This has been the source of many frustrations for recruiters, but in fact, most recruiters don’t know how to put one together, either.

A good job description attracts the right audience and gives prospective candidates an idea of what they will actually be doing in the role. We can no longer skirt by providing candidates with the “Minimum Requirements” and expect to have top talent apply.

Case in point, here is an example Sales Director job description taken from Monster.com’s templates:

Sales Director Job Description

Description: Sales Director

 Sales Director Job Purpose: Sells products by implementing national sales plans; supervising regional sales managers.

 Sales Director Job Duties:

• Determines annual unit and gross-profit plans by implementing marketing strategies; analyzing trends and results.
• Establishes sales objectives by forecasting and developing annual sales quotas for regions and territories; projecting expected sales volume and profit for existing and new products.
• Implements national sales programs by developing field sales action plans.
• Maintains sales volume, product mix, and selling price by keeping current with supply and demand, changing trends, economic indicators, and competitors.
• Establishes and adjusts selling prices by monitoring costs, competition, and supply and demand.
• Completes national sales operational requirements by scheduling and assigning employees; following up on work results.
• Maintains national sales staff by recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training employees.
• Maintains national sales staff job results by counseling and disciplining employees; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results.
• Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing professional publications; establishing personal networks; participating in professional societies.
• Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed.

Skills/Qualifications: Meeting Sales Goals, Negotiation, Selling to Customer Needs, Motivation for Sales, Sales Planning, Building Relationships, Coaching, Managing Processes, Market Knowledge, Developing Budgets, Staffing

This job description is bare bones, but it is very common for companies to use something to this affect and assume that it will do the trick. Even if we were to add few more personalized phrases to the above job description it would still tell me nothing of why I would/should be interested. Bottom line: This is a bland and vague description that does not do your company justice.

To improve your job descriptions, make sure you’re writing them to accomplish these three things:

1) Get the Right Audience’s Attention

By posting minimal requirements (even if they are not marked as such) you are going to get candidates who do not meet that criteria, but who are applying for a next-level position, or a challenging role. Frame your requirements so that is clear that the position is for an individual who already possesses the skills you are looking for.

2) Identify the Challenges

I am not sure about you, but I am not interested in a job that would be lateral or worse — not challenging. Point out the challenges involved in being successful in the role. You won’t scare people away by doing this, you will actually be appealing to your desired audience who is up for the demands of the position.

3) Illustrate How to Be Successful

This is key. The best job descriptions will call out how the candidate will be successful in the position and will impact your company’s value proposition. I cannot stress enough that this is what makes the difference between an okay job description and one that actually gets candidates interested in the role. Show the value of the position!

For more information on creating a valuable job description, read Carlie Smith’s blog, Stop Posting Boring Job Descriptions!

What are tactics your company uses to create a dynamic job description?

Over the past few months I have noticed an uptick in individuals who utilize LinkedIn as their resume, and now it looks as though we need to be concerned about the Twesume. A Twesume consists of stripping your resume down to a mere 140 characters allotted by Twitter. The term was coined in 2008 by Richard Skaare, a communications consultant. Skaare argued, “forced brevity sharpens the mind and quickens the soul.”

Forced brevity does allow for an element of simplicity and accuracy when delivering information — you really need to boil all elements down to the most important aspect. No fluff. No flowery language. These elements I like. But this is no elevator pitch, this is you and your experience in 140 characters. I am not buying it.

Here is an example I came across while researching Twesumes:

“John Smith: Performance Consultant & Corporate Trainer. 20+ years Training & Development experience. Seeking a challenging position in the Contact Center industry.”

Is it just me, or does this read like an objective at the top of someone’s resume? I do not want to click the link to your resume, because in effect, you have given me no reason to. 140 characters is not enough space to show your experience, personality and objective. 140 characters just seems lazy.

Beyond that, here are three additional reasons submitting a Twesume may be a bad idea:

1. It may save you time as an applicant, but it’s actually more work for HR: The advice across the board is to include a link to your actual resume, but whatever happened to applying through a company’s website and including your cover letter, resume, and filling out an application? HR needs this information anyway, so by tweeting your resume you are only adding unnecessary steps.
2. Your Twitter feed may not be the best vehicle for a good, professional first impression: Think about what you have tweeted and whom you follow and the pictures you have up on Twitter — is all that something you want a potential employer to see? You have less control over your first impression when you create your Twesume and tweet it out.
3. The lifetime of a Tweet is measured in seconds: Think about the sheer volume of Twitter traffic. It is much more likely that your Twesume will be buried in someone’s Twitter feed, or overlooked, or deleted.

The Twesume concerns me as much as the LinkedIn resume. It appears the workforce is taking short cuts to attain jobs, and that is personally not a quality I want in the employees at my company. I want candidates who take the time to write a personalized (albeit brief) cover letter that shows me they know what my firm does. I assume — at least to some extent — every other hiring manager would want the same.

140 characters will get you noticed if you are a Kardashian, but not if you are applying for a VP of Sales role. It is important that the workforce continue to create resumes that showcase experience. But if somehow, despite all this, you still have your heart set on creating a Twesume do yourself and the hiring manager a favor and follow up with a regular resume submission to the company website.

Let’s not get lazy here, folks.

What are your thoughts on the Twesume?

I recently read an article on ERE.net titled “Why ‘Source of Hire’ Should Drive a Company’s Talent Acquisition Strategy” by Lou Adler, CEO and founder of The Adler Group, a performance-based hiring consultancy. For those of you who are not familiar with recruiting jargon, “source of hire” is the avenue from which a candidate came. Ex: If you hire a candidate from a referral, the source of hire is referral. If you hire a candidate who applied to a role online, the source of hire is job posting. Easy enough, right?

The article got me thinking, how much emphasis are we putting on source of hire statistics, and what is the data really telling us? Does the data mean anything? In my humble opinion, no.

The Problem with Source of Hire Statistics

Looking at Adler’s source of hire stats (culled from a survey he conducted with over 1,500 employees), it would seem that most hires come from networking with internal moves (i.e. promotion or moving within one’s company) as a not-so-close second. Let me be the first to say that data like this floating around the Internet is not teaching us anything about hiring.

We as readers are not even privy to who the sampling was taken from (aside from the general fact that they are “U.S. company employees”). It worries me that expansion-stage companies may be reading articles like this and thinking, “Wow, we really should rely heavily on networking to get our employees and spend less time and resources dedicated to posting jobs.” No, no, no, no, no … and no.

Start-ups, expansion-stage companies, and, well, any company for that matter should be covering their bases when recruiting for top talent.

From the article’s point of view, it seems that it is up to the recruiter to network. FALSE. It is up to the entire organization to get the word out about openings in the company. Referral programs can help, but at the end of the day if your employees are happy they will communicate that with their network and create interest.

Another point to communicate is the importance of job postings. The graph would have you believe that it is one of the least productive ways to get candidates. Well no, it isn’t. It just requires work and patience on the recruiter’s part. Granted, there are many unqualified applicants that can and will apply, but there are also people who have genuine interest in your company who may not have a way to get in through networking. Trust me when I tell you to read through all of those resumes.

The Bottom Line

While statistics can help us in many ways, it is important that you pay attention to the details of any study you come across and do not jump to use them as a benchmark for your hiring. You may find that you can subsist exclusively off of referrals, or you may never get a hirable referral and may lean on your recruiter to do sourcing on your behalf. Whatever the case may be, at an early-stage company you need to keep all of your options open when it comes to sourcing candidates.

How does your company find qualified candidates? Do you agree with the results of Adler’s study?

Could additional Boston tech internship programs be the answer to seeing more of the young talent developed in Boston stay in Boston?

Boston is known for its universities — Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Northeastern, just to name a few. These schools attract the best and the brightest from around the world — students who are diverse in culture and background, students with remarkable ideas and talents. But for many of them, after four years here in the Hub studying and collaborating, interning and creating, they leave.

Where do they head? For some it’s New York, for others DC, but if it’s a career in tech they are pursuing, chances are they have their sites set on the alleged epicenter of the startup world, Silicon Valley.

So just to be clear — Boston’s top universities with top entrepreneurship programs mold the future leaders in technology and then they set them free to innovate and create elsewhere. With all the reputable startups and tech companies in the Boston area, how are we letting this happen?

Keeping Talent Developed Here in Boston Working Here in Boston

According to a recent BostInno article, “The Real Reason Students Leave Boston Isn’t the Housing, Weather, Bars or the T”, the most important factor for the annual graduate exodus is jobs. The article goes on to say that we do not have enough jobs in Boston for recent graduates, but I would argue that we in fact do — we just are not recognizing it.

The Need for More Boston Tech Internship Programs

We need to start healthy, robust internship programs at tech companies in Boston that can help funnel the top talent into the Boston market after graduation. We have job openings, we are just not recognizing/calling out that these positions are jobs that recent graduates who have had some training (i.e. internship programs) can do. By creating relationships with students early in their college careers companies can effectively build their talent pipelines.

Take engineers, for example. In the tech community, excellent engineers are priceless. Companies are constantly recruiting for them, whether they have a shortage or are expanding so quickly they don’t have enough bandwidth to keep up with their engineering needs.

Why is it, then, that they don’t look more often to the engineering students at MIT, Northeastern, or any of the other local universities that have renowned engineering programs to enhance their workforce? If we build out internship programs that encourage students to learn about Boston tech startups we help the situation twofold. First, students feel more confident in staying in the Boston area post-graduation knowing that there are opportunities here. Second, employers will have qualified talent who are vetted and familiar with their solutions and who are eager to work and be part of the Boston tech scene.

A great way to get started with bringing interns on board is to work with local universities on developing a summer internship program. For more information, my colleague Meghan Maher has written a terrific blog post, “Considering a Summer Internship Program? 4 Questions to Ask First.”

We in the tech community need to do more to entice students to stay and help grow our companies. What are your ideas for keeping students local?

The quick answer is yes and no.

The reason I want to explore this topic is because I graduated from a liberal arts college with a degree in Art History (yep, Art History). Believe it or not, that major has yet negatively impact or limit my career. If I had chosen to go into something specialized like computer engineering or accounting maybe that would be a different story, but as it turns out, studying the Italian Renaissance has actually broadened my career.

Well to be fair, studying the Italian Renaissance, specifically, isn’t what got me to where I am today. But the study of other cultures, history, and writing has proven an excellent foundation for my career.

When I first started to apply for jobs out of college I would interview and people would say, “What were you planning to do with an Art History degree?” to which I always replied, “Nothing.” I never planned on becoming a docent. I never planned on getting into art restoration or academia. I always planned on being in front of people, doing something fast-paced and exciting. Never art history. Because of this, I have always lent a small amount of credibility to people’s majors. To me, what matters is your experience and work ethic. You cannot teach either.

So, as a recruiter, what am I looking at on a recent graduate’s resume if it is not their major? Here are four hiring factors that — in my view — have a bigger impact on your early career.

1) GPA

A lot of what I look for when I scan recent graduates’ resumes is their GPA. A solid GPA tells me they took their education seriously. I always ask a candidate about their courses because while you may have earned a 3.8 if most of your classes were along the lines of, “Underwater Basket Weaving,” chances are you were not challenged. If you were taking advanced chemistry courses, however, and are now applying for a sales job I am very interested in having a call.

2) Internships / Work Experience

As I previously stated, you cannot teach experience. Not in the classroom, not anywhere. You must gain experience. Thus, the second point on a resume I will look at is your internship and job experience. This does more for me than seeing you took extra classes all summer. I want to know you can work. I want to know you can interact with people in an office setting. I want to know you had to get up before noon in the summer.

Now, not all internships and jobs are created equal, but you can make the most of what you have by working your butt off and getting a good reference. By the same token, it is also okay to just have a job during the summer to earn money, but whether you are waiting tables or mowing lawns, be able to explain how you learned something from that job. It can be lessons on accountability, customer service, or what it takes to start a business. Put that on your resume.

3) Clubs / Volunteer Work

Schoolwork comes first, but what else do you do with your time? I always appreciate people who are passionate about a cause and donate their time pro bono. What do you do besides hang out? What are your interests? Maybe you read to a first grade class or are a member of an entrepreneur club. Whatever it is, make sure it stands out.

4) Athletics

If you are a college athlete, chances are you are disciplined and understand how to balance work and your sport. There is also a high chance you are competitive which can be beneficial in certain careers like sales, marketing, and finance.

Bottom Line

Your major should not define your career path. College is a time of exploration of interests, and I do not know too many people who graduate college and stick to their initial life plan. It is important to capitalize on your experience when applying for jobs. Make clear the chances you took in the classroom and in internships. That is the stuff that is going to matter.

Obsessively pursuing cultural fit may work well for companies like Zappos and Disney, but for most of us, this isn’t a magical kingdom — taking company culture too far has its risks.

In my last blog post, “Is Zappos Taking Company Culture Too Far?” I played devil’s advocate by taking Tony Hsieh & Co.’s infamously fervent approach to company culture to task and asking whether it might be possible to place too much emphasis on cultural fit. The response I got was mixed, and so with the jury still out, I thought I would follow up with a post on what I believe constitutes “going too far”.

