Diary of a Job Seeker

At the end of last year I resigned from my job; I’d been a recruitment agent for close to 10 years and I felt it was time and appropriate to try my hand on the other side of the fence.   I embarked on a social media campaign to make the transition into an in-house recruitment role.  Having been an active blogger for a few years and coupled with my inability to be self-effacing, I set out to let the world know about my job search by writing a diary of a job seeker.  I feel it is now pertinent to re-visit this diary and provide an update.

Day One

I have spent the last few days asking myself numerous questions to fully understand what I want to do next.  I looked at why I was not fulfilled in my last role; what I had hoped it would be; what I enjoyed about all of my roles to date and many other questions. 

I realised I don’t want to go back into agency recruitment.  I enjoyed my time being a self-employed agency recruiter, however, one of the reasons I chose to move on in the first place is that I am a firm believer there is a smarter way of recruiting.  It is this way of recruiting I want to explore with a move into in-house recruitment.

So my job search starts here;  I started writing, re-writing and re-writing once again my CV.  I feel my experience would be very relevant to an in-house function, the key for me is to be able to highlight this in my CV.  I have also updated my LinkedIn profile to ensure there is a uniformed approach to clearly show what I am looking for.  The key is to load your CV and profile with key words so that when someone is searching your profile is far more likely to be higher up in the search results.

I do not intend to go out to thousands of agents to find me a role, as quite frankly as an experienced agent I feel I can do a better job of it myself!  I am in a fortunate position whereby my network is mainly within the sector that would employ me, namely HR.  So my next step is to go to this network and ask for help, referrals and opportunities.

Day Two

My job hunting continues, but it is certainly gathering real pace.  The support from my network has been overwhelming; I have been given numerous details of opportunities and phone numbers for hiring managers.   Of course I am in the fortunate position as an ex-HR recruiter that I have a number of people to call upon.  However, for all you know your best friend’s sister may be recruiting for a role of interest to you, so make sure you go out and ask.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the response.

The key I feel in these situations is to not just ask for whether they are recruiting for roles, but actively seek their advice.  The more 3rd party opinions you can get on your job hunt the better.  It will give you a far clearer idea of what you want and will help highlight how your experience can be viewed by different people.  I had a really good conversation with a very experienced recruiter this week, which really helped focus my CV to highlight the key points. 

The final point is that job hunting is truly a full time occupation (this was part of the reason I resigned prior to finding a role)!  Of course many of you will not be able to be in such a position, so it is vital you allow time to reach out to people.  The harsh reality is that this may have to be a weekend day, or take a day’s leave.  If you are only job seeking at the end of each working day, the chances are you will be far too tired to do this properly or for long enough.

Day Three

I am delighted to say I have 2 interviews organised and I am rather hopeful of a few more to come.

Before I received these interview requests I did receive my first decline.  I have to give full credit to the organisation that did so – despite the fact they have made a dreadful error of judgement! – as not only did I receive an email to notify me how long it would take to receive feedback, but I then actually did receive feedback! 

I received this rejection email minutes after saying to someone that I was really quite confident about my search.  Needless to say this was a bit of a kick in the teeth.  In hindsight I knew that if I were recruiting for the role I would find it difficult to put me through due to a lack of experience in the field, so in some way this was no great surprise.  The key for me here was to compose myself and not take the decision personally.  I would sincerely doubt (and hope) that the decision wasn’t made after the hiring manager looked at my application and said “that Ed Scrivener is a right pain in the wotzits, I’m not taking him forward.”  Far more likely they will have looked at my CV and application answers and seen that I did not match all the criteria.  Whilst my initial reaction to the rejection was disappointment, I very much heeded my own words and didn’t take the decision personally.  Within a short period of time I was back in a confident mood and looking forward to my search. 

Despite all this, I have 2 interviews to look forward to…

Day Four

I have always been an advocate that it is better to regret something you have done rather than something you haven’t, but I am definitely not regretting resigning.  I am pleased to say I have secured more interviews and presently have 5 to attend with more on the way.  All of these have come via my own networking and this truly goes to show the power of your own network.

I have had a number of conversations with companies recently which are looking to release roles at some point in the future.  They may come to nothing, but it’s the old adage you have to be in it to win it!

This week has seen the start of the aforementioned interviews and I was determined to ensure I practiced what I preach when it comes to preparing to interview.  I have done all the hard work of getting in front of the hiring manager and I don’t want to blow it by not preparing!

