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What Do You Need To Earn? (Lessons From Lacrosse)

Career Preparation, Compensation, Employer Insight, Inspiration, Leadership, Recruitment /

The Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) is a privately held sports league started by Paul Rabil (former player) and his Brother, Mike Rabil. It’s a fascinating story about Paul’s rise through the sport to league founder/owner. Mike is featured in this interview and provided an interesting answer to a question about recruitment. You can play the clip below, but it got me thinking about the simplicity of the answer and why more business owners don’t come up with competitive and creative ways of compensating their best people. They’re a growing league looking to increase viewership & revenue, so recruitment & retention are everything. To summarize, Michael describes a situation where any additional revenue that is pumped into the league by way of sponsors would be then allocated to the players (who by the way also have equity in the league), thereby increasing their annual salaries across the league. As a business leader, having a strong brand in your market adds credibility to your pitch, but it doesn’t stop there. You’re competing for talent in your market, yet there’s a significant wage gap across the board, and I learned quickly that people change careers for 2 reasons: meaningful work and compensation (sometimes there’s a trade off, but in a perfect world, there shouldn’t be). I like to take a compassionate approach to compensation, and I think we should reframe how we tackle the “money conversation”. It’s transactional at best and entirely skewed towards the employer with interests in keeping salaries offered as low as possible. Asking a prospect ‘what they need to earn’ conveys a degree of empathy that will change the dynamic of these discussions. Again, the more money flowing into the league, the more available capital to pay their players. Not the board or the stakeholders, the players. Paul & Mike don’t have a league without players, and they have figured out what seasoned executives have failed to accept. If you’re a company that has just secured a new project that is approved to add $350 million to your bottom-line once completed, then compassion dictates that there is additional cashflow that can be distributed to those within the company who helped to win and execute the project. Why aren’t salaries increased at that point? Profit sharing is one way of sharing the wealth, but that is only a fraction of earnings that the average employee sees. The majority stays at the top of the funnel. New projects drive market awareness. Market awareness drives new business opportunities. New business opportunities drive earning potential. Additional earnings should drive up employee wealth, ownership, and intellectual property. Kudos to the Rabil brother’s and the PLL for redefining the employee (athlete) / employer (owner) relationship. View the clip here – https://lnkd.in/gcSNS2C6

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The Issue Is Trust

Career Preparation, Employer Insight, Recruitment /

Recruiters don’t trust Candidates, Candidates don’t trust Recruiters, Hiring Authorities don’t trust Recruiters, & Recruiters don’t trust Hiring Authorities. Confusing, but the illustration above is simple enough to understand… So, how is this distrust manifested… Cue the typical email from a Recruiter to a Candidate: Hello, Candidate – our client in the pharmaceutical sector, a global entity and leader in their space is looking to hire a new Director of Something…to hear more about this exciting opportunity, please reach out to me. Everyone is familiar with this sort of email. Here’s the explanation and much needed context… The average Recruiter receives a job assignment from a Hiring Authority alongside 3-4 other Recruiters who have been put on the same assignment. Cue the rat race! When I was introduced to this industry, I was told that you should never disclose the name of the hiring company to Candidates because of fear that they would go behind your back, reach out to the company directly, and thereby eliminate you from the process entirely. What a terrible way to establish any relationship! Recruiter to Candidate Distrust: From the perspective of the Recruiter, I expect you to take my calls during your work day, listen to what I have to say about this great opportunity, take time off your job to meet with me and interview with my client, leave your comfortable position, and move to a company that you know little about, all while I keep the company’s identity from you until it’s convenient for me to share it with you. This is essentially what we do as Recruiters, and we gripe when candidates don’t call us back, ghost the process when it’s no longer convenient for them, or take a counter-offer after you’ve spent 3 months working with them to get them to the finish line. Candidate to Recruiter Distrust: Candidate: So, who is your client? Recruiter: I’m sorry, but I cannot disclose that for confidentiality purposes. Candidate: So, you expect me to commit to this process without knowing the company? Recruiter: Yes Candidate: Can I at least know what the salary range is? Recruiter: How much are you looking for? Candidate: Not interested. Thanks. Hiring Authority to Recruiter Distrust: From the Hiring Authority’s perspective, you’ve dealt with enough Recruiters in your lifetime to know that they surface only when they want something and fling resumes that they haven’t properly qualified. The conversations are generally centred around what is best for them with little to no effort to get to know your company, your team, the position, or the culture. Why would I trust a professional who operates in this manner? Mindset: I’ll force recruiters to work against themselves since they clearly don’t know their own value. Recruiter to Hiring Authority Distrust: You know that Hiring Authority is flirting with other Recruiters which automatically diminishes the relationship and causes that Recruiter to keep their options open as well. That’s why it’s easy to ghost their clients. “You haven’t committed to me, so I won’t commit to you.” If this works out, great, but if not, we’re not married to each other. Again, hardly the foundation for anything good to come from this. Yet, we continue to engage in this sort of transactional behaviour. This is precisely why Recruiters must change the way they see themselves. If you don’t respect what you do, then how can you expect others to take you seriously. Takeaway: For Recruiters to remain relevant in their marketspace and be seen as a solution, and not a thorn, they need to change the way they operate. Admittedly, that change has to start at the leadership levels within our own ranks. AI will never become a threat to the profession if we position ourselves as value-adds that give more than we take.