Let me start by saying no, I do not believe that a homogeneous culture inevitably results in a successful company. I never said that, nor do I believe it. What I do believe is that companies that obsess over cultural fit often run the risk of missing out on diversity. And I believe diversity helps move companies forward.

One reader pointed out that Disney also has an incredibly strict set of cultural guidelines and is clearly doing very well as a company. Does anyone think that Disney has a progressive culture? I sure hope not. People who work for Disney are the ones who actively seek out Disney because that is their ideal place to work. In my opinion as a recruiter that is limiting, but then again Disney will never change — it’s purposefully built to be timeless — and that is difficult to divorce from the company’s values. At its core, unchangingness is what makes Disney, well…Disney.

Zappos was one of the pioneers in the recent company culture phenomenon. They were among the first to be outright with their quirkiness and to create a manifesto on their cultural ideals. Is Zappos doing well? Yes they are (and they have excellent customer service, which I know from personal experience), but they are also lacking in diversity. Before you attack me, let me clarify that I don’t mean diversity based on nationality, religion, or anything of that nature. I’m talking about diversity of opinion, skill, work history, performance etc. A company like Zappos that is focused on company culture to the extreme is lacking in this department.

When a Company Enforces a Lack of Cultural Diversity It Is Going Too Far

In my opinion, lack of diversity in the way people work and think is what constitutes going to far. I do agree that if everyone has the same goal the likelihood that they succeed is high. But what about moving ahead? What about when your company is doing fine, but it could be doing better? Do you smile and say, “At least we are weird and creative!” No. Chances are you need someone to shake things up and question the status quo, but you do not have that person because you’ve hired 800 variations on the same person.

Moving a company forward means challenging the way things are and pushing your peers to think critically and challenge each other. Focusing creative efforts on how to be “weird” and “do more with less” and build “family spirit” do not really mean anything. That doesn’t challenge people to be better at what they do, challenge the way things are, and push the company to be greater. It simply asks employees to be consistent and to be “humble” (aka content) with the way things are.

THAT is taking company culture too far. There shouldn’t be anarchy, but there should always be an acknowledgement that it is okay to be different and think differently. Because this isn’t Disney World.

It seems that in today’s workforce company culture has become a whizzing contest, and that can sometimes even be more about showmanship of company culture than about employees and customers and the product, itself.

This to me is taking the company culture too far. What do you think?

Sure, it’s received nearly universal high marks, but does anyone else think Zappos company culture is over the top?

When most people first hear about Zappos.com’s unique corporate culture they blindly assume it must be magical. After all, everyone says so.

But has anyone else stopped to consider whether Zappos has actually taken things too far and gotten a little carried away with the Kool-Aid in the culture department? What Zappos is trying to achieve is a unique culture where their employees are free to be who they are — that is, so long as who they are correlates with who Zappos wants them to be. In my humble opinion, the online retail giant is actually teetering on the edge of becoming a cult.

(Okay, so in this post I am obviously playing devil’s advocate. But the question does bear asking…)

Let’s step back: If you are unaware of Zappos dedication to company culture, employees abide by the following core values:

1. Deliver WOW Through Service

2. Embrace and Drive Change

3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness

4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded

5. Pursue Growth and Learning

6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication

7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit

8. Do More With Less

9. Be Passionate and Determined

10.Be Humble

CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, has been quoted saying that if employees do not fit the corporate culture they are fired (hear it from Hsieh himself on Inc.com). Hmm. It seems to me this is not being “Open-Minded,” as the values state.

It is important to have diversity within any organization. Diversity breeds new ideas, broadens people’s way of thinking, and moves a company forward. Hiring people who assimilate easily and who do not challenge the status quo for fear of losing their jobs is not diversity. And it certainly does not uphold core value #2, “Embrace and Drive Change.”

Should There Be a Limit to Interviewing and Reviewing Based on Cultural Fit?

The process of interviewing at Zappos requires one interview with the hiring manager to assess skills and one interview to assess cultural fit. To skeptics, this may sound an awful lot like those mean high school girls who sit in the cafeteria and determine whether you are cool enough to sit with them.

I wonder how feedback goes when someone does not meet the threshold for cultural fit at Zappos, “Hey, sorry to tell you this Bob, but we don’t think you would create enough fun and weirdness here. Please apply again when you have kicked your weirdness up a notch.”

Even reviews at Zappos are based 50% on how the employee upholds the core culture — yep, that’s 50%. This means that with the remaining 50% Zappos is assessing how the employee actually did his or her job. So, you may be mediocre at best in your job, but if you are building a positive team and family spirit (see core value #7) then you are okay by Zappos.

At some point, a company like Zappos that is so focused on company culture has to plateau in terms of talent acquisition. At some point, you run out of the best and the brightest talent who also want to be held to a lengthy code of how to abide by their companies.

Yes, it is important to have a positive company culture, but taking it too far to the extreme can be detrimental and scare away the exact people you need to help you get ahead.

What do you think of the Zappos company culture? Is it over the top or is Tony Hsieh on to something?

Ever since then, it seems like every link I click on takes me to someone waxing poetic about company culture and how they fully support (or go against) the recent changes that Mayer made. Even worse, each of those articles links the decision to drastic changes in company culture at Yahoo! — for better or worse.

I’d like to explore a different angle of this debate — the mentality that, as a collective workforce, we are entitled to work from our pajamas.

It is not strange to me that people enjoy the flexibility of working from home, but rather that it seems that telecommuting is synonymous with good corporate culture. Are we all that shallow that we are wooed by the sirens call of working from our homes? I am not saying there is anything wrong with telecommuting, but I am saying that we shouldn’t write a company off for not offering it.

Over the past couple of years I have lost some great candidates because they do not want to make the commitment to showing up at the office everyday. Yes, I do understand people have commitments such as families, and I do understand it is absolutely necessary for certain people to be allowed the flexibility to work from home. What I am referring to here is the vast majority of people who can go into an office, but would rather not entertain opportunities that require them to. Commuting has become such an issue for people that they are avoiding it all together, figuring, “Hey, I’ll find a job that allows me to work from home!”

I want to convey to you as readers that passing up an opportunity to move forward in your career because you cannot possibly give up on the convenience of working from your home office is foolish. Company culture and working from home (or telecommuting) are not synonymous. We all want to work for companies that value our time, but is working from home the only way a company can do that? I would argue that people who work from home probably feel more pressure to stay “online” long after the rest of us have closed our laptops.

Company culture involves much more than where you spend your day.

Just because a company is not offering you a seat in your living room, does not mean they are antiquated, nor that their culture is not vibrant. Personally, I encourage people regardless of their role to spend time in the office. Building relationships with people happens in-person, not through a smartphone or computer.

For people who insist they will not commute to a job, and that a company that requires people to be present in the office is not progressive, I urge you to reconsider. You may be missing out on working for some amazing companies.

photo: Robert Scoble

Does Google’s focus on recruiting analytics and data represent the future of hiring? Let’s hope not. Here’s why taking the “human” out of HR is a bad idea.

We live in a time where we can engineer almost anything we need to: produce, drugs, people, diamonds — you name it and we will find a way to modify and reproduce it. So is it so far off to think this will happen to the work force, as well?

If you have read some of the articles written about Google lately, you are probably aware that they have a predominately data-driven HR function. At Google, their HR is not called HR, but “People Operations.” The name itself already sounds analytical and takes the “human” element right out of HR. The workplace has evolved and grown thanks to human relationships, yet now here we are looming on the horizon of taking relationships out of the equation.

How Google Hires: Recruiting Analytics vs. Instinct

Google has replaced instincts with algorithms and facts. This seems like a great idea in theory, but it is my belief that we should not be tampering with human instincts. In an article by Dr. John Sullivan, “How Google Is Using People Analytics to Completely Reinvent HR,” he states that the People Operations team:

Produces many products, including employee surveys that are not anonymous, and dashboards. It also attempts to identify insightful correlations and to provide recommended actions. The goal is to substitute data and metrics for the use of opinions.

With this method, Google is essentially arguing that opinion and “gut instinct” are null. The company is relying on numbers to determine a number of things including employee retention, leadership qualities, and diversity. This all seems very futuristic when you think about it. We are no longer saying “ Hey, this guy is and up-and-comer. We need him at this company.” Instead, we are looking at data and determining how an individual is expected to perform. This is a slippery slope. Yes ,Google is a large company, and, yes, they cannot be expected to read every single resume that comes their way, but abandoning the human aspect of human resources seems drastic.

There’s an Algorithm for Everything — Or Is There?

If we rely on an algorithm to give us the ideal workforce then at the extreme we have engineered a “pure” workforce that leaves little or no room for error. We have the perfect proportions of men to women and diversity. We have pre-determined who our leaders are and who our star performers are.

Reducing hiring to analytics is not hiring at all — it is simply plugging people into an equation. This would work if we were using robotics, but the fact is we are using people in the algorithm, and people have a mind of their own. Yes, you may think you hired the next leader for your team because your data says so, but in reality this person may talk-the-talk and then do next to nothing in their job.

On the other hand, there are always those you hire thinking that they will simply plug away, and then they blossom into great successes and become management material. Your gut instincts on people outweigh what the computer tells us. We are more than the sum of an equation.

While every HR function should look at data trends, we cannot lose sight that some exceptional people can fall through the cracks if we rely heavily on metrics. Companies need a soul. They need passionate people, and they need people who believe in their cause. We cannot gather this information from data. It is my belief that we should keep the human in human resources.

Is it true that the majority of the startups in the Boston area are populated by Millennials?

Sure, many do tend to have a younger workforce.

Does that make them and other startups guilty of age discrimination?

Absolutely not.

But it is worth considering what factors do lead to the typical age divide in startup environments. Let’s take a look to consider whether there is in fact

The Demanding Hours

One common belief is that startups hire younger people because they are more willing to work around the clock, seven days a week. Last time I checked, however, startups were not the only space that demanded long hours. What about doctors, lawyers, Wall Street? Are these roles dominated by twentysomethings? The answer is a resounding no.

So if it’s not the hours, then, what is it?

Startup Company Culture Skews Young

Company culture is typically heavily emphasized at startups. They have fridges full of beer, they have video games, employees wear jeans to work. Perhaps the companies are inadvertently discriminating against other generations by creating a climate that caters to a younger generation. Again, this goal isn’t likely to keep people of a certain age out of the company intentionally — but maybe it does.

This is not necessarily discrimination, but rather the age-old issue of people preferring to be around those who are similar (not opposite) to them. Think back to the last time you really enjoyed a conversation with someone you just met. I can 99.99% guarantee that it was not because that person challenged the way you think and what you stand for, but rather it was because you had common ideologies and saw the world similarly.

Too Much of the Same

The issue lies not in discrimination, but our desire for homogeny. We seek out like-minded individuals and avoid diversity. We need to start looking for individuals who are not just qualified and like to play Nintendo, but who also know enough about the space to challenge the status quo. While hiring 15 people with the same views might make for a great happy hour, it wont challenge your business and take it in a new direction.

The startups in Boston and beyond are not pushing more seasoned employees out, nor are they discriminating against hiring older employees. They are just sticking to what they know well — themselves.

What do you think we can do to change this?

I decided to take a break from writing about candidate experience and hiring best practices to focus on something that deserves some attention: the role of women in the workplace.

In a recent article for the Huffington Post, Christina Huffington points out that according to the US Census, the most common job for women today remains the same as it was 50 years ago — secretary. The terms we use now may be more professional and all- encompassing, but at the root of it, the role is the same.

As I think of the role of women in today’s workplace, names like Marissa Meyer and Sheryl Sandberg come to mind, but they are clearly the aberration, not the norm. The fact that the number one position for women is actually still a secretary certainly doesn’t mesh with my idea of women’s role in the workplace, but there it is. Suddenly, those episodes of Mad Men don’t seem quite so dated.

So, what does this have to do with my role recruiting for expansion-stage companies? I see disparities between the number of male and female applicants and hires first-hand, daily. Here are a few of my observations:

Maybe the sky isn’t the limit, after all?

In hiring for high-level roles that require excessive travel I have found that the majority of applicants and interested candidates are male. Now why could this be? It certainly is not for lack of talent and bright women capable of doing the job.

One potential explanation could be that many women at the director-stage of their careers are also juggling the time and responsibilities of having young families. For some women, it may be important to have a level of flexibility in their schedule so that they can be available to their children. Perhaps even in some modern families the onus is still on the woman to be home with the children and work. This is of course just broad speculation, but something is certainly causing a major discrepancy between qualified female candidates and interested applicants.

Certain professions are still incredibly male dominated

Software engineering, for example, is still very much a boys club. Why? Let’s save that for another blog post. I will point out, though, that the lack of diversity in engineering departments is a big problem at many companies — and they know it. There are in fact a number of organizations that are actively working to get more women into the field. You can visit sites like girldevelopit.com to learn more.

