HR departments and third-party recruiters often go at it with hammers and tongs since each side thinks the other side is…problematic.  You don’t need an organizational development specialist to tell you this is not a healthy business relationship.

BusinessWeek.com approaches this topic in How Recruiters and HR Can Work Together.  The article starts with a tactical point that we encounter during every negotiation:

In my experience, the greatest service a third-party search partner provides to the organization, besides the strength of his or her candidate database and relationships, is the intermediary role a search pro performs during offer negotiation. I pride myself on good listening and negotiating skills, but if I’m inside the company, I won’t have the same credibility with a candidate that his ally, the outside recruiter, has.

So it makes sense to let the recruiter handle the delicate job (BusinessWeek, 11/26/07) of negotiating between the employer (“our offer is good enough already!”) and the candidate (“they’re dreaming if they think I’ll take this job for that salary”) when the stakes are high. We do it when we buy or sell a house. We know that our trusted Realtor won’t be as emotionally bound up in the negotiation as we very well may be. It’s the same in a high-level offer negotiation process—a place where the middleman can get us more quickly to a handshake and save egos in the process.

The author is absolutely correct.  In fact, some of our customers have us present the offer and work through the negotiation with the candidate.  As appreciative as we are to do this work, we still put the final close to our customer and the candidate.  However, we are able to have extremely candid discussions with the candidate; discussions I am certain would not happen directly with the hiring company.

Here is a good tip:

When I was a corporate HR person, I learned to invite my search partners into the office once every six months or so for a check-in meeting. In this way I learned that partnering with trusted search colleagues is one of the highest-yield moves an HR leader can make. Search pros will tell you things that candidates never would (e.g., “no one will work for Jane Smith any more—she’s a terrible manager”) and will fill you in on the state of the local job market with a level of detail you’d never have time to acquire on your own.

We’ve done this type of work frequently for our customers.  This type of information and insight is highly valuable from an outside source.

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From the Herman Trend Alert (sorry, no link):

A global survey of 4,500 workers indicates that more people anticipate leaving their employers this year than last. In the 2006 BlessingWhite study, 65 percent said that they expected to “definitely” remain with their employers through the year. In the 2007 study, that number was down to 58 percent.

Also of interest, more respondents in 2007 said that there is “no way” they would stay (eight percent up from six percent—a 33 percent increase). European employers face the greatest threat: eleven percent said there is “no way” they will stay.

Moreover, employees in Europe and Asia appear less content with their current jobs than those in the United States or Canada. Only 49 percent of Europeans and 54 percent of employees in the Asia-Pacific region expect to stay with their employers, compared with 60 percent of North Americans. (We think that market volatility and the threat of recession was working here.)

“‘No way’ they would stay” is an interesting turn of phrase for a survey question.  I agree with their parenthetical comment that recession concerns are swaying North American employees.  Still, it is notable that so many people seem to have their mind set already.

I am curious to know how this data breaks out among the different ages.  My suspicion is that the Gen Y employees are far more eager to move on to the next opportunity than the older generations.  Career path is crucial to Gen Y, the majority of whom are at the beginning of their career.

If that suspicion is accurate then this graph becomes a significant concern for many companies:

We have been talking for years about employees’ lack of trust for their employers. This trust issue motivates them to feel like they must take control of their own careers. Our research indicates that workers are looking to their employers for training, education, and career pathing. This fact should concern the many organizations that eliminated their in-house training functions during the last economic slowdown and are still playing “catch up”.

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Ok, the whole candidate attire topic seems to be floating around the areas of the web I patrol. CareerJournal.com offers a follow up article titled Tassels, Pantsuits and Other Interview Fashion Faux-Pas. Great title. Here is a quick description of the debate from the article:

Perhaps it’s lamentable that a person should be judged on how he maintains his car interior or what he wears. “I’ve encountered far too many empty suits who are perfectly groomed but have little relevant knowledge,” wrote Marty Robins, an attorney in Buffalo Grove, Ill. “Conversely, many people who emphasize keeping current their technical skills and industry knowledge do not have time to spend preening over their wardrobes.”

True. Yet employers are attempting to assess the character and abilities of people they often hardly know. You go with the information you have.

Those two paragraphs sum up the two sides of this discussion rather well.  However, that article takes a real turn later:

But tell that to the New York-area financial executive who wrote me, extensively, that he avoids hiring women who wear pants because, he argues, women who wear skirts and pantyhose tend to be better employees. He considers a woman in a pantsuit equivalent to a man in a suit with no necktie. “Certainly, no man is going to get offended if she shows up in a skirt and hose, but there are men who like me feel a pantsuit on a woman is a step down. Why take that chance?” he wrote. This 35-year-old man asked not to be quoted by name because he said his comments could be interpreted as sexist.

