Recruiting Sizzle

Recruiting Sizzle

Last modified on 2013-02-13 16:47:09 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

Maren Hogan, HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board Contributor

For my first post on the HR Examiner, John Sumser told me to “bring the recruiting sizzle,” because I have actually recruited (badly), and now advise recruiting technology vendors (awesomely); that is my place in this world and I love it. If marketing has a counterpart in the talent management world, it’s certainly in recruiting. The two practices are more aligned than most would care to admit and attraction is at the heart of both.

Here are a few things that are also crucial to successful recruiting, though I didn’t know any of them when I signed on to a recruiting firm 7 years ago:

You must understand the strengths and weaknesses not of the company but of the team. If the team is fun-loving but misses deadlines, hard-working but critical, creative but demanding — as the recruiter, you should know. Granted, there are few teams who can be described with such broad strokes, but knowing precisely what sort of animal den you are sending your candidates into helps you with successful placement (retention too, but that’s a whole different blog post.).

It is crucial to identify the areas for enrichment and development in the organization. It’s true that many people in today’s job-seeking ecosystem are not looking for a long-term career, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there to learn what they can. The old saw that “people just go to a job to earn money” may be true for some. I believe those people are dwindling. Being able to offer meaningful work, or at least the chance to learn how to do meaningful work, is an important recruiting tool.

Stop bucking against generational differences (Just stop bucking at all). There are lots of blog posts about generational differences in today’s workforce. What is most interesting are the comments. In many of them, there is frustration and near-rage that goes beyond complaints about “young whipper-snappers”  and reflects an anger that the world is changing rapidly. There are people who have pushed and shoved to create that change, who may not be in the workforce long enough to enjoy it. That stinks. But stubbornly refusing to change workplace or talent attraction strategies to attract and accommodate newer workers is silly.

We shop online, date online, meet up with friends online, and find work online. That is not going to change, probably ever. So taking steps to include social where it makes sense in your recruiting function is necessary for success. I’m not saying it’s a nice to have. I’m not saying it’s something new recruiters should do. I am saying that every successful recruiter that I know is using social media in some way or another. Your methods of outreach must respond to this movement.

“Lay off retention (no pun intended)” There are those who think that retention should be paramount to a recruiter. To those, I flatly disagree. But even if retention is a recruiter’s responsibility (let me be clear, it is NOT), it matters little. Retention is becoming an antiquated word, not just in Silicon Valley and among millennials, but everywhere and with everyone. It’s called the “project economy,” and it’s actually working out pretty well. So hire for cultural fit and aptitude, then train the skills. You’ll keep the folks who resonate longer, and will have created an avenue for enrichment and development (see my second point), instead of making already skilled people better at what they do and depressing them because they are hanging out with people they hate.

Observe and evaluate. If there is any power that is understated in this world of personal branding, it’s this one. Taking the time to observe the trends, not only in your industry but in your own company, is a skill that few have honed. Evaluating how programs are working after you’ve put them in place is as important as testing and evaluation before you purchase or implement. You can’t solve a development with recruiting, nor can you fill a leadership gap with social. You must be able to see and identify the issues within your workforce before you can address them. This, like many important things, takes time.

It never ends. Like the Newman’s mail, recruiting is a never-ending, non-stop process. It has to be. The current of this river is PEOPLE, who are constantly changing and shifting. At the same time, some of the fundamental concepts of work, and how people view it, are changing (for the better IMHO) and that is having a profound effect on how people work, why they work, and therefore, how you can recruit them.

Five Links: Paranoia Edition

Last modified on 2013-02-19 10:57:09 GMT. 2 comments. Top.

This week, it’s tracking and targeting.

Five Links: Paranoia Edition

This week, it’s tracking and targeting. The social in social media means hunting and acquiring to some. It means reasonable paranoia to others.

