The title of this post is one that brings pause to many people.  Are we headed towards a double dip recession?  I don’t think we can say one way or another quite yet.  However, today’s numbers are not good:

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12% over the past two weeks, the government said Thursday.

…

The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 473,750, up 6,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,750.

I have talked to many companies who are in a holding mode for hiring.  Thankfully, I have not encountered as many who are looking at any further layoffs.  I take that to be a good, but not great, sign.

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I had this thought when talking to a customer – he has an employee to whom he pays a set wage (hourly pay, but same number of hours every pay period).  Week in and week out, there is no discernable, tangible output of work from this employee.  Does this fact make this employee’s pay infinite per hour?

Just a thought.

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According to this CNNMoney.com article, 2010 hiring will be steady and growing (emphasis mine):

“We see a healthy expansion under way, although it will take time to reduce economic slack and repair damaged balance sheets,” said Lynn Reaser, president of the National Association for Business Economics, which conducted the survey of 48 top economic forecasters in late January and early February.

I wonder if those are the same “economic forecasters” who are perpetually surprised by the latest economic news?  Nonetheless, I don’t mind a little positive outlook during this recession:

The NABE panelists expect that jobs will return slowly this year, forecasting an average monthly increase of 50,000 jobs in the first quarter, followed by average monthly job gains of 103,000 the rest of the year. The unemployment rate, which now stands at 9.7%, is expected to tick down to 9.6% by the fourth quarter.

I know, the last line (…tick down to 9.6%) is glaring in a macabre sort of way.  Still, let’s hope these forecasts are underestimate.

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I’ve been busy over the past week or two handling a myriad of business topics and tasks which has decreased my blogging time dramatically.  One item has come up during this time at one of our customers – a battle of wills amongst managers.  This is no small battle, it has turned into an ongoing war for which I am now in the midst of the battlefield.

Without going into specifics, I can tell you where we start in these situations – motivations.  The first place to look when there is interpersonal conflict within an office team is the motivation pattern for each individual.  In the instance with our customer, we have two people with almost polar opposite motivational patterns.

Here is why this matters – neither person can understand where the other is coming from, especially in terms of decision-making.  Each person finds the other one to be inconsistent, off-base and…well, wrong.  The relationship has deteriorated into acerbic communication.

Unfortunately, this customer did not assess this employee when they were in the hiring phase.  Instead, they made an emotional hire.  This employee has the skills to succeed in this role, but the hiring manager was never informed of the employee’s motivational pattern.  If he had been, he would have known the differences between the two of them and he could have managed through them.

I’m not sure the relationship is salvageable.  I am certain it was avoidable.

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I picked up a business card this week from a business associate that had this tagline on it:

Were Quality Is #1

Absolutely not kidding.

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I just read an ad for a mid-level sales position.  Interesting part was the location listed in the ad:

Milwaukie, WI

The hiring company is based in Fresno, CA which is, I suppose, in relative proximity to Milwaukie, OR.  However, the Wisconsin town of the same name is spelled “Milwaukee.”

In hiring, details matter.

(And wouldn’t you think Monster would have a checker of some form for these errors?)

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Well, there isn’t any precedence yet, according to this StarTribune article.  Clearly the proper use of social networking sites during background checks for candidates is going to be a tremendously important legal topic soon.  This topic has been percolating for some time.  The article references an obvious starting point:

“We can suggest to employers that they include in their application process some statement that says ‘we do reference checking including use of information in the public domain’ and to make it broad enough that if they discover something online it’s fair game,” Ridley said.

I have always been one to note that the Internet IS a public domain so anything a candidate chooses to post online should be usable.  That only seems logical to me, but I know there are others who see it differently.  From the article:

Professional recruiter Gillian Gabriel said she doesn’t use Facebook in her screening process. Instead, Gabriel said, she uses sites like the professionally oriented LinkedIn where people often are looking for job and career connections. Gabriel also looks at blog connections posted on a candidate’s LinkedIn page.

“Whatever they put out there is fair game,” Gabriel said.

“Fair game” seems to be the preferred phrase for this topic.  Anyway, LinkedIn and blogs seem like a good starting point.  I would still choose to look at Facebook also.  I like to know as much as possible about a candidate and if it is online, I’m going to read it.  Just being real.

One last note that caught my eye from the article:

Schmedemann said employers are turning to social media because they “are under pressure to hire carefully” in an economy where there are plenty of job seekers and few jobs. “People fake their résumés much more than they used to,” she said.

Great point.  The difficult job market does lead to desperate acts.

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I have recently come across the Social motivation when assessing some sales candidates for a couple different customers and now I just heard a sales rep on the radio revealing his motivation.  Here is what the salesperson said on the radio:

I just met with a company yesterday who was paying almost twice as much to our competitor for the same service.  They were getting ripped off and it isn’t right.

I don’t deny the nobility of his position, but the reality is that very few services are exactly the same (despite prospect’s claims).  A strong salesperson will define their value to the prospect who will make a decision about that value.  It may be that the prospect simply sees something in that company’s product/service that they require/need/value.

My concern for the salesperson on the radio is that he is unconsciously removing any differentiating value from his service.  He is turning the decision into one based solely on price.  That is a prospect move!

Here is where the Social motivation undermines salespeople.  Their natural desire to help others without expecting anything in return undermines their selling ability.  Again, it is a noble motivation and I personally wouldn’t want to live in a world without many Social motivations.  However, sales is not for the feint of heart.  Strong salespeople are consistently assessing the return on their investment of time, resources, money, effort, etc.  Salespeople need to determine if they have a strong prospect…and the faster they can make that determination, the more they can sell.

To be fair, there are a few sales positions where a Social motivation can thrive.  We once assessed a flourishing sales team at a company that provided a product for young mothers.  The team was successful and almost every salesperson was a Social.

But if you are hiring for sales, your best avenue is to hire strong Utilitarians.  If you are uncertain of your candidates’ motivations, we can help.

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Breaking news from the big job board world (via press release):

Today, we are excited to announce that Monster has entered into an agreement to acquire HotJobs that will provide you with unprecedented access to job seekers and make Monster the leading site for job seekers in the U.S.
Upon the close of the acquisition, Monster will also enter into a multi-year strategic agreement with Yahoo!, becoming the jobs and recruitment engine on Yahoo!’s homepage for both the U.S. and Canada.

I’m not overly surprised by this news as I believe HotJobs has been fading fast over the past year or two.  I still believe the consolidation of major job boards is less significant than the migration to highly-targeted job boards.  Specialization is the future of job boards as they compete with networking sites for the primary channel to source candidates…in my opinion.

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From abcnews.com regarding the “jobs proposal” working its way through Washington:

Obama’s proposal has an additional provision that would award $5,000 tax credits to companies that add workers in 2010.

Honestly, has anyone in this administration ever run a private company?  I’m no economist, but my experience is this – companies hire more workers when revenue increases (i.e. growth).  One-time minimal tax credits do not spawn hiring booms.

This fact puts the pressure solely on the sales department to find new prospects and close more deals in this depressed economy.  No small feat.

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