According to an article for NBC news citing federal statistics, less than 20 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in computer science go to women. The problem is not that women don’t have the skills or ability to succeed in these degree programs and roles, it is that they are not actively pursuing them. Again, that is an issue needs to be examined.

It can often be very difficult to be the first woman hired to an all-male team, or to be in the clear minority at a company, but these are barriers that need to be addressed and broken down.

Employers are wary of the resume “gap”

I have seen this happen in previous jobs, as well — a hiring manager will discount a woman who took a few years off to raise her kids, citing that her skills may not be relevant anymore.

This seems to perpetuate the notion that women can’t “have it all” — both the career and the family. Say a woman takes three years off to raise her family, and then applies back into the workforce. To some recruiters and companies she is a ruined woman because she has a “gap” on her resume and they assume her skills won’t be as sharp (this is not always the case, but it happens more often than it should). This kind of discrimination and way of thinking is something we have to move past.

It is clear to me that there may be some reasons why “secretary” is still the most popular profession for women. It used to be that this was one of a few jobs that was available to women, but even now it seems that in many ways the odds are still stacked against women in terms of branching out. Perhaps the workforce needs to take another gander at why there are fewer women at the top of their organization, and perhaps it’s time to make the adjustments required to see real change.

Do you think the role of women in the workplace is stuck in past? What changes do we need to make to see real advancement?

The shorter time it takes you to fill a role the better. Right? Not always. There are a few things you should keep in mind when trying to assess your time to fill metrics.

First of all, Chill Out

Would you rather have a candidate in the seat, or would you rather have the right candidate in the seat?

Sometimes finding the right candidate takes time. Make sure that the candidate is meeting with the right people and going through each step of the process that is laid out. By skipping people in the process or being less thorough with references, you may be missing critical aspects of the candidate’s experience or personality that may be critical to their fit within the company. Don’t rush. Take the proper amount of time to assess the candidate.

Let Candidates and Stakeholders Make Decisions for Themselves

The ability to back off is critical in hiring process. If you are excited about a candidate that’s great! Just make sure you allow people to formulate their own opinions prior to giving them yours.

You do not want to force this process — you want it to evolve organically. By keeping the process on track you allow the candidate and the decision makers to come to an agreement that either the role is a fit for the candidate, or it is not feasible. If you lose a candidate because the process was not done at lightning speed, ask yourself: did you really want that candidate in the first place? In my humble opinion, I appreciate a candidate who wants to be taken through the process, get all their questions answered, and be certain that it will be a good fit. Someone who is going to make a hasty decision, on the other hand, may not work out long term.

Worry Less about Time and More About Quality

The quality of the hire should trump time to fill every time. Any expansion-stage company is going to need to hire people who share the vision of the company and who are passionate about what they do — not just people who need a job.

As a recruiter, I never want to hear that someone I hired is underperforming and can’t hack it. While an employee’s performance is not in my control I always wonder if there was something I could be doing differently during the interviewing process. The conclusion I came to is that making sure I am vetting all concerns out during the interview process is the best bet.

Don’t misconstrue what I am saying — time to fill is something that is important. You can’t let the search linger on forever because all parties involved may lose interest.

But shorter time to hire is not always the best or most important thing. Quality of hire should come first, and any candidate who will be a good hire will not have an issue with going through the hiring process without cutting corners.

As the recruiter leading the hiring search be sure you are putting the emphasis on the correct process and are not just trying to mollify the hiring managers by getting someone who ultimately will not work out through the process.

Where do you stack time to fill in terms of recruiting importance?

One of the elements of my profession that I really love is learning about people from their resumes. As a recruiter, it provides me with vital information, and I’m always surprised how often people overlook the importance of it.

I often get push back from candidates saying, “I don’t have a resume — I have always gotten jobs from referrals!” It is great to network for a job, but you still need a paper trail, and in the recruiting world that paper trail is a resume.

It is not enough to go by word of mouth for a candidate, i.e. “I am recommending Johnny for XYZ position, because he was awesome when I worked with him!” Nope. That does not hold water.

I need to know the names of the companies you worked for and the dates of your employment. I need to see your career progression. I need to know your responsibilities at each role. I need to research the companies you worked for and who we may know in common. By not providing me with your resume, you may think you are beating the system, but you are actually creating more work on the back end.

But what about LinkedIn?

To be clear, your LinkedIn profile is not a resume. I will repeat this again for clarity: Your LinkedIn profile is NOT a resume.

LinkedIn profiles provide rough dates and do not account for gaps in employment, nor are they a formal representation of your skill set. You are not doing yourself any favors by relying on your LinkedIn profile. A resume shows thought and attention to detail, whereas LinkedIn shows me you are in a rush and do not have the time to dedicate to the interview process.

Even if you are unsure about the role you are interviewing for, do not burn bridges with cursory efforts. Commit to presenting yourself well or do not bother at all.

With the advent of online professional profiles like Stack Overflow and LinkedIn, among others, people seem to have inferred that your online profile is satisfactory, but I beg you to rethink this. Using your profile may be the easy way to apply for jobs, but a well-thought-out, and well-edited resume speaks volumes about your attention to detail and professionalism.

Alive and Kicking

The resume is not dead, my friends. I still read every one that come across my desk. I formulate questions based on the candidate’s background they’ve provided, and I make a note of their resume writing skills.

So before you tell the next company/hiring manager/recruiter you speak to that you don’t have a resume, you may want to spend some time dusting yours off and putting in some effort!

Do you agree or do you think the resume is on the verge of being outdated?

After I was called out for my over-active listening, I started paying attention to how others around me listened. Clearly, I am not alone.

An overwhelming number of people I speak and interview with daily engage in active listening. Note: There can often be a distinction between active listening and good listening. In fact, over-active listening is actually akin to faking attention.

Think about it: When someone interrupts a phone conversation with an “mmhmmm” or a “yep,” it disrupts the flow of a conversation and creates confusion.

Here are some tips to avoid over-active listening, especially in interview situations:

Remove Listening Barriers

Typically, we tune people out when we believe what they are saying is not pertinent to us, or if their ideas are not in accordance with ours. A good idea is to go into conversations — whether you are the interviewer, interviewee, presenter, or a member of the audience — with an open mind, and hold off on forming an opinion immediately.

No One Wants to Hear “mmhmm…”

Stop using it. Try to avoid interrupting the speaker with any verbal sign of your agreement (or disagreement), altogether. And please, don’t interrupt to blurt out your opinion or next thought or cut them off before they’re finished.

Be mindful of your non-verbal queues, as well. If you are in-person with the speaker, your body language can be just as distracting as an outburst. Opening your mouth to speak, rolling your eyes, shifting around in your seat — these can all be perceived as rude or annoying.

Take Notes

Taking notes on key points you want to touch on when the speaker is done speaking can help you adapt a less-intrusive way of actively listening. Whatever technique you try, be cognizant of how you actively listen, and make sure it does not impede those around you.

It may seems like good idea to nod and verbally agree with the person who is presenting or speaking to you, but in fact, it may have the reverse effect. Next time you are trying to demonstrate your active listening skills think about how others may be perceiving you.

As a recruiter, the most difficult searches are ones that take several rounds of interviewing to get various parties sign off on a candidate. It’s a process that becomes tedious for both the candidate and the company.

A Negative Candidate Experience

From the candidate’s perspective, the longer the interview process drags out the less sure they are of the position and their security in the process.

A few years ago I was interviewing for a recruiting role at a finance company in Boston. I went through four rounds of in-person interviews and a personality test. The total process took four weeks of interviewing. A month of my life — gone. And it was for an entry-level role!

In the interim, I had also been interviewing elsewhere and received an offer. When I told the finance company I was taking myself out of process they were shocked and said I was their top choice. They certainly had a funny way of showing I was the top choice by having me meet with a total of seven people across all levels at the company. Lesson learned: No one wins when you over screen.

Tough to Make a Decision

Something else to consider when you have a convoluted hiring process involving multiple stakeholders is that it is tougher to come to a decision.

Envision trying to get feedback on candidates when you have four or five people weighing in. It’s difficult to get everyone on the same page, let alone in the same room. Someone will always play devil’s advocate, and that can throw a wrench in the hiring timeline. Sometimes the only thing that comes out of having more people involved in the process is having even more people as a tiebreaker.

Solution

This issue goes back to setting expectations up front with your team and the candidate.

• Get crystal clear internally: Make sure your internal team has a clear understanding of who will be involved in the hiring decision.
• Be up front with your candidate: Be sure that you clearly delineate the hiring process to your candidate so they know what to expect.
• Stick with the plan: Don’t throw in additional interviewers ad hoc as it creates chaos and contributes to a poor candidate experience.
• Trust your gut: Remember, you may never get a unanimous thumbs up from your stakeholders, so trust your instincts on a candidate.

What other tips can companies use to simplify their hiring process?

Whether you call it a personality test, a behavioral assessment, or a predictive test, you’re assessing the same thing — does this candidate have what it takes to work for your company?

Remember, you aren’t really assessing the individual’s personality, but rather whether they fit a standard you have set for your organization.

Every company’s needs are different, so be sure you have an understanding of what results you are looking for prior to administering personality tests. Here are some helpful guidelines.

Not all personality tests are created equal

In order to get any real value from a personality test, you first have to make sure you are giving a test that will deliver information you need.

Some tests are marketed to companies, but weren’t created for them. As you’re shopping around, do your due diligence and ask to take each test, personally. For one thing, this will ensure you avoid a test that addresses the test-taker’s sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or any other subject that could be perceived as discrimination (yes, believe it or not, there are personality tests that actually address those items).

Can you measure the results?

Prior to doling out the test, make sure you understand how to read the results. Some tests like, PI Worldwide’s version of the Predictive Index testing offer their customers training in how to read and interpret the test.

Don’t rely on personality testing alone

In Kay McFadden’s article, 7 Tips for Using Personality Tests to Hire for Inc.com,she addresses this particular issue by quoting Annette McLaughlin, the VP of Talent, Coaching and Outplacement for Response Co.

My perspective of bringing people on board is that there are multiple factors that can impact your performance and you need multiple steps in the hiring process to make an informed decision.

McLaughlin goes on to talk about how applicants should be brought through a series of steps in the recruiting process, with the personality test in the middle of the process. The test is intended to be a piece of the recruiting puzzle, not the answer.

A personality test should be an equalizer in the hiring process, the same way the SAT was utilized to differentiate applicants to universities around the county. While the test does not tell you everything you need to know about the candidate’s work style, it is helpful in obtaining information that may otherwise not be brought up in a conversation.

Think of a personality test as a supplement to your recruiting process, and utilize it as such.

Do you have any experiences utilizing personality tests you can share? Which ones have worked (or haven’t worked) for you?

In an ideal world it wouldn’t be so hard to work with recruiting agencies, but in the world we live in it seems increasingly difficult. Take for example a recent story I heard of a recruiter who, while trying to place a candidate before the end of the quarter, bypassed the process of working with the internal HR team and hiring manager and went straight for the VP of the department. Mind you, the VP was not involved in the search and had no idea what was going on, and frankly was perturbed that the recruiter had the audacity to side step the process.

Um, no. That is not how it works, and that is not how it has ever worked. Here are some tips when it comes to finding the right agency to work with and best practices for working with them:

1) Do Your Homework

It’s nice listening to the recruiter’s sales pitch and all, but that tells us nothing about the company’s repertoire of candidates or their business acumen. Would you work with a real estate agent without doing your due diligence? Probably not. So why shell out agency fees for a new hire when you know nothing about the agency sending him or her along? Get all the facts together upfront before that recruiter starts sending you candidates.

2) Get a Reference

We get referrals and references for just about everything else, so why not when it comes to working with a recruiter? Hearing how well a particular agency filled a position from peers within the industry is helpful. Learning about an agency’s attention to detail and the caliber of candidates who they work with is very important. It’s also beneficial to find out how fees were handled and contracts upheld. If you are paying for an agency’s services it is best to know ahead of time whether they have a solid track record of delivering.

In addition to getting a reference provided by the agency you should also get a back door reference. Ask the recruiter whether they have worked with anyone in your professional network before. This will ensure you have the most accurate picture of how the agency operates.

3) Read the Contract

In this day in age I am still not sure why people do not fully read contracts. A lot of times this is where a company will get hustled by an agency and end up not getting their money back for candidates that quit in a certain time frame. Make sure if you have any stipulations that you address those up front and they get amended to the contract.

4) Not All Agencies Are Created Equal

Agencies typically have specialties. Some have stronger IT staffing solutions, while others may be better suited to hiring for sales and marketing. The bottom line is, there is no one-stop-shopping when it comes to agencies. Find different agencies you can rely on for particular roles and stick with them.

Also, if an agency is not giving you the quality candidates you need then, by all means, stop working with them! Do not keep agreements with agencies that are not providing any value. By keeping the list of agencies you work with to a minimum you can avoid petty arguments over who sent a candidate when, and also avoid filling up your inbox and voicemail with messages from pushy recruiters.