See, this is the point I was making in my previous post – the danger here is that hiring managers get sucked into strange biases when they focus on attire.   What a strange statement from the financial executive.  How can you counteract that thinking?  Imagine a strong skilled, perfect-for-the-role sales woman who is passed up because she wore dress pants.

As a recruiter, I cringe at the thought of working with someone who uses that type of thinking in his hiring process.

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CNNMoney.com’s quick-hitter advice article titled 7 ways to avoid employees from hell offers some simple advice.  How about this one:

Hire well

Even the lowest-level prospect – the kind who is typically hired quickly – should be thoroughly vetted by at least two interviewers. Check references.

Well, yes, “hiring well” is the key to strong employees.  Eating well is also a key to losing weight…but that doesn’t make it easy to do.

Two interviewers is a good start.  Objective assessments are a better plan.  Having a structured hiring process is the best plan.

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I read many things across the web including certain columnists from Sports Illustrated.  Peter King writes an insider’s view to professional football that I find fascinating.  Plus, the guy is a coffee (actually lattes) addict like myself so I always appreciate his weekly coffee tips.

This quote from his article last week caught my attention:

But I will say one thing about the firing: It’s always dangerous when you start polling players and people in the building about the job the head coach is doing. If you’ve got a conviction about the coach, act on your conviction, and the beliefs of your closest associates, like president Dick Cass and GM Ozzie Newsome. Wide-net polling … not a good idea. Too many agendas can influence the only one that’s important, which is winning.

Now imagine it written this way:

But I will say one thing about hiring: It’s always dangerous when you start polling salespeople and people in the building about the job the sales candidate could do. If you’ve got a conviction about the candidate, act on your conviction, and the beliefs of your closest associates, like the owner and the expert sales recruiter. Wide-net polling … not a good idea. Too many agendas can influence the only one that’s important, which is selling.

How true is that?  We have seen it first-hand in one of our accounts where the manager is greatly concerned with what his operations people say about a salesperson.  I am still stunned.  This leader is trying to build a consensus among a department that has never been in sales nor hired salespeople…ever.

The agenda that is in play is the fact that the company has been rather stagnant for a few years so the operations people have settled into a comfortable groove.  The manufacturing area is running at somewhere between 50-75% of capacity.  I believe the thought of a strong salesperson closing new business is the hidden agenda.  The operations people will have to crank up their productivity to keep up with the increased workload.

Leadership requires making decisions with conviction.  If they are wrong, own up to them.  If they are right, smile and move on to the next topic.

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The Herman Trend Alert offers up an excellent analysis of the most pressing topic of today – retention.  I thought this statement was spot on:

The Hodes 2007 Workplace Study holds that two factors are critical to retaining valued employees. The first is choosing quality people, not settling for “warm bodies”. The second is choosing people who have long-term expectations of staying with the organization.

We encounter companies that have a hire fast, fire fast mentality.  Personally, I think this approach is high risk, low reward and we never condone this approach at Select Metrix. 

The second point is an important one also.  If you are looking at a candidate who is not currently employed, it is of utmost importance to take the extra time to make sure your position is a fit.  There are many salespeople who are in transition and are simply looking for a quick stop, money-grab position.

When employers make inferior quality hires, often they will inadvertently lose current employees who now no longer feel valued.

The study also cites what we have been saying all along—that employee turnover, regardless of industry, is expensive. Some reports even show the estimated cost of a single vacancy for some jobs has been calculated anywhere from $7000 to $12,000 per day. According to statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the estimated 2007 annual voluntary turnover rate is about 24 percent.

For more about the Hodes 2007 Workplace Study, please visit http://www.hodes.com/publications/retentionstudy.asp. (my editing)

I worked for a high-tech company in a Regional Sales Manager position.  My coworkers were better salespeople than me so I learned much and developed my skills immensely.  Then our boss hired two absolute stiffs to join our group.  They had little skill and were hired for the wrong reasons.  The morale amongst our existing team plummeted soon after as we observed their flamboyant incompetence.

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This post from the Pondemonium blog at Inc.com explains the rationale behind hiring from a corporate and employee perspective.  What is interesting is that the blogger is the decision maker who had to let people go last week.

