Change is hard.  It’s also inevitable.  Each and every day we have to address the changes that are thrown upon us from our work, friends, loved ones and even random strangers.  Change gives us a feeling of fear, relief, growth and hope all at once – yet many people never create the change they want to experience until it is forced on them.  Why?  Because there are always a million reasons not to make the changes you want to make.   Its always easier to leave things as is but in my blog’s case – It needed change.

So….I did it – I got a new design, made the change happen and am asking for some feedback…

What do you think?  Love it?  Hate It?  Think the color should change?

Dear .jobs,

This is a hard letter to write – but I know it must be done.  It seems like just yesterday when we first met – but its been almost 5 years.  In that time, I always wanted to believe in you and think what you were saying was true.  I was young and hopeful and really did think that you were going to change the world.

I’m in my 30′s now, .jobs, and while I still wish for that youthful love and world conquering idealism I once had with you – the dream has faded – partially because of the reasons I pointed out in 2007 on the mis-steps and marketing errors and pricing structure and lack of buy in  and ….  but I still hoped for your sake I was wrong.

I know we had some moments of glimmer and you told me about all the wonderful things you were going to do for me.  But now, its just sad.  The time to strike was hot a few years ago and the relationships are lost.

I’ve moved on .jobs.  I’ve seen that love .com and I shared was real and the “Ohh Shiney” stuff that you offered was not real.   He does what he says.  He shows up in google searches.  His domains are only $6.99 with a discount code at GoDaddy.  He gets hits because its where my job seekers want to go.   We are happy, our career sites are thriving.    Please stop and leave us alone.  Leave SHRM alone – they are getting this social media thing finally figured out – please let them focus on that.

Sincerely,

Me

PS.  Thanks to @jobboarddoctor for his post today on ERE which made me get all worked up over this issue again.  Read it.  He’s right.  Only 1 winner.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I love movies and the way that regardless of what is going on in our economy, lives, politics, world, etc a good movie can totally take you out of it and introduce you into a world unknown for a period of time.  I also love the lessons that we can learn from watching them – on life, risk taking, love, friendship, forgiveness and of course recruiting & branding.

20 Years ago – An Oscar was THE goal.  It was credibility, notoriety, fame, fortune and the physical manifestation of success.  Today its is the same thing with a interesting way to select movies that half the US population never will see.

20 Years Ago – The MTV Movie Awards didn’t exist.  But in the last 19 years it has evolved into being the one place where movies that people actually watch over and over and over – regardless of their technical and acting quality can be recognized for simply being awesome.

The Oscar is like the HR’s answer to the “Best Places to Work List”

The MTV Movie award is where your friends love to work.

(Now, select the alternate ending of the blog that best meets your needs)

I’m A Company:

Having a “best places to work” icon on your career site is great and a huge feat and something every company should be extremely proud of.  But don’t expect it to sell its self any more.  People aren’t looking at that as the end all be all of great places to actually work.  Its an icon, like an Oscar, but we all know that where people fill the seats and spend the money isn’t always on the oscar contenders.   Make sure that you are selling your company for what makes it unique an some of the features that aren’t always considered on those lists.

MTV Movie awards does the basics (best female lead, best movie…blah blah) but what makes them stand out and unique is they do other categories like best kiss or best WTF moment.  And the other categories aren’t wasted on things like costume and make up design because, well, people EXPECT that to be there in movies now.  You only playing up your branding around your excellent benefits or other things that everyone else on that list can offer is actually putting you at the disadvantage.  Job Seekers are EXPECTING that – especially from a Oscar Worthy organization.

I’m A JobSeeker:

So, you are out there searching for a job.  You are like an actor that is reading over 2 scripts determining if your next best career move is the oscar worthy epic where you will have a bit part or if it is the potential summer break out hit where you will have a bit part.

Don’t feel pressure to “want” to work at the companies on the “best places to work” or where your friends love to work.  Its ok to work for the quirky off the wall place that everyone just loves to work at but doesn’t win any awards.  As you look for your next role – take a look at those lists, but also take a look at other places that you hear about, read about on social media or online or just randomly see a opening at.   Decide for yourself based on conversations with current employees, the feel you get when you walk in for your interview, the way you are treated throughout the process to make your decision and where the “best place to work for you”.

Honestly, its because we women often suck.

We are competitive and jealous and insecure and catty and feel that we need to tear each other down to build ourselves up. We look at other successful, beautiful, intelligent women and think that we have to be better from them vs. learning, supporting & partnering with them.

Its always been a issue I’ve wondered about and in an offline discussion at #ungeeked last week with Chris Brogan and Sally Hogshead when she flat out asked him why she thought there were so few women leaders in social media by comparison to men – his answer was simple – they tear each other down!

Its a uniquely female thing.  And it needs to end. We don’t see this happening with men in our industry – in fact many of the men within social media have amazingly quick rises to success because of the massive support of female “fans” – yet when the tables are turned – the support is just completely lacking.  In the business world, we have some left over remnants of a 1970′s life that makes us think that there are only so many “spots” for women in business and we are only competing with each other vs with all of the people we work with (men).  I’ve seen women in their 50′s tear down and almost punish younger women coming into the work force while supporting and almost mentoring the young men that came into the same situation.  I’ve seen women in their late 20′s and early 30′s refuse to even talk to other women in their industry space because they view them as competition vs. a potential partner.

I’ve got an amazing network of men in my industry that have taught me so much about my career path, going after what I want and not making apologies for anything.  At the same time, I realized that in HR, we are lucky to have a strong group of women who want to encourage and support the growth of one another and through that I have grown and developed both professionally and as a person through amazing relationships that I have developed and by listening to the advice of with strong, intelligent women in our industry like Laurie Ruettimann, Jenny DeVaughn, Susan Burns and more.

