How on-line job recruiting may be ruining your results at work

  “There are no jobs that match your profile” screamed the red type at the bottom of a Portland hospital’s job site.  That was after I’d spent more than an hour carefully detailing my work history and credentials, giving educational background including university addresses, websites and GPA’s. That was after I’d supplied the required phone number, current employment locations and email addresses of references and former supervisors.  I invested all of that time and effort only after carefully reading the description for the posted job, and determining that it was an exact match for my skill sets.

   My cover letter addressed the attributes, duties and experiences the job description called for.  My years of experience exceeded even the preferred level of qualifications requested.

   It gets more dubious. Keep reading.

   I was also required to post some very sensitive and personal information that could have subjected me to ID fraud or unfairly eliminated me from consideration – my age  :) --and previous salary --more than this position will pay.

   “If you are offered a position,” according to the hospital’s job site, “this information will be needed for a background check.” 

   Fair game, if I am a finalist.  Fair questions if I am interviewed. Then I can tell you in person that the salary doesn’t matter as much as the opportunity. Then I can tell you in person that my age brings with it experience, commitment and maturity. But I was eliminated before any qualified human being considered my qualifications. 

  My future was determined by a computer program.

  More than 45 state governments, most municipalities and thousands of companies have subordinated the work of human resource departments and decision-making managers to on line recruiting software. There are two leading companies contracted for most of this work. Their websites tout the software as a real public service that saves time for employers by eliminating “unqualified” candidates.  They also claim that employees need to create their on line profile only once.  That isn’t true. The employees have to keep applying for every new position. If they apply at different companies, they need a separate email address, username and password for every single employer – even if the same on line recruiting firm and template is responsible for the search.  I currently have 5 pages of usernames and passwords filling a tablet in my home office. Think this is easy to navigate?

 What these e-applications really do is search your application for a match of key words, not qualifications.  The method is similar to teaching a child to memorize, but not learn what is going to be on an exam.

  As employers, do we want to hire people who know how to beat the system, or do we want creative, engaged employees?  If you as a manager really believe the jobs you post are so cookie cutter that a computer program can perform the hiring function, you should quit.  Save your company the money you’re being paid.

  If you’re looking for work, how would you feel about being hired because you figured out what key words the computer program was looking for?  Do you want software probably designed in a foreign country to decide whether you can do a job? Do you want the structure, direction, goals and expectations for your performance determined by these on line recruiters?  That’s where we’re heading if this continues.  You will walk into a new job where your supervisor has a better relationship with a software program than he does with you. 

  Until the state legislatures can scrutinize and require improved on line recruiting, we are forced to work around the system in order to match the best employees with the best employers.

  If you’re in the job market, you will have to go through the on line recruiting channels if your perspective employer requires you to do so.  Adapt your cover letter and resume so you provide an exact match of the key words describing the required experience and duties. Play the system.  But take one more step:  find out who the decision maker is for the position and get a more creative letter and resume in their hands.  I don’t care if it annoys them.  If you’re hired, you bosses won’t want you to give up the first time you’re assigned to a difficult task, will they?  They won’t want you to rely on email as your only means of communication, will they?  They won’t want you to mail in a cookie cutter performance, so be persistent and insist on getting personal in your job search.

  If you’re an employer, I encourage you to take the extra step in your recruiting. The “upside” to a high unemployment rate for you is that you’ll have some highly qualified candidates, so don’t miss out on them. Read the cover letters!  Conduct more interviews.  Find some references on your own and really find out about these people. Have HR do the drug screening and criminal background checks while you invest in finding the winner who can advance your team. 

  Fire the on line recruiters if you want positive results on the job.

Employed? That’s something to be Positive about! Make yourself more valued in 2011.

