Recruiting Animal

What I Learned This Summer

Dear Friends,

I'm want to do a few shows in which people call in and tell us 1 thing they learned over the last few months.

You'll get from 5 to 15 minutes to spill your guts (and argue with us if your story is interesting).

The topics desired: Something related to careers and recruiting.

This is a good way for Animal Show Alumni to revisit the show. Or for people who aren't interesting enough for a full hour to participate.

Please get in touch with me by email or Twitter or in the comments and I'm will schedule you.

Please Note: Usual warnings apply

 

A Note From My Split Partner

Animal, the reason i have not back to you, i had very seriuos health issues, I will be able to get back you until Septemer 30th. i have not work since May. I have hardly work since i last spoke to you. i going thur a serious of test next week & i don't know what is going to happen. This not a lie. Regards, Alan

Our candidate started on June 1, 2010. Today is August 19, 2011.

The fee was due one month after the start date. My split partner said it didn't come in. Of course, it did. He just pocketed the entire fee and broke off contact.

I didn't hear from him until Feb 2011 when he called to ask me to work another search for him.

Why did he call me? I think he was drunk but he gets indignant whenever I say so. He says he just sounds drunk because he is ill.

When I started bugging him for the money he would promise to pay then  claim that he had been rushed to the hospital. Finally, I started calling the hospital. Of course, they never heard of him.

Full story here

Facebook vs Linkedin

Recruiting Animal Show - August 17, 2011

Jason Ginsburg of BRANDEMix sez Linkedin is in trouble.
Facebook will destroy it by 2013.

His article on ERE

BRANDEMiX on Twitter

Jenn Pedde disagrees with Jason

2nd Feature: Background Checks -- Jane Doe tells us how a renegade ex-spouse can a hurt a job hunter (starts at 45 min mark)

 

PLAY - Full Show - Facebook v Linkedin

PLAY - Old Job Hunters

PLAY - Social Media Numbers

 

 

Jerry and Animal's Dirty Dozen

The Top 12 Recruiters Online - Aug 15/11

This list was composed using the Toronto-based Algorithm Method.

01 @Shennee_Rutt - Always cheerful. Nothing can hold her down - Video
02 @CMannnis1 - Tenacious single mom - Video
03 @SandraMcCartt - Sweet Young Thing - Video
04 @HeyOverbey - Brings collection officer brutality to sourcing - Video
05 @HRMargo - Gave up virtual life 4 a real life job - Video
06 @TomBolt - The #chat man - Video
07 @DavidGraziano - Moonlights as an actor - Video
08 @MikeRamer - Master of Social Media Leverage - Video
09 @Recruit4U - Low key power player - Video
10 @MikeAstringer - The Shpritzer - Video
11 @BillBoorman - Inspires Young People - Video
12 @LauraVezer - She's Kangalicious - Video

 

Kindness To Celebrities

From: You Got a Problem With That?

Another curious form of cooperation one sees in New York is the unspoken ban on staring at celebrities.

When you get into an elevator in an office building and find that you are riding with Paul McCartney — this happened to me — you are not supposed to look at him. You can peek for a second, but then you must avert your eyes.

The idea is that Paul McCartney has to be given his space like anyone else. A limousine can bring him to the building he wants to go to, but it can't take him to the 12th floor. To get there, he has to ride in an elevator with the rest of us, and we shouldn't take advantage of that.

This logic is self-flattering. It's nice to think that Paul McCartney needs us to do him a favor, and that we live in a city with so many famous people that we can afford to ignore them.

But if vanity is involved, so is generosity. I remember, once, in the early '90s, standing in a crowded lobby at City Center Theater when Jackie Onassis walked in. Everyone looked at her and then immediately looked down. There was a whole mob of people staring at their shoes. When Jackie died, a few years later, I was happy to remember that scene. I was glad that we had been polite to her.

Nervy People

From: You got a problem with that?

My mother, who lives in California, doesn't like to be kept waiting, so when she goes into the bank, she says to the people in the line, "Oh, I have just one little thing to ask the teller. Do you mind?"

Then she scoots to the front of the line, takes the next teller and transacts her business, which is typically no briefer than anyone else's.

People let her do this because she is an old lady. In New York, she wouldn't get away with it for a second.

A Good Buying Experience

From: The Next Web

The mostly enthusiastic and knowledgable staff at Apple Retail Stores and the clean, well designed atmosphere are a far cry from the experience that most people will have when trying out an Android, QNX or WebOS tablet for the first time.

Compare handling an iPad in a sparse, focused and futuristic feeling Apple store versus trying out a greasy bashed up Galaxy Tab on a tether in a Best Buy with no sales people anywhere in sight. No comparison.

 

In Praise of Hiring Managers

PLAY - Stupid Hiring Managers

Last week I told you how pathetic executives can be when they step into the role of hiring manager. And today I want to give you an example.

