Last week Laurie Ruettimann wrote this post about an HR pro casually using the word “stalker” to describe some job seekers.  Read it and then come back here otherwise, my post may not make sense.  Had Laurie been in front of me when I read this post, I would have hugged her which would have been weird for two reasons.  First, I’m not a hugger and second, I don’t know Laurie well enough to hug her.  But I digress.

On a weekly basis I talk to recruiters, HR pro’s or hiring managers who talk about how annoying some job seekers can be.  The word “stalker” is used a lot.  It’s ridiculous.  A very serious word thrown around in a casual statement.

Here are some other examples of serious words thrown around in my world recently.

On Friday, I got a call that my kids nose was gushing blood.  I rush to pick him up and he has a little nose bleed that has stopped by the time I get there.  Someone will be getting feedback on that.

A business leader says to her employee, “You are a bully.”  The employee is not a bully and that is a pretty serious accusation these days.

An employee calls me and says, “I was victimized by my boss.”  Can you even imagine what went through my head.  After much discussion victimized is not the right word – at all.

We throw these serious words around because we think it will get us a larger reaction than just calling it what it is.  The leader wanted to hurt her employee and drive home a point and instead of saying, “you can be a little too aggressive” which would have been perfect, calls her a bully.  It’s just unnecessary.

The English language is filled with an abundance of words.  For anything we want to say, we can come up with about 10 different ways of saying it using about 100 different words.  Throwing around serious words when they are not needed only creates drama.  It gets everyone around you worked up when they don’t have to be.

So I echo Laurie’s plea – stop calling job seekers stalkers and stop throwing around words that are too serious for what you are trying to convey.  Just say what you mean…that’s all.

 photo credit: DaveBleasdale

Some of the upsides of working for yourself, by yourself is that you like your boss, you have no workplace drama (except with the voices in your head) and you can take naps if you so desire.  One of the downsides (and this is huge) is that you have to be everyone.  CEO, CHRO, CMO, CFO and Chief Spider Killer.

Unlike others in my family, I don’t mind spiders, but not minding them doesn’t mean I just want them hanging out.  Since my office is in the basement, they often creep their way in to hang out with me while I work.  I have great office space that my husband worked very hard to make beautiful for me and spiders really don’t go with the decor.  So when they find their way in, I pick up a paper towel, or the handheld vacuum or whatever is handy to remove them from my workplace.  And in case PETA is reading, of course I mean carry all 8 legs outside and release them into the wild….

Every time I do this I think about my workplace a few years ago.  One of our call centers was suddenly infested with attack spiders.  By attack, I don’t mean deadly or poisonous, I simply mean they would drop from the sky and bite.  Oh and they were big.  You can imagine the drama, the workers comp claims and the trepidation of each employee who had to wonder if something was going to drop from the ceiling and bite their neck.  We called in exterminators and it took them several treatments to finally get rid of the creepy crawlers.  Looking back now I appreciate more what they did for us.  Sure we were paying customers and they got their due for taking care of our problem, but thank goodness someone exists that does that.

As leaders its easy to get caught up in thinking that those you are paying to do a job, whether employees or vendors, need no more recognition or appreciation beyond their paycheck.  But what would you do without them?  You’d have to kill your own spiders.  Go thank them, right now!

 photo credit: thievingjoker

I am weirded out by tears – in the workplace at least.  I’m not really an emotional person anyway so crying at work is just not something I can relate too.  I can remember tearing up (but not actually crying) one time in my career and it was out of sheer anger – like blood boiling, about to go postal anger, which I think is different then why most people cry at work.

I caught up with a friend last week who told me she broke one of her cardinal rules by breaking down at work in tears.  The situation she was in got the best of her and she just lost it.  She isn’t a super emotional person either so we relate on that level.  When we worked together and others around us were going emotionally crazy, we would just look at each other in disbelief.  That level of feeling was just not something we shared at work.

So that leads me to this question.  Is sharing emotion on a level like that (one that leads to tears) a good thing for business or a bad thing?  I’m not necessarily talking about the person who is crying because they are about to be (deservedly) fired, more like the executive who sheds a few tears because they have to reduce their workforce.  Or the employee who works for weeks on a project only to have it be put on hold or scrapped all together.  When these guys break down and share emotion does that make you more confident in them because you now see they are human or less because leaders should be strong?

