Archive for the 'Talent Management' Category

Sperm

Published by Amitai Givertz on August 14, 2006 in Blogging, Outlandish, Recruiting and Talent Management. 5 Comments

Coming to terms with my place in the blogosphere and the sorry realization that my esoteric writing cannot compete for readers in the bubble of recruitment blogging, I have decided to revert to a more traditional use for my weblog.

I shall write as if my posts were entries to a personal diary. The advantage of this is that I can now say what I like without having to pander to the sensibilities of those I once sought out for approval or acceptance. And no more replies to fallacious arguments, I’m done. I have ripped out the ability to count page views and the number of feeds from my WordPress dashboard. I will not be monetizing my site. Metrics? Phooey.

From now on I shall try to work out the details of a thing through the creative process of blogging, “musing” in blog-speak and posting a la Recruitomatique

Realizing there may be one or two who might want to read my entries – to fill their own void or loneliness perhaps – I will keep my sentences short. Uncomplicated. Not too intense. I will lighten up. Let the real me shine through.

If you are a recruitment blogger, one of the self-absorbed or self-serving or self-important – take your pick – or just a gentle reader, before you abandon me, disgusted that there is nothing of value here, a thought or two so that our brief time together may not be entirely wasted…

Continue reading ‘Sperm’

Just-In-Time Posting, Jack

Published by Amitai Givertz on August 1, 2006 in Recruiting and Talent Management. 0 Comments

Today, John Sumser claims on interbiznet that he has been waiting nearly fifteen years for someone to come along with a method for bringing recruiting into the same shape as the rest of the modern organization adding there’s been no one who fully understands the implications of Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma and/or Lean Thinking. For tomorrow’s installment, John Sumser promises to develop the thread with a conversation on “waste,” prepping for next week’s Kennedy Information’s Recruiting 2006 soiree in New York no doubt.

The other day Jeff Hunter – another highly respected and revered thought leader - who also manages a rather sizeable recruitment organization, a practitioner if you will – suggested that John Sumser has “jacked” his content before, and may feel that way reading John Sumser’s lean postings. But, I cannot imagine why. Has Jeff Hunter come up a method for bringing recruiting into the same shape as the rest of the modern organization? What could he possibly know about “waste?” Where the dickens was Jeff Hunter fifteen years ago anyway?

So many questions, sensing a disturbance in the force I am. Really, come on, with the Kennedy conference just around the corner - and with everyone getting to meet at last - shouldn’t we know who is jacking who? I don’t know, it must be tough at the top.

In the meantime, today’s other picks come from Kevin Wheeler – another young pretender on the recruiting scene – Recruiting: Applying the Principles of Lean Manufacturing to Recruiting.

The Double Agent

Published by Amitai Givertz on June 21, 2006 in Recruiting and Talent Management. 1 Comment

Dave Lefkow posted a great diversity recruiting story, saying there are great lessons for employers to be learned from the FBI’s diversity outreach. He’s right. But the warm fuzzies promised in the casual introduction to “Jericka Robinson. Mother, computer engineer, FBI special agent” are an unwitting peddling of Washington spin. Worse, we could all be innocently drawn into a wider conspiracy, a cover-up. Let me explain:

I quote Dave quoting from the original article:

“A recruitment poster on the FBI’s Web site tells a new story, with a picture of a black woman and the words: Jericka Robinson. Mother, computer engineer, FBI special agent. Today’s FBI. It’s for you. Visit FBIjobs.com.”

Well, I have it from a reliable source from within law enforcement circles that Ms. Robinson was - until recently at least - Supervisory Special Agent Jericka Robinson of the FBI’s Personnel Resources Unit. In other words, Ms. Robinson is literally a poster child for the FBI’s diversity program and not necessarily a result of it. Of course, it is possible that Ms. Robinson has been reassigned from an elite group of Glock-toting recruiters to an equally elite group of key-tapping computer engineers. Why not? It seems like a natural transition for a black working mother working her way round the Beltway, doesn’t it? If this extraordinary reassignment is for real, the FBI would be better served promoting itself as a champion of talent management. If they are capable of leveraging their human capital at a time when recruitment funding is being held at levels that would cripple any employer in the private sector, then there are lessons there we could all learn from.