5) It’s a Marathon not a Sprint

This is especially true when it comes to hiring senior-level employees. Make sure whatever recruiting agency you’re working with is clear about your timeline. Again, you are holding the purse strings — don’t let the recruiter threaten you with candidates going “off the market” etc. Stick to your company’s hiring plans, not someone else’s who may simply be trying to get a deal in before the end of the month. You need to protect the integrity of your hiring process.

Hopefully you take working with a recruiting agency as seriously as you take any other outsourced expense your company pays for. If you feel that you are losing control on the recruiting process, go over the steps I outlined above. It is possible for recruiting agencies and companies to get along, but there needs to be a process in place to do so.

If you have been active with social media this year you probably saw #FOMO (aka “Fear of Missing Out”) ad nauseam.

Fear of Missing Out is the feeling you get when you think other people are getting more out of life than you are. Social media can exacerbate this greatly. Ex: When we sign on to Facebook we see our friends yucking it up and having amazing lives while we feel we’re simply going through the motions.

But it gets worse. As if we weren’t already feeling bad enough about ourselves, now not only are we feeling FOMO when we’re in a rut, it’s even taking over when we go on vacation, too!

I don’t know about you, but I feel some serious guilt whenever I take a day off from work. Let me be clear — no one makes me feel bad about taking my vacation (in fact it is strongly encouraged we do), but I still do.

Why is this?

I’m always concerned that I will not be available when candidates and hiring managers need me. I’m fearful that someone else will have to step in and pick up the slack because I’m not in the office to deal with it. I’m worried that something major will happen and I will be the last to know.

So what do I do when I take time off? I try and stay connected as much as possible. Whenever I try to disconnect I get FOMO.

It doesn’t seem like I’m the only one. From conversations with my peers it’s apparent that FOMO is extremely common. We are all scared to unplug.

What does this mean for our society that we can’t allow ourselves to take a break? It feels like a warped version of Survivor where we are all seeing who can last the longest without a vacation or a sick day.

I remember the family who hosted me when I lived in Italy took a decent amount of vacation. My “host father” was a banker and I remember having a conversation with him about the typical amount of time off he received. It appeared that 30 paid vacation days was the norm. I was dumfounded that he could take that much time and not worry about it. I added that he must get very frustrated when people contacted him on his vacation to which he replied with disgust, “no one would ever call me or email me when I was on holiday. That time is sacred.”

It’s interesting that vacation isn’t viewed that way in our culture. We get anxious not checking in with the office and making sure we haven’t left a disaster behind us.

I encourage everyone taking time off during the holiday and into the New Year to let go of those negative feelings and unplug from work. It’s essential to better performance and overall health. So let your iPhone battery die, leave your laptop at home and savor your time away.

My advice? Address employee change management issues immediately, and your employees will either move on or they won’t. In any case, they won’t impede your progress.

It is a hard thing for employees to accept change. When you hire more people to a team or create a new group entirely, your employees may feel threatened. They don’t typically possess the big picture vision that you do. They can only see how change will directly impact them.

They see you adding to their team as a reflection of them doing their jobs well enough, and they see people being moved around as a sign of instability in the company. While you cannot divulge (nor should you) every detail about every decision, you should address change if your employees seem particularly disgruntled about choices being made. If left to their own devices, these employees can be very toxic.

Before you jump to conclusions and start preparing ultimatums for your employees that are a little bit slower to come around to change, however, be sure to have an honest conversation with them first. Let them know, in no uncertain terms, that these changes are happening, and that they are for the best.

At the very core, you must be surrounded with a team that is trusting of your vision and decision-making. In any growing company, employees need to be willing to accept change as part of the expansion-stage landscape. Employees who cannot get on board with change will find themselves irrelevant very quickly!

Onboarding is the process by which an employee gets all the necessary information and training to take on a new position and/or become an effective member of an organization.  Onboarding is a fancy word for getting an employee up to speed and ready to be an effective member of your company. Unfortunately, this is a skill that many employers lack.

Your company, no matter whether you hire five or 500 people a year, needs to make certain that there is an onboarding plan in place, and that it is consistent for all new employees.

Here is a checklist of bare minimum requirements for onboarding:

Set up the employee’s workstation prior to their arrival day one.

This seems so simple and obvious, but it isn’t. On the first day of my first recruiting job, I walked in to a mess. My computer was not set up, I had no office supplies, and the employer wasn’t even sure where to put me.

They had three weeks to prepare for my arrival. Why no one took 30 minutes to assemble anything I will never understand. It made for a very uncomfortable and unprofessional first day. Do not let your employees start their job in chaos. Make sure they have everything they need on their desk and that all IT needs have been taken care of ahead of time.

Prepare appropriate paperwork and manuals

Yea, this isn’t too exciting, but it’s important. On the employees desk should be any necessary paperwork they need to fill out (for example I-9s and W-2s). Since you need the employee to fill out forms within the first few days of employment anyway (make sure you tell them to bring all the necessary identification ahead of time!), the first thing they should do upon arrival is fill out this paperwork.

It gives the employee something to do as people are getting into the office and makes them feel less obstructive. You should also have a copy of your employee handbook/compendium on their desk for them to read through. Don’t have one? That is a separate issue altogether and worthy of another blog post.

Schedule meetings, meetings and…MORE meetings! 

This may seem strange, but you should schedule multiple meetings for your employee on day one. They should be with anyone that they will collaborate with on a regular basis outside of their team. For example, someone in sales may need to speak with a representative from the engineering team and the marketing team. This will ensure that your employee is comfortable reaching out to the appropriate channels and that they know how to work with other teams.

The employee should also have the opportunity to meet with the person responsible for HR to go over benefits and the employee culture, and answer any questions pertaining to their employment contract. Lastly, have the employee meet with the person who recruited them. It is always nice to see a friendly face and get to know more about the company.

A little swag never hurt anyone

This one is just a good idea (well, at least in my opinion). Make your employee proud that they joined the company and excited to tell their friends and family. Put a few swag items like t-shirts or mugs on their desk before they start. It will be a nice stress reliever for their first day, and will make them feel appreciated and welcome.

No matter the size of your company, make sure you have a consistent onboarding plan in place for every new employee. It does not go unnoticed if this area is lacking, and it is a good way to build loyalty with your new employee from the get-go!

And while it’s great to have a review that discusses what went well in 2012 and which goals you’ll set for yourself next year, I think we can all agree that it’s our day-to-day performance that truly gets results and makes a difference.

So, I urge everyone to take a moment and have an honest conversation with yourself.

Think back to the day-to day feedback you were given this year by your peers or supervisors. Now think about if you actually implemented that into your daily routine. Did you turn something in late at the detriment of a team member? Did you overpromise on a project only to find out that you were not capable of delivering the results? How did your mistakes make you better at your job?

Unfortunately, most of us aren’t great at accepting constructive feedback. As a result, we don’t see that feedback as a learning experience, but rather as an opportunity to get our shorts in a bunch and craft a counterargument for why our shortcomings were not our fault. That bias, quite simply, is one of the biggest reasons many people find it difficult to absorb constructive feedback and use it to improve themselves.

With that said, here are a few suggestions for getting past that bias to improve yourself in small ways:

1) Keep feedback close at hand

When you receive feedback from peers or supervisors on a project, jot it down where you can easily access it. Look at this sheet once in awhile to see if you have improved.

2) Not getting enough feedback? Ask for some

Managers sometimes take for granted that you know the areas you need improving in. Other times, they’re just too busy to offer it. Either way, you are responsible for your own self-improvement, and if you don’t ask for feedback you run the risk of not knowing your biggest weaknesses.

3) Be your own biggest champion and toughest critic

As I mentioned earlier, no one likes to hear they are less than perfect at something. It is easier to blame it on other members of your team, extraneous circumstances, or the mood you caught your manager in when they gave you feedback.

The important thing to remember is that we are all human. We all make mistakes and we all need improvement. So, don’t mistake constructive criticism with unnecessary criticism. The former is helpful, and you shouldn’t dismiss it. In fact, you should frequently analyze your own performance to identify weaknesses, rather than simply waiting for someone else to do it.

Generally speaking, people tend to mosey through their work weeks thinking that they’re doing everything perfectly, and that they could not be doing their jobs any more efficiently. Unfortunately, that’s very rarely true. We all could be more efficient at our jobs and better at them.

If you honestly believe you could not get any better, then you should type up your resignation letter right now.

Ultimately, if you cannot improve, then you are not in a job that’s challenging enough, and good luck to you. In the same vein, when you get something wrong, or someone challenges your ideas, don’t stew over it and kick yourself. Take it in stride, make adjustments as need be, and get the hell over it. Ruminating over feedback or objections only sets you up for more negativity.

I challenge anyone reading this to start accepting constructive feedback, without immediately going on the defensive. And when you get it, utilize and implement it. After all, the best thing we can do is try to get better at our jobs.

Most employers spend the year dangling a bonus and/or raise in front of employees, but when it finally comes time to have the annual review meeting typically not much is accomplished.

Sometimes reviews are not even a conversation, but rather a meeting where the employer asks, “How are things going? Here is what I am raising your compensation by.” Other times the employee is put on the spot to list their accomplishments as well as identify areas they need improvement in. Bo-ring! What did you actually learn about the employee in that meeting?

Here are four tips to help you take full advantage of your employee annual reviews:

1) Set an Agenda

Prior to setting up your review with your employees tell them your agenda. What is it you hope the meetings are going to accomplish? What can they expect? Will this be an opportunity for them to voice their concerns, or is this strictly a conversation about what you think about their performance and how it can improve?

The best approach to a performance review is to have both sides prepare for the agenda. Yes, accomplishments should be discussed; yes shortcomings should be discussed; but is typically missing is why that employee is pertinent to the company.

2) Focus on the Big Picture

Never use this valuable time to bring up things that should be managed on the day-to-day. For example, rather than explain why the employee should really stop hitting Reply All when responding to emails, use this time to go over the big picture. Are you developing this employee into a leader? Talk about what you think it takes to be a leader in the company and how they can get to that goal.

3) Stay Positive

Try to remain up-beat during these meetings, even when discussing things the employee needs to improve on. This is not a chance to micromanage, it is a dialogue between employer and employee.

4) Hear the Employee Out

Speaking of having a dialogue…remember to let the employee speak. Allow them time to brag about what they succeeded in, and what they want to accomplish next year. Also, this is about the only time they have with you to discuss their compensation. Respect that. Tell them the increase you are thinking of, but be open to what they have to say. If you are looking to lose employees in 2013 then by all means, run this meeting with an iron fist and don’t listen to what your employees have to say.

So employers, think back to when you were sitting on the opposite side of the table. How would you have liked to have your review go? Let’s end 2012 well and all begin fresh in 2013!

Oddly enough, one topic that does not get a lot of airtime in the HR/Recruiting world is delivering successful job offers. Strange right? Isn’t that the whole point of all of the recruiting and sourcing and interviewing — to deliver an offer to the best candidate? Perhaps some folks assume this is the easy part — all the hard work is in the candidate sourcing and interviewing and once the decision has been made to extend an offer the search is essentially in the bag.

Not true. There are a number of things that can go wrong at this stage, and they absolutely will go wrong if you aren’t diligent.

Therefore, in the spirit of the holidays, my gift to you this year is a little checklist of things to make sure you have in place before you deliver the job offer to the candidate of your dreams.

1) Let’s get the facts straight

At this point we want absolutely no surprises. You need to have all candidates fill out an application* to find out whether they need sponsorship, there are any felonies on their record, and clarify who they were referred to your company by. By ensuring you have all the facts about citizenship, records, and referrals up front it dramatically decreases the chance of you getting a curveball thrown your way at offer time. Ex: “Oh, I forgot to mention I am on trial for insider trading.”

* Make sure to follow legal guidelines for the questions asked on the application, as well as the phrasing used. It’s a good idea to have a legal team look over the document prior to handing it out to a candidate.

2) How much are you making and how much do you need to make a move?

This is a question that should be asked during the very first interview you have with a candidate. Otherwise, how can you make a fair offer if you don’t know what the candidate’s expectations are?

You need to make sure that you have an understanding of the base and bonus structure, as well as any other items that may be considered part of a compensation plan (i.e. stock options, health benefits, matching 401K etc.).  You also need to outline your expectations for the candidate. If you cannot pay the candidate what they want be up front about it! It will save everyone time and avoid a rejected offer down the line.

3) Set a time frame

As you get closer to the offer stage make sure you set a time frame to get references checked and an offer to be delivered.

This is the point of the recruiting process that employers frequently lose candidates. If this process takes too long and there is another offer on the candidate’s plate you may be out of luck. News flash: people do not have all the time in the world for you to get three different approvals and six references checked. If you like a candidate, get your ducks in a row and snatch them up!

4) Hello? Is anybody alive out there?

This has happened to every company I have ever worked with: You get excited about a candidate, you put out an offer, and then…nothing. Radio silence from the candidate’s end. What went wrong?

Chances are you did not give them a timeline for when the offer expires. Now they are going to take their sweet time getting back to you, and in the meantime they may just wait to see what those other three companies they’ve been interviewing with have to offer.