Day Five                                             

I am interviewing with 8 companies over the next few weeks and so I am very confident that I will find an interesting role in the near future.  I’ve had a number of people comment about the timing of my search, as they felt I couldn’t have chosen a worse time.  The job market in December is never buoyant, however, one fact that is often overlooked is that organisations ramp up recruitment in the first two quarters of the year; many organisations look to appoint to their resourcing teams in December/January in order to be organised in time for the surge in activity.  Whilst my number of interviews is extremely encouraging, it is also a trend of the market and not just a reflection on how great I am!

Day Six

So this likely to be my penultimate entry; the reason being is that I have accepted and start a new role tomorrow!  I shall be working as a Resourcing Project Manager and I am delighted by the mix of transactional recruitment and project work.

The role is initially a short term contract and I see a number of benefits to accepting the role.  The contract will allow me to build experience within an in-house function and importantly it will allow me to continue to look at longer term opportunities.  This is a perfect solution for me as it doesn’t impact upon the roles I am already looking at, but provides me with additional security.

Translating this to broader job seekers it is important not to overlook short term opportunities (clearly if you’re in a permanent position it is unlikely you will consider one) as there can be a number of benefits.  As in my case it provides experience within a new sector, which will reflect well on your CV.  It may lead to other opportunities within the organisation once you’ve shown your ability.

Day Seven

My short term contract proved to be an excellent experience and was longer than expected as I received a significant contract extension.  The role gave me wonderful exposure to leading an in-house function within a competitive market.  I thoroughly enjoyed the role, but I am pleased to say I have now secured a long term contract as the Recruitment Manager for a well-known law firm and I am hugely excited by the remit as it plays to my strengths, but will also help me develop a number of new skills. 

Once again my network came up trumps with this role to make me aware of the opportunity.  However, I do need to eat some humble pie as I secured the role via an agency, so it does go to show you need a balanced approach to job hunting.  I also spent hours preparing for the interviews.  I was very interested prior to the 1^st interview and I knew I really wanted the role come the 2^ndand I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to get the job.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me through my search, you’ve helped me reach a very fruitful conclusion.  Good luck to any of you that are embarking on a search of your own, I do hope this will have been of help to you.

Tips for a job seeker:

• Question yourself, write down your thoughts, and ask friends/colleagues about your strengths and what you enjoy to ensure you are targeting the right role.
• Get your CV in order.  A CV is simply a sales tool to get you an interview.  Make sure the content is relevant to the job in question and preferably submit a bespoke CV for every application.
• If you haven’t already got a LinkedIn profile then get one as it is vital to helping find employment.
• Fill your CV and social media profiles with key words to ensure you can be found by recruiters conducting searches.
• Carefully decide which recruitment agencies you want to use.  If you’re not sure ask for recommendations.
• Ask your network for help.  My experience has been people are always keen to help.
• Be happy to help your network too!
• Give yourself time to reach out to people.
• Whether you’re searching for roles whilst employed or unemployed try and time your search with a busy period in the job market.  You may be up against more competition, but there will be more roles to choose from.
• Ask advice from experts within your field as to when the busy periods are; it may not be that obvious; if you plan to look in these busy periods it is likely you will be better prepared than your competition!
• Unless you are very lucky you will definitely receive a rejection at some point, so be prepared for it, the decision to reject you was not a personal decision.  Review the job description/advert again, were you truly a good fit for the role?
• Be positive! Onwards and upwards is the way to be and those interviews could be round the corner too!
• Don’t forget to prepare for interview! You only get one chance, so don’t intentionally jeopardise your chances!
• Read your CV and the job description; read them again; and again; and again...
• Research the company.  Look at the news section to gauge performance; read the careers page for any insight into the culture; review the company page on LinkedIn to find if you know anyone that works there and ask them questions to help you prepare.
• Research the interviewer to see if you have anything in common; a decision to hire you is more likely to be made on a gut instinct, so building rapport is essential.
• Prepare questions ahead of the interview; don’t be afraid to write these down and bring them to the interview.
• If you prepare properly you are far less likely to be nervous; the old adage fail to prepare, prepare to fail is very true!
• In the words of the late, great Clive Dunn... “Don’t panic!”
• Consider all roles on an individual basis, there may be unique benefits with some roles.
• Don’t rule out short term contracts if you’re immediately available. You may want more security and not want to go through another job search in a few months, but it could yield hidden dividends.

Ed Scrivener

Has this inspired you to discuss HR?  Leave your comments here.

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My top free social recruitment tools

For a number of years I have focused my resourcing activity around social media.  I believe it is a truly fantastic medium that allows a level of engagement that very few other channels can rival.  However, one of the main benefits of social media is the cost.  If you are a large corporate you can spend a fortune on it, but equally if you are a smaller business you can achieve many of the same results for free.  As someone who is often referred to as having short arms and deep pockets it is the low cost or free routes that appeal to me most! 