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The Follow-Through

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Inspiration /

Proper basketball shooting mechanics dictates a consistent “follow-through” contributing to a smoother and more accurate shot attempt. As part of good fundamentals, following-through is not only taught, but encouraged at all levels. It’s the last thing in the act of shooting that helps to guide the ball into the basket, yet few regularly follow-through. The average recruiter can take an order from a customer, source resumes, submit them to the hiring managers, arrange interviews, make the placement, & collect the fee; rinse and repeat. Yet, despite doing all of the “right things” to make the placement, one in four recruiters are likely to leave within a year of starting at an agency. That’s 25% annually. The average basketball player can dribble the ball, pivot, position their elbows and knees into a shooting posture, & release the ball, yet only a few have the success rate of Stephen Curry. So, what’s the differentiator in all of this? Like shooting, recruiting relies heavily on details. Why are recruiters seemingly doing everything right, but not able to build healthy relationships with clients and candidates? The answer lies in the follow-through, which for many, are details seldom emphasized. I think of following-through as the small steps in-between the bigger steps to a successful outcome. Getting to know your clients and candidates by engaging in several conversations during the hiring process; visiting your customer’s office or facility; making yourself available after hours and on weekends; providing interview feedback to candidates; post hire congratulatory gifts; reaching out consistently post hire to ensure the well-being of your candidates. What would your career look like if you followed-through? What about your job search? If more recruiters were dedicated to the details of proper execution, this would not only lead to more placements & satisfied customers, but there would be less frustration within our ranks leading to decreased turnover. What does following-through look like in your profession? How can you be a better executer in your field?

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You Can Be Traded!

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Inspiration, Leadership /

The basketball world was left in a state of confusion by the Luka Doncic trade early Sunday morning. How could a franchise that just went to the NBA finals a year ago with a roster designed to make another championship run so callously part with their best player in the prime of his career? What took place by the leadership of the Dallas Mavericks happens on a daily basis in the business world and doesn’t come as a surprise to me. As I consider the situation, here are my takeaways and lessons learned: I’ve facilitated many great connections over my career in recruitment. I’ve also seen relationships fall by the way side despite efforts to turn things around. If you’re a top performer within your organization, understand that you can be replaced if business needs change. We see this where there is new ownership or a change in the structure of an organization. I’ve witnessed enough of this throughout my career and the best way to handle it is to look after yourself. Your work is what you do to make a living and to provide for your loved ones – your identity should never be defined solely by your profession. Employees are expected to serve notice to ensure a smooth transition out and transfer of knowledge, but organizations can end that relationship in a moment regardless of your past successes & commitment. Work hard, be professional, but remember that you are a chess piece to that company, and they will continue to make moves that benefit the bottom-line.

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Here’s The Truth About The Job Search Process