Let’s look beyond Dave’s post for the real lessons here:

1. Metrics: We do not have enough data to draw any meaningful conclusions. However, I would submit that if only 18.8% of Special Agents are women, then the numbers do not support the notion that the FBI’s outreach is working. A spokeswoman for the FBI quoted in Dave’s post (who for all we know could be white) says: “There are no targets or quotas.” Then performance metrics for the FBI, like gender, is a “non-issue.” Good. No harm done.

2. Diversity Recruiting: The FBI used to be highly visible in print - even dominant. As far as I can see, they have gone undercover. I have long lauded LawEnforcmentJobs.com and the diversity sites that that engine powers as the best destinations for recruiters looking to attract qualified diversity candidates. Nada. On DiversityInc.com, another old stomping ground, the only sign of the FBI is the moonlighting it does for Fortune 500 companies. I found the CIA and NSA on LatPro, but, again, no FBI. Will the Men (or Women) in Black please stand up!

3. Employer Branding: Employer branding is not like product branding. It’s something that exists in the minds of stakeholders and constituents. It cannot be manufactured or even manipulated as such. Your brand exists – like it or not. If effectively managed, employer branding can be a tremendous contributing factor to optimizing the return on all recruitment marketing, including, of course, diversity. 9/11 did more to change the perception of law enforcement as a career prospect than years of trying by the FBI, NYPD, LAPD to transform a less than glamorous image. And the FBI, like all the agencies who saw demand for specialized talent skyrocket, missed a golden opportunity. Unfortunately, the whistleblowers will be remembered long after the FBI’s horn-tooting for an inclusive workforce. I say the FBI has really blown it. They should have looked to the gal next door and taken a page out of Condi’s book.

4. Sourcing Strategies: I know from past experience recruiting talent fluent in Pashto, Farsi, Swahili, Arabic and all dialects of Chinese is a cake walk. Russian and Chechen – old hat. You just run a few 4×6 ads in the Boston Globe (preferably with half of that ad taken up with a photo of a real diversity phenom.) and hey-presto! Yiddish-speaking mashuganas start clogging up your ATS. Today, the only ads you’re likely to see are band-aids put out by the field in support of their local initiatives comprised mostly of career fairs for students.

5. Screening and assessment: Here the agency scores big time. If you have the hard skills, can pass the physical and have never been caught chopping down cherry trees, you’ll get put through the FBI grinder. It doesn’t matter if you are a white male lawyer, accountant or cop, black working mother or Jewish Rastafarian, get this far in the process and the FBI does not discriminate. Scientifically developed staffing assessments to guide employee selection decisions – what a concept. For those of you who recruit salespeople, another lesson learned: polygraph your applicants.

6. The Special-Special Agent: You can train a man or woman to withstand psychological and physical torture. You can train them in the ways of the Ninja. You can arm them with sophisticated weaponry and state of the art surveillance equipment. But that doesn’t mean you can expect that person, however well-intentioned, to be an effective recruiter. When recruiting is relegated to being a second-rate desk-job, it’s not recruiting anymore. Sorry.

7. Retention: I used to see huge ads for Special Agents run in national papers with a TTY number as one of the response mechanisms. This is true. Polygraph me. I’m told that the prognosis for an Agent who can’t hear the words, “Incoming!” and “Duck!” is not good. Otherwise, the FBI could be a job for life. If you don’t meet the rigorous requirements for work in the field, you can join as a recruiter and end up in programming, or forensics, or business management. That kind of career progression speaks volumes, even to the hard of hearing.

But hold on! Hold on for just one cotton-pickin’ minute… Could it be? None of this is the FBI’s fault?