If you’re reading this you will have come via some social media route, so the chances are you know something about the medium, therefore I am not going to preach to you about the power of LinkedIn or Twitter; instead I want to discuss the tools that make such mediums effective.  Below is a list of the tools I use most frequently to recruit via social media.  It is not intended to be a definitive list, but just my favourites.  If you have any to add please do so; we’re all still learning about social media, so let’s share the knowledge!

• Google – This sounds a rather strange one to start with, but Google (or other search engines) are massively underused.  In particular Google is a wonderful tool to aid your LinkedIn searches.  If you conduct a search in LinkedIn you are limited to the results you receive by the type of account you hold and the number of people you are connected to.  However, if you conduct a search via Google you can gain access to everyone!  If you not sure how to conduct Boolean searches, then an easier option is to use Google’s advanced search tool to avoid having to be too technical.
• TweetDeck & Hootsuite – I personally prefer TweetDeck, but only because I am more used to it.  Both sites provide you with the ability to manage your various social media accounts, so rather than having to log into all of them you can do so in one fail swoop by using these sites.  They also provide an easy method to search Twitter.
• Followerwonk – The names of these sites are truly great!  Followerwonk allows you the ability to search peoples’ biographies on Twitter.  As many people will provide information about their location and career in their bios, this is an invaluable tool to reach out and engage with potential new hires.  You can also pretty much guarantee not many other organisations are doing this.
• TweetLevel – another useful tool to search Twitter, particularly if you are searching for a niche skill. An alternative site is Tweepz (I did say the name’s were great!).
• Socialmention – I have found this site useful if I am searching for a niche skills or trying to research a particular topic.  The site will search all of “the Universe” for mention of the topic.  As a tip, make sure you don’t have too broad a search otherwise you’ll have to wade through lots of unwanted information!
• FindPeopleonPlus – I will admit I am still relatively new to this site, but it is the best tool I have found to date that allows you to search Google+.  It may not need to be your central focus when resourcing, but you shouldn’t ignore Google+ as it has real potential to be an excellent sourcing channel.   But don’t take my word for it, instead you should take the far more credible word of Andy Headworth in this post who explains how to use Google+ and with some insight on Pinterest thrown in for good measure!

You will notice that there is a lack of information about Facebook.  The reason for this is that I have yet to find an app or site that allows you to use it for recruitment purposes that doesn’t charge you.  If you wanted to invest you could use sites such as Bullhorn Reach of BranchOut. 

Finally, there is an app or Google Chrome extension that will be released soon that will be invaluable when using LinkedIn.  Shane McCusker will be releasing an app soon that will allow you to see all the information of a 3rd degree connection on LinkedIn.  So this is definitely one to look out for.

Before you spend a fortune gives these routes a try.  Good luck!

Ed Scrivener

Has this inspired you to discuss HR?  Or actually discuss recruitment! Let us know about your favourite ways of using social media to recruit.

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The Future of Recruitment?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

I won’t wax lyrical  about today’s writer as it is me! My last post was about how you could improve your chances of finding a role by networking.  This post is about how you can vastly improve you ability t hire into your organisation.  (Ed Scrivener)

The Future of Recruitment?

The technophiles amongst you will not have missed the recent announcement to much fanfare of the latest phone from Samsung which will be controlled by movement of your eye.  However, what is surprising is that another device utilising the same principal has gone completely under the radar, which has the potential to revolutionise the recruitment industry and vastly improve retention rates.

The FES2 is a unique device that could have come straight from Q’s laboratory in James Bond, which measures the accuracy of candidates’ answers when interviewing.  I first came across this several months ago at a recruitment exhibition and I am aware of a number of my contemporaries that use it, however, I have struggled to find any mention of it in anything other than the most obscure trade publications.

In the short period I have been using the FES2 my accuracy in interviews has vastly improved as it easily highlights to me the questions I need to delve deeper with.  However, the real benefits will be long term as the idea of the FES2 is to ensure you’re making the right decision first time.

I appreciate I have been slightly aloof with describing it so far and that is partially because I wanted to express the benefits of it before describing exactly what it does, as this could cause potential ethical concerns.  The FES2 works on the principal of measuring eye movement during questioning and therefore candidates need to be closely scrutinised during interview via video equipment with real time results fed back to what is in essence a tablet.  The basic premise is that the movement of the eye when answering questions will indicate whether the answer is truthful or made up, or somewhere in between.  The natural response of the eye is to look to the right when recalling the truth and to the left when creating an answer – or lying!  Of course where the FES2 comes into its own is that it picks up the microscopic movements of the eye that you wouldn’t see without the aid of technology. 