I would love to know your thoughts.

 photo credit: jerryfergusonphotography

photo credit: donjd2
I hope everyone is as blessed as I am to have an extremely funny friend. I actually have lots of funny friends, but this one is especially funny. She makes me laugh each and every time I talk to her. Not only is she hilarious, but she comes with a whole compliment of funny family members. For the purpose of this story, I’ll call her Dancing Queen.

One summer weekend, several friends and I traveled to Paris (as in Kentucky, not France) with Dancing Queen to spend time with her family. During the weekend a rousing game of volleyball commenced between Dancing Queen, her two brothers, father and several of our friends. I witnessed the whole thing from the front porch. Please know that I use the word rousing loosely. To say that most participants were more interested in making fun of each other more than actually hitting the ball would be an understatement. All except Dancing Queen’s older brother. This game meant something to him. For a reason unbeknownst to the rest of us, he was giving this game all he had. While everyone else was standing around nearly letting the ball hit them before trying to bat it away, Dancing Queen’s brother was diving, spiking and running all over the place. Within a few minutes he had worked up quite a sweat and was looking pretty proud of himself.

Everyone noticed, but everyone left it alone. No one said anything, just let him do his thing. One particular play however, he dived for the ball (that no one else was going for) skidding across the ground and making an amazing play (had their been any competition). After he stood up and wiped the dust off, Dancing Queen’s father delivered a line that makes me laugh each and every time I think of it….”just do your best son, just do your best”.

I think about that story often because I find myself caught up in giving my all to something that really doesn’t matter. I will waste hours focusing on the one thing that makes no difference to my business, my clients, my family or myself. I will dive for balls I have been trying to juggle, skid across the floor and wonder where my days go and why I seem to get nothing of value accomplished.

I suspect Dancing Queen’s brother was trying to impress us. I know this is why I do it. Why I give 115% to something that only requires 90. Why I spend time thinking of something to impress rather than something that adds value. I find myself more often than not, needing the reminder to “just do my best”.

What about you? Do you go over the top with activities that you feel may impress someone even if they really have little positive value for you?

This weeks question has to do with the upgraded features on Linkedin and whether they are worth it or not. Do you agree with me? Any job seekers out there paying for the upgrades and finding value in it? I’d love to hear from you.

You can watch all the Q&A’s here.

Have a Job Search Question? Get it answered here!

Today’s guest post comes from a fairly new blogger taking the HR world by storm.  He blogs over at costofwork.com and you can read his bio here.  What I really like about Chris is that he doesn’t pull any punches as you will see in this post.  He is currently on a “resume crusade” to help job seekers improve that important first impression they give companies.  If you feel your resume needs revamping, he’s your guy!  You know that helping job seekers in this manner is how I started my business, so I’m excited to see where this takes him.  Enjoy his insightful and timely post!

Okay folks, it’s time; your time! Most of you reading this blog are in HR, recruiting or a jobseeker. You’re looking for some insight and motivation. Well you’ve come to the right place. The question becomes, Are you going to take the advice and share it with someone who needs it?  That’s my challenge to you.

Now is your time to change. Jobs seem to be slowly creeping back. CEO’s are using the right terms and jargon regarding American made products, hiring American workers, and a particular attention to quality and national pride. The tide is turning.

It’s time for talented job seekers and positive leaders to shine. Today’s companies need leaders more than ever. Those who are not afraid to say “No” to bad decisions, “no” to the boss that instructs you to hire for looks over talent, “no” to the person that says “You can’t do better.”

It’s time for leaders to lead, baby! Plain and simple.

Did you see the Chrysler commercial starring Clint Eastwood during the half-time of the Superbowl? No? Well you need to Google that one.  To quote Will Ferrell “It’s provocative, it gets the people goin’.” Clint says it’s half-time America and we will recover. So what are you waiting for? Confidence is up, unemployment is down.

Stop procrastinating.

Had you gone back to school when you got laid off or hit the glass ceiling, you’d be really close to finishing by now.

Had you reached out for some help with your resume, interview skills and job search, you may be gainfully employed by now.

Had you been a better leader you wouldn’t be worried right now that your team will leave you as this economy turns around.

I could go on. You get the point; times are changing and you must change too.  Get started… today!

 photo credit: ericmay

In the past two weeks I have received calls from business owners asking if I can help them with their recruitment needs.  Within the first five minutes of the conversation they tell me that they really don’t want a recruiter or headhunter, but just someone to manage the recruitment process, develop a talent community, manage their social media efforts from a recruitment standpoint and fill open positions as they arise.  I have no idea what their definition of recruiter is, but every thing they just listed is definitely how I think of the role.

