Martin Snyder's Passing Scene

Tilting at a favorite windmill, again.....Assessment

Martin Snyder — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:09:24 -0400

Cross Posted from RecruitingBlogs

Super Bowl Ads 2009- FAIL ? It was a violent time of it.....

Martin Snyder — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:43:05 -0400

Cross Posted from RecruitingBlogs

Tuesday Morning Quarterback on the Unwanted, Under Appreciated, and Poorly Assessed

Martin Snyder — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:05:43 -0400

Cross-posted from Recruitng Blogs

The Passing Scene is cross-posting

Martin Snyder — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:19:25 -0400

When ERE did its last redesign, it removed the blog headline feed from the front page, which cut the number of readers, comments, and exposure dramatically. That coincided with a lag in my own blogging, which I tend to really do more of in the Winter months. Here in sunny Cleveland, Ohio, its not smart to blog on sunny days- they must be enjoyed when they come.....

So when I have been blogging , I found myself at Cheezhead (who then also did a redesign to similar effect) and now mostly at RecruitingBlogs.com. Jason is doing a great job with the site, but I also really enjoy the ERE community and David's efforts over the years, so I think I will cross-post for awhile and see how that works out.

My current post on RB is

http://www.recruitingblogs.com/profiles/blogs/john-thains-office-the-ground

I will probably cross-post here and there whenever I have something to say more than a line or two.....

Assessment and Magical Thinking

Martin Snyder — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:34:50 -0400

Will we adapt to talent management or will talent management be thrust upon us?

That remains to be seen, but I remain deeply skeptical about many employment assessment practices- both pre-employment and performance management.

When I was young and idealistic, I thought that ignorance arose from a lack of education and opportunity. As I have moved through life, I have come to believe that ignorance most often is a symptom of Magical Thinking, which though affllicting us all to a degree, now seems acendnant in our complex society.

I have written what must be hundreds of comments on threads over the years relating to pre-employment testing- most often to discuss the rather obvious point that most people work in groups, and that testing individuals (but not group dynamics) is bound to present problems with any predicitive model.

I dont always fully qualify for space reasons, but it would be good to be able to. Some assessment some of the time is very useful- which is one reason why so much more assessment appears to be counter-productive. In high-volume, high-turnover hiring situations with standard skill sets (e.g. Starbucks and similar) assessment can be predictive, and the business cost of not hiring what could otherwise be high-performers is not material.

If you are running an organization that depends on key creative or symbolic content to succeed, you may be asking for trouble if you don't assess whole teams at once, you base hiring decsions on individual assessment methods, or you fail to realize that there are often multiple routes to a goal.

I decided to blog on this topic when I saw a story on CNN that blew my mind.....read it and ask yourself if you think it will work....

Lou Adler rates Obama and McCain- his way.

Martin Snyder — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:56:31 -0400

I have not posted in a long time. Its been a busy summer but thats hardly an excuse. I have not had much to say and since the ERE site was redesigned, for whatever reason, I have not been as involved. As the days grow shorter, however.....

Got an email today from The Adler Group about their Performance Based Hiring method. Lou thought it might be interesting to apply it to the presidential candidates, but I dont think that was such a good idea.

I normally only link rather than long excerpt, but I dont have a link, so here is the meat of the item:

1.Competencies and Skills. This refers to the technical knowledge the person possesses in comparison to real job needs. A 2.5 ranking on this factor means the person has average skills and motivation, or the person is light on skills, but with a high ability to learn.

On a basic level I'm not convinced that Obama has all of the current skills needed to handle world affairs, allow the U.S. to become energy independent, handle the complex military issues involved in the job, and has the depth of knowledge needed to handle global and domestic economic policy. McCain seems to have a better grasp of the military, energy and international issues, but I think they have the same level of understanding of economics, which is too low in my mind for either of them to be qualified. There is no question in my mind that Obama has more upside on the economic understanding side, but this is ranked under Factor 10: Potential, so he gets no credit here for that. On this factor, I give the edge to McCain. He scores a Level 3.5 in my book, with Obama barely getting a Level 2.5. For Obama fans, I know this is harsh, but I just don't believe he has the executive level skills required for the job. Given his lack of experience, I would not present Obama as a potential candidate, if I was given the search assignment to find the President of the United States. However, on this basis McCain probably wouldn't make the cut, either.

