Here are things I learned from speaking at mediabistro, yesterday.
- Job seekers blame HR when they don’t hear back after submitting a resume. Answer your candidate applications or risk damaging your employment brand.
- Workers know that work/life balance is crap. Don’t try to sugar-coat a low offer by playing up your culture and your benefits. Just be honest about the offer.
- Pay your interns. They don’t mind doing free work, but nothing ‘free’ is worth much. Pay them with access, engagement, or proximity to power if you can’t pay cash. The relationship should be win/win.
- Older workers know that you prefer younger workers. Lawsuits related to ageism will flourish. Baby boomers will not go quietly.
- Employees are super-suspicious of your job board. If you run one, you need to rethink your value proposition. Also, yes, I just used the words value proposition. That’s how much people dislike job boards.
I also learned to shut up and let people coach one another. There’s lots of good advice out there, and job seekers are coaching one another — both formally and informally. I love to see that happen.
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Interesting stuff.
A couple of thoughts.
#1. We notify all people search outcomes. What is sometimes interesting for me is that people who have received all my correspondence the entire search say they don’t receive my notice indicating that we selected another candidate. And it happens more often than you would think. So I would say, if you DO hear back and its not in your favor, don’t lie about it. I hear that too.
#2. I love older workers. They work hard and aren’t as worried about Friday night meetups and such. We really don’t discriminate and that is a wonderful thing.
#5. Yeah, we have a job board so that we can communicate updates and outcomes to all the candidates. I don’t have the personnel resources to type in all the information of candidates received by mail, nor do I have the physical or electronic storage. So here is the tradeoff. You want closure and information? You need to use the board. You can still contact the hiring manager, you can still call me on the phone, you can still walk into my office and talk to a person -that’s how transparent we are -but you have to help me too. And that’s by using the electronic application program.
Nice post Laurie. Wish I could have been there to hear you.
Deirdre
You are one of the righteous. I loved your energy and no nonsense slash through the bullshit style at yesterdays career circus. Look forward to meeting you again
Unpaid internships are a violation of the Minimum Wage.
http://laborlaw.typepad.com/labor_and_employment_law_/2007/11/unpaid-internsh.html
Why do people still work for free? At least demand your $7.25 an hour. Or do you fear reprisal for being a whistleblower? (Note that reprisal for whistleblowing is also illegal).
Once again Laurie, You tell it like it is!
We love your pull no punches, Just sayin’ attitude.
Love it! Thanks for all of your encouragement!
@Deirdre You are so right about #1. That does happen. I’m far enough removed from HR, these days, that I forget about job seeker shenanigans.
@Shelley So nice that you came to my blog. Thank you!
@HRPuter Whoa, what a great link. I have always paid our interns, but apparently, this is a HUGE practice in every industry. How hard can it be to pay $7.25/hr and stay in compliance with the law?
@Shennee Thanks!
I’m glad you had that conversation with them. We are big fans of Mediabistro.
Actually if you read the comments that follow on the link HRputer provides you would find that there is considerable disagreemtn on unpaid internships, especially if college credit is being received. We pay interns, but can tell you that DOL audits for some customers have validated the use of academic related unpaid internships.
@CAC Awesome!
@OldMan You know, I read through some of the comments and we talked about this practice, quite heavily, @mediabistro. Young kids came up to me and asked how they can find internships that pay. I don’t have amazing advice on this subject, but I told them not to accept internships that DON’T PAY. Send the marketplace a message and augment the power structure.
“Employees are super-suspicious of your job board” – Odd, I get the exact opposite feedback at my seminars.
Responses back should be mandatory.
@exec They are suspicious that their resume falls into a candidate database and probably won’t be seen by anyone in HR unless there is a keyword match. I told them it’s worse — the people who are hired do have their resumes in the database, but they found the job by avoiding HR and job boards and leveraged their network. They found a way to put their portfolios, CVs, resumes, etc., in front of the hiring manager. I advised that candidates should never eliminate a pathway into a company (i.e., a job board) but they shouldn’t rely upon it. There are better ways to find a job.
http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/thecircus/career_circus_laurie_ruettimann_goes_rogue_123452.asp
http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/job_search/punk_rock_hr_will_work_for_free_123466.asp
I’m amused by all this talk of job boards, key words, and auto-applications because I’m thinking WHAT ARE THOSE? I don’t know any companies who use them. Everyone in my immediate network of HR gurus works in small to mid-sized companies, despite the fact that I live in gigantor corporate land (Seattle). There are so many HR types right now covering all bases in an understaffed, underpaid, reduced hours workplace. In my case, the HR Director and the HR Assistant were laid off. So that leaves…me! Yay me! And all my HR peers in my industry are in the same boat. We are doing EVERYTHING, including Accounting functions in some cases. And even though we’re not hiring right now, we’re trying our damnedest to read resumes and make sure they get under the correct hiring manager’s nose. (Hiring managers who will never make a decision about anything if we don’t pester them on a regular basis.)
All this to say – I feel for you, job seekers, I really do. I know you’re frustrated and sick about how to pay the bills. I’ve been where you are. But, in this bad new world order, you need to suck it up and get your game on. You HAVE to show up at industry functions and put yourselves in front of the hiring managers. If you don’t golf, learn now because every professional association has a tournament. So many job seekers still are not doing what they need to do, despite the fact that we’ve been up this creek for well over a year. I can’t even begin to tell you how many resumes say “Dear Sir” or just come with an email that says “My resume is attached.” Or they’ve figured out the hiring manager’s name but spell it wrong. And even when we’ve done informational interviews, NO ONE has used the wealth of information on our website to hone in on our needs.
If your career relies on working for a large corporate entity, you have my sympathy. But if you’re aiming for small to mid-sized companies, there’s so much you can do to stand out, so do it! So many seekers are in the desperate ANY JOB WILL DO mode, and I totally get that. But don’t act like that to potential employers.
Something amusing happened to me in regards to #1. I’ve applied for several jobs in the past 6 months or so and recently got the typical “Thanks, but we’ve gone with someone else” that was generated from their recruiting program. The only problem is that there was no indication what company it was for, not in the return address or email signature. To me this seems like a big faux pas.
So if you are sending out these emails, do a test copy to yourself to know what you are putting out there.
I can’t agree with you enough on #1. I interviewed at Davenport University for a teaching job in 2007. I still have not received a rejection letter. I drove my rear end all the way to Flint to interview, and they can’t be bothered to respect me enough to tell me they hired someone else.
I would never apply or interview for another job with them. Oh, and a month after that interview, I got my current job which is so much better than that one would have been.