionalism, attention to detail, and very 'corporate' in nature. To them surely this 'rule' really is not so much a rule or a policy, but an outward manifestation and expression of that culture.  And it is entirely up to them as an employer to feel that way.

But one man's (or company's) culture is another man's policy - and in some cases this culture/policy has the effect of deterring otherwise 'top' talent from the organization. The latest example of this in action for the Yankees - check these quotes from the Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher David Price. Price is one of the best pitchers in the league, and when he becomes a free agent in a couple of years, would be precisely the kind of talent the Yankees would pursue. 

Here's what Price has to say about the Yankees and facial hair:

"If I ever did hit that free-agent market, there would be teams I wouldn't sign with simply because of the stuff that I've heard -- every rule they have."

Taking note of his beard, I told Price he'd have to shave if the Yankees traded for him.

"I wouldn't stay there very long then,” he responded. “I wouldn't sign a long-term deal there. Those rules, that's old-school baseball. I was born in '85. That's not for me. That's not something I want to be a part of."

Sure, you can get a little cynical here and tell me - 'If the Yankees offered him $10M more than any other team, he's shut up and sign the contract and shave the beard.'  That could very well be true, but that isn't really the important point to me. 

One man's 'culture' is another man's policy. Sure in this case maybe the culture/policy is having its desired effect - preventing what would possibly be a bad hire. Price, if he went to the Yankees would bristle over the facial hair ban, and probably lots of other culture/policy issues as well.

Not judging anyone here - the Yankees have been really successful for a long time doing it their way, and Price has an absolute right to his opinion and his desire to be treated as a professional.

Not judging, but just reminding that living up to and reinforcing your culture means sometimes turning away some fantastic talent that doesn't see your culture the same way you do. 

The Google background check: How long can you hold this against someone?

Check this interesting piece on Deadspin last week from the world of High School sports titled 'Disgruntled Goalie Scores On His Own Net, Flips Off Coaches, Skates Off The Ice Forever. On the surface it seems like a kind of amusing, if a little sad, tale about a senior high school ice hockey goalie, feeling like he had been slighted and had unfairly lost playing time to a sophomore goalie. The senior then used the occasion of the team's last game to vent his frustration with his coaches and the situation in a classic flame-out fashion.  

I won't embed the video here, or mention the goalie's name - both can be found at the Deadspin piece, but in case you don't have time to check the footage (you do, it's literally about 12 seconds), here is the gist of what went down:

With three minutes remaining, and Farmington up by one, (he) corralled the puck behind the goal. The video picks up there as he skates it in front and casually slips it into his own net. He sends a middle finger to his bench, fires off a salute, and skates back to the locker room. The game was tied, and Farmington—with a third-string goalie in net, the sophomore was out with an injury—would concede another goal a minute later to lose.

You can certainly chalk up the senior's demonstration/protest/tantrum to a youthful indiscretion and an immature way to express his anger.  Sure, he was wrong to put the puck in his own net, he was wrong to flip off the coaches, and he was wrong to put himself above the team in that way. Whether or not he was a better goalie than the sophomore really isn't important here, but for anyone that has been in that kind of situation, you can at least feel for the kid's point of view. 

Again, in the end, it's really just a kid acting out inappropriately, like most kids will do at least once in a while, and that most of us probably did ourselves when we were that age. No big deal really, it was only a silly hockey game, and the kid will learn his lesson, (or maybe he won't), and everyone will move on and forget.

But I wanted to call it out on the blog this week, after having a quick scan through the 75-odd comments on the Deadspin piece, and noticing at least a half dozen comments similar to this one from someone named 'Loose Cannon':

/Googles '(the kid's full name)'

//discards resume, moves on

- Hiring Managers

Again, I'm leaving out the kid's real name, as I think as evidenced by the comments from 'Loose Cannon' and several others he is never really going to be able to erase this incident from the interwebs. No matter what he goes on to in his life, a Google search for his name, like many, many Recruiters and hiring managers will execute, will bring up these words and images that show immaturity, selfishness, and lack of respect for authority.

But I kind of feel bad for the kid. Not because of what 'Loose Cannon' thinks, (I have a feeling he isn't hiring anyone anytime soon), but rather for the fact that this episode is going to trail him for a long, long time - maybe forever.

I know I did some stupid things back in the day, things I would not want my potential next boss to read about it in detail.

Our young goalie friend here doesn't have that option now. 

Let's hope the HR person or recruiter that does the first Google search on him in a few years can empathize.

It will help if he or she was also brought up in the YouTube age I think. 

Modding the Hiring Process

Until my son starting playing Minecraft in earnest, I really had no conception of the concept of the Video Game 'Mod' and how popular and powerful these mods have become in that industry.  For the folks like me that have no clue what I'm talking about, here is a brief explanation from Wikipedia:

Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games (PC games), especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not stand-alone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, and game modes. They also usually take place in unique locations. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs only are called unofficial patches.

Essentially, the 'Mod' is the method where fans, players, or third-party development companies add features, capability, depth, and other elements to existing game foundations or platforms. For avid gamers, these mods contribute to a better, more personal experience, and help a game to continue to hold player interest after it has been 'beaten', i.e. all existing levels or missions having been completed.

Last week a piece in Wired featured how one company, an enterprise 'Big Data' startup called WibiData, is using the concept of video game mods in the recruiting process.  Over time, the folks at WibiData realized that many of their staff were avid fans of the game Portal, and that it was likely that one source of future candidates would be from other Portal players.

So in order to connect with, and hopefully learn more about these prospects, WibiData created their own Portal mod, where players get to learn more about WibiData, see renderings of the offices, and are challenged to solve math puzzles to advance in the mod to a WibiData job application. So far, the results have been really impressive. From the Wired piece:

In the week since WibiData published the levels, they’ve been a huge a hit both for getting quality job candidates and getting people to notice the startup. “Compare this to cost of using a recruiter to place a single candidate, this by far the best investment I’ve made in marketing and recruiting,” says (WibiData's) Bisciglia. Thus far there’s been 30,000 visits to WibiData’s jobs page (which introduces the project), 1,000 downloads of the game modification, and 30 job applications.

You can learn more about the WibiData Mod in their preview video embedded here (Email and RSS subscribers please click through)

I liked this story for a couple of reasons - one, certainly as a stand-alone story of how one company came up with a creative and differentiating recruiting strategy to meet their specific talent challenges. And two, for what stories like this suggest might be the future for enterprise software tools more broadly. 

WibiData (and the other folks that design video game Mods), are taking an existing solution that is embraced in their community, adding some specific and important elements and features, (while not breaking the base solution), and unleashing it out into the world for use, comment, and positive results. 

Could this be the way that companies and service providers supply and 'mod' software in the enterprise in the future? One big, established company creates the base or foundation, and the rest of the community creates openly downloadable 'mods' to fit their particular interests and needs of their specific communities? And, most importantly, in a way that does not 'break' the system?

As the generation that expects the ability to easily 'mod' anything gains more influence in the workplace, I expect we'll see more of this kind of thing going forward.

A system, process, technology - whatever the case - if it doesn't work for you, just get, (or create) a mod.