Career Insight, Career Preparation /

They told you that the job search was a numbers games and you believed it! At one point in my life, I did as well. Have Chat GPT write you a winning resume and send out hundreds of applications a week. The next week, repeat the process until you get burnt out and start complaining about the job market, the economy, and recruiters that never follow up with you. I’m challenging that approach by suggesting that it’s not a numbers game, but perhaps your approach is focused solely on send-outs and not on results with small wins along the way. The job search quickly gets stale when you’ve sent out resumes with no response from the right people. Emphasis on the “right people”, i.e., decision makers. Your process needs to be finetuned with a goal towards achieving 2-3 responses from a decision maker a week. It’s about building momentum on a traditionally tedious journey that will keep you motivated through the rejections. My Recommendations: 1️⃣ Chose 5 companies for a given week that you’d like to work for. The quality of your outreach is more important than the number. Target those companies & do your research into each one. Stop blindly applying to companies and roles that don’t fit your values. To employers & recruiters, you are part of the 1% if you have an organized & well-thought-out job search strategy. You can tell a lot about a prospect by the approach they’ve taken to their job search. The best example of this was a candidate who I was counselling some time back. He showed me a detailed excel sheet during one of our calls that he was using to track every position he had applied to since starting his job search. It wasn’t long afterwards that he was hired and started a new position. 2️⃣ From those 5 companies that you’ve selected, go on LinkedIn and find a hiring authority or an HR representative at each company. Hit the “APPLY NOW” button on the job posting, but don’t stop there. Log it in your excel sheet and leverage LinkedIn to find the hiring manager for that position. Some postings mention who that person is, but there are times when you’ll have to make an educated guess. A personalized message to that individual with your resume attached will increase the chances of a response from someone within the company. Even if it’s a no, you’ve now connected with someone, and you can follow up in the future or keep the conversation going. When I was looking for a new position some years ago, I engaged in a 3-week blitz that included sending out resumes with a personalized message to a decision maker. From there, I got in my car and drove to a some of those companies where I was able to personally speak to decision makers. It seems intimidating, but after the first impromptu meeting, my confidence went through the roof. It was as simple as walking into the company and asking reception for that individual. In one instance, I was interviewed on the spot by the person overseeing that vacancy. Be encouraged and keep pressing forward!

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We Want You In The Office 5 Days A Week, Or Else!

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Employee Retention, Employer Insight, Recruitment /

Talent retention remains a trending topic as we approach a new year. With over 14 years in recruitment, I’ve facilitated career moves at all levels. The common denominator in all of those encounters is a motivator. Motivators in this context are underlying reasons behind a prospects willingness to listen to what I have to offer and ultimately engage in the hiring process. The motivators expressed normally stem from a form of dissatisfaction with their current employer – dissatisfaction can take many forms and varies from person to person. As a Recruiter, understanding a candidate’s motivator is vital to a successful Candidate / Recruiter / Company courtship (yes, in many respects, it is a courtship or voyage to a long-term relationship). Any company can post a job advertisement, screen candidates, and onboard new talent. This process is pretty straightforward. Check out an earlier article I wrote titled, Thanks For Another Great Hire, Troy! So, How Do I Retain This Talent? In it, I tackle the inability of business leaders to cultivate a culture that grooms talent and promotes career path options for their top performers. Most say they have such a career path program in place, but it is seldom monitored and fine-tuned to keep up with market trends and the ever-changing needs of their people. While the motivator is important to my business, it is also a pain point for me as a professional who understands that people are an organizations greatest assets. I’ve seen my fair share of top performers and quality human beings leave companies for reasons that could have been remediated or altogether avoided if leaders cared enough about their people. If a better job was being done in this area, admittedly, I would need to find another day job. Thankfully for me, there will always be a disgruntled employee who wants nothing more than to change companies. Talent retention is just as important to me as talent extraction. My success as a Recruiter is measured against 2 metrics – fill rate and employment past a year. I had a conversation this afternoon with an exceptional candidate who I placed a few years ago who he told me that his employment with the company ended recently because of an internal struggle over them wanting him to be in the office 5 days a week, a condition that was not a requirement when he was originally hired. At the heart of this story and what is most disheartening is an organization’s callous parting with a good technical and character employee for something that could have remained a point of ongoing communication & negotiation. When it comes to working from home requests, I believe in a balance when it makes sense for the parties involved, especially when the performance of that employee warrants it. The point to leaders is for them to remain communicative with their people encouraging open dialogue about their career goals, and making sure that they are aligned with the resources, tools, and training to get to where they need and deserve to be. It is also important not to make all of your policies one-size fits all as it relates to retention. If you decide not to put your employees first, then I can assure you that your competitors will. Related Article – The Great Departure – A Recruiter’s Guide To Retaining Your Best Talent

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All She Wanted Was A Call Back (A Note To Recruiters – Part 2)

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Recruitment /

Your time away from your field or profession does not diminish your value… I’ve learned a great deal about people (and myself) over the past few years. More recently, I’ve seen my Wife selflessly sacrifice her career and what she enjoys doing to raise our Kids… Her desire to get back into the workforce has been an eye-opening and humbling experience for me to witness. I’ve seen her receive offers from those in my profession and companies that don’t come near her worth and what she can contribute to an organization. Kudos to her for not settling… A lesson to all of us…(especially recruiters and hiring officials within organizations)… Taking a career break for personal development, to prioritize your family, or for the sake of your well-being shouldn’t be penalized nor exploited… I am sorry for my years of poor judgment.