I made a quip about it being used by Q, but I understand the origin of the machine was used by the military, so in essence the FES2 is an advanced interrogation device.  This in turn creates the ethical concern I alluded to earlier.  You do need to have a candidate sign a waiver before undertaking the interview, but so far less than 5% of the people I have invited to interview have declined the opportunity.  Playing Devil’s advocate you could argue that 95% of people have agreed to be interviewed in this manner due to the economic climate and the lack of opportunities, however, I feel in general this will benefit businesses immensely by ensuring they get the right hire every time – which will hugely reduce the average cost per hire.

I am conscious that this could almost be construed as an advert for the FES2 and I am very much independent of the manufacturer, however, I feel it is just too good not to shout from the roof tops about.  The creator Cal Lightman has stated he intends to develop further versions that will monitor heart rates and body temperature to truly give a fool proof system.  While this may sound like an elaborate interrogation or akin to an episode of Jeremy Kyle, I firmly believe in the long run it will truly revolutionise the way we hire talent into a business despite the potential ethical drawbacks.

You can find further information about the FES2 here.

Read about Ed and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Whose Workforce is it Anyway?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

We welcome back seasoned blogger Mervyn Dinnen, who follows up his previous post with a look at a growing trend within the workforce. (Ed Scrivener)

Whose Workforce is it Anyway?

Many people were surprised by the recent Financial Times report on working conditions at the Amazon warehouse in Rugeley. Most of the employees comprising the ‘human automation’ workforce were not employed by Amazon though, but by Randstad who manage them as part of their ‘onsite-flexible workforce solutions’ service.

As a result of this Amazon are able to ‘release’ workers who are not performing efficiently with little notice, whilst dangling the carrot that it is possible to gain permanent employment with them.

There seemed no shortage of people willing to talk about their experiences. Whose reputation is damaged by what they have to say – Amazon or Randstad?

Similarly many people have been surprised that the cleaners at John Lewis’ flagship store are contemplating strike action. After all, this is an iconic employer of choice, whose business model is held up as a blueprint to others, a paragon of ethical business. The workforce all share in the company’s success, leading to high levels of engagement.

But not the cleaners. They were outsourced through a facilities management company to a cleaning provider and are working for minimum wage with some picking up £72 a week for 6 days’ shifts.

Clearly not everyone who helps to provide the ‘customer experience’ that is so crucial to the company’s success is part of the envied co-operative partnership agreement.

Whilst the flexible/outsourced workforce is a growing phenomenon it’s not a new one.  Nearly 12 years ago a research paper on the challenges for HR in managing the outsourced workforce was published with this remit:

• For most of the twentieth century, the number of tasks and levels in large organizations grew incrementally, adding new job and career opportunities to full-time employees. In recent years this pattern has fundamentally changed.
• Global developments, both technological and economic, have led to many organizations cutting back their operations, closing facilities or outsourcing non-core activities to specialist providers.
• As we move further into the twenty-first century, we can realistically expect that the need for cost reduction, speed and flexibility will become even greater, leading organizations to reduce the number of full-time employees.
• As labour markets are becoming tighter and supply-driven, finding qualified staff will become more difficult and companies will increasingly have to depend on temporary staff and other types of non-permanent employees to meet their staffing requirements

I’m not sure whether we have really grasped this enough. We have performance arrangements in place to deal with outsourced arrangements, to ensure that SLAs are met and inefficient working is penalised.

But what about those much discussed holy grails such as culture, engagement and employer brand?

Both the examples that I gave earlier – Amazon and John Lewis – are from businesses who are employers of choice, strong brands with an assumed high level of engagement. We are used to reading reports of how permanent employees of some of the aspirational digital companies are willing to accept low pay and prospects as a trade-off for the chance to be part of the brand. And in a depressed economy, with meaningful jobs hard to come by, there may be no shortage of takers for low pay, low skilled jobs, either permanent or temporary, particularly within iconic businesses.

But what about less high profile organisations? How engaged are the flexible workforce when they are there for a pay cheque and not to be part of an employee experience? And what effect may this have on the all-important customer?

Many customer facing roles in the service sector – usually also the first point of contact for the customer with the business – are increasingly filled by people on a plethora of zero hour/permanent part year/fixed term temporary/managed outsourced contracts, all with varying levels of engagement and commitment.

