Archive for the ‘Careers’ category

Considering all the Facets of Discriminatory Hiring Practices

December 8th, 2014

One of your primary goals when interviewing promising new candidates for your organization is to keep an open mind and evaluate each person on his or her merits without letting any biases influence the recruitment process. Key to this is making sure that you are not engaging in discriminatory hiring practices. Of particular concern is bias based on racial, family, age or gender characteristics.

Racial Bias in Hiring

While great strides have been made in racial harmony, human resources professional need to remain on guard against discrimination, both overt and inadvertent.

For example, recent research by a group of economists shows that some recruiters, even though they are not biased themselves, have a fear that their customers do hold racial bias and will make their hiring decisions accordingly, noted a recent report at Fortune.

The economists sent in 9,400 false resumes, using “typically black” names in half and “typically white” names in the other half to determine the rate of discrimination in the job market. It turned out that there was more evidence for hiring bias when it came to customer service jobs as compared to jobs focusing on coworker interaction (managers, coordinators and so on).

Familial Nepotism in Hiring

What about nepotism? It’s not illegal, and bosses can fire an employee to free up a spot for a son or a niece, for example, according to a recent post at AOL Jobs. However, nepotism may be prohibited in government positions, or under conditions when your company is subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Businesses that hire mostly family members may get into hot water if they consistently turn down more qualified candidates who also happen to be of a different race or nationality.

Gender Discrimination in Hiring

Recruiters may harbor a bias against genders based on old-fashioned stereotypes, such as the idea that women are unsuited for physically demanding jobs or that men cannot work as nurses or flight attendants.

While these are particularly egregious examples of discrimination, you need to be aware of unconscious bias as you examine resumes for the best match for the position in terms of background, experience and accomplishments.

Age Discrimination in Hiring

There are a number of ways where age discrimination can crop up during recruitment. Does your organization ever advertise open positions while using phrases such as “young-thinking” in the job description?

You may not realize that this can lead to age discrimination, noted a recent report at CNN Money. It cited research from Clemson University that indicated 30 percent of people aged 53 and up have faced discrimination because of how old they were. Making mattes worse, people who lose their job at the age of 45 may never get another job, noted researchers at the University of Sydney.

Factors leading to age bias include holding the idea that older workers are not good with modern technology or that they might miss work more often because older people tend to get sick more frequently than younger workers.

Recognizing the potential pitfalls of discrimination and taking steps to address these concerns head-on will help you avoid lawsuits due to unfair hiring practices. It’s also important to remember that by avoiding discriminatory practices, you open up your available talent pool to a greater degree, which can only help to boost your organization’s bottom line.

 

What’s Unique About Hiring for a Startup?

November 3rd, 2014

startup hiringRecruiting and hiring candidates for a position at an established firm with a proven track record is different than finding good prospects for a startup company. If you have recently begun handling human resources to help a new firm gear up or are considering working at a startup, keep in mind that you will be evaluating recruits using different criteria than you would at longer-lived firms that have reached some measure of stability.

Determining the Best Candidates

You might be tempted to hire workers that have been employed at one of the major technology companies, since they must have great qualifications to get past the HR departments at such firms.

However, the skills required to do well and thrive in the stable environment of an established firm are different from what’s needed when an organization is still in startup mode, noted a recent report at Forbes.

Rather than considering inexperienced people who are fresh out of college, though, you would do better by looking for candidates who worked at other startups that have gone onto some success and are ready for another position that requires creativity and tenacity rather than one based on making small improvements to an existing platform.

Look for people who have exhibited a high level of competitiveness, as they will be the ones most willing to stay late and do what it takes to reach your organization’s goals. Many startups have done well by hiring people who play sports or who are former athletes, noted a recent report at Entrepreneur. The competitive nature of sports and the need to set goals and remain mentally and physically resilient are good preparation for working in a startup.

Other traits that are worth considering in candidates for startups include having a sense of humor and fitting in well with your corporate culture, according to an article at Mashable. After all, you are putting together a team whose members will be spending long hours together, and you need recruits who can integrate well with others.

These new workers should be flexible as well, since startups usually require people who can wear different hats every day. They will be able to take direction and then work independently to carry out their mission as effectively as possible. Risk-takers who are ready to hit the ground running and show passion and endurance will be more capable of dealing with the unrelenting grind of startup mode.

Your job hiring for a startup will go more smoothly if you focus on the chief characteristics required for success in a dynamic and sometimes chaotic environment. Selecting candidates who are curious and enthusiastic and who demonstrate a passion to compete while maintaining high standards of business integrity will serve you well during the birth of your new company.

Have You Hired a Supporting Cast for Your Company’s Lebron James?

