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Career Insight

The Red Carpet Experience

Career Insight, Human Resources, Leadership, Recruitment /

Cue the traditional scenario: it’s Friday afternoon, and your best employee walks into your office before the weekend: EMPLOYEE: I’m here to resign from my position EMPLOYER: This is troubling and terrible timing. Is there anything I can do to change your mind? How much have they offered you? I’ll match it right now! I’ve kept it brief for the sake of LinkedIn… Accepting a counteroffer might seem attractive in the moment, especially if your reasons for leaving in the first place were not iron-clad. I’d like to caution anyone who is on the verge of handing in their resignation to remain firm on their stance. Don’t allow promises or more money to derail all of the work it took to get to that point… Accepting a counter offer can have an adverse effect on your career. Here’s why: The most obvious impact is that you’re now marked by your employer as that disloyal employee who tried to leave once. Don’t expect a red carpet to your next raise or promotion within the company. Hidden however, and more important is your ability to navigate the outside marketplace. By accepting a counteroffer that is $10,000 or 20,000 more than what you were prepared to accept from the other company, you’ve now misaligned yourself in your marketplace. If the median salary for a Project Manager in the Biomedical industry is $130,000, your offer from the other company was $145,000, and your current company has countered at $155,000, then you’re now $25,000 over the market value for your position. If you decide to leave or are laid off, it will be difficult to negotiate your way to the salary you left behind and what you’ve become accustomed to making. No one ever wants to accept a lower salary, even in a desperate market. We end up creating an artificial bubble in the marketplace that no longer relies on market data & research but is now predicated entirely on our feelings about what we think we’re worth. This is usually skewed based on scenarios like what I described above. THE SOLUTION FOR LEADERS: treat people well enough in the first place so another company won’t have a runway to steal them away from you THE SOLUTION FOR EMPLOYEES: stick to your original decision to leave as a way of protecting your career trajectory and its integrity

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LAYING PEOPLE OFF IS A COP OUT

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership /

Of all the expenses you could slash within an organization during financial instability, you chose the human! Firstly, if you think of your people as expenses, then you’re in the wrong business… When someone says that layoffs are a mandatory measure towards becoming leaner/stronger or represent a pivot into something new, what I really hear is someone who cannot be bothered to lead during a period of change… It’s more desirable to manage the integration of new technologies than it is to lead people, especially those who might be underperforming…(the true measure of leadership)… Similarly, tolerating a poor performer versus taking action to remedy the situation is just as bad… Have employees allowed themselves to become dispensable or are leaders responsible for creating widespread redundancy that they now condemn and are taking measures to get rid of? Have we consciously (or unconsciously) put people into positions that leverages a small fraction of their entire skill set, thereby leading to monotony, which leads to burnout, which leads to employer frustration, & ultimately mass layoffs… Cue the solution – robots… “We are simply embracing the future with hopes of competing” – says every modern day CEO… What we’re really fostering is a business world driven by fear and insecurity. Employees don’t trust their leadership to prioritize them during a downturn or change, and employers have strategically commoditized their people thereby making it easy to cut ties with them… Is the onus on employees to fight to remain relevant or is it on employers to lead with more compassion? Why can’t we have a balance? An equilibrium that promotes employee accountability and leaders who care!

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Retained Is The New Predictable

