Author Archives: Dorothy Dalton

Gender de-coding of job adverts treats symptoms only

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Gender De-coding and unconscious bias

Corporate culture and communication generally has a male tone. Whether it’s job adverts and postings, job descriptions, feedback and review forms or employee engagement and reward terminology. The HR world is awash with phrases such as champion, ninja, winner, hero, scrum master and black belt. It’s hardly surprising that some women or introverts can be deterred from putting themselves forward for new positions. This has result a demand for gender de-coding of all these documents. So although we haven’t seen adverts with “male applicants only” for over 40 years, there is subconscious use of  masculine coded language which will cause many women to de-select themselves.

This is known as “second generation discrimination.”  To counteract this, there has been a demand for gender de-coding of job adverts. With a growing demand to strengthen the female talent pipeline every facet is being investigated.

Masculine language  

Research in Personality and Social Psychology 2011 and also published by Duke University and the University of Waterloo, suggests that women are discouraged from applying for jobs if the posting uses masculine coded language.  “Independent”, “self-confident” and “decisive” are three examples of male wordings that may put off some women from applying for a job. However, men seem to not be affected if a job description uses feminine words like “considerate”, “collaborate” and “loyal”.

This research has generated commentary around the construction of gender neutral adverts and the need for gender de-coding.  A number of apps have been developed to monitor the gender bias of job advertisements, to offset indications that many organisations are unintentionally using language which will turn off female candidates. These algorithms then count the number of gender-coded words to determine if there is a bias in any direction.

Using two software apps I ran two adverts I had created through Textio and Kat Matfield’s Gender Decoder. One was for a Managing Director in the B2B heavy industry sector – very male dominated. The other was a mid-level change management consultant. Despite my best efforts, they both contained some masculine coded words. Leadership, manage, business acumen and analyse are highlighted as being masculine coded.

Matfield provides a full list check list of male and female gender coded words.

Band-aid policy

The MD role is a senior position and indicates an MBA is desirable.This is not an inflated requirement, as I am strict about over egging the job advert omelette. I used the term “business acumen” which was highlighted as being a male coded term. The alternatives offered were “business understanding” and “business sense.”

Are they best use of the English language? I’m not so sure. We’re talking about running a multi-million SME not a monthly allowance.

Can you really write an accurate job description for a senior role without using at least some words that are considered to be male coded, without over simplification? They have masculine connotations now, because not many women have been in these roles until recently. Leadership is currently a male coded word.There is no reason it should be and especially no reason to stay that way. We have to be careful about getting into revisionist language policies reminiscent of communist Russia with the selection of, for example, female friendly leadership synonyms, which may not convey the same message. We are so unused to female leaders – we even call them “women leaders.”  One senior HR Director said they were considering replacing the job title “Team Leader” with “Team Coach”

This is about gaining an understanding of our own unconscious biases, not just treating the symptoms. We can’t eradicate those biases, but we can learn to become aware of them and manage them. We need to tackle the root causes of the problem, at the same time as treating the symptom.

Women’s input

I spoke to some senior women for their opinions. They thought the process of gender de-coding job adverts was really helpful, especially at at mid-junior levels, when women are unfamiliar with business language, and could be overwhelmed and maybe deterred by its usage. They all advocated the use in their own organisations. At a senior level care has to be taken for language not to be reductive.

They also believe at the same time that it would be more effective to educate women to be gender bi-lingual. They would then feel  more comfortable with what is currently being perceived as masculine language, such as “leader”. It’s interesting that men are not put off by feminine coded language. They added hiring managers and HR should stop the inflation of qualifications and experience levels of these postings, which they believe are a greater deterrent to women to put themselves forward for jobs and promotions. The focus should be on what the job holder can do in real terms; “Motivate a team to meet business goals ” is more compelling than “dynamic leadership skills required”   

I passed this idea on to some HR contacts and they agreed. I also asked them their thoughts about adding a line suggesting that “those without all the stated qualifications could still apply.”  This policy is favoured by many to encourage female applicants. They all groaned. “We would be inundated with under/over qualified applicants.”

The field of gender balance is fraught with conflicting opinion.There  is no doubt that job adverts need to be made more accessible to some women, although not all women are deterred by language use.  But not at the expense of dumbing  down. That is patronising.

But please….. the use of “Ninja” and “Black Belt” should be stopped NOW!

If your organisation wants to strengthen the female talent pipeline – read here.

