The Recruiting Animal

Cut Out Wordiness

A simple guide

Full of garbage words and phrases

XYZ Consulting delivers training initiatives that empower both individuals and organizations to effectively eliminate the problems of frustration, conflict, low morale, low productivity and high turnover in today's workplace.

ALT VERSION: XYZ Consulting teaches people how to avoid the frustrations and conflicts that lead to low morale, low productivity and a high rate of turnover in the workplace.

Every program XYZ Consulting offers is designed to produce results...
[What else could it be designed do?]

How To Be Liked

Source: Think Simple Now by Tina Su

You are more likely to be hired if the interviewer likes you.
And you can make yourself likeable.

1. Tina claims that people like you when you mimic their posture and facial expressions.

Comment: They like it more when you adjust to their style of talking. (But how can you carry on an intelligent conversation when you are busy trying to copy someone else's behaviour?)

2. Tina says: People are impressed when you remember their names.

3. They like you when you when you give them a chance to talk

Comment: They also like you when you have something interesting to say.

4. They like you when you pretend you are interested in what they have to say.

5. Tina says: tell yourself that you would like your desire to get to know a particular person manifest itself in some way. You don't have to specify exactly how it will make itself visible. But like a "tell" in a game of cards, other people will pick up your subtle signals.

6. Offer help first and give more than you take.

Comment: Offer help when people need it. The routine offers of help from business people whom you barely know are transparently insincere.

7. Smile

8. Be authentic

Comment: Feel free to be lively but you can't tell everybody everything -- if only because they don't want to hear it. This is certainly true in an interview. You have to sell what they want to buy and that doesn't mean let it all hang out.

Hilarious Twitter Bio

Strategic Human Resource business partner driving initiatives designed to meet organizational objectives that attract, engage and retain talent.

Does that mean something?

How To Write For Your Blog

A roadmap. Source: Brian Clark

1. Your main goal is to get the first sentence read
2. Goal number two is to get the next sentence read.
3. Use simple writing for simple people.
4. Have a killer headline

5. Make an offer. Tell the reader what you are going to give her if she takes the time to read your piece. This is your promise to the reader. This is the hook you place in your reader's mind. And you have to be very explicit about it.

6. Each part of your piece should have a main idea that supports your promise. Stay focused. Don’t ramble.

7. Support your ideas with evidence or solid logic. If you tell someone there's a good fairy watching over him, you'd better prove it with statistics, expert statements and other interesting testimonies.

8. Restate your promise, your hook, your offer.

Get Info From Resistant Informants

Ask a question she is not likely to know the answer to. Then follow up with the question in her area of expertise that you really want answered.

After the first question she feels ignorant and weak. So she'll pounce on the second to restore her sense of power.

Rand In Repose

How To Start A Conversation

Find the stranger's sweet spot.

The Brazen Careerist uses a journalist as a model conversationalist. This isn't a good idea because she has a professional format to guide her interactions with strangers and you don't.

Here is her key recommendation: Ask questions until you find a topic the stranger knows something about. Then let him gab.

Socially savvy people learn the standard form a conversation with a stranger usually takes and practice ways to navigate it. But many of these experienced speakers are not artists and their conversations are hackneyed and sound canned.

Men Are Not As Blunt As Women

Do you ever read advice for women? Usually, the author is mad at men because they were raised right while their sisters were treated unfairly.

For instance, men were, allegedly, taught to be blunt, direct and outspoken whereas little girls were taught to fade into the woodwork.

Well, it never seemed that way to me. And now I see that the Brazen Careerist agrees. According to Penelope, men are not blunt, they are wily and full of guile.

Women assume you should ask for what you want... Women are typically more comfortable with conflict than men....

Men don’t generally ask for what they want....Men negotiate more than women because women are facing conflict head-on and men are not.

It’s much easier to approach someone you are not going to instigate conflict with. So negotiations work best when you don’t assume you need to ask for exactly what you want.

Whether we're blunt or indirect, it seems we're always the bad guys in the end.

How Slash Attacks Work In Debate

The power of a Street-Fightin' Man.

The knife-fighter rapidly tosses out a series of outlandish assertions at his opponent. The person on the receiving end of these sound bites doesn't know where to start and even if he did, a logical rebuttal of each one would take time and the victim never gets a chance. He looks befuddled, the attacker confident and sharp.

Reference: Evan

Demasculate Don JGo? Nooo!

Rick Meyers? Maybe.

I remember recruiting HR guys in the auto parts industry. They hated the shouting and swearing that was the common, everyday practice in that field. And, they wanted to change it because they didn't believe that that level of aggression made for a productive workplace.

Mr Moustache takes the same approach to corporate communications. Rick Myers of TalentZoo and Don JGo Jason Goldberg of Jobster like to trash their competition in public. Moustache calls it the low road. But is it?

Isn't there room, at least in the corporate world, for guys who say "Wanted Dead or Alive" or "Bring 'em on"? They're not shooting anybody. They're just making life a lot more fun.

I believe that there are mistakes made in communications. Matt Damon should never have dumped Minnie Driver on Oprah before telling her in person. But, heck, most corporate communications are so dull that I would call them life destroying. The crap I get on my desk is enervating to read.

So what's wrong with a guy who wants to punch it up with his foes? At least I know what he's saying. Whereas you'd prefer that he say nothing at all. Ya big sissy.

Note: Mr Moustache has an interesting blog. I recommend it. He likes to write detailed and cutting critiques. He just doesn't want other people to have fun. More on this later.