August 22nd, 2014

lebron jamesWhen gearing up to hire for a new startup, you’ll want to consider the timing of how you recruit for top leadership. In many cases, it’s better to make sure that you focus your efforts on developing a great team to be the supporting cast for your star player.

Doing so helps you on multiple fronts. For one, having a great team in place will make potential executives more inclined to consider working with you. Establishing a great support team also helps ensure that the organization will continue to not only thrive but also innovate and expand even after the loss of a key player.

In fact, developing a “team behind the founding team” is of paramount importance, noted a recent article at Entrepreneur. A PR scandal or the injury or death of a founder will rock your organization to the core, but having a good support team will help prevent the whole enterprise from going down in flames.

What’s more, you never know where your company’s next great idea is going to come from. Instead of counting on just the CEO to drive innovation, you can build a creative culture that encourages contributions from every level in the hierarchy at your firm.

Consider the world of sports, where high-pressure deals and immense competitive pressure drive the search for talent just as much as it occurs in the corporate world. A recent post by Neil Paine at FiveThirtyEight notes just how beneficial it has been for the Cleveland Cavaliers now that LeBron James has announced his return to the team after four years of playing with the Miami Heat.

James specializes in helping any team he plays with to score big, having won more than 60 games per season three times already in a career of 12 seasons to date. Statistics reveal that his new team at Cleveland is so talented, they will be his best support team yet, which could bring the team to even greater heights.

Just as it’s ludicrous to think one person can win a pro basketball game, it would be folly to imagine a business will do well on the backs of an enormously talented CEO without the best available support team. This is what you should keep in mind when hiring for your startup.

It’s understandable that companies would focus on their star founders, mythologizing and romanticizing them for PR reasons and to help attract new customers and new talent. But a company shouldn’t leave itself so dependent on one person, no matter how much star power he or she brings to the table. This is the case for the boardroom just as much as it is on the basketball court in the NBA. A support team composed of people with a broad range of expertise will help you weather the inevitable storms that come as your company begins to grow and expand.

Is It Time to Ditch the Ridiculous Interview Questions?

July 25th, 2014

bad interview questionsIt’s natural for human resources professionals to want to go beyond asking such boring questions as, “What is your biggest weakness/strength?” when interviewing candidates. In the scramble to discover the best person for the job, many prominent firms have made it a practice to ask fairly ridiculous questions to avoid getting a programmed response.

A strategy of asking silly questions may seem to make sense on paper. After all, a job interview is not an ideal place for job seekers to present their true selves. Strange, out-of-the-blue interview questions are supposedly designed to catch candidates off-guard because not only will they not likely have prepared to answer them ahead of time, you get to see how their minds work when confronted with unusual situations.

For example, Google would rely on brainteasers, asking potential recruits questions such as “How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane?” Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations, said that such questions only serve to waste time and don’t predict anything, noted a recent article at Business Insider. Google switched to asking behavioral questions along the lines of how candidates solved tough problems at their previous job to improve their hiring process.

It seems like there is no shortage to weird questions asked by HR interviewers at a variety of firms. Consider “If you were shrunk down to the size of a pencil and put into a blender, how would you get out” (said to be asked at Goldman Sachs, according to a recent Fortune article) or “How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings” (attributed to Deloitte Consulting).

While these questions could force a candidate to “think outside the box” and come up with a unique or creative solution, they typically have little or nothing to do with the actual work the employee would wind up doing. In fact, Bock says these kinds of ridiculous job interview questions serve more to make the interviewer feel intelligent than to get a useful response.

Kristi Hedges offered some useful interview questions in a recent Forbes article that you might want to adapt for your own organization. Ask candidates to tell you about your company and provide high-level analysis. Have an interviewee walk you through the first five things he or she would do upon being hired. It’s also useful to ask a question along the lines of what was the candidate’s proudest moment at the previous job.

If you have been relying on ridiculous interview questions to no avail and are hoping to get more out of the time you spend with job candidates, you will want to come up with sets of questions that will better address the needs of your organization. It may take you a while and some trial and error before you settle on a better mix of questions, but in the long run, you stand to get much better responses and a more capable workforce.

 

The Right Way To Turn Down a Job Applicant

July 11th, 2014

Turn Down Job ApplicantsIt’s not easy to give someone disappointing news, especially for people who prefer to avoid confrontation out of fear of hurting another person’s feelings. Unfortunately, this can prompt HR leaders to avoid communicating with job applicants about the status of their application.

Being strapped for time and resources can also lead to silence from HR, of course. It’s not uncommon for overburdened HR departments to fail to get back to each job seeker, especially when there is a deluge of candidates. As many as 75 percent of job applicants never get a response from hiring managers, according to a survey from CareerBuilder.