 

 

 

 

Hidden job market

Blind CVs don’t deal with the real problem

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How helpful are Blind CVs?

There has been a recent move towards proposing blind CVs in the recruitment process. Intended to increase diversity and reduce bias in areas such as gender, ethnicity and ageism, a number of organisations are committing to this system, including the U.K. Civil Service, the BBC, the NHS,  the European Union, KPMG and HSBC.

But will blind applications support the reduction of unconscious bias in the recruitment process, or just serve to highlight its existence? At some point the candidate has to be called for interview.

Gender

Research from Yale has shown that when women remove their names from their resumes, they stand a higher chance of being short listed for a job than when their names are visible. Although that may help in the short listing process, it doesn’t save these women from the same bias which reappears once hired into the organisation. In a recent study of code written by women, it was noted that their efforts were more likely to be approved by their peers, than code written by their male colleagues. This caveat was based on the fact that the men didn’t realise the code had been written by a woman.

There is one argument against Blind CVs and it’s a valid one. Blind CVs serve to get candidates through the first part of the process.  But after that point they only then serve to delay discrimination if it’s not being dealt with further into the hiring procedure.

Ethnicity

Individuals with names that don’t match the ethnicity of the culture they are applying into have claimed for years that bias exists at the application stage. I have known many highly qualified North African and Arab candidates, adopt names in line with their target markets to avoid bias in the selection process, to increase their changes of landing an interview. This process of “covering” surely only serves to mask part of their unique background and experience. It also marks a shift from unconscious bias to direct discrimination.

Age  

The age of older candidates is usually clear in the career history of a candidate. I always feel that my time has been wasted when someone presents themselves as 40, when they are actually 65. If someone doesn’t put the year they graduated, it’s usual to assume that they will be over 50. Today with retirement ages being deferred until 67 or even later, a 50 year old has about 30% of a career left.  Candidates would be better advised to prove they are current.

I would also hope that a candidate should be able to embrace their age and younger hiring managers would be trained to handle generational and age differences in the hiring process.

Downsides

A person’s full career history including personal details, interests and hobbies as well as background play an important part in assessing a candidate’s suitability for a job. Resume writers such as Jacqui Barrett Poindexter, suggest that we should weave our resumes with a relatable story  to showcase our personalities and personal stories. Leaving out key elements or obfuscating in any way, will not show who we are. With the spread of online profiles it is not too difficult to match blind CVs against a real person anyway.

So the question remains is whether the blind CV process is just treating a symptom of unconscious bias, or we should seriously focus on getting to the root of it. Candidate sourcing is only part of the process. If the rest of the experience is riddled with bias, not a lot of progress will be made.

Although unconscious bias can’t be eradicated, it can be managed. Competence based hiring is how it should be. But for this to be effective we have to manage all our biases in the rest of the process in all our systems. As a stand alone concept it won’t work as we can already see with our less than diverse talent pipelines.

This is why all hiring managers should receive unconscious bias training. Get in touch!

 

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Copey paste recruitment

Why copy-paste recruitment fails in today’s market

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Getting beyond copy-paste recruitment

Copy-paste recruitment is generally business as usual in most organisations. A job description will be drafted for any open assignment. Usually this involves pulling out the old one, or re-positioning the CV of the last successful post holder.  “Get me someone like….” is a common instruction.

Even if the post was last filled five years ago, the chance of anyone thinking it might have to be crafted differently are slim. Generally the only changes I see are to inflate the qualifications.

Really, your receptionist needs an MBA?

Copy-paste recruitment is limiting

The changes in the market since 2008, means that most hiring managers are missing out on identifying and sourcing candidates with different and non-linear career paths. Many candidates have special and relevant skills which are not always directly evident. Candidates should assume some responsibility for identifying those skills themselves. But more importantly, hiring managers should be capable of going beyond the obvious to identify and source the best talent. This talent may not wear the familiar and comforting keyworded labels.

Why? Because they are missing candidates with those special skills.

This will include those with:

  • Portfolio Careers (a series of related professional activities, connected by the same transferable skills)
  • Or what is shifting into what I call a Cluster Career (a series of unrelated professional activities)
  • Giggers or independent contractors.

A  typical story

Bart graduated in 2009 with a degree in Philosophy as the global economy went into free fall. He spent the next two years doing unpaid internships during the day and working in shops, bars and restaurants as a waiter, bartender, bouncer and even cleaner at night to pay the bills. He worked on short term or zero hour contracts in call centres and creative agencies. He was eventually promoted to Deputy Manager in a bar resto, before he was hired to join the operations team of an event management company.