EVERY. OFFER. NEEDS. AN. EXPIRATION. An adequate amount of time is about 72 hours. You should never push a candidate sooner, but anything longer just leads to trouble.

Let’s all go into 2013 with a renewed appreciation of the art of delivering offers well. After all, it is a very exciting step in the hiring process, and we could all benefit from getting better at it. Remember, it’s all in the delivery.

Have you been on either side of a job offer delivery gone bad? What happened? What did you learn?

Prior to starting any search a hiring manager should have a list of must haves and a list of nice to haves.

The ideal candidate will have all of the must haves and most of the nice to haves, but in reality the vast majority of people have some must haves, some nice to haves, and a whole lot of something else. I don’t really want to call it cultural fit, because that sounds trite, but that is what everyone is referring to it as.

Being a culture snob does not do much for the image of your company. In fact, the more you shove your “cultural fit” in people’s faces the less diverse your company seems, because you are constantly hiring the same type of person that fits your mold.

It is true you want someone who believes in the vision of your company and shares the same values, but you do not need to have cookie-cutter employees on the payroll to make sure everyone is a cultural fit.

A couple of years back I was working with a candidate who was interviewing at a trendy clothing company in the area. He was a vibrant young recent graduate who had many hobbies including snowboarding and skydiving, basically a home run for this youthful, hip company.

After his interview I called to get feedback from the hiring manager, who to my surprise sounded deflated.

“Everything was perfect with his interview. We loved him!” she said. “Except…he showed up in a suit, so he is a no-go.”

Ok, an ideal candidate with all the other qualifications and some very trendy hobbies is disqualified because he wore an interview suit? This is an example of you really taking your company culture a little too seriously.

Your company culture should speak for itself. When your employees talk about how happy they are and you get a reputation for having a positive work environment, no amount of foosball tables or beer-stocked fridges will matter. People will want to work there. By making your company culture mandatory, you just scare off people who otherwise may be a great fit.

To be an asset to your company, an employee must like what they do and do it well. That is it. They don’t need to partake in the Ugly Sweater parties you throw or have beers at noon on a Friday. The only thing that makes a difference is that they enjoy coming in to work — the rest is fluff and a nice to have.

My advice to hiring mangers is to not be so aloof when it comes to finding the right hire. If you are not lenient with your perceived culture, you may miss out on hiring top talent. The moral of the story is, don’t be a “culture snob” and hire the best.

What do you think? How make or break is cultural fit to you?

But recently I’ve set out on a mission to become more productive. And to do so, I’m adopting the mentality that stuff can wait. Sound counterintuitive? It is, but it works.

When I am engaged in multiple challenging tasks I sometimes lose my focus. In a recent New York Times article titled “Distracted? It’s Time to Hit the Reset Button,” author Eilene Zimmerman acknowledges this tendency and discusses the perceived virtue of multitasking at work. You are reading this here first folks — multitasking does not make you more efficient. In fact, it actually makes you more stressed out and less likely to finish a task.

So, how can you get through that “to- do” list?

For starters, turn off your email alerts, mute your phone, and buckle down. After you finish one task, check it off and take a short 10-minute break and surf the Internet or get a coffee — anything to take a quick break. If you have a task that will take you all day, break that task up into smaller more manageable pieces. Another helpful hint is to set reminders in your calendar for tasks you are aiming to complete during the day so that something would have to be an utter emergency for you to change things around.

Obviously there are times when we need to be checking our email and answering our phones, but for the most part, things can wait. People can wait. You can get more done if you are aware of the time and the tasks you need to complete them in. With the holiday season here I am sure we will all need reminders to stay on task.

If you have checked your email, played a move in Words with Friends, and taken a bathroom break before finishing this blog I highly suggest chaining yourself to your desk.

In the real world, we work alongside people. People have egos. Egos have egos. What we need to do is learn how to adjust to other people’s egos in order to have a better work environment. Learning to deal with people is not just a skill — it is a survival skill.

The quicker you realize that the person sitting across from you in the meeting is as tired of you talking over them as you are tired of their incessant emailing about minutia — in short, the quicker you realize you are also imperfect — the quicker you will be on your way to a more pleasant working environment.

Recognize everyone has their reasons for doing something. Ever leave a meeting and suddenly everyone is sending around emails asking “what do you think he meant by that?” or, “how embarrassing is it she asked that question — I would never say something like that!” Well, you don’t know what’s going on in someone else’s head, so stop trying to figure it out. You cannot control what people think or do. You also probably don’t know the full story about what is going on, so let me save you some time with some simple advice: butt out.

You always perceive yourself as better than you are — I know, how mean, right? But in a previous blog post entitled, ‘The Dangers of the Interview Oversell,” I wrote about how individuals are inclined to overestimate their favorable characteristics and underestimate their shortcomings. Your ego comes into play even in your everyday interactions in the workplace, so try to keep it in check.

The best we can do to try to reach our best selves in the workplace is to be mindful of one another. You may work differently towards a goal than your colleague, but if you both get there then that is a win.

Have you ever had trouble with ego in the workplace?

When your company is in the expansion stage and needs to hire a talent team to source, screen, and hire for your roles, chances are there is already of bottle neck of requisitions that need immediate attention. There is little time to waste in getting your internal recruiters up to speed. How can you ensure this process goes smoothly? Set out expectations from the final interview.

Prior to handing out an offer you should define exactly how recruiters can achieve success at your company and how they will be able to tell whether they are doing a good job. If you do not know how your talent team can measure success, then you need to figure that out before you extend any offers. Your initial conversation with each recruiter should include how he or she can expect to be measured.

For internal recruiters, you can’t measure success on the number of hires they make alone. You need a way for measuring quality. For example, at the end of each quarter poll the hiring managers in your company and see how the searches that were conducted went and what could have gone better. Take that constructive feedback and figure out a way to implement it.

You also need to set a precedent for what a successful day, week, month and quarter looks like. Set attainable and realistic goals for your recruiters that will allow them to feel like they are accomplishing something. Recruiting can be a very frustrating profession because there are so many variables — candidates reject offers, people miss interviews, job openings are put on hold, etc. Because there are so many pieces that need to fall into place in order to make a hire it is crucial you allow your recruiters smaller successes to track their progress.

By defining expectations for your talent team from the get-go you will have an easier time getting them up to speed. Many internal recruiting teams fail because they do not have clear goals against which to execute. So, before implementing your talent team, make sure you have a plan for how they can achieve their success.

Hiring a recruiter is no easy task. You need to have someone who has experience in hiring in a multitude of areas for permanent roles. Why permanent roles? Ask any recruiter and he or she will tell you that hiring temporary or “contract” employees and permanent employees is a different beast. With all these things to consider, hiring the right person can feel overwhelming. But it’s far from impossible. Here are some pointers:

Hire someone who has worked in a recruiting agency

Yes, sometimes recruiting agencies get a bad rap. They can be considered overly aggressive and too salesy, but the truth is (depending on what agency the candidate comes from) recruiters coming out of agencies are typically used to extremely high volume and specific demands from hiring managers.

Often agency recruiters are asked to find a perfect candidate who in agency jargon is referred to as a purple squirrel aka: an ideal person who does not exist. In this sense, agency recruiters are used to adjusting hiring managers’ expectations as well as getting extremely creative with how they source for candidates. The volume of agency recruiters is unparalleled. They’re often juggling business development along with six or seven roles. If you are experiencing a high volume of internal requisitions don’t you want someone who knows how to plan his or her day and can execute under a heavy workload?

You can’t teach people skills

Ever had an unnecessarily awkward conversation with someone that left you thinking “wow, that person has zero people skills?” It happens to me a lot — there are long pauses and miscommunications galore. Now, people skills are not necessary for everybody, but when it comes to recruiting they’re nonnegotiable. Recruiters recruit people. They need to be able to communicate and relate.

Someone who has real people skills can typically read any person or situation. For example, a recruiter with the right people skills will be able to pick up on any hesitations or unspoken concerns the candidate may have with the job or the company — and they will be able to address them. Trust me when I say this is one of the more important skills you need to hire for, and the only way to screen for it is to ask behavioral or situational questions to see how the person responds. You can teach a lot of things – but people skills are not one of them.

An internal recruiter should be type A all the way

Similar to hiring for a sales position, you want to hire someone who is competitive. I am not talking about in your face, I am the winner, you are the loser competitive, but you do want someone who is always trying to improve and be at the top of their game. With things constantly changing in the recruiting world with technologies and the job market, you need someone who is going to want to be in the know and actively touting why your company is the best. If you want your internal recruiters to deliver the cream of the crop, hire someone who likes to compete — they won’t disappoint.

So if you are thinking that finding a recruiter for your growing company is akin to finding a purple squirrel, think again. The right person is out there — you just have to go out there and get them.

Any employee you want to hire will be driven by professional growth. Not surprisingly, aside from compensation, one big reason that people feel the itch to move on is lack of career growth potential.

Just yesterday I had a call with a successful sales representative from a company known for being a great place to work. The candidate was consistently exceeding quota, and when I probed as to why he was looking to make a move to a new company, he responded that there was no career growth opportunity where he was.

The next step, he said, would be his manager’s job and his manager was not going anywhere. In other words, this candidate had reached a dead end.

Believe it or not, this is quite common. People are promised career growth at a company — an opportunity to move up the ladder and gain responsibility — but a lot of times companies fall short on delivering this, and it’s a big mistake.

When you hire on a new employee, make sure you can account for their career growth potential.

I’m not suggesting that each and every employee needs to be promoted like clockwork. But there are employees who stand out who should be moved up the ranks, as opposed to getting stalled in their current role like some sort of professional purgatory because there is no clear next position for them.

One of the benefits of being in the expansion stage is that companies have less red tape to cut through when promoting an employee. For example, you do not need approval from a multitude of stakeholders, nor do you need huge fanfare. Candidates are drawn to working for startups and expansion-stage companies because there is upside and career growth potential.

For each position that you hire it is important you think long term. “Will this person have a seat here in two years time? How about five?” If the answer is yes, map out what that growth will look like and share it with the employee. By showing that person their career growth potential you will get better results from them, and they’ll be a happier employee as a result. Employees feel valued when you show them that you are thinking of them long term, and that’s also not a one-way street. Employees who have upside will be more likely to stay loyal to your company and exhibit signs of leadership.

If the position does not have career growth potential, you must be upfront. The worst thing you can do is lure a candidate in to your company under false pretenses that he or she will be able to move up within a certain time frame, and then not deliver. It is no different than a candidate fabricating his or her qualifications. You must be upfront. Some individuals will be okay with a role that does not have significant career growth potential, but my guess is that you do not want to hire those individuals.

Career growth is something that should weigh heavily on your decision to hire for your company. Do the positions you’re hiring for have an upside?

As a recruiter, I’ve heard it all when companies try to explain why they don’t. Most involve some bits and pieces of the benefits listed in the paragraph above. And while those are great things to build into your corporate culture, they don’t excuse not having a competitive compensation plan. Quite honestly, you should have a great work environment and a work-life balance because you care about your employees and want them to enjoy coming to work. But you also need to take care of them monetarily – regardless of their level in the company.

Not convinced? Here are just three reasons why having a competitive compensation plan is so critical:

Money Talks

Hear me out on this. You do not want to get a reputation for underpaying your employees. Especially in today’s market, you can be certain that your mediocre compensation plan will show up on websites like glassdoor.com, Yelp, or anywhere else employees can anonymously air their frustrations. And if you think people don’t talk about being underpaid, you are wrong. In the long run, it behooves you to take care of your employees so you can attract top talent to your company.

Compensation Benchmarking and Retention

When your employees feel that they are appreciated, they are less likely to stray. Many people initiate job searches when they feel they are not paid what they are worth. How can you make sure you don’t lose talent? Pay them. Trust me. If an employee can feel their success in their pockets, then they are more likely to put in the extra time on the job. Employers will look for any excuse to tighten their purse strings, but you should exercise frugality in areas other than your talent. Treat your team well, and your return on investment will be tenfold.

Make sure you really research what competitive salaries are, though. Do not just go to Payscale.com and call it a day. Learn what

your competitors pay for talent, or what companies deemed “Best Places to Work” pay, and then create a compensation plan range for your employees. The bottom line is that you should be making market-based hiring decisions and then trying to do better. If you do that, I guarantee you will have more enthusiastic, focused employees.

Mind the Gap

You should never have gaping salary differences between members of the same team with similar years of experience, unless someone has earned a degree to put them ahead. Really think about the raises you give out and the offers you extend. Are they consistent with the rest of the team, or with other individuals with similar experience in the organization?  It is important each time you make addendums to an individual’s compensation that you have a compensation plan in place to support them. If an employee keeps performing at a high rate, you must ask if you can maintain his or her pay increases. If the answer is no, you need to figure out an alternative compensation plan option, like small accelerators or spot bonuses throughout the year.

In the end, money is not everything to most employees, but it certainly never hurts their happiness. A competitive compensation plan will resonate with recruits and employees alike, and make your business a more appealing place to work. So, have you evaluated your compensation plan recently?