　
  The Positive Image Network is a cathartic place for me. It allows me to post every good thought I have. There is an energy that comes from feeling good about something, from sharing a good idea, from showcasing the good works of others. That energy can’t be matched even by a hard run on the treadmill.
After working for so many years in a public eye career, I could be a pretty skilled spin doctor. But what I am here is just pretty honest. I only represent here what I feel good about and believe in. That’s because this is just a blog.
  It’s a calling, but it’s not a job in the real world.
  In the real world, we may not be able to find the jobs that make us happy. This is 2011! The jobs we have to do are the ones that make others happy to have us.
  So let’s be honest about what your boss needs from you.
  Performance is more important than ever. You have to bring new ideas, new clients, get results and push your work ethic to its highest level. You already know that. You also need to be a good citizen. What can you do Monday morning that will make the whole team effective? How can you make your boss more effective? Putting the team first means you are a performer, not a problem child. Notice I did not tell you to be a suck up; that doesn’t have lasting benefits for anyone. What I am suggesting is a Positive Image and a positive performance.
  High performing employees who don’t complain often will be listened to when there is a need to bring an issue to management’s attention. Chances are that if you’re a high performer and a good citizen on the job, you’ve thought out your approach when you do need to bring up an issue or suggest a correction for an idea that isn’t working. Your solutions will be appreciated and accepted.
  I offer these thoughts from the school of hard knocks. I have been the employee. I have been the manager. I know the worse the economy is, the more good citizenship pays off at work.
  Part of our obligation to our career is this: We win as a team.  We own our mistakes as individuals.  Don't cover for others who may bring us all down, but do own your own mistakes, then move on. 
  How does this help you?
 From the management perspective, some of the longest “difficult” conversations I had with employees were the ones where they did not take ownership of mistakes they’d made. We wasted time investigating and debriefing to try to find out what happened. We sometimes brought others into the conversations to see how deep the issue really was. We re-examined policy that probably didn’t need to be re-created as much as it needed to be followed. Sometimes these conversations went on for days, and when they all came back to someone who’d made a mistake without taking ownership, I lost respect for those employees.
  Some of the shortest “difficult” conversations I had with employees where the ones where they immediately owned up to what happened. I could only say one thing: “Thank you and moving forward, here is how we will handle this kind of thing…” Then the conversation with my bosses was always short: “I know what happened, I take responsibility and we have it addressed.”
  Simply: if you own your mistakes, you won’t repeat them. You will build a level of trust with your team. That’s the Positive Image that wins at work.

Build the brand you want on social media

 Sad thing happened Monday morning. My husband handed me the local paper and said, “Today’s newsletter has arrived.”  He was right.  The Oregonian in its day was legend, breaking big stories and winning major awards. Monday it weighed little more than the leaflets that housecleaners, painters and dog sitters routinely leave on our front porch. Most of what was on the front page, I’d already read on my Smartphone.

 Traditional media is emaciated and isn’t coming back. News outlets are not ignoring your excellent story pitches because they’re too busy.  They’re ignoring them because there are no longer enough editors to really consider the ideas, and when those editors look around the room, empty cubicles are staring back at them. Their laid off colleagues have moved on. There are too few people left to write that story. 

 The situation is similar in TV newsrooms.  Many are so thinly-staffed, they can afford only to chase a couple of “lead” stories. They fill the rest of their air time with surveillance video of convenience store robberies and criminal mug shots handed out by police. Any wonder that audience is declining?

 Those of us who might be your target customer no longer need to find the remote or subscribe to a paper to find news. News finds us. We are no longer “readers” or “viewers” for the most part; we are crowdsourcing in two other places: online and on mobile.  Most of the news, entertainment and other information we need is on our tablet or cell phone, we bookmark favorite sites and our Tweet decks light up with new headlines faster than a TV anchor can make it to the set to break news.

 If you’re trying to attract customers, you might not need to pay thousands for a spot airing in television prime.  In fact for niche businesses, that’s a waste of money.  Use social media to target the customers you want.

 Facebook is a good place to build your Positive Image. It has over 500 million users. People love it because it’s so emotionally connective. Logging on all day or for only minutes a day, users can get support, show off great ideas, celebrate, post family photos.  What better place is there to sell a product or service you are passionate about?

  There are excellent resources to help you grow your skills.  I am reading Facebook Marketing An Hour a day.    This 20-dollar investment is good for helping you to find out who is using Facebook, what motivates them and how to target some of them to use your services or product.   An excellent multi-week on line course is being offered in March. It’s “spendy” at about 400 bucks, but could grow your social media marketing skills to expert level if you’re savvy and committed.