He had never worked in events, but his skills in running teams, handling difficult situations as well as his sales skills made him a risk worth taking for his new boss. Bart commented “I struggled to find a recruiter who could see beyond my CV. I found my current job through my personal network. Hiring managers have actually said to me  “you have never had a proper job!”  What is a proper job today?” 

As more and more candidates have diffused backgrounds, hiring managers need to consider making changes to their own skill sets and processes, to move out of copy-paste recruitment mode. This will involve:

Fishing where there are fish

Hiring managers in many sectors complain that the talent pool is dwindling. Yet they continue to look for the usual suspects, in the usual places. Time is now to think broader and consider where else might those skills actually be found. This is particularly true in STEM roles or to achieve gender balance and diversity.

Aptitude testing

It is now easy to arrange online aptitude testing, which although not definitive, are reasonable indicators of success, particularly for verbal and numerical reasoning, especially if they are verified. Many hiring managers, recruiters and head hunters are not qualified in even rudimentary psychometric testing.copy paste 2

Transferable skills

Many recruiters and hiring managers wouldn’t recognise a transferable skill if it punched them in the face. Their focus is keywords, job titles and familiar hard skills. It’s now necessary to be able to get behind a candidate’s achievements with some insight, to identify the skills they tapped into to be successful in their previous career professional activities. What ever they might be. Running a Boolean string with keywords on LinkedIn isn’t going to do it.

Behavioural interview

If hiring managers have identified the transferable skills needed for the role, interview questions should be structured to establish if the candidates possess those skills. Behavioural questions should be posed, to indicate how they used them in a previous role or would instinctively know what to do. Candidates can also be assigned tasks and exercises to see how they perform.

Detailed references

Reference collecting is a much under estimated skill. In litigious cultures many are wary of giving too much information in writing. Seeking a reference by telephone is by far the best way to go and questions should be structured and open ended exactly as for an interview.

Asking ” will x be a good candidate for this job?”  of course, gets you a YES answer.

Substituting with  “How would x be a good candidate for this job” will get at least drive some of the answers a hiring manager would be looking for.

What is needed to ensure success?

This is a question I usually pose to referees. Asking candidates will give some insight into their assessment of the personal development needs which can be insightful. It’s also an indication of how they have benchmarked themselves against the job requirements.

Work ethic, commitment and courage

Looking for commitment, work ethic and courage is a valuable indicator of future performance. This is showcased by Bart’s story, but also recently by Stefanie William’s response to Yelp employee Talia Jane who complained about her salary in the public domain and was fired for it. How people respond to adversity can be very telling. Who suits your company best? The tougher suck it up and get on with it (Stefanie) or the empathetic corporate whistle blower campaigner (Talia)? All 3 stories require different types of work ethic, tenacity and courage.

Hiring for attitude and enthusiasm are currently found more in gung-ho memes on Twitter and Facebook, than during any actual selection process. As an increasing number of candidates no longer have CVs that comply with traditional linear thinking, hiring managers are going to have to update their own selection skills and process criteria to identify top talent.

This could be time consuming (read costly) but no more expensive than high levels of churn or hiring the wrong candidate.

Check out your executive search and research options

 

 

 

diversity initiatives

The main reason diversity initiatives fail

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Diversity initiatives and commitment

Diversity initiatives are hard to introduce and even harder to manage successfully and bring to fruition. Many would say they are the window dressing and lip service to appease campaigners. Having a diversity policy is very different to making it effective.

Neil Morrison covered this exact point in his post the other “Some are more equal than others.” He gave an astute analysis of the status of diversity initiatives, especially  gender inclusion. He suggested they were more about “undertaking institutional appeasement. Saying the right things, whilst nothing really changes.”

I agree. For the most part.

He then went on to ask “What if business is essentially a masculine construct, with male rules and the only way to succeed is by being more male than the men?”

Return on Equity

That is a depressing commentary on the state of imbalance in our corporate cultures and one that doesn’t explore alternative models.  But it did make me think.  One of the main and basic reasons why diversity initiatives fail is lack of genuine leadership buy-in. This is in spite of the fact that there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that gender balanced organizations generate higher shareholder return on equity. That ($£€) usually works as a male definition of success.

In an era where approximately 66% of the workforce are said to be disengaged, many male dominated organizations are not doing so well, are they? Think financial crisis melt down, VW & FIFA scandals.