Career Insight, Employer Insight, Leadership, Recruitment /

There are a lot of trust issues in the current marketplace. Much of it is justified… There’s also A LOT of information from experts and people who are well-intentioned circulating… Poor experiences, coupled with advice from every angle have made the current marketplace stressful to navigate through. I’ve been privileged to work in a profession that I love for 15 years… As such, there are best practices that I try to disclose to anyone who will listen. Key word being “listen.” It’s ultimately your decision, but as someone once said, “knowing is half the battle.” Whether you’re a job seeker, employed, unemployed, or underemployed, there is a standard that you should expect from everyone in the Talent Acquisition business… Cue the typical email from a Recruiter: Hello – our client, a global entity and leader in the pharmaceutical sector, is looking to hire a new Director of People. We have an older resume of yours in our database, and I was wondering if you would be interested in hearing about this exciting opportunity. Please respond to this email with an updated resume. There are many things wrong with this email, but my primary concern is the lack of trust that it conveys to a top prospect. Who is your client, and why is that a secret? I’m amazed that this approach worked for as long as it did. Why would anyone take a call from a recruiter who they don’t know, listen to what they have to say, share personal things about their background & personal life, disclose what they are earning and would like to make, and agree to update a resume that they haven’t touched in 10 years, all without knowing who your customer is? Many recruiters do not have legitimate contracts or relationships with these companies and therefore can offer little to no direction or insight into the opportunity. Hence the reason why you often don’t hear from them after you’ve submitted your resume. These companies are not getting back to them, so how can they get back to you? Without a real relationship, expect to be ghosted. Your question to that recruiter before you agree to do anything should be: “Can you please describe the nature of your relationship with the company you are representing? Have you been contractually retained to handle this search?” Side bar – being retained doesn’t necessarily mean that a recruiter won’t operate transactionally, but if their customer is treating them seriously, then it’s predictable that they will treat you in the same manner… Qualify that recruiter before they qualify you. Call me crazy, but I’d only entertain an introduction that sounded similar to the following: Hello, Jane – under my current contract with XYZ Plastics, I’ve been asked by the President of the company to identify a new Director of People to help them bolster their HR division. You’ve been identified as a person of interest by the President, and he is interested in speaking with you. I’m here to mediate those discussions. Is this worth a closer look? Or Hello, Jane – you’ve been identified as a top prospect by our organization. Confidentially, we are handling XYZ Plastics’ search spearheaded by the CEO for a new HR executive. I’m here to mediate those discussions. Is this worth a closer look? I hope this tip helps you to weed through the noise in the marketplace and positions you closer to your next opportunity.

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The Great Separation – Why Organizational Leadership Finds Itself On The Unemployment Line

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

Never in my 15 years in recruitment have I ever seen more qualified people looking for work. By qualified, I refer to people who would ordinarily not find themselves unemployed in a traditional marketplace. The other variable is the length of time they find themselves in the market. Good people find jobs, and find them quickly. This has been the expectation for years, but not the case anymore. The market isn’t just candidate heavy, but it’s ‘top-tier’ candidate heavy, and this worries me. The caliber of talent that I am witnessing enter the market is mind-boggling and lends itself to deeper reasoning and investigation. The market has changed drastically over the past 5 years. We’ve lived through a global health pandemic that changed the landscape of how we perform our jobs. We learned quickly that we were capable of being just as productive working outside of the office – the ingenuity of the human race was in full display. This opened up an entirely new marketplace for organizations. They could now explore talent outside their geographic limitations, not to takeaway from the heightened level of safety we all felt as a result of working from the comfort of our homes. Working from home was not only more convenient, but it quickly became the norm, and some have never looked back. With everything in business, there’s always a trade-off. Companies were granted access to a wider and more diverse talent pool, but at what cost, and how has that impacted the future of work, employment, unemployment, and the next generation of workers? Did decision makers over-extend on hiring out of excitement or fear? Did they over-forecast or underestimate the work from home phenomena? Were execs so ‘hire-happy’ that they failed to properly plan for the future? Let’s explore 2 reasons for the rise of unemployment amongst senior leaders. Cost Cutting Due To Redundancy The surge in hiring during covid resulted in widespread redundancy within the workplace. We are currently going through a workplace refresh, with leaders facing tremendous pressure to bring people back into the office. This is hinged on the belief that too much influence has been given to workers. After all, employees now demand/expect to work remote or on a schedule that fits their needs. Many roles were also created during covid to provide the necessary leadership and technical coverage during a moment of great unpredictability – roles that under normal circumstances would not have been necessary. A “swing for the fences because we don’t know if we’ll live to see tomorrow” mentality was now prevalent in the workplace, and this caused a period of irrational behaviour amongst leaders. Consequently, we have an over-populated workplace with no chemistry. This disconnect, coupled with the hires of those with similar skill sets & competencies, has forced decision makers to trim their workforce, starting naturally with the highest paid. Only the 1% have weathered the storm. AI/Technology Has Made Key People Expendable This is a sensitive subject because AI has become integral to how we work and do business. The influx of senior talent entering the market in search of a new career is deeply concerning, but what role has AI/technology played in this shift? Companies are opting to retain their technical gurus with the latest software under their belt over the detached C-Suite professional, primarily because employees are smarter, self-sufficient, and self-managed. Technology after all needs to be managed by someone, and it definitely won’t be by the Director or VP who has little to no contact at the ground-level. The approach is now to automate where & what you can, and trim what is (who is) left. If you’re a Senior Leader in today’s workforce, it’s imperative to remain closely tied to the technical aspects that govern the organization. The days of leading a technical team without understanding what they do or being able to do it yourself are over. We expected hybrid as a type of work, but what we didn’t expect was a movement towards a new hybrid style of leadership – leaders who can teach and also do – this is the 1%. Your leadership style is great (who doesn’t love servant leaders), but tell me the last time you wrote (or understood) a clean piece of code? What are you doing to remain relevant technically? I’m concerned, but optimistic. Good people always land on their feet, and wherever they land it’s for certain that they will replicate past success & cultivate high performers and future leaders. Let’s Sum This Up For anyone who is thinking about changing careers or switching to a new company during a period of great instability such as a recession or another pandemic, make the transition with caution and qualify the legitimacy and future of the position in question. Ask probing questions to better understand the vision the organization has for the role. That new Chief Of Something may sound great on the surface, but is it a role designed to address an immediate leak or a position they believe will be intricately woven into the fabric of the company for years to come. Try these: These questions are circumstantial, but listen for the answers. The more you hear, the more secure you should feel one way or another. Every role should have at minimum a 5-year outlook, a vision of relevancy that extends beyond the short-term. This is especially true for a position that is being created or has not existed beyond the 5-year mark. For more content like this, please follow me here on LinkedIn.