Motivation to Do the Work Required. Assessing motivation to do the work requires an understanding of real job needs plus an evaluation of the candidate's past performance in handling similar type work. I rank both candidates extremely high on this factor. They've both demonstrated an ability to work around-the-clock for causes they believe in. However, I'm concerned about McCain's health and endurance, so I'd give the edge to Obama on this one: 5.0 to 4.5.

.
Team Leadership. This factor addresses the candidate's ability to select, motivate, and develop a team of outstanding people. One could dispute my rankings here, but there's no question Obama has the ability to motivate supporters and select highly qualified advisors. It's less obvious if he will take their advice and make the necessary decisions. I question both candidates' choice of running mates, but as of now, I like McCain's less than Obama's. Governor Palin does not seem like a wise choice for me. It seems more politically-based than performance-based. Biden's a safe choice, albeit uninspiring. I have some concern about McCain's ability to build a world-class team of advisors, given the Phil Graham problem. On this factor, I give Obama a solid Level 4 and McCain a solid Level 3.
Problem-Solving Ability. This refers to the candidate's ability to figure out the causes of typical job-related problems likely to be faced on the job, the ability to articulate a vision of how to solve the problem, and then putting together a comprehensive plan-of-action. Judgment, intelligence, and insight all fall within this factor. However, a person's point-of-view will dramatically affect your ranking here. If you believe Obama's liberal agenda will work, you'll give him a Level 4 or better here. However, I believe it lacks substance and logic at the detail level. Worse, it doesn't fit my economic viewpoint of how to maximize the country's growth for all groups. Despite this misgiving, I need to give him a 3.5 on this factor for his ability to visualize a problem and put together a rough plan. On the McCain side, I believe he can handle a broader variety of problems he'll be faced with on the job, particularly achieving energy independence, handling global affairs, and handling the economy appropriately, so I need to give him a Level 4 here. (Note: I recognize my bias here.)
Achievement of Comparable Results. This is one of the most important factors in our ranking system. It's based on a track record of delivering results. Using our Performance-based Interview process we examine major accomplishments in detail, examine the trend of these accomplishments over time, and then compare them to the performance needs of the job. Even if both candidates were equally strong on this factor, if you have a different understanding of real job needs, you'd rank your candidate much higher than the other.

In this case to be fair, the comparison needs to be made on each candidate's past performance in meeting their party's agenda. On this basis you'd have to rank Obama low on the major issues (i.e., energy, crossing the aisle, international affairs, the economy, managing a budget, etc.), since he does not have any track record here. On the philosophic decision issues (i.e., selecting judges, funding for stem cells, etc.), you can rank him high if you agree with him and low if you don't. McCain's track record is much better on the performance issues, but certainly not perfect. While he's never held a comparable executive position, he does have some relevant military experience. However, other than holding a real executive position as Governor of Alaska, I rank Palin comparable to Obama on the performance comparison. As an independent, I rank McCain a 3.5 on this factor overall and Obama a 2.5, due to his lack of a track record of performance.

Over the years I've noticed a "rookie risk" factor whenever someone is given a job way above their current level of performance, despite the intellectual capacity to do the work. While top people can articulate a vision, without a track record of past comparable performance, there is a high degree of failure. There are just too many things that can go wrong when someone hasn't experienced and successfully dealt with similar issues. It's comparable to putting a great MBA professor in charge of a business. This point is fully explored in Bossidy and Charan's book, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.