So why would a candidate’s experience with your company be any different? If candidates are walking out your door thinking anything other than, “Wow, that would be a great place to work,” you are doing something wrong.

There are a few elements that comprise your candidate experience:

1) Was the candidate expected, and was he or she greeted?

How awkward is it for a visitor or candidate to have to linger in the entryway to your office waiting around for someone to acknowledge his or her presence? Make sure someone is there to say hello and direct them to the right person. If you do not have a receptionist, then the person meeting with them should be there to greet the candidate. No excuses.

2) Have an agenda

Sometimes I cringe when I speak with people who went in to interview at a company and they tell me “whoever was available got pulled into the interview.” Yikes. There should be an agenda set for the candidate to meet with your employees who are involved in the hiring decision. Make sure you’ve coordinated a time when the candidate can meet with everyone involved in the hiring process in one day. Not only is it a better interviewing experience, it also avoids having to ask the candidate to come back multiple times. Remember, each consecutive time you ask your candidate in to meet with yet another person ups the perception that you are unorganized and not valuing their time. Be mindful of this.

3) Have a feedback loop — or don’t have a requisition

When you are creating the job description you should simultaneously be establishing the feedback loop for your candidates. This means you need to have a timeline set for the stakeholder to give his or her input on each candidate. This should not be a lengthy timeline. It should be given the next day, if not immediately following. Within 48 hours of interviewing, someone at your company should make contact with the candidate. This includes telling the candidate that either they are not moving forward in the process, they are moving forward in the process, or that there is no new information and you will reach back out to them in ___ amount of time.

By establishing a feedback loop you can increase your chances of not losing a candidate and also not having to chase down hiring managers for feedback.

At the end of the day you need to make sure that you are respecting candidates throughout the interviewing process. A company cannot afford to have bad candidate experiences at any stage, but it is especially true for expansion-stage companies. Think about it: every candidate could be a future customer, investor, influencer, or evangelist. You can’t hire everyone, but you can make sure everyone who interacts with your company has a positive experience.

How can this unfortunate three-week debauchery relate to expansion-stage companies and start-ups?

You can’t be greedy: The whole replacement referee scenario originated from the referees wanting a pension freeze and 401(k) match. Most of these referees hold a second job and the league deemed it unrealistic to be asking for more on top of the pay increase. Seems slightly greedy to me. Now if I (or any other employee of my firm) went in to work and told my boss I needed better benefits and overall compensation because the firm was making a ton of money, I think I would be told to take a hike.

In working with expansion stage companies, and start-ups especially, you cannot be greedy. You have to go to work each day believing that you are adding to the company’s value and that you are one of the few lucky ones to have the chance to stand on the field while helping the company succeed. When it starts being solely about the money you lose your passion.

Someone is always willing to do the work. So the NFL referees are in a lockout? Who else can we call? Mind you, I wish it wasn’t the same referees that officiated the Lingerie Bowl, but still, this is a lesson that business waits for no one. There was a job to be done and someone was willing to swoop in and do it. This is true across the board — there is always, always, always a replacement. So do not expect your company to role out the red carpet while you list off your demands. You — as well as the NFL referees — are at-will employees, meaning if you don’t like something you are free to go. Just don’t expect your company to come running after you.

Well, the refs walked out, the league brought in replacements who weren’t up to snuff, and low and behold things got fouled up. Whose fault was that? This one I throw back on the NFL. There are no excuses for not being prepared, and there should always be a contingency plan so you are not scrambling at the last minute to find talent. Always keep the pipeline going even if you are not hiring. In an expansion-stage company you need to be prepared for any situation, including when an employee comes in and rattles off an unrealistic list of demands and walks out. You always need a good backup plan.

So while you may have been throwing things at your flat screen these past few weeks, and cursing about how your 91 year-old grandma could do a better job officiating, keep in mind there are some good business takeaways, and pray that Roger Goodell is never your boss.

Well, I have news for them: this is business — it’s nothing personal.

Here is an example of the scenario I’m speaking of. An applicant submits his or her resume to me, and I reach out to schedule a phone interview. We go over the candidate’s understanding of the company and the position, as well as his or her qualifications. I apprise them that the next step will be for me to review their candidacy — sometimes this includes reviewing with the hiring manager, sometimes it does not — and let them know where they stand. I weigh each and every candidate I speak with against the portfolio company’s needs, as well as against the candidates who are already in process. If the applicant is qualified and stands out in both areas then I schedule them for a call with the hiring manager. If they fall short in any area or do not stack up well against the talent already in the pipeline I let them know we will not be pursuing their candidacy further. At this point one of three things typically happens:

Nothing: The candidate does not acknowledge he or she has been released from the running. There is no, “Thank you for your time,” or “Sorry to hear that — let me stay on your radar.” It is just radio silence, which leads me to believe maybe they were not too interested to begin with.

Acknowledgement: This couldn’t be simpler – write a two second email that says, “Thank you for your time, and please keep in touch.” How many eyes are rolling saying, “she will never keep in touch.” In fact, some of the best candidates I have had the pleasure to work with have kept in touch with me after they were not considered for a particular role. It pays to network.

Aggression/Questioning: If you were in process for a position (you didn’t just send in your resume, you actually had a conversation with someone in the hiring process) all the company and recruiters owe you is the courtesy of letting you know that you will not be considered further. Sometimes after I send out the email ending an applicant’s candidacy I get emails entailing why I have made a mistake by not considering them. This just proves my point that they are not a viable candidate. Some emails I received detail why they are a fit, and they usually reference how they can be an added value. I understand your work history — remember I read your resume and interviewed you — so I don’t need you to rehash your qualifications.

As a candidate you are not privy to how you stack up against other applicants. While you may think I randomly rejected you and did you an injustice, in reality I have compared your skills to the other applicants as well as the needs of the hiring manager and I thoughtfully declined your candidacy. It is never personal when I let a candidate go. I don’t even know them as a person — they are simply not what the company needs.

Ever heard about losing with dignity? If you do not make it through a hiring process I strongly suggest you keep your head high and you take the loss graciously. Who knows, perhaps you will be just what that hiring manager needs further down the road.

So, in the end, it’s ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they’re challenged? I ask everybody that: ‘Why are you here?’

–       Steve Jobs

Every hiring manager thinks they know what it takes to fill their open requisitions.

They come up with a list of qualifications. Maybe they need someone with 5+ years experience and an MBA. Maybe experience working at a start-up is one of their requirements. Or maybe they simply need the perfect candidate with an impossible combination of startup and coding experience, a Master’s degree in Computer Science, and 5+ years of management coming out of a large company. But when it comes down to it, maybe they actually don’t need any of that.

Successful hiring managers and recruiters often look beyond what they put in their job descriptions and beyond the perceived company culture fit. They go with their instincts. This is not something you can teach, but it is something that over time, after having interviewed hundreds of candidates, you can learn to listen to. Once you become attuned to it, you will likely find that the best hires you make are based in large part on your gut instinct of an individual.

As Steve Jobs put it very candidly, what are your feelings about this person? Is this someone who can succeed under the constraints of the position? Is this someone who has passion and the drive to succeed? Or, conversely, is this someone who will treat this as their job and nothing more? In that half hour you spend with a candidate you won’t learn about what makes them unique unless you learn to ask the right question — and I don’t mean simply, “Tell me about yourself.” Perhaps the only question that really needs answering lies in Jobs’ question, “Why are you here?”

That said, I often wonder how the recruiting agency model will survive with companies cutting costs and with technology trends being what they are. Agency recruiting may be safe for now, but how much longer will that be the case?

Technology is Taking Over

Why spend 20% of your new hire’s salary on an agency fee when you can hire multiple people for the same amount of money using things like TalentBin, a service that allows a company to search the entire web for candidates and not just one site? Or simply pay for one license of LinkedIn Recruiter, which can be used as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and a search engine for all users of LinkedIn. All it takes is a few keystrokes to zero in on qualified candidates and applicants.

Hire an Internal Recruiter and Don’t Look Back

If you make multiple hires a year, consider hiring an internal recruiter. An internal recruiter will be able to assess the talent pool and find you qualified candidates who fit your company culture, as well. Instead of working with an agency to explain what you need, an internal recruiter can work with the hiring manager directly and often help speed up the hiring process. Another perk is that the cost of hiring one internal recruiter would be the equivalent of using an agency just a few times per year — do the math.

Priority

This is one advantage agency recruiting alternatives can provide that you simply cannot deny. At the end of the day, an agency recruiter is in sales and will work closest to the dollar. That means if another company has a job that needs to be filled and the recruiter’s fee will be higher your role is going to be put on the back burner. This is not the case if you are running your own hiring process, or if your internal recruiter is — in those cases the priority is always your company.

Competition Schmopetition

Often there is quite a bit of drama that goes into using agencies to hire a candidate, and that can detract from your bottom line of hiring in a timely and relatively pain-free process. I have seen several “spats” develop between agencies over who submitted a candidate first. Who has time to deal with these outside issues that arise?

There are certain instances when it probably makes sense to use an agency — i.e. if you need a temporary employee, or if you need someone at the executive level — but for the most part I think it will become increasingly difficult for the average mid-market agency recruiter to prove their value.

How do you deal with employees who want to be promoted and given more prestigious titles, but who you aren’t ready to move up or lose?

One of the most respectable moves a manager can make is maintaining loyalty with an employee. If you find your understudies resenting your up-and-coming leader there are a few things you can do:

• First, address the situation: Acknowledge their hard work and the fact that they are valuable to the organization. Then address their concern of not being promoted to their desired position. Make them recognize and understand that you are on their team and see their frustration.
• Remember- nothing is set in stone: Especially in an expansion stage or growing company. So this employee is not perfect for a leadership role where they manage people, but could they manage a process? Look for other ways to promote them. The last thing an employee should ever feel is hopeless or frustrated that they will never make it to the next step.
• Tread lightly: You should never make it seem like the employee is wrong to consider him or herself a leader. Everyone is a hero in their own mind, and things always start to unravel when someone’s self-schema does not fit with yours. The best thing to do is show them why they are not the right choice for a particular promotion, as opposed to just telling them. Then point out that their strengths are better suited elsewhere.
  
• Warm fuzzies: While you should by no means be stroking every employee’s ego every time someone else gets promoted it is beneficial to do so if you have a particularly strong employee you fear losing. If the employee feels you aren’t valuing them they will search for an employer who will.

It is human nature to harbor a grudge for being passed over for a promotion, especially when someone has been working towards that goal. After addressing an employee’s concerns, keep an eye on how he or she responds. If the employee is not still striving towards improving, then chances are he or she will never be a leader in your company. If he or she uses your constructive criticism to improve then you can revisit the employee for the next promotional opportunity.

Recently, I was having drinks with a former colleague of mine — also a recruiter — and we were discussing how there is some turnover in his company right now. I attributed it to there being a lot of firing, but he quickly informed me I was mistaken. It wasn’t firing, at least in the traditional sense. It was employees firing themselves.

Yes, you did read that right. These employees were in charge of their own firing. He went on to explain that the employees who left were not performing well, and hadn’t been for some time — yet they were still being employed and management was simply turning a blind eye to avoid having to deal with it. Rather than letting these people go, the company was waiting until the employee got fed up enough to look for another job and/or quit.

I thought back to my time at the company and realized this was entirely true. For the amount of people underperforming on their sales numbers there was also a very low rate of succession.

These employees typically clung on by barely meeting their minimum goals and had gotten so far behind in sales that it was going to be impossible to recuperate. This revelation got me to thinking, how often does this happen?

I cannot see the benefit of keeping an employee who is not performing up to par for any reason. The cons definitely outweigh the pros.

For expansion-stage companies, when each hire is crucial to the progress and culture of the company, this is especially true. Remember the old adage, “One rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel?” Well, that also stands when it comes to employees. One employee who is not performing can drag down his or her colleagues. Here are three warning signs to watch out for, and reasons to be proactive and let underperforming employees go:

• An employee has resigned him or herself to never succeeding at a company. This is a doozey. If an employee thinks “I will muddle along and collect my paycheck until something better comes along,” trust me, it is time to let them go. They do not have the passion to succeed where they are, and they are going to jump at the first chance they can to get out. So why are you keeping them on your payroll?
• He or she is no longer representing your company the way you intended. It is human nature to blame other people/things/circumstances rather than acknowledging your shortcomings. By keeping employees on board who blame you, the company, or their team for their failures, you can really upset company morale.
• They can’t take the hint. You’ve had performance meetings with the employee, you have proof that they are missing their goals consistently, but you really like said employee so let’s cut them some slack and wait until they find another job, right? WRONG. Unfortunately, as great as they may be they are not adding to the bottom line of your company vision. You cannot rely solely on people’s circumstances to keep them in a position. At the end of the day business is business.

I am trying to fathom circumstances where waiting for an employee to essentially “fire” himself or herself works in the employer’s advantage. It is not as though there is a shortage of educated qualified candidates available, so there is no reason to hang on to an employee because you feel it is too much of a hassle to replace them.

