From the Herman Trend Alert (emphasis mine):

In December, companies with fewer than 300 employees experienced employment growth of 1.54 percent, representing the largest percentage increase since June 2010.

1.54 percent?  That is encouraging?  I know, I realize there has been little to no growth, but 1.54 percent is almost as miniscule as it can be.  This is the largest growth in 18 months.  To say it is a difficult employment market would be a monumental understatement.

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Business has its own pet language, doesn’t it?  Much like sports, there are some favorite clichés that are common speak in most office buildings.  Yahoo does a good job of chronicling some of the worst.  A couple examples:

Synergize

Say what? This word has infiltrated nearly every cube and conference room in the country. The fault here can largely be placed on one seminal advice author. In Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, the No. 6 habit is Synergize. Of the habit, Covey writes, "To put it simply, synergy means two heads are better than one." Covey readers might recall getting the same advice in simpler terms several decades earlier from Sesame Street. Big Bird called it "cooperation."

I despise the word synergy.  It is an all-encompassing word for covering a lack of synthesis, in my opinion.  What I mean is that instead of sorting out the difficult aspect of synthesizing disparate concepts (a favorite move of managers), many managers simply cover the problem with some reference to synergy.

And here is one for which I am offended:

Drill Down

A phrase often wielded by superiors wanting a subject examined more closely. "Drill down to what?" asks Shut Up and Say Something author Karen Friedman. "The oil?"

Come on, that is a perfect business phrase.  We use it frequently in reference to interviewing, especially questioning.  Too often hiring managers ask an expected question, receive a pre-canned answer and then move on.  Ignoring the expected question piece, we always coach managers to drill down on the answer – go for specifics, follow up on their answer.

I’ll leave the rest o f the list for your enjoyment.

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Let me be honest, I have sat in on some interviews that were borderline psychotic.  Questions from left field, overt anger and emotions, lying responses that were easily observed…and those were the good ones.  In all seriousness, interviewing is difficult and being a good interviewer is even more challenging.  Most managers do not spend their time honing their interview skills.  This fact often leads to bizarre questions.  It also leads to bizarre question patterns.

Every year there seems to be a list of the oddest interview questions from the year – it is a guilty pleasure of mine to read them.  Perhaps you would enjoy the list also?  To whet your appetite for frivolity:

1. If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?

As a mathematically-challenged person, I find this question downright perverse and evil:

7. Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?

Same goes for this one:

15. You are in a dark room with no light. You have 19 grey socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair?

You get the idea.  There are strange ones in the list is you read the article.  My point in bringing this up is that many sales managers would scream if their salespeople went into a sales call without a plan, a strategy.  Yet many sales managers that I see go into an interview with the intent of simply rehashing a candidate’s work history and then deciding if they like him or her.  This is not a strategy.  And asking math word problems should not be a part of your interview process.

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Well, it is good to be back at it after a nice Christmas break with the family.  It is even better to come back to read an article like this one from CNNMoney.com.  How about this:

"We’re looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they’re all flashing green lights," said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm.

Though most economists still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 9% at the end of this year, Baumohl and others think that stat masks more important signs of strength.

Baumohl and some other economists forecast between 2.5 million and 3 million jobs being added to U.S. payrolls in 2011, about triple the gains likely to recorded in 2010 and what would be the best one-year jump since the white hot labor market of 1999.

I am hopeful that these economists are correct.  If you would like an odd indicator, try this one:

Baumohl says another non-traditional employment indicator, the number of day-care workers, which has been edging up for four months and is now about 2% higher than a year ago. "People need more day care when they’ve got jobs to go to," he said.

Odd, but it seems logical.  The hole we are in is far greater than 3 million jobs as you can read in the article.  This would be a good start, but it is going to take years to recover.  In that light, a “hiring boom” may be overstating things.

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