Category Archives: General

Problem: Job Seekers Use Social Media, HR Does Not (Video)

AKA Who’s Driving This Freaking Thing?

(Subscribers may need to click through for the video. The transcript is below if you’re the reading type!)

I see articles every single day teaching job seekers how to use social media to get a job. On the other hand, I also see a lot of legal types doing their best to scare the pants off HR/recruiters who use social media to find candidates.

I\’m sure you\’ve heard that the headline sells the newspaper. Well, I was sucked into watching a recorded webinar the other day based solely on the title. How could I resist something called Blogging, Social Media, and the Workforce? :-)

Anyway, I realized my mistake pretty quickly. I spent 75% of the webinar listening to someone ramble about laws, phones, and email. Ugh. The last few minutes dealt with what the whole webinar should have been about–blogging and social media. Just a few gems I picked up from the webinar, if I might paraphrase:

If you go to a blog and you decide not to hire because you find out that they are of a specific race or religion, that can be a problem. Whoa, you don\’t say! Wasn’t that already illegal?
Don\’t let the people who make hiring decisions be the same ones who are using social networks like Facebook. Going to these sites can provide too much information. Huh? That doesn’t even make sense!

Those quotes make me a little queasy. Thankfully I have an antidote in this great comment by Mike Haberman.

When HR people tell me they are too busy in their jobs to use social media, I tell them it should be part of their jobs to use it. The tools are just too valuable to ignore.

I agree completely. Constant growth is a big part of this profession, and putting your head in the sand isn\’t exactly a strategy I\’m a fan of. Think about it. If coaches and other career professionals are telling job seekers to use social media to connect with companies, and you\’re hiding in the basement hoping it will blow over, where does that leave you in the long run? Yeah. Not good.

What are your thoughts?

Breaking bottlenecks

When I was a senior in college, I took a little college class by the name of project management (taught by the guy who owned a weekend kettle corn stand that I heard about in every single class). One of the requirements of the class was reading a book called The Goal. I saw the book on my shelf the other day and naturally I started thinking about things through the HR perspective. Looking back now, I really appreciate being forced to read that book.

So, what is The Goal all about? Continue reading →

Leadership-Asking Tough Questions

I think one responsibility leaders have is asking tough questions. Getting your people to think about what their roles are and how they can best fill them is a challenge all managers face.

Recently my own manager asked a series of difficult questions in a department meeting. In responding to the questions, I felt like my opinion was valued and I worked through some thorny issues I’ve dealt with lately. It was really a fantastic exercise. I won’t reproduce my answers here, but it won’t hurt to share the thought-provoking questions with you, right?

1) What’s one think you want to improve? This could be whatever you like. It’s pretty open. Think of something.

2) What’s one thing you want to do that you’ve never done before? My list for this could be a mile long. Asking this question shows that you want to help your people advance in their careers.

3) What’s one thing for the department to improve? What would make yours better? Help your people uncover those issues that may be invisible to you as a manager. Or maybe you can see if the same problems you’ve observed are visible to them. So many possibilities for this one!

4) What’s something I (the manager) am not doing/providing for you (the employee)? Admit that you don’t know everything. Maybe you’ve missed something. Go for it. Who knows what you’ll find out?

These aren’t magic questions. They don’t really solve any problems. They do, however, provide a means of uncovering hidden issues and addressing them. And all it takes is actually asking your people. Funny how that works, huh?

Thanks for everything, amigos

So… I haven’t been writing much lately. Yes, I realize that. But it’s not because I’m lazy or don’t have a lot to say.

Recently I started looking for a new job. Here in Huntsville, we have a lot of government contractors, and I really would prefer not to work for one. They have so many restrictions on what their employees can’t do, and I don’t fit into that kind of environment very well. However, because of this unique geographical area, 90% of the open HR jobs come from those kinds of employers. I’ve kept the job search quiet to keep my current employer from being ticked off and to keep everyone from asking me how it’s going. That gets to be a hassle at times, you know? Continue reading →

Why SHRM is not the Antichrist of HR

Today I don’t have to ramble at you (aren’t you thrilled?). My pal’s going to do it for me. My buddy Allen Robinson has given me permission to republish the post he’s written about his SHRM experiences. He says they’re not as bad as everyone makes them out to be. I’m not going to agree or disagree with his assessment, but I will shut up and let Allen do some talking. Here we go!

How many times have you heard that SHRM is more or less a waste of space, a dinosaur of an organization or just not meeting the needs of the HR community? I have been hearing this more and more lately.

learn lead My view of SHRM apparently is different than the growing disdain among my fellow HR Professionals. As I was developing my knowledge of HR at the University of Michigan, I was given a great deal of support by SHRM either directly or indirectly.Â There in lies the key to why I feel that SHRM is still a relevant organization. Continue reading →

Expectations and Freelancing

Expectations. They are such a large part of our work. From the very first time we interview to the regular performance reviews we all love to hate, we’re trying to meet someone’s expectations. There’s a big problem with that, though. We don’t always know what someone’s expectations are.

I do some freelance work on the side. I used to do a lot of writing, but now I’ve moved to blog/web design. Anyway, sometimes I listen to and read resources that deal with freelance work. Recently I found a great one that talked about how much of a difference it makes in the project if you set expectations beforehand. I can’t seem to find the article any more, but the gist of it was this:

Client approaches freelancer for a project.
Freelancer takes the project and begins work based on the client’s directions.
Client changes his mind and wants something different.
Freelancer trashes his work and begins anew.
Rinse and repeat.

Doesn’t that sound fun? The poor freelance worker just wants to get the project done and get paid. The client wants the project done and off his plate. But the expectations weren’t clear enough to make it work from the beginning.

It’s not just for freelance workers

I can look at my own workplace and see similar examples, and I bet you can, too. Someone’s trying to get a project done without passing along all of the information, and that wastes the efforts of the team. I wonder how many times people see this kind of thing as micromanagement? It isn’t really micromanagement as much as bad communication from the very beginning.

Here’s the moral of the story: set clear expectations when you’re managing a person (or a project). It saves headaches and generally makes for a happier outcome in the long run.

Ever run into a problem because expectations weren’t communicated clearly? Ever had to restart a project when someone didn’t give you all the information? I’d love to hear your experiences.

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