What do you think? What would you do if you had an employee who was not working out?

If you are unfamiliar with the Applicant Tracking System, it can be used to input resumes into a database, email candidates, post jobs and keep hiring metrics. Depending on the caliber ATS your company purchases, these basics can be accompanied by some nifty bells and whistles.

This particular conversation got started because the OpenView recruiting team is in process of choosing a new ATS. We have been weighing the pros and cons of purchasing a new ATS and we came to the conclusion we cannot imagine how any start-up or expansion stage, let alone an established company, can possibly operate without one.

Here are a few reasons why all recruiters and hiring managers need to consider utilizing an Applicant Tracking System.

Recruiters or No Recruiters

How can you possibly keep track of all the applications you receive? For each job posting I put up from OpenView, I get upwards of 400 resumes. I could not possibly reply to each person to confirm we have received his or her resume. Compound this with multiple job postings at one time and we have exponential amounts of applications — how do we sift through them? That’s where an ATS comes in.

Keywords

Once you have uploaded a candidate’s information into your ATS, you can do keyword searches. This makes life a lot easier than starting a search from scratch every time you open a new position. For example, if you are hiring for a Software Developer who needs Java experience you can type “Java” into key words and a list of all applicants with that skill will pop up. This means there is less of a chance you are overlooking qualified applicants.

Rejections, Shmejections!

A pesky little task for a hiring manager or a recruiter is rejecting all the applicants he or she is choosing not to pursue. By implementing an ATS, this can be done efficiently with the click of a button. Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. Think of all the time you will save!

Job Postings Made Easy (and Affordable)

That’s right folks — an ATS can provide you with UNLIMITED job postings! If you’re relying on LinkedIn to get the job done to the tune of a few hundred bucks per posting then this may save you some cash. Your ATS will be able to post directly to your company website and in some instances it can also be linked to external job boards like Monster and Career Builder.

If your company has not yet looked into an ATS to manage all your applications and recruiting resources, I would highly suggest you look into it. It could be the saving grace in a hiring pinch one day soon!

Well I have some news for you, after you reschedule the interview twice and when you finally sit down to start your interview by peppering questions at the candidate, immediately putting them in the hot seat, chances are they are gun shy about the opportunity.

It is time to change your hiring attitude. Here are four interview mistakes to check at the door in order to have more productive interviews that land your top candidate:

1) Taking the “Impress Me” Approach

Let me start by saying, if you treat every interview like a test — “What can you do for me? Impress me.” — you are going to come across a slew of rejections and disappointments. The interview process should be give and take. You should always lead the interview with positives about your company to give the candidate incentive to want to work both there and for you. Think about times when you’ve been interviewed — have any of them started with, “So tell me about why you want to work here?” Probably not. That’s because it is up to you to tell the candidate why they should want to work for you. They likely won’t know that your company is a 100% fit simply from reading your website and following your company on Twitter.

2) Canceling Last-Minute

Did you ever have a friend who cancelled on you all the time, and at the last minute? Think about how unreliable that made them look. Cancelling the day of makes it appear you think your time is more important than the candidate’s. Sure, there are emergencies that come up, but constant rescheduling makes you come off as flakey. If you are like that during the interview stage, the candidate wonders, how are you going to be as a manager?

3) Dominating the Conversation

When I screen a candidate, I guide the candidate through the interview, but by no means do I take over by asking question after question. You can learn a lot about what kind of an employee a candidate is by just by letting them talk. If you have a question on something they say try phrasing it in such a way to get them to keep revealing things about themselves. For example, “Tell me about your boss. You mentioned you are leaving because of your unhappiness with her management style.”

4) Closing with, “Any questions?”

When the candidate has finished telling you about his or her experience, open up the dialogue, but not by simply asking, “Do you have any questions?” Instead, be specific and really dig down. Ask pointed questions like, “From what you learned about this position, are there any concerns you have about taking on this role?” “What are the obstacles you would need to overcome to be successful in this position?” “How can I help you understand this role better?” By asking questions that evoke more than a simple yes or no answer you are uncovering potential road blocks in hiring the candidate, and you can address those immediately.

So hiring managers, next time you have a candidate in front of you for an interview, think about what you could be doing better to make the process smoother. Chances are you may be the one who needs to do a little bit of selling to get the best candidate on your team!

Delaney’s article outlines the stigma that unemployment carries, with the revelation that unemployment discrimination begins within the first month of unemployment:

In one study…47 experienced HR Professionals [were asked] to review resumes that were identical except for one detail: Half said the candidate was currently employed, and half said the person had been out of work for a month. The ‘currently employed’ candidate received better marks for competence and hirability.

Though these two sets of resumes were identical in every other regard, the simple fact that a candidate had lost his or her job a month ago made hiring the candidate less desirable. I highly doubt that four weeks without work impairs any unemployed candidate’s skill set, yet the stigma is evident in the results. And then there was this:

In another experiment, researchers asked a group of students to review resumes from ‘employed’ and ‘unemployed’ job candidates, with the latter group divided between people who’d left their jobs voluntarily and people who had been let go. The ‘laid off’ crowd faired no better than the quitters.

In economically booming times, I can appreciate a slight hesitation in hiring someone who is laid off (let me reiterate slight), but according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Jobless Rate is up in 27 states as of mid-July. Many exceptional employees are without work, and applying to your job postings.

Coming from agency recruiting, I cannot even count the number of times a hiring manager would tell me that they would only look at candidates who were employed. In this economy, by having such tunnel vision, you are really limiting yourself and your pool of talent. Sure, if someone has not worked in over a year maybe then start to ask questions, but a few months unemployed? Are you really not going to read that resume?

I am shocked at my own occasional dismissiveness of unemployed candidates, as I myself was unemployed for a month-and-a-half this past winter. Reading the results of the experiments that Delaney reports, I found myself enraged that hiring managers and HR professionals were discriminating against the recently unemployed. That is until I had the “a-ha” moment that I was, too.

Having gained some perspective on this rampant problem, I feel confident saying that the recently unemployed should be examined under the same lens as the employed (with exceptions for the individuals who were fired for say, embezzlement or something of the sort). This is especially true in start-up and expansion-stage companies. The emphasis for employers at such young companies should be on getting qualified, competent individuals who will fit the culture of the company. Taking off my unemployment blinders is something I am going to work on going forward, and I urge my readers to do the same.

Since the adoption of recruiting via avenues such as LinkedIn, we as a society have not established a real etiquette for the “dos” and “don’ts” of recruiting through this medium. There is a false sense of a professional camaraderie that develops on these sites that can in fact be professionally detrimental. One of my biggest concerns is the how this will effect what is called the backdoor reference. A backdoor reference check involves obtaining a reference from a person who was not provided by the candidate. An example of this is when you have a rapport with someone at your potential new hire’s present company who can shed light on how he or she performed. I fear, however, that hiring managers may overestimate the importance of their LinkedIn connection’s opinion of their recruit.

The backdoor reference is more common than you’d think, especially working with expansion-stage companies and startups, where hiring managers are more apt to seek corroboration from someone in their network before hiring the candidate. The reason for this is that these companies are often making critical hires, and making a poor decision will set them back during a critical growth stage.

Before you seek out a backdoor reference who is not on your new hire’s list here are three things to consider:

1. Is the person you are reaching out to a credible source? Would you trust them in other business endeavors? If you don’t know the answers to those questions, then why are you allowing them to persuade your hiring decision?
2. If you do know the backdoor reference you need to inquire how well he or she knows the candidate in question. Has he or she interacted with them professionally, or does the candidate in question work on a different team? If the answer is that they have not — then there is no need to proceed with the reference. There is nothing of substance that can be provided, and any insight would be about as beneficial as high school gossip.
3. Is this reference going to jeopardize the candidate’s current employment? This is a big one. It is always risky to reach out to someone not on the candidates reference list. More often than not, a candidate is not openly looking for a job, and by involving someone the candidate did not list as someone who can be used as a reference you may call attention to their job search. In this instance you may lose your top candidate, as well as ruin your credibility.

While it is a good idea to leverage your network, it is important to make sure you take precautions when reaching out to discuss a potential new hire. The dangers of social networking sites like LinkedIn are that we as the users get lured into a false sense of trust. If nothing else, please heed my advice; be sure you know and trust the people in your network before you allow them to sway your opinions on your candidates.

Remember that photo you posted of you in your bathing suit holding a beer? Just one of the many reasons why a Facebook job board might not be the greatest idea.

If you have been on any social media sites recently, chances are you have seen many responses to Facebook preparing to launch a job board. It seems many recruiters have varying opinions on this. I am not writing this blog to share the opinions of my peers, but rather to share my own so here it goes:

Awkward

Like many recruiters, I use LinkedIn to reach out to people. LinkedIn allows for professionals to post a summation of their work history, education, and accomplishments, without the add-ons of seeing pictures of their sisters’ best friends giving birth or some exotic dinner they are serving. Unfortunately for Facebook users applying for jobs, the first thing a recruiter will do upon receiving a resume is check out the user’s profile. When someone applies via LinkedIn I go straight to his or her profile page — why would this be any different for Facebook? Like it or not, we are human beings. I personally don’t think my future boss or HR manager needs to see photos of me posing with my French Bulldog, Frankie. By allowing applicants to apply through Facebook we are now way past blurring the line between professional and personal.

I know what you did last summer

Cheesy? Yes. True? Yes. Think about your Facebook profile, including all the comments you posted, and those unflattering photos of you on the beach. Yes, that is now going to factor in on your applicancy. I can see the conversations between hiring managers now: “Well, she looks like a really good time, but can we trust her to build our sales team?” People who will choose to apply for roles via Facebook are going to need to think about taking down anything and everything that could be perceived as incriminating. Sounds paranoid, but people have been passed over for jobs for lesser offenses — trust me.

The talent I want is not perusing Facebook for a job

As I see it, there are a couple issues here. First, I typically spend my time looking for passive candidates. I wonder how it is going to go over when I am on Facebook all day looking for candidates who may want to join an expansion-stage company in our portfolio. It is going to be quite hard to cut through the personal information of people’s profiles to get to the meat of what I need to know. Second, it’s more likely that job postings and applications via Facebook won’t be specialized. For example, if I am hiring for software developers I am going to use a specialized job board like Dice, not Facebook, where anyone with an email address will apply.

If recruiting moves to Facebook perhaps most frightening to me is the notion that there will be relatively no distinguishing between professional and personal. I can only imagine it like the arguments over separation of church and state that have come before — it’s something we will never have closure on. My advice to those who choose to utilize Facebook as a recruiting tool is to be wary, and remember, your future boss may be viewing your Christmas party pictures.

Now recruiting for expansion-stage companies, I can tell you that that little obnoxious saying still holds true, especially when it comes to hiring top talent. In Frank Addante’s article for Inc., “Hire the Best Candidate, The One You Can’t Afford,” he outlines the benefits of hiring the very best of the best, even if they are not within your budget. This article got me thinking about how the best hires impact expansion-stage companies. Expansion-stage companies, by nature, are in an accelerated growth mode where each hire is critical to the direction of the company. In order to get the best talent, sometimes you need to pay the big bucks. Keep an open mind when it comes to salary. The benefits of hiring the best outweigh hiring the less expensive pretty good candidate.

Top talent begets top talent

A start-up or expansion stage company is in a critical position to set the tone for future talent. If you hire the most qualified person, chances are they will broaden your network with individuals who can be value-adds for your company. Think of someone professionally that you respect: If that person goes to a new company and tells you how great it is — chances are you’re listening. One exceptional individual can increase your talent pipeline tenfold.

One top producer can do the work of many

Would you pay the price for one individual who pulls their weight and produces good work in a timely manner, or would you rather have to oversee two people whose work is average? Seems like a clear choice.

One bad apple…

You’ve heard the phrase that “One bad apple spoils the bunch.” Well, the opposite is true, as well. If you bring in a rock star to your company, chances are some people will be threatened, but in a good way. A good healthy dose of competition is sometimes just what complacent employees need to raise their work to rock-star level, too. Not to mention that everyone benefits from a fresh perspective.

Is the most expensive candidate always the best? No, absolutely not. But typically a more expensive candidate comes from a good pedigree. The bottom line is, if you are looking to cut costs while growing your business, think twice before you deem candidates as too expensive. You may be overlooking the talent you need to get your business to the next level.

The Bell Curve is a tricky, tricky measurement. It is based less on factuality and more on relativity, and it is particularly dangerous when used to assess one’s self.

A recent blog post by Tom Bolt caught my eye, “You Did Not Grow Up in Lake Wobegon.”[1] Lake Wobegon refers to the fictional utopia that storyteller Garrison Keillor created. In this post Bolt describes the phenomenon of people’s inflated sense of self. He writes:

It is fairly typical for people to overestimate their favorable characteristics and underestimate those seeming to be undesirable. Psychologists have formulated several theories to explain this phenomenon. Some attribute this behavior to the fact that it is easier to place importance on the known qualities of self rather than the behaviors of others.