This is the primary reason I'm very concerned with Obama. As an appropriate example, consider Abraham Lincoln's first few years in office. He couldn't convince Robert E. Lee to command the Union forces, he couldn't solve the secession problem diplomatically, he had a terrible war plan, he couldn't find a competent general for three years, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died needlessly, and he wouldn't take the advice of his security advisors not to go out in public on that fateful day in April, 1865. Despite Lincoln's successes, in my opinion many of these rookie mistakes could have been avoided with a more seasoned executive in charge, achieving the same overall outcome more smoothly.
Organization, Planning, and Management. For an executive-level position this factor involves ensuring that operating and strategic plans are met, budgets are negotiated and achieved, organizations are designed to be effective, and accountability is the watchword. Philosophically I rank McCain higher than Obama on this factor. However, Obama's ability to build a nationwide political team, raise enormous amount of money, mobilize a huge portion of the electorate, conduct a world-class convention, and get nominated for the Presidency is proof that he is strong on this factor. Overall, McCain's campaign seems a bit disorganized. Also, I'm not convinced that running an effective national campaign like Obama has is transferable to running a country. Based on these points, I'm giving Obama a Level 3.5 on this factor, and McCain a Level 3.0.
Trend of Growth over Time. Examining results over time reveals upward growth, but these need to be compared to the actual needs of the job. We expect a top performer to show significant growth in a short period of time, taking on bigger comparable job-related assignments, and performing successfully. While the job-related accomplishments are thin for Obama, the growth is fast. Despite this, his academic performance, rapid rise in politics, and a successful campaign are indicators of high potential. Regardless, since the track record is short, you couldn't give him any more than 3.0 on this factor if you're an independent. McCain has a strong senate track record, but from an accomplishment perspective, his military growth seems adequate, but he wouldn't be considered a fast-tracker. Overall, I'll give him a 3.5 on this factor. However, on this same factor, Palin should also be considered a fast-tracker, but it's still way too much of a leap to handle the Presidency.
Cultural Fit and Style. This factor represents a combination of a lot of variables, including how the person's style fits within the organization, their approach and speed of decision-making, working with others, and overall pace and intensity. This is a pretty tough one to evaluate since the President brings much of his own style to the job. However, I tend to prefer McCain's decisiveness and maverick style in getting results over Obama's academic approach. I've placed many top strategy thinkers, and they do not perform as well long-term in line roles over those who can execute and achieve results. I think in a crisis Obama will be too slow to act. However, this will be neutralized longer term, since he'll probably do a better job of putting a strong organization in place. Getting things done requires tough decision making, frequently without all of the information necessary. So, taking everything into account, I'm giving the edge to McCain with a 4.0 ranking, and Obama just a 3.0 on this factor.
Character and Values. This factor involves the critical issues like ethics, honesty, social values, family, faith, morals, and judgment. For this job, and both candidates, I'm going to assume the best and worst. I assume both candidates are honest within their family and social units, but both are ambitious politicians, so their ability to buck the party line is what I'm using to evaluate them on this factor. For Obama I'm still concerned about the Rev. Wright and William Ayres issues. He also has voted 97% on all Democratic issues. For McCain, I'm disappointed that he caved in to Bush after the 2000 elections, and for his selection of Sarah Palin for his running mate - for me she's too extreme on the social issues. To me these are politics-as-usual decisions, but I guess that's the kind of stuff you have to do to get elected. For me, these negative issues offset McCain's strong pattern of bucking party lines and crossing the aisle. Regardless, on the values/ethics factor, I'm giving both candidates a 2.5 ranking. While only average for the population at large, unfortunately it's pretty good for a politician.
Overall Potential to Move Up. For a manager-level position this factor refers to the person's ability to move up one or two management levels or handle more complex business challenges. It's determined largely by the person's trend of growth over time, the ability to logically articulate solutions to complex problems, the capacity to manage and organize teams to achieve success, and their team leadership skills. On this factor I give Obama more long-term upside than McCain, and I believe he does have the potential to be President some day, but not today. There's just too much of a "rookie risk" factor for me to tolerate. Realistically, though, if you're an Obama fan you have no choice, since the McCain/Palin ticket offers you no comfort. If you're okay with his world view, McCain has the potential to be an effective President with the "rookie risk" far less an issue. As an independent, I have to give Obama only a 2.5 on potential to be President today, but a 5.0 to be President in eight years. But it's today's vote that matters. I give McCain a 3.5 on Overall Potential, which is good, but not great.