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A Recruiter is Calling…

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Inspiration /

A Recruiter is calling… Why not take that call? If you’re good for now, I get it. Who wants to waste their time speaking to a Recruiter when there’s no need to. “I only speak to a Recruiter when it’s in my best interest to do so…” …but why not take that call? “I’m doing well in my career…I work with a great team in a great environment. I’m progressing with my company and will be next in line for a lucrative promotion that will break me into a higher income bracket!” …but why not take that call? “I’ve never had an issue with finding meaningful employment. I’m highly sought after within my industry, and I’ll always be a high performer wherever I land…” …but why not take that call? “Recruiters are all the same – they take more than they give and never follow up with you after that initial call. I don’t need a Recruiter to find a job!” …but why not take that call? Better yet, why not meet for that coffee or lunch at the Recruiter’s request…It may seem unproductive to you given your present situation, but there are a lot of people who thought they were secure and insulated from the realities of the marketplace, only to find themselves now in need of a job… Now you’re willing to take that call?? I tried reaching you several times over the past year! …why didn’t you just have that conversation.

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Counteroffers – Part 3 (Candidate Story)

Career Insight, Career Preparation /

February 1st, 2022 – The following counteroffer took place… …I was moments away from finalizing a major deal for a new Chief Financial Officer for a manufacturing customer of mine… After presenting the offer to my candidate, the following conversation took place… Candidate: Don’t worry, Troy. The only way I don’t take this offer is if they throw “stupid money” at me (Stupid Money = an exorbitant amount of money that you’d be stupid to walk away from). Me: Okay, let me know how it goes (an hour or so later) Candidate: So, I just had that conversation with the owner of the company and they offered me stupid money…………I think I’m going to stay where I’m at. I’m sorry, Troy. May 10th, 2024 – This is precisely why you should never accept a counteroffer from your current employer! It’s been over 2 years since this candidate took the counteroffer from his company. I decided to call him today… It’s not good news! Shortly after accepting the counter, he was approached by senior management and told that they were hiring another CFO and that his role would become redundant. He was given time to find another position while they transitioned this new CFO into the company. He was paid during that time, but not given a severance. “…I should’ve listened to you, Troy…” For those wondering whether I said, “I told you so!” I held my peace. This was not an “I told you so” moment – it never is… It was a lighthearted conversation, and it was great to catch up with him… I could tell that it was a learning experience for him, and reaffirmed to me that counteroffers may seem attractive in the moment, but you’ll face the consequences of your decision at some point… The candidate remains a top prospect in my mind, and I hope to work with him again!

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Career Move Regret – How To Avoid It

Career Insight, Career Preparation, Job Interviewing Tips /

Most candidates don’t know how to properly qualify a position that they are interested in. The most generic questions that candidates ask hiring managers when interviewing for a new position are: 1. What is the salary range for this position? 2. Can I work from home? 3. What are the primary tasks related to this position? All important questions, but in order to really get to the core of the position in question, you’ll need to be more thoughtful and strategic with your line of questioning. The heart of this issue is that most people have not been trained to ask good questions. They make decisions based on superficial questions & superficial answers that sound reasonable to them, not realizing that there is so much more to a career opportunity than the 3 questions mentioned above. I’ve outlined some thought-provoking questions that will help you make better career decisions: 1. Why is this position available? (Asking “why” is one of the most important questions you can ask in life). Don’t take anything at face value. Question the legitimacy of the position that you are applying for. 2. If you don’t fill this position, how will that impact your business 6 months to 1-year from now? If an employer cannot provide a credible business case for this position, then I would question the significance of the role and whether the position has support from the leadership team within the company. 3. What are some of the investments you’ve made in the growth plans you’ve outlined? “You say you want to be a market leader in the development of……, but what are some of the steps you have taken towards accomplishing this objective? What is your timeline for delivering this product/software to market? What happens if you don’t meet this deadline?” 4. How will your personal role be improved/impacted by filling this position? Again, dissect the relevance of this position to your immediate manager/team and to the organization. 5. Since I have to relocate for this position, how will the company support my relocation plans? Don’t always attach a $ sign to this. Is the company expecting you to figure out the move on your own or are they willing and able to provide ongoing personal support to you where necessary. I’ve seen many positions that have involved relocation fall by the wayside. Again, these are basic questions in theory that any reasonably minded hiring manager should have the answers for. If they don’t, question that, “Why don’t you have an answer to this question?” There is more to a career than money or whether you can work remotely. As a Recruiter, I can tell a lot about the quality of a candidate simply from the questions they ask me. I can’t tell you how many calls I’ve had with people who have told me that things didn’t work out the way it was advertised to them, or there was a significant change in the structure of the position that caused their layoff or forced them to resign. Things happen, but there’s a lot you can uncover by simply asking better questions. If you’d like to set up a personal coaching session on this, please reach out to me directly.

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