• Software That Tracks People On Social Media Created By Defence Firm
  The UK’s Guardian reports on tracking software developed by Raytheon. media sites, the tool generates enough clear data (and photo information) to easily identify the best time to steal someone’s laptop. Be sure to watch the demo video (how the tool tracks you online)and read the followup piece, Why We Should All Worry About Being Tracked Online.
• The End of Sourcing Is Near … the Remaining Recruiting Challenge Is Selling
  Pot stirrer John Sullivan timed the release of this piece to be the talk of Sourcecon, the conference for sourcers (people who find people). In the brouhaha that followed, many sourcers rose to challenge Sullivan’s thesis (since privacy is dead, it’s easier to find people). Sullivan’s piece is actually more interesting for the way it forecasts the end of recruiting in general. His take is that referral tools, coupled with great salesmanship, are the recruiting function of the future.
• How Retargeting Works (Video)
  If you read HR Blogs, you’ve probably noticed that you are seeing the same ads everywhere you go. A number of leading HR blogs are participating in an ad network that places a cookie in your browser’s cache. Bingo. You are now a target to be retargeted. Say “Thank you” to the bloggers who feel comfortable selling you to a third party without asking you if it’s okay. (Download this informative white paper). Retargeting is also being used on internal communications systems to make sure that specific bits of information are read.
• How to Recruit Job Candidates Through “Retargeting” Ads
  Retargeting is still in its infancy. Ultimately, it will be a part of the recruiting arsenal. It’s automated sourcing, more or less. Here’s a tutorial.
• The Magnet
  This new blog from startup Ongig covers tools and techniques for using social media in recruiting.

Events, Happenings and New Resources

• State of Talent Mangers Report From HRExaminer Editorial Advisory Board member Marc Effron’s New Talent Management Network comes this study of the aptitudes, attitudes and perceptions of over 700 talent managers.
• HRExaminer Radio:Industry News and Commentary. Fridays @ 11AMPST (2PMEST)
  • Friday Feb 15: China Gorman
  • Friday Feb 22: Chris Russel
• HRTech Europe: Spring Warmup (London, March 19-20, 2013) Sumser on Where Ideas Come From and a half day of Cutting Edge HR
• NeuroGaming 2012 Conference: (San Francisco, May 1-2, 2013) The place to learn about human-sensor integration

Social Media, Blogging, and Copyright

Last modified on 2013-02-19 10:19:13 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

The first thing to understand is the law is way behind reality.

I’ve seen lots of questions lately about when it’s okay to use someone else’s content, is linking to the original enough, can you copy a post as long as you say who wrote it and give a link to the original?  Here are my thoughts on Pinterest. (Spoiler: I have artistic and legal differences with it.)

The first thing to understand is the law is way behind reality. Almost all intellectual property law is based on the idea that there is something tangible that you can own and attach ownership rights to—like a book, or a poem, or a painting.

Most information on the internet is organic: it changes quickly in both form and content, and is distributed infinitely within minutes. It can be edited over time—sometimes by the author—or with a wiki or a social network site–by the entire community.

This is not something you can cart into a courtroom as Exhibit A. Internet content changes every time someone joins a community, posts a new article, comments, makes a friend, or adds a photo or video. There is no HR Examiner or Facebook page or Twitter, especially Twitter, that you can print out or point to as being one specific thing over time.. The law can’t begin to handle that. The law is like the nuns in the Sound of Music: “How do you catch a wave and hold it down?”

Ideas Are Free, But Content Isn’t.

Next, the basic principle of intellectual property law is that you can NOT own an idea. Ideas are free. It’s only when an idea takes form through publishing or creation of a thing, like a photograph or a play, that ownership rights attach.

Those ownership rights– intellectual property, are either industrial or copyright. For a great discussion of intellectual property law, see the Manual by the World Intellectual Property Organization here. Industrial rights are generally patents and trademarks that apply to inventions, scientific discoveries and commercial use of trade names and logos. The big issue for bloggers and use on the internet is copyright.