On this 10-Factor Candidate Assessment Scorecard, from my independent voter's perspective, Obama received 31.5 points (out of 50) vs. McCain's 35.0 points. This, of course, would flip-flop depending on your Republican vs. Democratic leanings. To put everything in perspective, neither of these scores is remarkable. In my search practice a typical strong candidate would score somewhere in the high 30s to low 40s. Regardless of the overall score, we also have some deal-breakers that preclude us from hiring someone. We urge hiring managers to exclude anyone with a 2.0 on any of the 10 factors and look really carefully at the 2.5s (this is average).

Under this basis the "rookie risk" factor is a deal-breaker for me for Obama. If I agreed with his policies, I would only hope that he gets at least a year to put his team in place and get on top of all of the complex issues we're facing before we're hit with some major crisis. On the McCain side, while I don't agree with all of his positions, I can only hope he stays healthy, because I am not comfortable with Palin's social positions. Lieberman would have been my choice for V.P., but I hear this would have crushed the conservative base for McCain.

I dont like the mix of politics and business, although of course thats only a platonic ideal, not a practical reality. That said, I dont think its wise to expose one's self politically in a business setting because you will cost yourself some money.

Rather than showcase Lou's system, which probably works pretty well for hiring, its bound to look bad to all sides because we dont like to hear anything negative about our chosen sides.

Now that its out there, I do disagree with Lou on some pretty basic points. One of which is that "rookie risk" is part and parcel of the Presidency- there is no really comparable job one could have prior to that one. Buchanan was vastly experienced and a horrible president. Lincoln was a country lawyer and sometime state rep, and turned into the true father of our country.

I also disagree with Lou on problem-solving ability. For one, if you manage risks well and do things right, you wont get a ton of experience in solving big problems. The better you are, the worse your record may be, unless your job is to troubleshoot.

For another, I believe IQ is the best indicator of problem-solving ability, all other things being equal. I leave it to others to extrapolate that to the current race.

Also, I'm not sure Lou has his history straight regarding Lincoln's election; that very fact WAS the secession problem.

I wont even touch the ethics and values question, other to say that 'character' based decisions are well known to go sideways because human beings are super complex animals who can behave like gods or devils given the right stimulus.

The factors in the 'motivation' section appear to be illegal- you may not discriminate in hiring based on the age of the applicant unless there is a bona fide occupational need (e.g. you have to be 35 years old to be President).

All in all, im not impressed with this system for this purpose (admitted by Lou to be a stretch and done for fun), but I would have been better off not knowing about Lou's political views in such detail.

For the record: IMHO, if Barack Obama is not fit to be President (aside from his politcal positions), than nobody is.

From The The Incredibly Wrong File: Tiger and the US Open

Martin Snyder — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:42:04 -0400

When you believe virtually everything you read, life will be more interesting.

For example, when a senior writer for Sports Illustrated makes an impassioned argument, you might find yourself in agreement. You would be wrong.

Today's playoff win may have been 'the most amazing of them all' according to SI. I know that very little work was being done in our office and that watching TV on the Internet is BIG- this was memorable to me for that observation alone .

Verily, you must never fully trust the experts - self-interest easily clouds judgement; this guy was mad that he had to rent his car for another day.......

Get a data warehouse, or at least hire someone to sling bits for you

Martin Snyder — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:22:48 -0400

SystematicHR links to CedarCrestone's whitepaper research regarding the dollar value of human capital automation. Some good figures in there in case you were wondering what it costs a large firm to change someone's salary for instance, or approve a promotion.

My takeaway: no surprise, organizations with data warehousing capability show superior return. Also key: HR Help Desk systems and Competency Management systems. I see the former as any workflow or task/ticket system - essential for coordinated efforts by small groups, yielding high productivity.