I’m sure many readers with 10+ years in the workplace will recall working for businesses in which perks, benefits, parties and away days were for permanent staff only and not the temps. But this was a time when temporary and flexible workers were rare. Nowadays they are becoming an increasingly necessary feature of the workforce, and labour market commentators are expecting this growth to continue. I’m not sure than anyone knows the full longer term impact of a two tier workforce on performance, profitability and culture.

So what should HR be doing to embed these people in the company, especially when they are hired, fired and paid by a third party provider?

Let me know what you think…

Read about Mervyn and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Good work leads to productivity & performance

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

There truly is a wonderful community of HR people on Twitter and today proves that.  Due to unforeseen circumstances our regular writer wasn’t able to appear today; a Tweet for help was swiftly followed by Megan Peppin, aka @OD_optimistcoming to the rescue! (Ed Scrivener)

Good work leads to productivity &  performance

The Work Foundation findings published in May last year find in favour of “good work” for boosting business performance and identify a number of organisational processes and dynamics that shape “good work”.  One way of explaining the concept of good work is Eurofound:

• Secure and interesting jobs that employees find fulfilling, which contribute to the achievement of high performance and sustainable business success
• A style and ethos of management that is based on high levels of trust and recognises that managing people fairly and effectively is crucial to skilled work and high performance
• Choice, flexibility and control over working hours
• Autonomy and control over the pace of work and the working environment
• Voice for employees in the critical employer decisions that affect their futures

I guess no surprises here; more reinforcement that management and leadership behaviour is the most significant factor in shaping organisational performance.

Here’s something that grabbed my attention – their findings under inequalities talk about the importance of recruitment:

“Gender, and other, inequalities persist in the workplace – but the underlying causes are as likely to be in processes and culture that set expectations which perpetuate disadvantage, as in the pay structures:

Tackling inequality means exploring whether the design of recruitment, assessment and promotion processes and procedures, often unintentionally, mitigate against equal chances of progressing through the organisation.”

Umm, what’s going on with recruitment?

So here’s the thing I wanted to write about – recruitment.

“The REC’s Medium Term Forecast predicts the recruitment industry’s annual growth at 3.6 per cent next year (2011/12) followed by 4.7 per cent in 2012/13, rising to 7.1 per cent for 2013/14 and 7.3 per cent in 2014/15. This represents a return to single figure growth over the next four years to reach a new peak of £30.8 billion in 2014/15.” From the Recruitment and Employment Confederation website.  

You say what??

The skills of recruiting when undertaken by the recruiting manager is in my view one of the most important learning activities that managers can do that is directly transferrable into all managerial work.

Here are some facts and some observations – how many of them do you agree/disagree with?

• People leave their jobs primarily because they are dissatisfied with their relationship with their manager/opportunities to discover and fulfil their potential
• People are the most expensive resource in the majority of organisations
• A workforce who feels valued and included is likely to be more motivated.
• A motivated workforce has more potential than a disenfranchised workforce.
• Difficult conversations, uncomfortable relationships are the most time consuming and complex problems many people have to deal with at work.
• Women are still paid less than men and there are less of them in senior roles that there could be.
• We have an ageing workforce
• Having a disability should not be a disadvantage.
• Recruiting the wrong person is costly and has negative impact.
• Recruiting the right person is costly and brings about benefits.

If you agree with just some of these, it begs the question of why we outsource recruitment of this most precious and important, time consuming and costly resource.

There’s a lot being discussed and written about recruitment at the moment.  The candidate experience is really variable and often poor (I’m being nice) - you just need to talk to anyone looking for job.  Filtering systems are subjective (the list of things that annoy recruiters is long and wide, just Google it) and therefore open to discriminatory practices.  More than 90% of HR professionals think that inequality is still rife in the workplace, particularly between the sexes.  Changing this surely must start right at the beginning of the process, flushing out unconscious bias at conception.  Employers too seem to see recruiters as a necessary evil, and yet are spending £30bn – a costly complaint.

I wonder too how all this outsourcing transfers to underlying attitudes towards staff – are they seen as commodity with a monetary value or a person with whom their manager feels both emotional and financial investment? Outsourcing doesn’t create accountability, just provides someone to blame if it doesn’t work out, and most central to my argument, managers don’t learn anything from it.