Copyright

Copyright covers every other pin-downable expression of ideas– including print, music, plays, artwork, film and recordings, and digital works such as computer programs or databases. Copyright does not cover the ideas themselves.

So I could wonder aloud: Hmmm. Wouldn’t it be a great idea for lawyers to hire sourcers to find witnesses and get background information on the people, judges and attorneys involved in a lawsuit?  My wondering aloud is just an idea that I’m playing with. But now that I have written it down in this blog post, I think that I should get an equity share in your sourcing business for lawyers because the idea was mine.

Except that intellectual property does not protect the idea. All a copyright protects is the unauthorized use of your work in the form that you create it. So I don’t get an equity share in your sourcing business after all. It was an idea that you can use. It’s just that you can’t copy my blog post without my permission because I have a copyright to these words, in this particular order. (It’s a great idea though and I still want an equity share.)

You don’t need to do anything to copyright the things you write. It happens automatically by creating it and putting it out in the world.  You can register your work and get additional protections. But you have the copyright just by creating the work.

Gift or License

When you give permission for someone to use or copy your work, it can either be a gift or an exchange for value.

A gift is just that—you let someone have it and use it.  If you give it as a gift, you can’t take back permission. Gifts are irrevocable.

An exchange for value is usually a license. A license is when you give someone permission to use your stuff. Licenses are revocable by the person who gives it.

So if I grant an online community like Facebook or Google+ a license to use and publish my posts, I can change my mind and take it back—delete my post and member page and quit.

You can also sell different kinds of rights to your written work. So a book contract usually grants the publisher very broad rights to use and sell the story for a certain amount of time in exchange for a percentage of sales. It’s often called selling the book, but it’s really a license to sell the published versions. The author still owns those words in that order.

Or you can sell the whole thing.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an idea related to copying. But plagiarism is taking someone’s words and saying they are your own. Plagiarism always involves a copyright violation—but the idea is that you stole the credit, as well as reproduced it without permission of the real author.

Fair Use Doctrine

The place that internet users and the courts are struggling with is what constitutes reproduction. Generally free use includes quoting from a work, provided the author is mentioned and the quote is not extensive (fair use doctrine). Other free use includes using a portion for news reporting, or use of the work for illustration in teaching or for educational purposes.

How much of an excerpt is fair use? No one knows.

The Fair Use Doctrine is part of the Copyright Act that sets out the factors to determine whether a use should be free, or whether the author should be compensated for the use. There are four factors that are nonexclusive guidelines to figure out if a use is Fair Use:

1. Whether the use is for commercial purpose or for educational or non-profit purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and percentage of the copyrighted work that was used; and
4. The effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

For example, the courts have decided that the thumbnail photos you pull up in an image search is fair use, because it’s a smaller version and links back to the original.The courts have not really dealt with blog excerpts yet. This is sort of a weird result in dealing with print because the truth is, a thumbnail still shows the full picture. But it would be impossible to do image searches if all of the thumbnails were copyrighted. So there is another factor that gets considered which is: does it basically have to be that way to work?  The case is Google v. Perfect 10.

How to Use Other People’s Work on the Internet

So where does that leave bloggers who want to talk about other posts or companies who want to publish a digital newsletter with excerpts of interesting articles. Here are my suggestions on how to properly use other people’s online content.

• Excerpting a short quote with a mention of the author and a link to her or her original post is the proper way to use another blogger’s material. If you have copied more than about 15%, you’re pushing it. Copying the whole thing is illegal and a clear copyright violation.
• Always link back to the original post. It is the proper way to give attribution of the author, and is important for blog traffic, which is what sponsors and advertisers look at in deciding whether to advertise. So if you don’t link back, you are also stealing traffic and advertising dollars.
• If you want to use the whole thing, you need to get permission.  It never hurts to ask, especially if you can bring an author a new audience or wamt to say really great things about him.
• If you are using someone else’s photograph or image, it’s really hard to excerpt. So you should get permission if it is copyrighted or some copyrights are reserved. This includes Pinterest.  The exception is images from catalogs or advertisements where you are essentially offering more exposure and advertisement for a company selling something. It’s still a copyright violation, but you’re actually doing them a favor, so no one is going to complain.