When people are asked to place themselves on a normal distribution curve for a myriad of skill measurements, they tend to place themselves above average. This is both mathematically impossible and concerning. As a recruiter, I have yet to come across a single hiring manager who requests an “average” employee. Each manager always asks for the top caliber candidate.

I have also yet to meet a candidate who did not consider him or herself to be above-average. This presents a dilemma. I have a hiring manager who needs the best of the best and a slew of candidates who are self-proclaiming themselves to be the “best.”

I am all for confidence, but not for misrepresenting yourself for a job. There’s a risk to the interview oversell. Before you “yes” the hiring manager to death, and tell them how fantastic you are, think about it: If you get this job, are you going to be performing at the level that you are purporting? If the answer is you are not sure, then I would remain mum and let your resume, experience, and references speak for you. Again, I am not suggesting you clam up during the interview process — you still need to speak up for your accomplishments — just don’t oversell yourself to the point where you sound too good to be true.

It is a difficult pill to swallow, so to speak, but the truth is most of us are average. The majority of people who are successful have gotten to where they are by hard work and positioning themselves well. A false sense of self does not help anything. Next time you are asked to rate your skills do so honestly, because you might be asked to perform them soon enough.

There are many reasons people need to take time off from employment, i.e. maternity/paternity leave, personal health issues, or family issues to name a few. If the gap on your resume is addressed upfront and in an honest and skillful way then there should not be any doubts about your commitment to employment. Here are some ideas for explaining that pesky space:

Explain — don’t over explain: A simple “I took two months off in between roles because I was dealing with some health concerns,” suffices. Your potential employer does not need an explanation of what those health issues entail. Some things need to stay private.

Tell them before they ask you: When you are recounting your previous employment during your first call or meeting with the recruiter or hiring manager take the opportunity to address any gaps. For example, if there is a six-month window of time between roles do not wait until the interviewer asks what you were doing during that period of time.

The truth hurts: Sometimes there is not a medical or family reason for your unemployment. Sometimes people get laid-off or fired or they quit because the company was not the right fit. You still need to address this in a diplomatic fashion. A lot of people lost their jobs when the economy took a hit and hiring managers understand this. If you lost your job due to performance, than this needs to be brought up. The world is a small place, and if you do not tell the hiring manager chances are someone else will. If you left on your own accord because it was not the right cultural fit, then do not lambaste the company. There are tactful ways for saying you did not like the company without making yourself look bad.

Any questions? It is okay to ask if the interviewer has any questions or concerns about the time you took off from work. The interviewer will not press in terms of “what were you sick with,” but they may ask if your employer held your position during your leave, or if that employer is a reference now. If you were let go from your role, then explain what happened to the best of your ability without painting yourself in a poor light.

A gap on your resume does not have to be a bad thing. The more prepared you are to speak about it; the better you will present yourself. Don’t get caught off-guard on your own resume!

Dear Candidate,

I am recruiting for XYZ Company and thought you would be a fit. XYZ Company is (insert the founding date of the company as well as the same pitch that is posted on the company website). Let me know if you’re interested.

Thanks,

Recruiter

I don’t know about you, but if I receive that message on LinkedIn or in an email, that bad boy is getting sent to the trash. The message says nothing. I don’t know that the sender even bothered to learn anything about my background. By blanket messaging a lot of prospective candidates you are being sloppy. There are no two ways around it. Recruiters complain about the candidate who submits his or her cover letter and resume to every job posting without making addendums for a specific position, so why is it okay for recruiters to reach out to candidates without an ounce of personalization? If a recruiter sends out mass emails to attract top talent it simply appears careless, and it reflects poorly on the company.

To remedy this situation takes effort on the recruiter’s part. For starters, I suggest actually reading the candidate’s LinkedIn profile. What stands out about her background? What makes you want to reach out to her? Mention that in the body of your message.

Dear Candidate,

I am recruiting for XYZ Company (Website inserted). I am currently searching for XYZ’s next Director of Sales and I came across your profile. Your experience at ABC as the Account Executive for New England struck me as relevant to my search. I understand you may not be looking to make a move from ABC at this time, but maybe you know someone who is? Please let me know if you have interest in connecting on this role.

Best,

Recruiter

Now, I don’t know about you, but that is a message I would responding to. It is clear the recruiter who wrote that message spent enough time learning about my background to know that I would be a good fit. I also know that this is a person I want to connect with to network. Maybe this is not the right job for me, but there could be one down the road that would be a better fit.

It is important that as the recruiter you do due diligence on the candidates you are recruiting for. In the long run this will save you from having conversations with unqualified candidates. Spend the extra time to personalize your message; it may be the difference between getting candidates and getting top candidates.

Yes, your read that correctly. The same idea that is behind professional athletes’ contracts could in fact be developed to fit your organization. Would employee free-agency change the way you run your company? Would it change the value you place on your employees?

Andy Porter from Fistful of Talent discusses the potential outcomes of a free agency system for employees in a recent post titled “Why Your Company Should Adopt a Free Agency Period.” In the post, Porter argues that employees should be positioned for free agency after a three-year period, and that such a change would have positive impact in a variety of different situations and ways:

• Sense of Value: Often after a protracted period of time working for one company a employee’s skill set depreciates. The employee develops a routine based around their limited role and there aren’t always enough professional development opportunities for the candidate to keep his or her skills current. Such a depreciation can be detrimental to the employee as well as the company.
• Creating a Better Environment: By agreeing to a free-agency period, employers would allow employees to negotiate a better deal for themselves at a mutually agreed upon time. It would provide a natural break for employees to ask for a raise, or perhaps a different arrangement within the company. No surprises. All parties know it is happening.
• Employees Can Prepare to Spread Their Wings / Employers Can Prepare for Them to Leave the Nest: As with the previous point, there would be no surprises when employees begin shopping around for a new role. They may find there is no upward mobility in their current role and that they would be better suited elsewhere. Employers would also have a chance to begin looking for someone to backfill their role in a timely manner.
• Maybe It’s Just Time: Sometimes it is just time to part ways. You, as the employer, may opt not to resign your contract with a particular employee. Again, it wouldn’t come as a complete surprise to the employee (who should be looking for another opportunity already). Occasionally, after a few years of hard work, employees peter-out. Maybe their work becomes stale, or maybe they are no-longer enthusiastic about the company. Either way, we all know that sometimes employees over-stay their welcome.

While it’s probably not realistic to imagine widespread adoption of an employee free agency model any time soon, it may be useful, however, to implement the thinking behind the model into your organization now. Every few years there should be a serious reevaluation of how an employee is performing, and how the company is meeting his or her expectations. Thinking of your employees as operating on a three year contract may help weed out the employees who deserves advancement and want to work at your company from those who are lagging behind.

What are your thoughts on implementing this mentality at your organization?

Well, the same is true for your resume. I am sad to report that I often read through someone’s resume and am left thinking, “What does this person even do?” If I don’t know what you do, I am not reaching out to set up an interview to ask. You will be hard pressed to find a recruiter who has the time to work at extracting what an individual candidate does or how they do it when there is an entire stack of resumes to weed through.

How can you avoid having your resume tossed aside? Spend time and energy filling in the details that matter most in these three key areas:

• Company Description: Whether you work at a company like Google, which is self-explanatory, or an unknown start-up with five employees and no revenue, you need a line below your company name and title that explains what the company does. For example:

XYZ Company                                                                                    May 2010-June 2012

3.5 Million Dollar company specializing in cloud-based storage solutions

By providing recruiters and hiring managers with that snippet of what your company does it gives your experience more color and provides the reader with a better understanding of your accomplishments.

• Relevant Experience Bullet Points: I often come across “fluff” bullet points listed under relevant experience that make me second guess whether the applicant spent any time at all really thinking about their accomplishments in a given position. Below is an example of the kind of meaningless bullet points that do more harm than good:

v Answered all emails in a timely fashion

Well, it is 2012 and I would hope with the advent of smartphones and wireless hotspots that all emails are answered in a timely fashion. I never thought to myself, “Wow, this candidate needs to be hired because they answer emails quickly!”

Instead of using fluff to bulk up your experience, try describing what you saved, achieved, or made. An example of saving is if you were able to save the company a substantial amount of money through tweaking a budget or doing an audit. Achieving could be any honors that you earned such as making President’s Club, or getting promoted. An example of Made would be if you exceeded your sales quota. Make every word on your resume count.

• Objective: The last important piece that is often overlooked on resumes is the objective. I see a lot of vague or blatantly wrong objectives on people’s resume. The short fix is that if you are not willing to tailor your objective for the type of position you are applying for then just scratch it all together. If you applied for a sales position and your objective is to obtain an entry-level marketing role it just looks unprofessional. If you are putting an objective on your resume, make sure it is pertinent to the role you are applying for.

The best advice I ever received on my resume was to make sure that what I do and how I do it comes across quickly and clearly. What does your resume convey to the reader?

In my time as a recruiter I have seen some very fancy resume boosting tactics. Take for example the “skills” section on a resume. Historically, this should be used to identify skills such as a particular system you are familiar with, i.e. Salesforce (or other CRMs), Quickbooks, ADP, etc. Perhaps if you are a software engineer this can become even more specific, and you may even need to list out any languages and databases you work with. A common theme I have seen on resumes is listing “Proficient in Microsoft Office.”

This seemingly harmless addition to your resume is like saying “I know how to open my email!” In 2012 it is understood that you know how to use Outlook, Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. This is not something that a hiring manager scanning through stacks of resumes picks up on and shouts “Eureka! Finally someone who knows how to type a Word document!” In fact, a few weeks back I was on the phone with a hiring manager who reiterated his wariness of someone listing proficiency in Office on their resume. “ I just can’t wrap my head around why people think that is a skill — it stands out to me as much as someone typing ‘I can turn on the computer,’” he said.

I have to agree, he has a point. Unless you have the ability to build Macros and Look Ups in Excel then it really isn’t considered a skill. Listing it as such will come across as adding unnecessary information to your resume.

Another point to consider is your education. Many people believe that the further you get from your graduation date, the less important your degree is. This is not accurate. When I was working as a financial recruiter, I worked with many companies that verified education regardless of the candidate’s level within the company. Simply put, it behooves you to write the correct information as it pertains to the degree you earned.

Typically, GPA verifications are used for entry and mid-level positions, but these can be verified as well. There has been a handful of cases when I represented a candidate who had an offer reneged due to falsifying their GPA. In each case, the candidate would have received an offer with their actual GPA, but because of the dishonesty and misrepresentation, the company decided to rescind their offer.

Lastly, I will point out that the dates of employment on your resume should be clear. When I interview a candidate, I have them take me through their resume and explain any gaps in employment or any dates that do not make sense. Any unexplained or vague dates are a red flag. I had a candidate go in for an interview with a hiring manager who asked about a date of employment in 2001. The candidate held firm that that the company had employed him during the dates provided on his resume. When I asked for a follow up on the candidate from the hiring manager he responded, “Clearly there are inconsistencies in the candidate’s background, because the company was no longer in existence in 2001.”

If you take anything from this blog post, please let it be that you need to be entirely upfront and honest when it comes to writing your resume. No matter what level you find yourself at in a company, it is better to be honest up front than it is to have an indiscretion exposed at a later time. Your resume is meant to be a brief and accurate representation of your professional background — so lets make sure we keep it that way!

The same is true in recruiting. You may have an idea of what you think the ideal fit for the role is, how much you want to pay for someone to do the job, and what the title should be. But because you are hiring for humans and not machines, things can often get messy.

The most difficult searches I have taken on in recruiting are the ones in which the hiring manager offered no flexibility and imagination with the open requisition. Although the hiring manager knows their own company, and what they want to see in a colleague, they are not always abreast of what is available in the market.

Take, for example, a hiring manager who has a rigid limit on what they can pay a new employee. In this case, a hiring manager may need to concede room for slight variation away from their idea of the perfect candidate. If you cannot afford to pay for the top talent the market has to offer then you may need to make a concession when it comes to other things like pedigree, tenure, or education.

Stubbornness, whether it be by the hiring manager or the recruiter, will not get the position filled. The best way to make sure you are seeing the best candidates available is by communicating. It the responsibility of the recruiter to not only send the hiring manager qualified candidates, but also let him or her know of any impediments that may be keeping the search from progressing. Examples are:

• Salary: If there is a strict budget allocated for the position it may hinder interest from the top of the candidate pool.
• Location: Some roles may be able to function remotely, although that may not be your company policy. Understand that this may shrink the pool of candidates you are looking at.
• Years of experience: In my professional opinion this should always be open-ended. If the job description says 3-5 years then be open to candidates who have two solid years of experience. A candidate who has two years of hands-on experience coming from a smaller company may actually be more qualified than someone with three years coming from a larger company. It is important to pay attention to the particular experience that a candidate has within their current company.

Job searches and job descriptions are works in progress. Hiring managers and recruiters work together by trial and error to find the best candidate within the company’s means. As long as both parties are receptive to change and revisions to the role the requisition will be filled.