This week also saw the announcement that Sir Philip Hampton has been appointed by the UK government to lead the push to get more women into senior roles. Because that is exactly what we need isn’t it? Another middle aged, middle class, white guy, to lead even more diversity initiatives that may be destined to fail.

To quote Einstein “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Shifting body parts

Corporations reward, promote, recruit and develop for the most part based on a masculine premise. All women know that. The 3M approach to hiring prevails. Mini-Male-Mes. Historically, gender division of labour was centred around the management of the food supply and survival, requiring upper body strength. In a knowledge based economy, the main tool in revenue generation is the iPad, an implement where a manicured nail can work as well as shoulders built like Channing Tatum.man on ipad

So a new barrier to entry for women was required.  Hours worked, and lack of time, have become the new male benchmark for success , in a 24/7 presence culture of over work. 

This is the current deterrent to keep the sandbox a male preserve

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  Women for the most part still assume the role of C.D.O (Chief Domestic Officer,) and are less open to a life of corporate bondage. At one time the discussion would have been whether a man brought home the bacon/harvest. Now it’s how many billable hours he took to do it.

But this doesn’t mean that there can’t be a shift in these values. H.R. V.Ps  are in a leadership position to correct the “some are more equal than others” situation, more perhaps than any one else in a company, except the CEO.

The question remains why don’t they? I’ve written before about the changes that senior HR executives can lead. Let’s be clear, although HR is a pink function, the top jobs are predominantly held by men.

Two key steps forward 

  1. Assign the gender balance project to a senior position with clout, rather than dumping it on a junior, overloaded employee, with no teeth. Preferably not a middle aged, middle class, white guy.
  2. Give all HR personnel, including the VP HR, plus senior managers unconscious bias training.  I would be delighted to run my programme in your company.

Diversity initiatives require top down commitment to cultural change. If VPs of H.R. feel that the challenge of re-engineering corporate culture is too daunting, they need to bring in more women. Women can’t be what they can’t see and hear. They need someone who has walked in their shoes.

Until then, some will definitely be more equal than others. Diversity initiatives will continue to underperform or fail and sadly imbalance will remain .

 

What would you do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Career path is dead

Career Path replaced by Cluster Career

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What’s happening to the career path?

We all know the concept of  having a career path has shifted. Initially this was almost imperceptible, but in the last few years, it is well.. dying, some would say already dead. We saw the arrival of the portfolio career and now I’m seeing the start something else.  What I’m calling a cluster career.

That is a series of diversified professional activities. Not be confused with a career cluster which is quite different.

Linear Career on the wane

The notion of a vertically linear career path, is disappearing, at the same pace as agile and lean are commonplace. The expansion of the “gig”, on demand or collaborative economy is a key part of that shift. It is estimated that 25% of the total workforce will be working on demand.

In certain traditional professions, linear promotion may still apply for a while longer: law and, medicine, come to mind. But even those knowledge based professions will face change, as they are replaced by artificial intelligence.

Portfolio careers

We then saw the arrival of  “Portfolio Careers,” where career management was based on the identification of transferable skills, which could be used in a range of sectors and functions. This was based on strengths and interests, to create a career strategy which met identified goals and allowed people to manage their own careers.

This approach was blocked by older school hiring managers with traditional mind sets, struggling to cope with a model that doesn’t fit a “copy paste” recruitment mode, which facilitates filling openings with “Mini-Mes”

Cluster Career

This concept has been taken a step further by the Cluster Career, with even further diversification, to include multiple, activities in seemingly unrelated fields.

It can be one activity at a time, in rotation. Pete (The Feet)  is a marine engineer, who is also a chiropodist. Isabella is an auditor who responded to a recent call for graduates to retrain as maths and science teachers in the U.K. Elinor, trained as a lawyer, worked as a journalist, then as a media consultant. Olivia is an environmental scientist, turned tree surgeon.

Or it can be multiple activities simultaneously to suit demand: Martin, works in Instructional Design and as a chef and a hairdresser and switches between all to suit the market. Janice does ad hoc editorial and content marketing, plus beauty therapy (mani-pedi and massage.) Dylan, an events manager, works in a bar, as well as gigging as photographer.

What they have in common is fast and continuous learning skills, an ability to change direction, open mindedness and mental agility. They also have acute trend spotting skills.