The FBI does a stand-up job under extraordinarily difficult (staffing) circumstances. That is an irrefutable fact. They should be commended for not giving up however tough the going gets. But, if there is one agency that should be held to account for the FBI’s failed diversity recruiting, it should be the Bernard Hodes Group. In my opinion – and no, I don’t know it all, and yes, there are always two sides to a story – in recent years Hodes has squandered what little money the FBI did have and left their diversity recruiting efforts – even on a continuing resolution (read: no commissions) – wasted. What’ll be next? Pawning the jewels in the FBI’s crown – the real gems like Jericka Robinson? You guys really rock.

Many Sides to Every Story

Published by Amitai Givertz on June 15, 2006 in Recruiting, Talent Management and Workforce Planning. 1 Comment

I live in Jupiter, Florida. It is a beautiful place to live. I don’t remember which esteemed organization voted my home town one of the top ten places in America to live in but, I for one, think they got it right.

But there’s another side to the story. You see, Palm Beach County has its challenges as far as work is concerned. Our primary industries are service-oriented, and we have near full employment. Unemployment runs at 2.7%. Employers who need talent to drive and grow their businesses must have a solid strategy for sourcing passive candidates and had better have an understanding of why and how to manage private talent pools if they are to compete for the fewer and fewer number of available candidates. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of local employers do.

Enter stage left: Scripps Research Institute. Our California-based hero will be coming soon to transform Florida from an economy driven by delicatessens and money laundering to one powered by science and technology. My wife and I are so excited that we have taken both our daughters out of public school and are home-schooling them in anticipation of the coming technology boom for which our education system and teachers seem so ill-prepared.

But yet another side to the story. In the three years since floating their intentions to come to Jupiter house prices have gone up by around 300%. Unemployment has gone down 3 points. What three years ago looked liked a great place to come to live and work in today looks like a dubious decision. After all, La Jolla has a more favorable labor market – not easy, but better – a 3.7% unemployment rate and an economy already established as a biotech hub.

Scripps is bringing more jobs. That’s great, but who’s going to fill them? Today’s workforce planning snafu will turn into tomorrow’s recruiting nightmare. For any employer, poor assessment of economic conditions and forecasting will lead to nothing but heartache for talent managers who ultimately will be expected to cope.

We theorize and debate about how to win a seat at the strategic table and, as a CFO client of mine pointed out when making all of the above observations, this is what HR does when we get there?

Another side to the story? When the housing market, currently overvalued by 57%, corrects itself, and people who have relocated here find they now need a second job to cover their inflated mortgage, there’s always TooJay’s. Now where I live, that’s one growth business we can all rely on.

Why They Hate Recruiting? Sounds a Bit Fishy to Me

Published by Amitai Givertz on June 13, 2006 in Recruiting and Talent Management. 1 Comment

As a child, I remember being amused for hours by the fish in Mrs. Frostick's pond. I can't recall what species they were, but I do recall that when I dropped a small blob of bread in the water the fish would all make a mad dash to the surface and frantically splash around. The writhing would subside until another blob of bread was dropped in and the wriggling and splashing would resume. What fun!

I want to thank Dave Lefkow for reconnecting me to this wonderful childhood memory. In his article Why They Hate Recruiting he references a piece published last year in Fast Company. The work was entitled: Why We Hate HR, and at the time it generated its own feeding frenzy of comments and debate. The blob of bread Dave dropped in the pond has again provoked the same frantic reaction. And it is as amusing as it was the first time round.

Please don’t get me wrong. Of course we should be debating issues relating to HR, recruiting, strategy, C-level engagement, strategic direction, the whole megillah. But we should also be conscious of what’s really going on here – here in the pond.

As I reflect on my childhood experience, I wonder whether feeding Mrs. Frostick’s fish was the real attraction for me, or the realization that I – Son of Man – had the power to turn this splish-splashing on and off at will. I conclude it must have been the latter. It didn’t take me long to realize that a glob of spit would have the same effect as a blob of bread. The fish never had a clue.