I thought these graphs cut right to the core of employment:

I don’t know about other companies, but every time I’ve ever hired someone to work here, it was because I fully believed I’d be able to make more money with them than without them. In other words, if I pay someone $1 to do something, I expect to make $2 from their efforts or services. It’s really that simple! Unfortunately my crystal ball is sometimes blurry, the economy doesn’t always cooperate, and I’ve even been known to invest in ideas expecting future business that somehow doesn’t materialize according to my expectations.

For an employee, this same principle holds true in reverse. An employee needs to find a job that pays enough to meet basic needs and also leaves money for discretionary spending. Individuals call this “extra” money, while business owners call it “profit.” The employer and employee enter into a relationship for an identical economic need, which is to acquire “extra” money after all the basic needs have been met. No employer starts out intending to just break even, and job hunters always try to find a job that pays more than they need to survive.

What all of this means to employees and owners alike is employment should be viewed as a means to a common end. I will help you realize your dreams and goals associated with employment, such as salary, raises, job satisfaction, security, and benefits, if you will help me realize my dreams and goals, too. If I fail to do my part and am forced to let someone go, then we both lose. Likewise, we also both lose if an employee fails to do his or her part.

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Well, the future is now when it comes to this topic.  The social network sites are going to have a dramatic impact on finding strong sales candidates.  First, this may be slightly off topic, but MarketingProfs.com offers up this article – Facebook: Changing Advertising Forever:

At the November 5 launch of Facebook’s new advertising platform, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, presented his vision for the future of advertising:

“Once every hundred years media changes. The last hundred years have been defined by the mass media. The way to advertise was to get into the mass media and push out your content. That was the last hundred years. In the next hundred years information won’t be just pushed out to people, it will be shared among the millions of connections people have. Advertising will change. You will need to get into these connections.”

…

As Zuckerberg said later in his speech, “People influence people. Nothing influences people more than a recommendation from a trusted friend. A trusted referral influences people more than the best broadcast message. A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising.”

Now change the topic from advertising to sourcing candidates and the quote is still prescient.  Now combine that thought with Steven’s post over at CollegeRecruiter.com:

But 95 percent (that’s the actual number) of college students and recent graduates are active users of Facebook. As these candidates progress through their careers, they will continue to be active users of social networking sites because those sites are as much a part of their lives as is TV for Gen X’ers. Even the busiest of Gen X’ers watches TV and the same holds true for Gen Y’ers: even the busiest of them uses social networking sites.

I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of this sourcing channel for all future hiring activities.  I suspect the social networking channel will become the primary tool for finding candidates in the very near future.

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We go after experience-only hiring in that it is overly subjective and wrought with pitfalls.  But that doesn’t mean experience is irrelevant.  There are certain aspects to an applicant’s history that is important for hiring decisions.

I’m currently sourcing for a mid-level, B2B sales position in the Twin Cities’ market.  Although open to less-experienced sales candidates, our customer still requires a certain level of sales experience for the position.

This requirement means that the Best Buy salespeople, car salespeople and other retail-based experience is not a fit.  I am certain there are talented salespeople within those groups, but the mitigating factor is that our client’s sales cycle is long (up to 2 years).  Although I think Lee from our company may have a buy cycle that long, most retail purchases are far shorter, even automobiles.  The onramp for this type of salesperson would be too long to navigate.

The main point in looking at experience is getting an understanding of the sales model(s) the salesperson has sold.  Was it a quick close or extended cycle?  What type of prospecting did they incorporate?  Who was the target level they approached (C-level, manager-level, etc.)?  How was their product/service positioned in the market?

Some of this information can be gleaned from a resume.  I have had a rash of electronics store salespeople responding to an ad.  I don’t have to go much further than the resume to know that I cannot place them into this level position.  That is the time when experience matters.

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No surprise here but the Career News is reporting that candidates are negotiating for higher starting salaries in this current market (emphasis mine): 

Job candidates are more apt to ask for higher starting salaries this coming year, and companies may have to up the ante to attract them. That’s according to an annual study on employment and compensation trends by Robert Half International (RHI) and CareerBuilder.com titled The (EDGE) Report.

Fifty-seven percent of hiring managers polled for the project said it was difficult to find qualified candidates 12 months ago; 91 percent said recruiting is equally or more challenging today. More than half (52 percent) of hiring managers who are having trouble recruiting cited a shortage of qualified professionals.

As the competition for skilled labor has become more pronounced, 58 percent of workers polled said they are more likely to negotiate a better compensation package today than 12 months ago – double the number from last year’s poll.

We are seeing this negotiating approach in our day-to-day activities also.  Candidates know it is a tight market and they have other opportunities.  Keep this fact in mind if you are entering an offer discussion with a top candidate.

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