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A Cost Effective Approach To Profitability

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Leadership, Recruitment /

One of the weaknesses of leaders that I’ve witnessed is their resistance to engaging in proactive dialogue with talent in their industry. Most decision makers are reactive when it comes to talent acquisition. It’s for certain that an organization will experience turnover by way of resignation, retirement, parental leave, termination, or death. We know these things will happen as a normal course of doing business, yet we wait for the inevitable, and scramble to fill these gaps in our talent structure. These are generally not when the best decisions are made. Hires in these moments are normally made out of convenience to stop the bleeding. The best time to take a loan is when you don’t need one. The same theory applies to hiring. The smartest time to be engaging in conversations with suitable people in your marketplace is when you don’t need to, or when your team is running at full capacity. Talent scouting should not take a break since you can’t control people and the decisions they make. We’ve all had those untimely meetings with our best people on a Monday morning. They usually start with, “Good morning, Steve – I’d like to thank you for this amazing opportunity to work with you and my team at XYZ Company for the past 10 years. That being said, I’ve decided to take my talents to South Beach.” The first reaction is usually how you can soften the impact of this person’s departure and prevent any disruption to the core activities of your business. Counteroffers seldom work, and the process of searching for a replacement is time consuming and taxing emotionally for all involved. What I’m proposing is the initial investment of 1 conversation a week with someone in your industry. However this person comes to you, you should be receptive to these meetings / discussions as a way of evaluating your market, that person’s fit, and the likelihood of a hire now, or in the future. This is proven, and guaranteed to solve a lot of your people problems. The argument against this might be, “It’s a waste of time to engage in these discussions without an official hiring request.” Or, “this goes against company policy. All such conversations should be had with the appropriate HR or TA professional within our organization.” Fair. Follow the appropriate policies and procedures. Don’t burn bridges. I’m speaking to a minority of decision makers at the highest level who can afford to be having these conversations with key people in their industry, choosing not to handle such situations as they come. This is detrimental to talent building. By the way, these discussions should also be happening internally with members of your current team as a way of succession planning, and knowing what roles are appropriate to be evaluating externally. You may need to push back on the conventional mindset, and that requires diplomacy and patience. What’s for certain is you’ll be ahead of your competitors, and your brand will reach those in your marketplace that wouldn’t have known about you otherwise. Your organization will reap the benefits for years to come. This is what good leadership looks like.