Do it yourself

Here’s why I believe recruitment if it sits with managers brings about amazing benefits:

• At each stage, there are rich experiences that will be directly transferred into day to day work and skills for the recruiting manager.
• Understanding the commercial aspects of recruiting, the time, energy, costs by designing and implementing the end to end process.
• Having to know the law on equalities at the outset, helps understand their own filters and prejudices and this insight gets transferred into every day decisions, choices and programme design.
• Undertaking interviews, learning to ask exploratory, probing questions, directly applicable to performance management, providing skilled constructive feedback and making evidence based decisions.
• Observing at assessment centres/evaluating other data collected through the interview process increases capability to collect objective evidence and increase capability to be fact based when providing feedback
• And importantly ownership and investment in the person recruited.  One mistake and more care will be invested in this timely and costly process.
• Oh, and HR should get less trouble shooting as recruiting decisions will be more carefully thought out, owned, managed and learned from.

I’m not suggesting that there is never a place for outsourcing; for bulk seasonal roles, for specialist search, for interim/FTC roles, and when you just have to, but currently managers are not getting the opportunity to develop these core skills.

Recruiting skills are transferable into all aspects of their work and financially, I can’t see how the time it takes to put into the recruitment won’t give an ROI as the emotional and economic investment is so much greater into the person they have recruited.

I know there are recruiters out there who are totally committed to professional standards and who are equally frustrated with some of the poor practice.  These I am sure are delivering both a great candidate experience (don’t hear lots of these I have to say) and providing wisdom and guidance through ethical and businesslike processes. Managers will make better partnering choices when they decide to outsource, if they understand, care about, and feel responsible for recruitment which should mean that recruiters become not the problem but the solution.

Is this just me then?

About the author

I’m Meg Peppinand I work with individuals, groups and organisations who are interested in exploring and achieving their potential. I work as a coach, a group facilitator and organisation change agent.

I also carry out research, write, and work with organisations on specific projects including evaluating funding impact, designing developmental tools and programmes.  I’m a trained mediator, and facilitate the Human Synergistics Advanced Accreditation Workshop – Leadership and Culture.  I’m currently working one day a week for Drake Music as their OD Lead as they grow their amazing work and reach.

I really care about inclusion and transparency, I believe that there is always potential in every situation.   I approve of having fun whilst working hard.

*****

Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

*****

If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Employer Brand & Gen Y

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

We welcome another new writer that you’ll recognise from previous guest posts.  Paul Goring completes our Gloucestershire trio with a fantastic piece on employer branding. (Ed Scrivener)

Employer Brand & Gen Y

Regardless of the state of the labour market, we all know that attracting and keeping the top talent in any sector is still tough. The phrase Employer Brand has been around since it was first coined in I guess the 90’s and as Minchington (2005) said, it is all about ‘the image of your organisation as a great place to work,’ which is all fantastic as a concept until you start to look more closely at what that means and ask questions like; for who, how much will changing things cost and what is the bottom line business benefit?

So perhaps you know that your Employer Brand needs your attention and that the business needs to accept that people choose employers for a range of reasons...blank piece of paper time; What is it like to work here? The first and biggest question of the whole piece I think because you are now going to have to introduce the idea of generational preference because different people of different ages or generation types choose employers and more importantly stay with employers for very different reasons?

I will come clean; my focus professionally in this sphere was on Generation Y, working for a big pan-Global insurance business I was asked to help the business answer the huge question of ‘how do we attract and retain sufficient top level talent from the top schools globally’ this meant understanding, talking to, researching and reaching out to Generation Y and specifically looking at what they really want from an employer and what might encourage them to hang around for a few years.

The list of ‘must have’s’ for that top talent globally was indeed a revelation. Using a mixture of focused Exit Interviews, round table discussions and travelling to many careers events around Europe the list became very consistent in its content.

What did Gen Y want from an employer? Well salary was not at the top of the list; quality training, career mobility, flexible working, information and environment all featured in their top ten and we did something about them all because they were all things that could be focused on and worked into our offering and indeed most existed already but were not being communicated well enough or in the right way.

So you move heaven and earth to change the way that your future talent sees your business in terms of your Employer Brand but what do the Gen X and Baby Boomers that you employ already think about that? Is it possible for you to develop your Employer Brand and not impact the people who work for you and do a great job but who also want and need different things from you as their employer and who would define a ‘great place to work’ very differently from Gen Y.  What about your non-Gen Y candidates too? How can you possibly be all things to all men...

The crux of the problem I believe.  I think that www.employerbrandingtoday.com have some very interesting things to say on the issue and appealing to the right people in the right way without trying to appeal to everyone is one of their key messages. Your EVP (Employer Value Proposition) is a unique set of offerings, associations and values that should be cross generational and coalesce into your Employer Branding both looking outwards and inwards to be truly congurent and effective; there is no point saying something to candidates that you would not be prepared to say to your current staff.