Yes its true- if you can slice and dice data and use whatever systems you want to use, whenever you want to use them, and still get reliable numbers from your data warehouse, you are going to get your mission done faster, cheaper, and better than the other blokes.

I have been writing (esp. in context of Vurv/Taleo) about my contrary opinion that Talent Management is in a race with advancing data technique; firms with high powered HR data warehouses really don't/won't care if all the application interfaces or databases are from a single vendor.

Tuesday Morning in Cleveland - No Such Thing as a Free Lunch You Say?

Martin Snyder — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:46:19 -0400

John Sumser has been out to prove otherwise.

He brings the tradeshow experience to recruiters who may have never been to a real event, and packs four hours of real content between a light breakfast, and yes, a free lunch. His notion: bringing 125 recruiters together at no cost to themselves on a regular basis will naturally lead to good business activity and fun for all concerned. Sponsors do pay (somebody always has to pay, but John will need to be extra clever to figures that one out!) but the only expected ROI for a sponsor is the genuine and appreciated halo effect arising from doing something in a true community spirit (and the ritual giving away of schwag, of course).

If its Tuesday and its Cleveland, lament not: its a fine town and we are going to have a great time.

Learn about the event here.

Big Problems with Relocated Talent

Martin Snyder — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:11:41 -0400

More interesting news today for the industry, beyond the dismal employment numbers: internal migration (e.g. relocation) is way down in the past year and expected to decrease again in 2008-2009 timeframe.

Reason: if you can't sell your house, you can't take that job in another city.

If you are a recruiter who does a lot of relo business, you are already probably more of real-estate expert than you might have expected to be at this point......I know I know more about mortgage banking than I ever thought I would.....

Non-Competes and Database Transfers

Martin Snyder — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:36:11 -0400

Intersting take on non-compete agreements today on thestreet.com

The gist is than rather than attemp to complete/enforce an uphill battle, you might be better as a firm owner to sell departing recruiters their books of business for (a suggested valuation) 3X sales.

I think this indeed may be a more common practice in the TPR industry, as we now deal with database transfers to ex-employees at least a few times per month.

Some tips if you are including database elements in an agreement:

-Make it clear if the transfer will be a move or a copy (e.g. will you retain the data and then both use it going forward, or will you no longer have access to it?)

-Make it clear when title to the data is passed (upon final payment, upon execution, or something in the middle).

-Make it clear what kind of data is to be subject and which is not (e.g. company database files , Outlook contacts, Word docs, email archives, etc.)

- You may want to inform your database vendor or IT people that a given data asset may be subject to future transfer- could lower costs to seperate it going forward and avoid mistakes later

From my seat, it might also be smart to include provisions in any future account sales agreement about solicitation of your other employees- losing one person is one thing; mass exodus is a whole other thing.

It also might be smart to define what it takes to 'secure' a client (i.e. how much of the work was the salesperson's and how much was the firm's, with a valuation model fitted to each situation)

This is a tough but real aspect of bringing people along in any services business......

Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008

Martin Snyder — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:46:27 -0400

For those of you who know who he was, he probably had as much influence on you as he did on me. We are far from a small group- so rather than echo what so many others have said about him, here are links to a Space.com tribute, part 2, and his Wikipedia page.

Many, many scientists, engineers, and aerospace types were inspired by his work, and as a vector toward the subject of recruiting, it should never be underestimated how powerful real inspiration can be.

His passing marks the end of an era- although its been well and truly gone since at least the early eighties, when the visual arts began to dominate popular SF.

Profits are Privatized and Losses are Socialized

Martin Snyder — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:23:24 -0400

Yes I am aware that ERE is not an economics or political website, but events are now so serious in the macroeconomic area that there is little doubt that recruiting will be impacted in the coming months and years by what is happening today.

The bailout of Bear Stearns lasted about 48 hours before taking another turn; the essential wipeout of the firm, sold to JPMorgan for maybe the value of its office furnishings.