After digging further I find that what is prompting the call is that they have a position that has been open for six months or more and are struggling to fill it with their normal methods.  For whatever reason, bad past experience, lack of funds to pay the fee, they have decided that a third party recruiter is not what they want.   The conversation always includes me saying, “If a position has been open for six months and you are having zero luck getting it filled, a recruiter may be EXACTLY what you need.”  They both said they would think it over and “let me know”.

In the same amount of time, I have volunteered several times at a few local job search resources and heard several job seekers voice strong opinions about using professional resume writers or coaches to help them in their job search.  When I suggested to one that he have a certified resume writer work on his resume and join a local group to get ongoing help he got very indignant.  No way he was going to pay someone for something he could figure out on his own.  My response, “Sir you have been out of work for nearly a year and a half.  If these people can help you figure it out in a matter of weeks, is it not worth it?”  He had no response.

I find that often these responses are fee based – meaning these individuals do not really want to pay the money associated with the help so they try to figure it out on their own or try to get someone to do it for free.  I understand watching finances.  In starting my own business I often had to decide what I could figure out on my own and what I was going to absolutely have to bite the bullet and pay for. Sometimes that was painful, but the difference it made for my business was worth it.

If you have been out of work for two years and a professional resume immediately changes the number of call backs you get for interviews, is it worth it?  If you have a crucial position that has been open for six months or more and a recruiter can provide you with several qualified candidates in a matter of days or weeks, is it worth it?  Is it worth dropping whatever preconceived notions you have, loosening the purse strings a little and letting it happen?  Or do you continue to figure it out on your own, since that’s been working so well for you…..

A few weeks ago this article ran on cio.com about how to apply the principles of managing network management to managing talent networks.  In other words, manage your talent like you manage your network.  Now immediately upon hearing the title I could hear the “seasoned” HR professionals saying, “you can’t do that, they are people, not networks”.  Because I’m not seasoned I went ahead and read the article:).   And I liked it.

I think it poses excellent similarities between  information networks and talent networks.  I especially appreciate this comparison.

“Studies in network behavior—conducted over 30+ years by experts such as corporate anthropologist Dr. Karen Stephenson—confirm that human networks can suffer from the same vulnerabilities as IT networks, such as single points of failure (SPOFs) and weak links. Remedies for human networks resemble IT network fixes:

• Single points of failure: Protect against SPOFs by building redundancies into a system. Make sure there are multiple people who hold critical organizational and technological knowledge, and who can fulfill mission-critical roles, make decisions on the fly and solve problems.
• Weak links: Shore up weak links. If any transaction relies on only one person, it’s at risk. Just like in an IT network, a human network needs backups in case of failure.”

If there is one thing I have learned in my career, it is that you have to reach people where they are.  Trying to press your way of doing things, or your way of communication or your way period on someone who isn’t ready to accept it won’t work.  IT folks are some of the hardest to reach from a HR perspective because they typically aren’t wired (pun intended) to think in terms of human relationships.  This article puts human relationships in a way they can understand it.  It doesn’t  take the human out of it, but put it in a perspective that the average IT leader can relate too.

What if we took each department, like IT and broke down the handling of their people in ways they could understand like this article?  Do you think it would help or hurt the human relationships?  Would it make them better leaders of people?  I certainly think it could, but would love to hear from you.

 photo credit: g.p.macklin

A friend of mine told me that her husband starts every work day in a meeting where his boss asks this question.

“What’s the worst thing that could happen today?”

I’ve sat on this for a while because I go back and forth on whether I think it’s an effective strategy or not.  I’ve finally decided it is not.

On the one hand, you do prepare your staff for the possibility of disaster.  They are thinking about things that could go wrong so maybe they are more diligent about paying attention to the details.  Maybe.

Or maybe they are just a bunch of negative Nancy’s who assume that all of the things you just talked about are going to happen and spend their days just waiting for problems.

I wonder what would happen if the meetings changed to ask the question, “What is the best thing that could happen today?” and then the staff were sent out thinking positively.

What do you think?

Tsk, tsk.  How often do we have to talk about how bad lying on a resume is.  Check out what I told this person in this week’s video.

PS, sorry for the swollen face and nasal voice – I’m still getting over a nasty sinus infection that has been plaguing me for weeks.

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