The process of reviewing, understanding and honing your Employer Brand and then allowing it to evolve and be informed by what staff and candidates think is alot tougher than it appears because afterall how easy is it to create a ‘great place to work’ anyway?

Read about Paul and our other authors here

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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

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If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

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Your Road Map to Earning an LAFD Badge

What does it take to become a Los Angeles Firefighter? Has the application process changed? What about the requirements - are they more stringent or less?

These questions spring eternal.

As with other other City of Los Angeles career positions, there are requirements every applicant must meet before entering the Los Angeles Fire Department Recruit Training Academy.

Your journey to earning an LAFD badge can start today by visiting:

JoinLAFD.org
...if a question isn't answered at the website above, speak with an LAFD Recruiter at 1-855-552-LAFD

Submitted by Brian Humphrey, Spokesman
Los Angeles Fire Department

Follow @LAFD and @LAFDtalk on Twitter and find us on Facebook

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Ed Scrivener - 2012

Continuing our review of our writers’ posts during 2012, today we arrive at none other than myself.  To avoid any criticism of being narcisstic I won’t eulagise about how great the posts are! (Ed Scrivener)

2012

• Missing the social point January 19^th
• Beware of big brother March 29^th
• HR, get out and network! June 7^th
• Too many roles July 18^th
• Not another remake October 17^th

2011

• Full back catalogue

About the author

Ed spent the best part of 10 years being an evil HR recruitment consultant.  After finding redemption he now works on the other side helping organisations optimise their direct recruitment channels, a role which allows him to focus on his passion, namely social media.  He manages Human Resources UK and organises regular networking events for the group across the UK.  He is also Editor of Discuss HR and occasionally his humour will creep into articles!

Blog | Email | LinkedIn | Twitter 

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What Did You Do in the War, Grannie?

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

This week we welcome back our resident HRD, Sheena McLullich who once again has written a thought provoking post.  Her article also heralds the last of the year from our panel of writers.  We will then be welcoming two guest writers before the end of the year.  In the meantime enjoy Sheena’s post. (Ed Scrivener)

What Did You Do in the War, Grannie?

Luckily I haven’t been asked this question – yet!

However, I’m about to make a confession which will, I fear, immediately invoke a prejudice in many people’s minds.  This could seriously impact my chances of ever being head-hunted or of being recruited into another company and could in fact destroy my future employability. 

Anyway, here goes …. I am a Grandmother – of five.

Actually, I’m called ‘Grannie’ (after my own Grannie who also spelt it that way) and, in my defence, I was 21 when my eldest son was born and my son was 22 when his son was born.  Do the maths, as they say.  Even though my oldest grandson is now five, this doesn’t make me old or even vaguely approaching retirement age, but it does invoke strong responses in some people when I’ve told them.  ‘I don’t think we’ve ever had a grandmother before’ was the response of one director and someone else suggested, in all seriousness, that I might want to reduce my working hours… he never got to finish that particular sentence!

My present CEO said to me during my interview ‘we have a young, metropolitan workforce and you don’t fit that model’.  He went on to say that in his view, that was a good thing as I’d been there and learned from the experience, which made me better able to advise and empathise with others and less afraid to make a  tough decision where necessary.  I’m really glad he did that as it gave me an opportunity to bring the subject into the open and to discuss how my life experiences could enhance the organisation.  Unfortunately not many CEOs share Jon’s candour or his attitude to diversity.  

I’ve been present at too many job interviews (both as candidate and interviewer) where someone has been rejected purely on the grounds of age.  ‘They won’t learn.’  ‘They won’t adapt.’ ‘They’ll be too slow’  ‘They won’t like change’ are common misconceptions. 

Like many ‘baby boomers’, I started my working life in the early ‘eighties.  Back then, the personal computer was just coming into common use.  There was no email, no social media, no internet.  If you wanted to find something out, you had to look up a reference book or ask someone else.  (Networking is not a new concept by the way!)  Since then we’ve mastered numerous versions of increasingly sophisticated software packages and coped with radically different ways of working – ‘won’t learn, won’t change’ – I think we’ve proved that exactly the opposite is the case. 

During my career I’ve had to deal with almost every challenge that working with people can throw at you.   I’ve struggled through recessions, coped with redundancy (from both sides) and had to handle some very traumatic situations, including some real human tragedies.   As you get older, I think you become less emotional and more resilient.  You’re less likely to panic when faced with something unfamiliar and more inclined to step back, assess the situation and decide on a course of action that won’t make things worse.   These are not skills that are taught in business schools – I know, because I’ve been there too. 