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Some Vultures Wear Custom-Fitted Suits

Career Insight, Leadership, Recruitment /

Recruiters! You’re feeding on dead-end positions; chasing after them like hungry vultures; willing to compromise for an organization that will not give you repeat business. You’re feeding on dead-end positions; positions that have no legitimacy or strategic direction, no growth trajectory for top prospects, no upper management support, and will likely end in termination or resignation of the hired employee within a year. This cycle has repeated itself time and time again, and you’re guilty by association. You’re complicit in this hoax of a hiring process by accepting these types of roles from hiring managers that are looking to exploit the most vulnerable the marketplace has to offer. Top performers don’t trust you, and rightfully so. Why would I put my career and family’s well being in the hands of someone who operates out of desperation and purely transactionally?! You have been biting the fee bait, taking anything dangled in front of you, and feeding this into the marketplace. We have a responsibility to the people, families, and corporations we represent to hold ourselves to a higher standard. There are times when you will have to walk away from something (or someone) to guard the integrity of what you do as a profession. This test will come to all of us. If not you, then who? If not now, then when?

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You Are More Than Just A Resume (The Follow Up)

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Inspiration, Recruitment /

📢 Candidates! The job market is tough right now, but your activity will lead to positive results… The key is to create small wins everyday by following up. A good follow up is not always discussed, but it’s your key to standing out. The average job seeker does a quantitative blitz of the marketplace, thinking it’s about volume of send outs. True to some extent, but a well thought-out and personalized follow-up to a decision maker (HR or hiring manager) is important to gaining momentum, and landing that dream role. I speak with job seekers regularly and the most common frustration stems from a lack of responses from decision makers. These are the types that will accept a position that they are not truly interested in, and end up quitting shortly thereafter 🤔 Stop treating the job search like a mind-numbing numbers game. Instead, approach it like a Consultant. Make your outreach directed and customized to the organization’s you’d like to work for. When you’ve applied via a posting or through a referral, follow up at least 3 days later. Empathy dictates that the hiring manager is inundated with applications, and time is a scarce resource for them. We’re also dealing with AI generated screening mechanisms that rule you out based on prompts from the company. Differentiate yourself by showing hiring managers how much you care. You are more than just a resume 📜 Here’s an example of a concise, yet effective follow up ⤵️ =================================================== Hello, Mike – I am a Project Manager with 10 years in the plastics industry. I am presently employed for ABC Plastics, and I am steps away from acquiring my PMP designation. I am interested in learning more about the following advertised vacancy on your team: ▶️ Program Manager, Injection Molding I followed the necessary steps to be considered for this position through your online posting, but I wanted to take an additional step by sending this email to you personally. You have my resume, so please let me know how we can coordinate another step to be introduced. Thank you. Troy Saddler=================================================== Talent Search Partners, Inc. was designed to empower job seekers and to allow decision makers to sleep better at night 🛌💤

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Why The Recruitment Industry Can’t Move Forward…

Career Insight, Leadership, Recruitment /

Trust is key across all relationships. The issue that most have with recruiters is they are just untrustworthy… It starts with the initial outreach… A smooth pitch and tons of promises about how great an opportunity it is for your career… Followed by a request for your resume, then… Silence. This is precisely why the profession isn’t taken seriously… Most recruiters don’t set out to work this way. In fact, I’d like to think that the majority start out sincere with the best of intentions… They don’t want to operate transactionally, and they believe in treating people well, but pressures and quotas internally prohibit the operation of ethics and best practices… Recruiters are tossed into the deep end with no real training and are expected to deliver. When they don’t, they’re callously let go, and the process starts with another recruiter… The problem starts within our own ranks. This is why leadership at the forefront of this industry matters. KPIs and quotas are great measurements for success, but when it becomes all about benchmarks, then you prematurely weed out talent that can be groomed into high performers with time and patience – I fell into this bucket. I was not a top biller when I started in this industry, but I was resilient and learned how to remain relevant. Many top billers have fallen by the wayside either because of arrogance or complacency… Slow and consistent remains underappreciated. Many decision makers are comfortable engaging two to three recruiters for a given search despite the poor results associated with doing so. These recruiter cage matches are bad for everyone’s business. “We’ve always done it this way!”… …I think someone said that this mindset is the quickest way to go out of business. We’re willing to revamp other business practices, yet we remain archaic in how we handle recruitment, the growth engine for the enterprise… Your business deserves better representation.