So when you use someone’s work on the internet, always give credit, don’t copy the whole thing, and always link to the original post. If you’re not sure, ask for permission.

Work and Time

Last modified on 2013-02-13 16:48:17 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

If work is about activity and energy, then why do we measure it in time?

For most of us, work is the stuff we do to make money. A slightly more precise definition is: “Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.” In science, work is essentially a transfer of energy.

If work is about activity and energy, then why do we measure it in time?

A New York Times article by Tony Schwartz, Relax! You’ll Be More Productive summarizes several studies that found taking breaks, taking care of ourselves, and working in shorter periods increases productivity and accuracy. Long hours do not mean accomplishing more.

Of the US workforce, 60% of workers are paid by the hour. Only about 5% of hourly workers are in minimum wage jobs. In repeatable processes like standing at a cash register or in a production line, measuring how long someone does something makes some sense. But those are exactly the types of jobs that are being automated. Try to find a cashier at Home Depot.

For most jobs, the work is about creating something, fixing something, or managing something. While all those things take time and energy, none is about spending the time itself. It takes time to build a house, but the work is about creating a house. It takes time to represent a client in a lawsuit, but the work is about resolving the dispute. It takes time to hire and manage people in a company, but the work is about getting the right people in the jobs, complying with legal requirements, and supporting the work of the company.

So why are we focused on time instead of the work?

It used to be that we went to physical places to work, and those places were open and operating during certain times. It was important to all be in the same place so that people could communicate with each other to get the work done.

Those requirements no longer apply to many jobs. And increasingly jobs deal with information rather than physical things.

It’s time to rethink time as part of work.

Time is simply a function of scheduling. Work is about creating value. It’s time to stop paying people based on time, and requiring people to show up places at times they don’t need to be there.

It’s far more valuable to focus on value.

The Health Care Shuffle

Last modified on 2013-02-19 10:22:39 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Workers who pay for their own benefits are significantly more mobile that those who don't.

The Health Care Shuffle

I had a chance to catch up with some friends who are at the bottom of the system. Both work in retail. Both are part time students. Both work hard and creatively. Both are noticing weird behavior from their employers.

They work in different cities in different parts of retail.

Since the first of the year, managers have been rotating and schedules have been shifting. As the noise settles down, the managers are slotting 50 hour weeks while the rest of the store works 27 to 30 hours.

In both cases, this amounted to a 20% cut in pay and a potential loss of benefits. (Their benefits are still intact but won’t remain so when the next ‘look back’ happens.) Very little is explained.

From their POV, it looks like management is lurching.

Their companies are maneuvering through the challenge of figuring out who does and doesn’t get benefits. Since it’s over their pay grade, they only understand the bluntest impacts of the story.

Ultimately, they will end up paying for their own health insurance.

It’s not really a surprise. While it is a momentary inconvenience, what happens next is pretty obvious. While their employers have figured out how to dodge this bullet, they only get a temporary reprieve.

Workers who pay for their own benefits are significantly more mobile that those who don’t. Up until last year, a worker who got sick (or had a family member who got sick) was bound to the current employer for a very long time. Preexisting conditions made a whole range of people uninsurable if they left the current boss.

Now, after the first initial pinch, these low level workers are freer than they’ve ever been..

The employers who recognize this short term windfall will end up paying for their employees healthcare in the long haul. Workers who get saddled with new bills seem to always want raises.

The interesting question is whether the employers who dodge this first bullet really understand that they are creating an attrition problem that will be accompanied by wage increases.

It doesn’t look like it. They are predictably going for the short money.