Strategic diversification

For this type of career management to be effective, some key concepts have to be applied to take a strategic global overview of a career and then project long term. There has to be clear answers to the following two questions:

  •  Will my knowledge be needed by anyone? Ever?

Demand and supply for skills comes and goes. Technical skills gained in university are out of date before someone has graduated. The list of Jobs being automated gets longer every day. Knowledge and access to skill training is becoming easier, pushing down the earning power of certain skills, as competition increases because of over supply. We have seen that with the glut of life coaches on the market and social media “experts.”  Pete-The-Feet is targeting the 65+ demographic, which after 2025 according to W.H.O. will represent  63% of the global population. Pete’s logic is “we all need feet”

  • Will anyone want to pay for what I know?

The trick will be to position yourself on the right side of demand/supply curve, so that any professional activity you pursue, will generate enough revenue to pay your bills. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is still out there. The talent will be to identify long term skill gaps, where certain competencies are in short supply and take the necessary steps to up-skill. This is a difficult one and why we have seen so many unemployed graduates, because high numbers are studying topics that will soon be obsolete. Any profession involved with the aging population will be in demand. The skills will presumably be anything that can’t be automated or robotized. Ironically, many seem to involve manual work.

Career Planning Today

Previously we have talked about pursuing a passion and finding the ideal career, as if it were one single object or objective. Most people embarking on a career will change jobs every 2-3 years. They are now more likely to be pursuing multiple professional activities, in sequence or concurrently. These activities may, or may not, have compatible transferable skills.

That will make career planning today more challenging. Having an open mind and being a life long learner will be critical. People are going to have more options than ever, which is going to make positioning and pitching, to what will eventually be a new breed of recruiters and hiring managers,  who should be trained to assess diverse skills, across multiple disciplines.  Currently at their core many are still conservative, but they will retire eventually.

The need to be self-aware, self-advocating, self-reliant, self- sufficient, self managing and self- promoting, maybe even self- taught and adaptable is going to increase.

The days when anyone took care of your career are over.

For all career coaching needs contact me NOW

 

 

 

Why your candidate experience is good for business

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The link between candidate experience and your talent pipeline

Fuelled by decreased unemployment, retiring baby boomers and different workforce expectations and behaviour, the skirmish for the very best top talent is intensifying. Many organisations pay no or very little attention, to their candidate experience process. It’s either outsourced or automated, with varying degrees of success and efficiency. Ads frequently display clauses “If you haven’t heard from us in 6 weeks, you are not successful”. 

Clearly that side of outsourced automation passed them by. But what that line flags up, is that the company needs to place an ad.

They don’t have a talent pipeline.

Succession planning is critical yet the reality is that apart from the largest organisations, many companies have only the vaguest idea who should cover the gaps when they arise. Oftentimes it’s based on workaround solution which are far from ideal.  They look for the “right now” candidate, rather than the right one.  This is when all companies need to have a strong talent pipeline in place.

Shorter time to hire

Guaranteeing the shortest time to hire has assumed a new significance. Companies need reserves of potential and good candidates, who can be brought in at short notice. That process relies on a flawless candidate experience history offered by your company, which should be second to none, and certainly better than your competitors. Poor candidate experience is now just bad for business.

Research from Career Builder shows that it is “high-touch, not high-tech” that guarantees a successful experience: 61% of job seekers reported speed of response as being critical, while another 58% cited regular updates  No news  a.k.a. the “slow no”  is now old school. Read: How a slow no damages your employer brand

Recruitment specialist Bill Boorman references a talent tipping point which is “the number of connections an organisation needs to reach the point of having all the message points they need to fill all of their future hiring needs.”  This doesn’t have to be formal recruitment contact, but could any other network interaction, including social media. When forums such as Glassdoor gives employees the opportunity to make comments about their experiences, companies are easy to search. See the comments on Shopify.

All of these contribute to a positive candidate experience and expectations, even indirectly.

Opportunity Cost

Many hiring managers don’t understand the real cost to their company of an open assignment and what that means in daily lost revenue, which can be calculated per employee. Unless the open assignment is a cost center role (and even they add some value), then there is direct revenue loss associated with it being open for a lengthy period. With P & L positions such as senior management roles, sales, cash collection, and production, the costs will be even higher.

The recruitment process then becomes part of the company’s marketing process and the pipeline takes on increased significance.

Why is that?