Nouriel Roubini has been an astute observer of the crisis- his Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster have been widely linked and discussed, and we now appear to be at Step 9.

He closes his latest post with the line:

Breaking decades-old rules and practices is a radical action that seriously requires a clear public explanation and justification.

To which I can only ask:

Where the heck has he been for the last six years?

Treasury Sec Paulson: Talent is now the #1 measure of success

Martin Snyder — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:11:31 -0400

I have been watching for what seems like years now as leaders recognize that talent has now almost wholly superseded capital as the key driver of business worldwide.

Secretary Paulson today gave an important speech regarding an interagency working group tasked with getting a handle on the ongoing credit crisis/ meltdown we are seeing. I thought the speech was well conceived although I think he laid too much blame at the feet of investors-saying that they had to do more work to understand what they were buying, and that simply counting on credit ratings is not enough. Frankly, nobody without advanced math degrees could really understand how CDO's and Credit Default Swaps eventually pan out; the essence of the problem is that it appears that nobody can know. Not to mention that the rating systems are rigged (even if the rating agencies could understand the products, which they clearly don't) being the elephant in the room.

The quote that really got my attention was this one:

"The ultimate success of any CEO is largely determined by the answer to one question: Do we have the right people in the right jobs with the right incentive structure? And these large financial institutions have a large number of key jobs to fill."

If you are in the talent business, you have to be pleased that the very highest levels of economic leadership in our society are thinking along these lines.

Reading the whole speech might be worth a few minutes of your time- he hits on a lot of the key drivers of our current crisis, without doubt one of the biggest challenges our country has faced in a generation, if not the past 50 years.

Beyond Decimated

Martin Snyder — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:02:26 -0400

I dont know how anyone in business could fail to be disturbed by this report.*

Not only do we imprison more people than any other nation per capita, we have a ticking time bomb among African-American men, with more than 10% of prime career age behind bars. Literally decimated.

In the past 10 years, more than 1000 measures have been passed to increase sentences, and not a single one to reduce them.

This can't continue......

*excepting folks in the prison-industrial sector, of course....

30 second interviews- hmmmmm

Martin Snyder — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:03:04 -0400

Saw this item today about speed recruiting. I wonder how its going to turn out ?

Kevin Wheeler has a good item up today regarding just how selective one should be. I think it varies by role- creative and leadership types should be wide open in terms of experience and qualification, while technical, medical, and engineering types should be very tight-for obvious reasons.

Credentialism can lead to ossification and caste-building systems that weaken a culture; on the other hand, when rewards are decoupled from contributions, you need some way to aportion the pie that does not include physical force....

Dallas Recruiting Roadshow - Nice Model

Martin Snyder — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:51:44 -0400

I attended John Sumser’s Recruiting Roadshow in Dallas.

Amitai Givertz called me and proposed a sponsorship opportunity.

Because I know Ami and John, I knew this would be a great event,

and it was. You can read about the particulars here, but to me,

this was an eye-opener in a few ways.

One was that of that 150 people in attendance, just a handful had

ever been to real recruiting trade show like ERE Expo. As a

result, because of both the novelty and quality of the presenters,

the audience was fully engaged for the entire event. This could

have gone a full day rather than a half day, and I think the crowd

would have barely thinned- people were clearly enjoying themselves.

Two was that in a way, bringing the ‘talent’ to the people rather

than the other way around is not at all a bad idea. That’s not to

say there is not still a huge value on an all-up event like ERE

Expo, because its not apples to apples. The big event draws many

vendors, execs, and markets into one time and place, and there are

irreplaceable benefits to doing that. The Roadshow, on the other

hand, provides a much more accessible taste of the experience by

trimming it down to its essence; learning with thought leaders and

the social buzz of mingling with your peers.

Three was a new kind of value emphasized by the deal itself. Ami

and John Sumser realized that technology has changed some things

around in ways that allow this to be totally free to attendees,

reasonably priced for sponsors, and adequately rewarding for the

organizers.