Keeping the lines of communication with job seekers is more important than ever these days, especially when so many applicants are accustomed to using social media and websites to do research on firms. In fact, almost 60 percent of applicants surveyed in 2013 for the Candidate Experience Awards indicated that they felt they had a relationship with a company before even applying for a position there, according to a recent post at Forbes.

What’s worse, there are websites where people can post anonymous comments about companies they deal with. If people who have applied for work at your organization and never got a response decide to post negative feedback to warn other job seekers about their experience, there is nothing to stop your current employees from seeing these comments and thinking less of your HR department. They may even reconsider working at your firm.

Coming up with a good rejection letter requires art and tact, noted a recent post at Business Management Daily. At the very least, personalize your template-based message to include the job seeker’s name and the position applied for, and indicate that while his or her qualifications were good, you found another applicant who was more suited for the position.

Just as smart job candidates will follow up with a thoughtful thank you letter to HR after an interview, savvy HR professionals will send thank you letters to job seekers, according to a recent post to the blog of Newton Software, an applicant tracking software company. Newton cited the many positive messages it saw from applicants who were fortunate enough to get a reply from their recruiters.

You will do your organization a disservice if you fail to communicate with every job seeker who approaches you. Resorting  to automatic responses distributed from an applicant tracking system, it’s still better than absolute silence. And, some applicant tracking systems actually allow you to tailor your responses by the stage of the recruiting process.  Whenever possible, it’s a good idea to include a personal touch in your response, such as a line of constructive criticism about the applicant’s resume or performance during the interview especially if you have met with the job seeker. After all, keeping the lines of communication open is part of being a good member of the community.

Are You Hiring The Top Minds of a New Generation?

May 9th, 2014

hiring millenialsIt’s only natural to want to hire the cream of the crop for your company, and this typically means that you will want to focus your recruitment efforts on the top college graduates every year to fill your ongoing workplace needs.

However, today’s top students are becoming increasingly aware of their value to businesses and are interested in better incentives and attention from potential employers. You may need to adjust your approach to ensure that you have a good shot at hiring the top minds of the new generation.

Give College Graduates Plenty of Feedback and Opportunities to Grow

By 2015, some 60% of all available job opportunities will require the skill and knowledge of just 20% of the applicant pool, noted Kathryn Dill in a recent piece at Forbes. She cited statistics from the “Class of 2014: Your Next Generation of Top Talent” survey from Achievers, a company that develops employee engagement applications.

The survey shows that graduates are searching for firms that will provide them with an opportunity to grow in their field, along with plenty of feedback and rewards.

To meet their needs, Dill recommends that hiring managers offer immediate evaluations on a regular basis. Millennial workers are typically staying in jobs for 18 months on average, which means it will do you no good to drag your heels when evaluating their progress and potential.

Increase Use of Social Media in Recruitment

More and more college students and graduates are coming to rely on social media such as Facebook and Twitter to navigate their job opportunities. You should increase your social presence both to advertise the virtues of your company and its culture and to meet potential candidates where they are spending more of their time—online.

A recent report by Srikanth An at ShoutMeLoud notes the importance of using LinkedIn when you are searching for the best available young talent.

A good step is to add every member of your staff to your company’s LinkedIn page to help you establish more second- and third-tier connections to potential recruits.

Be More Accepting of Eccentric and Creative Individuals

Managers may ask HR to find more workers who “think outside the box,” but the eccentric personalities of creative individuals sometimes prevent a recruiter from seeing the value they can bring, notes a recent report by Stephen Glasskeys at Forbes.

Glasskeys cited the examples of self-taught film auteurs Paul T. Anderson and Quentin Tarantino. Although these individuals might have unusual habits and appear unusual (unkempt hair and messy clothing), they have become experts in their field and deliver world-class results.

By embracing unusual people during the recruitment process, you improve the likelihood of finding the most talented minds available in your industry.

What Career Should You Choose?

May 30th, 2013

 

What Career Should I Choose

What Career Should I Choose

Looking to change careers? Want to predict your growth and earning potential? If so, check out this interactive chart from Rasmussen College that will help your analyze your options. It organizes occupations into four quadrants based on salary, anticipated growth, and number of jobs available

The data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of April 2013). You can research each occupation by clicking on the dot.

Give it a whirl at Rasmussen College’s What Career Is Right for Me? page.

The Hiring Sciences Hunch

You may want to consider avoiding the following career paths.

  • Air Traffic Controller, Postal Service Employee, Millwrights, Railroad Operators

And, if you are undecided or looking to reinvent yourself consider the following professions.

  • Software Developer. Veterinarian, Biochemist, Physical Therapist, Financial Planner

I wonder where corporate recruiter fits into the mix. What do you think? Is recruiting a viable profession?