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Leadership Is A Mirror

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

So, why do you put so much emphasis on people? I wrote a blog post 2 years ago, entitled: The Great Departure – A Recruiter’s Guide To Retaining Your Best Talent (read it here – https://talentsearchpartnersinc.com/the-great-departure-a-recruiters-guide-to-retaining-your-best-talent/) That post did very well, and the feedback supported that… In it, I discussed the 6 areas where leadership has failed, and it resonated with readers… One of the benefits of serving under a poor leader is you get to eye witness everything they are doing wrong, which allows you to not repeat those mistakes… It pained me to watch good people leave that office… Rather than accept the blame for the revolving door that existed, my then boss blamed those who left, highlighting their weaknesses, rather than taking ownership… I did what I could to save what was a sinking ship, but the damage was irreparable, and he was delusional… So, why do you care so much about people and good leadership? Because, no matter how much you’ve made financially or how large your office is, how you treat people will ultimately determine your success & longevity… He spent money on “things” to keep the office running, but he treated people like replaceable resources, and not assets… The office eventually closed. He said very little, but it was the way he treated us that scarred the most… It would’ve been an easier pill to swallow if he had yelled, heaved chairs across the office, put holes in the walls, or kicked the water cooler. But it was his silence that pierced. It made you feel like you didn’t exist. Almost like you were being done a favour… It felt like he kept a life vest in his office, and everyone else was vulnerable… I vowed to never make another human feel like that; not on my watch… He ended up alone, and that came as no surprise. Sad, but not surprising. The best amongst us know how to pull the best out of people. They leverage technology, resources, business intelligence, etc., but they never lose sight of the human factor… The way you make people feel can either build up or tear down. My role in recruitment has afforded me the privilege of working with some great people. I am directly tied to an organization’s growth by aligning them with talent, and with that comes great responsibility… As such, I will not misrepresent an opportunity to a candidate… The people who were hired to work for my former manager were deceived, quickly realizing that the man they interviewed with, was not the same man they encountered 6 months into the role. The honeymoon phase was short-lived, and the list of casualties kept growing. The tipping point for me was his inability to see his own errors. In that state, he was incapable of changing, and my days in that office were numbered after that conversation… Leadership is a responsibility. It’s not a right, and it’s nothing to boast about… If you are leading a team of 1 or 30, it’s a responsibility, and how you make people feel will monetize every time… You won’t need to convince them to go the extra mile. They will go willingly because they know that you will secure their life-vest before you tend to your own… I know they say that you must first put the oxygen mask on yourself during an aviation emergency, but real leaders put others first… This is your competitive advantage.

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“I Could Never Work For That Guy!”

Career Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

He was on his phone during the interview…………and it wasn’t the candidate. It was the CEO/Founder of a multinational company with roots that span over half a century… It was shocking to me and the candidate that a CEO would behave in this manner… What a first impression for a seasoned executive who had great meetings with everyone up to that point within the organization… The fit was strong, and the ROI was clear… The candidate had a strong leadership background working for a variety of manufacturers and expertise in the standardization of processes, something the company lacked and desperately needed to compete outside of their immediate marketplace… He was also excellent at developing talent. His people-centric style of leadership resonated with his potential counterparts and addressed major retention issues with the company… It’s tough, I get it. Change breeds uncertainty, which is the reason it’s avoided. The human element is also prevalent in these cases. We are innately biased & insecure, and that influences decision making… A few things come to mind… 1️⃣ If you’re running a company that produces a product for customer use, then you need standard processes and procedures that will exist beyond your tenure with the company. The opposite of standardization means that you’re constantly moving your goal posts based on present day circumstances, and you don’t understand the essence of succession planning. Standardization essentially allows you to effectively plan for the future, while holding people accountable. You don’t get to make things up as you go… 2️⃣ As a leader, you have to be able to trust the team under you. This sounds simple, but it’s the hardest thing for many leaders to do. They are hyper-active in areas that should be delegated to their leadership team… 3️⃣ Decency is required to succeed. It’s inappropriate to be on your phone while you are interviewing someone for a position within your company… 4️⃣ Empowering others to make decisions doesn’t diminish your authority… 5️⃣ If longevity is truly your goal, then you’ll do what it takes to accomplish that, even if it means checking your ego.

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