For attendees, the show is coming to them, it only costs their

attention and a short drive, and it’s a compact, high quality

experience. I think many of the people in Dallas may want to do it

again next year.

For sponsors, the pop is in the act of being a sponsor. The

Internet increases the value of a short branding experience because

interested buyers can gain more information with a click in an

exploring / buying medium (the Internet) with which they are fully

comfortable. The branding experience is effective because you have

an intensely engaged audience. Anyone experienced in marketing

knows that multiple brand exposures prior to customer demand are a

key driver of sales conversion events. In our business, trade

shows are an expensive way to gain brand exposures and a very

expensive way to gain sales conversions.

This type of event remains an expensive way to gain brand

exposures, yet still saves money and finds relatively fresh targets

relative to a trade show. With an executive deployed, there are

inevitably some direct business opportunities to be found almost

anywhere a few hundred people gather in one industry.

For John, Ami, and the presenters, they each brand themselves

fabulously with the audience and have their direct costs covered.

Cell phones, wireless web and mobile devices combined with Internet

powered travel infrastructure allows a kind of miracle; I woke up

in my bed in a Cleveland, OH exaburb, traveled to Dallas TX, had a

fully engaged seven hour workday at two locations, and traveled

home in time to be in my kitchen with a chicken sandwich at

midnight.

The entire trip, with car-rental, airfare, etc., cost

$296 and a few gallons of diesel for the family tank.

All in all, it was a winner. I don’t know if the model works

forever or is only fun once, but it was a good time and I hope the

model has legs. I think the organizers worked hard and did well,

and Main Sequence was grateful for the invitation.

Last, DFW Airport has to be seen to be imagined. I have been there

before, but this time I had a flyaround to see the scale of the thing.

Within the belly of the beast, you lose all sense of direction as you are

enveloped my masses of concrete in every configuration and hundreds

of turns in the roads. All from a shuttle bus that felt like a small craft

on a cement sea. Yet, the sailing was smooth from the highway to

the ever too-small seat on the plane. First time I was ever on a jet

with one-seat rows. I kind of liked it.

Politics Infecting Recruiting- Vector: OFCCP

Martin Snyder — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:59:14 -0400

Howard Adamsky's emphatic post on the OFCCP Internet Applicant Rule, while overheated, is interesting to me for a number of reasons.

First is my long and extensively documented disgust with the rule. I don't think keywords are a prevailing or even material tool of discrimination (but I do think names and ZIP codes are). I think the economic impact of the rule is way beyond $100 million (the threshold a rule must not cross to avoid an actual cost/benefit analysis by executive order). I think the rule is unconstitutional as hell because you are forced to report to the government which of your own documents you have read.

But more noticeable to me lately is how much politics have infused themselves into business. I can remember a time not so long ago when business etiquette tended toward euphemism when politics entered the stage, and smooth operators kept indications of political leanings to a minimum (beyond healthy admiration of a dollar, which now sadly seems to have disappeared as well).

See the politics creeping in there? It's hard to keep politics at bay day-to-day when events have names like credit crunch, housing meltdown, war, peak oil, and torture. I don't really want to think about the implications of a truly evolved totalitarian / capitalist government driven by an ideology of profit for a two class system of owners and everyone else. (naturally the ownership class will be more finely graded than Olympic figure skating, but that's human beings fer ya...)

All I want is to do is my bit to help make it happen. After all, talent management may be the killer app for social control.

Howard compares the rule to SOX, as did Kurt Ronn (in a BusinessWeek online article), but in opposite ways. Kurt argued that the rule is better than bad, its good- because process gives structure, and structure is good. I strongly disagreed with Kurt because bad process gives bad structure. SOX provides for reasonable generalized control objectives relating to accounting and on the whole, while expensive, seems to have turned out well. The OFCCP rule, on the other hand, is unreasonable, far too specific, and has had no good results yet (I have no information about results because I have yet to hear of any enforcement actions). I'll say this for Kurt; from his comment on Howard's post, he remains sanguine about the potential for abuse and the slippery slope on this one.