About 6 weeks ago I had a phone conversation with a VP of Sales. He was looking for a senior sales person, someone who handled big accounts worth millions of dollars.

He gave me a minimal idea of what he wanted but when I asked him about the compensation package he said he didn't know. He's the VP and he didn't know.

I said: "Look, HR has already given me a base. I just need to know how much commission the person is going to earn at quota." "I'll get it for you later," he said.

Within a week, I had two candidates. Both of them were great. Within two weeks they had been interviewed by the hiring manager, another VP and a sales engineer.

There was no doubt they could do the job but then the VP said, "Find me more people."

I said: "Okay, but first you tell me what these guys are missing because I think they're pretty good." No reply.

Then I said, "Well, do you have any idea what the money is now?"

He said: "I have some tentative figures from the president."

I said, "Send them to me." So he did. The base was lower than what HR gave me and the base and commission package was way lower than what the two candidates were earning.

"Do you want someone more junior?" I said.

"No," he said. "I need people just like them."

Then he said he'd pass the number one candidate on to the president for an interview and I didn't look for anybody else.

The candidate spoke to the president on the phone and he thought the meeting went very well but then I got an email from HR:

The president thought your candidate was ok but did not stand out and for this reason, we want to continue the search for additional candidates.

In addition, the VP and president both feel that your candidate has good experience, he has bounced around too many times from job to job and although he has explained his moves we still feel that this is still a problem.

Regarding compensation, the president wants to wait until the candidate has been chosen before we start discussing that.

The guy has 4 interviews before they tell me he moved around too much.

So, I called the candidate and told him he was out and then I said to the company: "It seems like the president is a key part of the selection team so before I go back into the field I'd like to speak to him to find out he's looking for.

"And you know what else? I'd like to get an idea of the money because I don't want to bring someone in and then at the end of the process find out that the money isn't right?"

So HR sends me an email:

Dear Animal,

I didn't say that your candidate was out of the running. I just indicated our concerns. Let's put everything on hold right now. Don't you look for more people.

So, listeners, you make up your mind. Was I too tough with this company? And Company: The guy who's on hold? The guy who didn't stand out? He earned over $300,000 last year. And the number 2 candidate, he earned $250. You think they don't know what they're doing? I think they do.

And before you tell me to find someone else I want to know exactly what you're looking for. And if you're the president and you want me to find someone you like, you'd better take the time to speak with me.

Update: On Friday I spoke to the internal recruiter. Great guy, he is working on the search with the president. And you know what the president wants? A junior guy. Hahaha. And the money? Who needs to know about money? He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. Over and out.

 

Defensive Certainty

From Bill Kolbrener

The frantic certainty... of a perspective achieved is a mark of failure, the cover story for self doubts about facing the demands of discovery.

From Eric Alterman

It is rather incredible, as others have remarked, the degree to which Horowitz has chosen to live out the syndrome identified by his former mentor, the Marxist historian Isaac Deutcher, with whom Horowitz studied in London as a youth.

Deutcher wrote that the “ex-communist” carries to his new task the same

…lack of scruple, the narrow-mindedness, the disregard for truth, and the intense hatred with which Stalinism has imbued him….

He continues to see the world in white and black, but now the colors are differently distributed.

As a communist he saw no difference between fascists and social democrats. As an anticommunist he sees no differ-ence between Nazism and Communism….

[He] is haunted by a vague sense that he has betrayed his former ideals or the ideals of bourgeois society….

He then tries to suppress his sense of guilt and uncertainty, or to camouflage it by a show of extraordinary certitude and frantic aggressiveness.

He insists that the world should recognize his uneasy conscience as the clearest conscience of all. He may be no longer concerned with any cause except one — self-justification.

Charmed by the candidate, you ignore the resume

From Ron Radosh

An intriguing op-ed ^[1] by Drew Westen, a leftist professor of psychology at Emory University, appears in today’s New York Times.

What is surprising about Professor Westen’s article is that many of his observations make points that conservatives have said about President Barack Obama for quite some time. 

Take this paragraph, for example, in which Westen asks why Obama seems to “take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him”:

The most charitable explanation is that he and his advisers have succumbed to a view of electoral success to which many Democrats succumb — that “centrist” voters like “centrist” politicians. Unfortunately, reality is more complicated.

Centrist voters prefer honest politicians who help them solve their problems.

A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history.

Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted “present” (instead of “yea” or “nay”) 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

If Professor Westen ignored all of the above, it speaks only to his inability and that of his like-minded friends to read such warnings by various commentators who regularly made these points at PJMedia as well as National Review, The Weekly Standard, and other conservative outlets.

COMMENT: I post this critque of Obama not for any political significance. I'm only pointing out that people will ignore the weaknesses on a resume if the candidate is personally very impressive. Then, if things go wrong, they regret it or, like Westen, blame the candidate rather than themselves.