So, on my desk at work you’ll see a photo of five smiling little faces whose Grannie has a wealth of experience to share with them (when they’re old enough) but who isn’t ready to retire to a rocking chair for some considerable time yet.  

But I wonder, what will you see the next time you interview an older candidate?

About the author

Sheena began her career in Training & Development before moving to a generalist HR position in 1998.  Since then she has held senior HR roles for several SMEs in a wide range of industries. A Fellow of the CIPD and Member of the US SHRM, she has a keen interest in Employee Development, specifically in coaching and supporting managers to enable them to get the best from their people.  She was appointed as Director of People for SPA Future Thinking in September 2011.

Email | LinkedIn | Website

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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.  

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Join LAFD at African-American Recruitment Seminar

The Los Angeles Fire Department is committed to diversity, and strives to be truly reflective of the community it serves. You are invited to continue the rich tradition of African-American heritage in the City of Los Angeles and in the Fire Service with your own career as a member of the LAFD.

We are hosting a special African-American Recruitment Seminar to share information about the career paths available after becoming a Los Angeles Firefighter. Women and men are strongly encouraged to apply. The seminar will cover valuable information about salary and benefits, the application and selection process, prep programs and the physical fitness necessary to do well in the Academy, as well as on the job.

• What: LAFD African-American Recruitment Seminar
• When: Saturday, October 27, 2012
• Time: Two Sessions > 9:00AM – 11:00AM or 12:00 PM - 2:00PM
• Where: Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center, 1700 Stadium Way, Los Angeles, CA 90012 
• Dress Code: Business casual

JoinLAFD.org

Submitted by Erik Scott, Spokesman
Los Angeles Fire Department

Follow @LAFD and @LAFDtalk on Twitter and find us on Facebook

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Not another remake!

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.

In a change to the schedule I am writing this week’s post (the stampede is defeaning) and I am really taking my penchant for tenuous links to breaking point!  This week I look at how recruitment processes mirror the world of the Hollywood blockbuster. (Ed Scrivener)

Not another remake!

Peter Sellers he was not!

For every Ocean’s Eleven there are three Alfie’s, Clash of the Titans or Total Recall or more pertinently seven Police Academy’s!  The film world seems to be increasingly intent on remakes and sequels.  In the last year alone the list of remakes in production includes the likes of The Dambusters, The Great Gatsby, Excalibur, The Twilight Zone and Dune to name but a few.  Rather than pen a new story, Hollywoodfeels the easy choice in this economy is to copy and tinker with an original idea.  The common theme with the vast bulk is that the original was a success, hence the belief the remake will be a success too.

This is not my attempt to become the next Barry Norman, although being paid to watch films would be a rather good profession!  I am sure some of you will have already guessed the analogy I am using.  Films are remade due to the commercial success of the original.  Invariably due to the success of the original the remake will prove a financial success, but nowhere near the original.  It will be remembered as a poor relation and fans will all prefer the original.  Let’s now use this analogy for the recruitment world.  How often are roles recruited with the intention of replacing the current incumbent with a copy?  The incumbent has been a success, so the belief is that hiring someone from the same background will also prove to be a success, but how often is this the case?  The new hire may do a good job, but were they the best person?  Of course, there are times that hiring an exact replacement proves to be a real success – in film terms Scarface, The Departed or Father of the Bride – but these occasions are due to a clear understanding of what made the original successful and using that to make the remake equally so.  Again, putting this in recruitment terms, it is not someone’s background but their aptitude and emotional intelligence that makes them a good hire and this is what needs to be focused on.

Unfortunately in both recruitment and film terms we are seeing more and more remakes at present.   A remake offers the safe option and due to the economic strife we’re all in, organisations are risk averse at present.  They feel the easy option is the safe option, but is this the best option?  Invariably no.

And for a bit of fun...

Worst Film Remakes

Psycho
The Wicker Man
The Stepford Wives
Alfie
The Pink Panther
The Ladykillers
Clash of the Titans

Best Film Remakes

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the Donald Sutherland version and not the Nicole Kidman version which should be on the list above!)

Ocean’s Eleven

The Magnificent Seven

Scarface

Father of the Bride

The Departed

The Thing

About the author

Ed spent the best part of 10 years being an evil HR recruitment consultant.  After finding redemption he now works on the other side helping organisations optimise their direct recruitment channels, a role which allows him to focus on his passion, namely social media.  He manages Human Resources UK and organises regular networking events for the group across the UK.   He is also Editor of Discuss HR and occasionally his humour will creep into articles!

Blog | Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

*****

Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.

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