Your recruitment process is marketing

Every candidate who interacts with your organisation has a first hand experience of how you do business and the quality and professionalism of your employees. It’s a bird’s-eye view of the culture. Getting that right, will spill over to your marketing feedback. Although some companies get away with it, especially in  any “cool” sector or function,  great product, crappy company can come back to bite, as we saw with Amazon.

Candidates are your brand evangelists 

If the candidate loves you and your company, even though she was not successful, she will sing your praises. Candidates will forgive rejection, if you treat them with integrity. Think of the companies who have candidates lining up at their doors just to get a chance of joining.

Reaching passive candidates

Top candidates, are busy people. If they are happy in their jobs, they are not active on the job market, casting around for new opportunities. What they do is network strategically to drive traffic to them, especially from the hidden job market. Letting them know they that they are on your radar is good policy, so that when an opening does arise, all it takes is a quick phone call.

Candidates today have increased power and reach

The ability to share information is available with the click of a mouse or the swipe of a Smart Phone. The slightest doubt shared by any candidate in his/her network, is likely to be seen by more people than the recipient.

Recruitment develops relationships

A transparent process, conducted correctly, creates long-term relationships for your talent pipeline. If the candidate is not on target this time, perhaps it will work in the future. If they are not right at all, maybe they can refer you to someone in their network.

Reject with empathy

No one likes to be cut from a job search process, especially if they are almost “at the altar.”  How this is handled will be their last memory of you and your company. Make sure it’s a positive one.

You would be surprised how many hiring managers do not know the basic maths underlying their own processes. Do you?

If your company needs to strengthen its talent pipeline contact DDTM Now

Hire for both attitude AND aptitude

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Finding the balance between attitude and aptitude

The adage “Hire for attitude, train for skill” is frequently bandied around social media. Yet the reality is that this doesn’t frequently happen as part of a conscious, strategic hiring decision-making process, at least in ones that I’ve ever seen.

The question is would it be the right move anyway?

New hire failure

Research from the Leadership IQ’s Global Talent Management Survey, reports a very low percentage (19%) of new hires onboard successfully into their new positions. The study confirms what most head hunters already know.  81% fail. Researching 5,000 hiring managers, it indicated that interviews tend to focus on hard skills, even though a deficit of the necessary hard skills accounts for a lack of success in only 11% of cases.

So the success rate rests on a failure to correctly match the soft skills required to do the job or the fit with organisational culture.

Impact

With only 19% of new hires going on to achieve success, companies see high turnover of personnel which leads to low morale and engagement. In senior leadership roles, high levels of churn, impact whole teams or companies, with a huge impact on shareholder value.

Cultural fit tends to be assessed on interview performance, with a “hire the smile” approach often winning out. We also see PLU decisions (People Like Us) coming to the fore, as the benchmark for defining fit. Same school, same background, same gender or ethnicity, same economic demographic and even same golf club, can all be part of the final decision-making process, especially at a subconscious level. Read: PLU, who do you judge?

Research from Harvard Professor Amy Cuddy tells us that first impressions are centred around trust. This means that:

“If someone you’re trying to influence doesn’t trust you, you’re not going to get very far; in fact, you might even elicit suspicion because you come across as manipulative,”   

The high achieving specialist, who lacks soft skills can easily be overlooked. We are also more likely to trust someone in the PLU category, because they seem familiar, but they may not have the necessary hard skills. Although it might  at the time, that they have the right attitude, more often than not, that attitude lacks longevity and they don’t last the course.

Balance between attitude and aptitude

Hiring managers need to find a balance between hiring for both attitude and aptitude. Yet at the same time we have seen a corresponding decrease in skill availability. This means that companies need to search for indications of fast learning, flexibility and coach-ability.

This brings us to another sand trap. The demographic that fits the bill nicely are the portfolio careerists. Although there is a shift, many hiring managers are not open to candidates with a non-linear career path, seeing this as synonymous with restlessness and lack of commitment.

The growth of the gig economy is opening minds somewhat. But the role of any organisation and HR function is surely to foster that engagement and commitment and not expect it to come in-built.

If you need to identify and attract the best candidates for your company – contact Dorothy Dalton

 

 

 

 

How a “slow no” damages your employer brand

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What is  a “slow no?”

A “slow no” is a communication device used by hiring managers or recruiters for keeping short listed candidates warm as a back-up plan. It involves indirect and opaque communication, which is a death knell to any search carried out with integrity. It might involve no communication at all, or fluff about delays. Sometimes it’s intentional. Sometimes it’s about incompetence, lack of knowledge, training , experience and confidence.  Frequently, it’s about all of the above.