Howard, on the other hand, compares it to SOX as both being examples of bad regulations. I disagree for the same reasons; SOX seems to be OK.

But then Howard has to bring Al Gore into it. And to finish with a real flourish, he has to bring Ayn Rand, the Ann Coulter of her day, into it. And then Colin Kingsbury had to bring global warming into it, along with a cite of Whittaker Chambers, just to show his range. So the whole thing went political.

Colin throws out the sophistry that:

"OFCCP regulations apply to a very specific group of companies, namely, those who do a significant amount of government contracting. No government contracts, no OFCCP compliance requirements."

When we are facing a government of 40% of GDP in a generation that is not a sustainable position.

Colin says about climate change that "generalized guilt and suspicion of progress and wealth underlies much of the current global warming frenzy" Maybe its just suspicion of the wealthy that's the driver.....but I don't really think that it is. I think it's the ease with which anyone can do a simple thought experiment to figure out the issue:

1) Park your car in your garage and close the door, but keep the engine running. What happens?

2) Multiply your garage's volume by a some billions and do a powertrain upgrade on your car to a billion internal combustion engines, and leave the whole rig running in your big garage for 100 years. What happens ?

Old Whittaker and I agree- Atlas Shrugged sucked as both novel and philosophy. I find it a little unsettling that as he utterly destroys Atlas Shrugged he culminates with a foreshadowing of our current polarized body politic:

"In an age like ours, in which a highly complex technological society is everywhere in a high state of instability, such answers, however philosophic, translate quickly into political realities. And in the degree to which problems of complexity and instability are most bewildering to masses of men, a temptation sets in to let some species of Big Brother solve and supervise them. "

Howard too culminates with a warning, and thats what makes his post special and well worth writing about:

"I get the feeling they are looking at the recruiting industry closely, very closely. You never wanted to work for the government? Guess what: You already are, and you ain't seen nothin' yet."

The OFCCP Rule is nothing but Big Brotherism and should be vigorously fought at every turn, not "accepted" as a stage on the way to perdition.

Economy swings to 4k job loss from 100K expected gain

Martin Snyder — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 10:05:58 -0400

Not much to report beyond the numbers. News story can be found here.

From our trends over the summer, TPR remains healthy (but more competitive than ever) while corps are showing a mixed outlook.

Corps are showing distinct interest in sourcing and contact management as opposed to basic hiring systems.

Remains to be seen if these employment drops are connected to the summer financial crisis and are a trailing factor or if they signal a real inbound recession as a leading indicator.

Gonna be a tense October in a lot of offices around the USA.

Monster Restructures: Forgets About Talent

Martin Snyder — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 11:24:01 -0400

I first read of the Monster restructure on Elaine Rigoli?s Vendor Report and I was gobsmacked (an ever useful adjective) by the apparent total lack of investment or discussion around Monsters talent strategy, both internally and for customers.

I don?t know where the phrase came from discussing areas to be cut, but the line "non-revenue generating functions, such as human resources" says it all.

Were I come from; ALL revenue is generated by Human Resources.

Considering that Monster?s customers are all about Human Resources, one might have hoped that they would be contemplating "world-class, innovative products" that address the most fundamental shift in business in the last 20 years- the totality of talent tools and techniques driving business success and differentiation more than ever.

I would been excited to hear about millions of dollars being spent on talent initiatives- how to help the remaining 85% of Monster?s staff do more for customers and ensure that a customer will always be working with a superior performer.

Online job posting is still a huge and important market worthy of investment, but what I see here is another missed opportunity for Monster to exploit their current strong position to launch themselves as a major provider of talent tools, techniques, and thinking.

Cheezhead is all over the story if you want to see the actual talent- free communications.

By the way, Joel shows that bloggers can be real journalists and puts many full-bore HR magazines to shame.

Also I wanted to thank everyone for the great comments and emails on the post about my dad passing away. I appreciated each one very much. I?m not big on emotional exhibitionism- but there I was. Now I?m back to my closed-off self ;-)