Either way the candidate knows that he or she is not the preferred candidate, but doesn’t know why. No direct feedback is given.

Three of  the most frustrating experiences candidates report relate to the quality and regularity of communication with the head hunter or hiring manager.

1. No updates

Candidates get more upset by not having a status update than being told they are unsuccessful or if there is a delay.  Avoidance strategies damage the employer brand. This is especially true if the candidate is aware of a prescribed process within a certain time frame and they are not included. If second stage interviews are to be held in London in March and it’s now April – they know there is a problem. This is a failed slow no.

Candidate feedback

“Lack of communication is a real problem. I get really annoyed when my emails and calls are unanswered, especially if the head hunter contacted me in the first instance.

2. Delays

Hiring processes are actually becoming slower and longer than ever. As the chain of decision-making becomes extended, multiple interviews are increasingly common. In senior level jobs, candidates commonly report 6 or even 10 interviews as the process (risk responsibility?) is diffused. Read: Why too many interviews is bad hiring practise. To deal with this, candidates need to take vacation days to meet all the necessary stakeholders. This makes the hiring manager seem indecisive and disorganised and clearly impacts the brand.

Candidate feedback

“There are obviously always extenuating circumstances but the hiring process should have a  streamlined time effective process and milestones, which  wherever possible should be adhered to”

3. Evasive responses

Nothing makes candidates more annoyed than evasive responses from the head hunter. This could be because they don’t know the job or client well enough, or they don’t have the information themselves. At that point you have to say you don’t know, but will get back to them. Candidates appreciate transparency and see evasion as part of the “slow no” process.

Candidate feedback

“I’m a grown up! Just tell me how it is and allow me to make a decision. You are more likely to lose me as a candidate by being evasive than by being straight”

At the root of this is also, and perhaps more worrying, is a lack of understanding of the cost of an open position to the business.

The future of work debate divides HR opinion

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Future of work –  is HR equipped to deal with it?

There are two concepts guaranteed to divide HR opinion around the future of work.  They are:

  • the sharing or collaborative economy
  • portfolio careers

In theory they are both fine and dandy. The reality is something different.

The sharing economy

Listed in WIRED as one of the main topics we must stop talking about in 2016, the discussion on the sharing economy will continue unabated for sure. For some this development is seen as a marvellous antidote to abusive corporate exploitation, where individuals can take charge of their own careers and work schedules. CIPD in a survey of 1000, suggests that individuals working on zero hour contracts are at least as happy as full-time employees and that they “experience greater life satisfaction, are more satisfied with their jobs and enjoy better work-life balance than those on more traditional employment contracts”

Employers can benefit from an immediately available, agile workforce, thus relieving the organisation from the need to do most forms of planning.

WIRED calls this situation “on-demand services ”  Because “They offer a new approach to meeting customer and worker demand without the pretence that we’re engaging in anything other than capitalism.”

Most people I have discussed this with are anything but content. Read: Dickensian: Zero Hour Contracts  Perhaps I should put them in touch with CIPD. They complain of continued exploitation, uncertainty regarding hours worked which leads to irregular revenue, impacting long-term security and  financial planning.  They are fast becoming a way for organisations to circumvent statutory employer obligations. Although officially associated mainly with unskilled labour, anecdotal evidence would suggest that this is no longer the case.

This brings us neatly to topic #2.

Do HR practitioners know how to identify the best talent from a portfolio career talent pool with their linear career recruitment approaches?

Portfolio careers

Herminia Ibarra in an article for the FT ponders the question whether portfolio careers are  normally for the older employee. “In the world of linear progression — learn, earn, return — the appropriate stage for portfolios is late life.” At one time, this might have been the case, with older workers going down this path as part of a pre-retirement transition strategy. A bit of consulting and a few non-exec Director roles are always great to keep the mind active and revenue stream flowing.

Today, portfolio careers in my experience, are no longer the exclusive domain of the older employee. Post 2007, with the increase in unemployment and reduction in entry-level jobs a rising number of younger employees are being forced into portfolio careers, rather than choosing them. This is what causes many to seek additional academic qualifications, thinking/hoping that they will gain the skills and gravitas needed to impress corporate recruiters.

The challenge they have, is that hiring managers still have a linear career progression mind-set and are locked into job titles and traditional career paths. Hiring for attitude rather than aptitude, is something you are more likely to find bandied around on Twitter than in the workplace. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg et al, are hailed as system disrupters, but their ideas are taking a while to filter out of Silicon Valley into mainstream recruitment thinking. Most companies look for “plug and play” hard skills and they associate portfolio careers with uncertainty and restlessness. This fills them with horror. HR does not do horror.

However, frequently, deep experience is accompanied by rigidity and resistance to change. It is probably easier to train new talent, than re-educate existing staff to unlearn a lifetime’s worth of experience and deconstruct their unconscious biases.

The real challenge is when those requiring that re-education are responsible for hiring decisions and policy. As Ibarra says what we need now is to learn “what it takes to thrive in a portfolio career, rather than simply touting its virtues with a few anecdotes.”

Although claiming that the collaborative economy and therefore portfolio careers suit the new lean and agile organisations, I’m not convinced that hiring decision makers know what they should be looking for in the portfolio career talent pool to make successful hires.

Unlisted LinkedIn Groups risk creating online cliques

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LinkedIn Groups changes disadvantage job seekers

LinkedIn Groups was one of the first ways LinkedIn attempted to connect its membership, offering like-minded professionals an opportunity to have open and transparent conversations.  It was a great place for job seekers, especially career changers, to get a feel for the career paths and backgrounds of people already in their target company, or information on a job or career to which they aspired. I have tapped into this facility regularly over the years.

Importantly, Job seekers could join any group and enter a conversation with people perhaps they previously might have had difficulties reaching. It was a democratic and open system, very different to the real world, where networking can be very elitist and “clique-ish.”  No big fees were involved and the chances to interact with a key sector player were much more achievable.

Now with recent changes I can’t help but wonder if LinkedIn is risking creating online cliques, with hidden listings and member, invitation-only groups.

transparent-linkedinDeterioration of quality

LinkedIn claim to have responded to changes requested by users and other general feedback. The major shift is that all Groups are being made private. Only Group members will be able to view conversations (re-styled discussions) , and only members can contribute. The ability to be searchable via search engines will also disappear, facilitating private discussions between  group members.

As the owner of the 3Plus LinkedIn group, some years ago I asked members if they wanted to remain private or go “open”. The vote was to become an open group in the interests of inclusion. Afterwards I could see this was not necessarily a good idea. We were flooded primarily with self promotion, which impacted the quality of the conversation and created a lot of admin triage work, reviewing it all.  So there is one person at least who is glad to see this backward move as necessary to going forward. I’m not against this element of the changes.

LinkedIn’s help center says. “Members-only groups have created significantly more participation and conversations than others (up to five times more), indicating that members feel more confident contributing in these types of groups.”

Hidden network

The next issue is whether a group is a Standard or Unlisted Group, the two available classifications. 

This is where the potential difficulties lie

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. The main difference between the two is control and visibility. Unlisted Groups are well….not listed. They don’t appear in the LinkedIn directory of Groups, Group badges cannot be displayed on members’ profiles, and only owners and managers can invite and approve new members.

They are therefore hidden and not a great benefit to job seekers, especially career changers, who usually look for groups as part of their research and strategic networking.

This controversial move creates an almost “Masonic” type secrecy.

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 It also makes it difficult for job seekers who very often won’t know what undisclosed groups are out there. The concept of a hidden network, now has an additional component.

Standard Groups 

In Standard Groups however, members can invite first-degree LinkedIn connections to join and can also approve requests to join from their first level connections. These will be more readily accessible to job seekers.

The other changes have facilitated:

  • Improved Content:  LinkedIn has improved its filters to strip out spam and other low-quality content. The Promotions tab has disappeared, which currently moves such posts to  moderation.  Job posting will be automatically shifted from the main conversation feed to a Jobs tab. The knock on from this is we are seeing more low quality content via updates. Bring back LinkedIn signal!
  • Moderation: To speed up conversation flow comments and conversation posting will be automatic for members. Group managers and moderators will be able to remove dubious content and place problem members under moderation. This is added work for moderators as the self promoters continue unabated, in my group at least
  • Photos And @Mentions In Conversations: People starting a new conversation will be able to upload an image. Members will be able to @mention other members in conversation postings or when commenting, which signals to the connection they have been “tagged.” à la Twitter or Facebook
  •  Subgroups eliminated:  any sub groups will become independent groups.

Obviously only a few weeks into this change it’s hard to say how it’s all going to work out. What are your experiences?

Are we creating elitist cliques?

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Are we also undoing the social aspect of social networking?