So, here’s the deal – you will never ever ever ever be the smartest, cutest, nicest, prettiest, youngest, most popular, most respected, most coveted, blah blah blah.

So my message is pretty simple:

Grow up. Support One Another. Don’t be a bitch.

“What about Gen X?  Why does everyone forget about us?  How come its all about gen y and boomers? We matter too!”    A gen x’er asked while we were out and about in Chicago after my generational panel last weekend at #HREvolution.

“Because you aren’t loud enough” was my response.

The truth of the matter is that people sell and talk about things that other people listen to and are willing to pay for.  Advertisers pay more for certain shows because people watch them.  Certain colleges charge more than others because they have created a demand and people will pay for it.  You look at the agenda before you register for a conference – why?  because you want to see if you have an interest in what is going on.

Lets face it Gen Y is loud.  We tweet, blog, write, speak a lot.  We have a lot of names, faces, websites and everything else to keep us in the mix.  A lot of what we do isn’t self serving – its about helping other Gen Y’er move forward in the world.   Its about sticking up for ourselves in the “gen y sucks” world.  Its about a group of people that have always been social and public and just using their technology to enhance those relationships.

The truth is that Gen Y wouldn’t be that big of a deal and we wouldn’t talk about it so much if the boomers wouldn’t have started talking about them and then developing experts (who weren’t even gen y) to go out and talk to companies about this “crazy” new group of youngin’s coming.  So, quite honestly we wouldn’t be the way we were if it weren’t for the boomers.

So, to wrap it up – yes we talk about Gen Y alot – Its all the boomers fault – and oh, shoot – I totally forgot to talk about Gen X again.

So…they let me host the HR Carnival this go around.  It was great to connect with some new bloggers that I didn’t know before and read some of the posts that I missed over the past few weeks….Enjoy!

Social Media In HR? – Yep, we are still talking about that….

Where do we event start with Social Recruiting? Craig Fisher at Fishdogs fills us in!

Understanding Social Media Strategy by Ben Eubanks at UpstartHR  (Sweet infographic made using rocket pop ice cream. How can you go wrong?)

Maybe it should be called Uncivilized hmmm…. the folks at HRMarketer make you think about your online persona

JobSeeker?  Learn from the pros….

Learn about Secret Jobseeker Tips by Bryon Abramowitz at The HR Technologist

Mark Stelzner at Inflexion Advisors tells you how to Get a Life – Not a Job!

Read about some real life Interview Horror Stories on Rich DeMatteo’s Cornonthejob.com blog from his #jobhuntchat

The HRMinion gets deep with Locus of Control

3 Ways to Manage Your Career Like Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings Very cool post (and a sxsw video) from Marsha Keeffer

Want some HR Generalist knowledge?  These are so great I almost bought a cat & pant suit.  (KIDDING!! I’m just jealous I don’t have an SPHR.  Seriously.  I want one.)

Lisa Rosendahl asks WHY ARE YOU SO ANGRY WITH ME?? on her blog Simply Lisa.

When you talk – Do people listen? Read the Devon Groups post on how to take advantage of this.

HR 2.0 – What’s Next – (Refreshingly, its surprisingly non technical or social) by Cathy Missildine-Martin

The Power of Why (the answer isn’t because I said so) by Joe Brown

Do you do Stay Interviews? I didn’t know they existed.  Thanks to Kari Quaas - now I do.

Three Reasons to Treat Your Employees Right (Right Now) by Krista Francis

Get yourself some Compensation, Benefits & Laborishness – Oh My…

Need a round up on New Labor Relations Board – the brilliant Mike Vandevort over at HR Race Horses made it so easy even I got it!

The Talent Junction Blog wants you to really understand how to use Variable Compensation as a Motivation & Retention Tool

And a few posts about my true love….Technology….from some of the smartest people on the block.

Some software Demo tips for CUSTOMERS from the InfoBox blog of Mike Krupa

Naomi Bloom is filling us in on the new Workday changes at InFullBloom (If you don’t read her blog -you should- there are always a few random, wild stories mixed in with great technology info!)

What am I Working On? A post by Steve Boese talking about how new technology is more than just getting it in – its making it work for your culture that counts!

Be a better leader in just a few minutes with these tidbits of wisdom…

Is there an Inclusion Illusion?  Read what Joe Gerstandt has to say

Reminder to remember others with a touching post by David Kovacovich called The Watch

Chris Young challenges you to do a Team 360 Performance Feedback now to better lead the rest of the year

Forget the Research… There are Only 3 Types of People by Ben McCall at RethinkHr

Wally Bock  fills us in on the The Myth of Perfect Productivity and how we keep doing studies on obvious things – like time getting wasted at work. Brilliant.

And to be honest – these were all just really random and didn’t fit anywhere else…

Drew Tarvin explores the humor at work at the Detroit Airport.

Trish McFarlane at HR Ringleader talks about why you should come see Chicago and a lot of the HR Bloggers at HREvolution next month!

Going Humble with the Amish a guest post on GreatLeadershipbyDan.com blog

Take a big girl pill with me!

Ahh…the reality of getting skipped over for a promotion and what to do when you are too good at your job, so your boss can’t afford to lose you.

Some songs about work… (This may be my personal favorite – I love song blogs)

As a side note -I know I missed someone –

1. If it was an accident & it was you – i’m VERY VERY sorry -email me and I’ll add it right away.  This is a ton of work and I’m sure I made a mistake.
2. If it wasn’t an accident & it was you – I can’t in good faith just post a blog that is an obvious sales pitch for your services.  Seriously.  I’m So Corporate is a sarcastic blog title.  I hate being sold to and hate people trying to hide a sales pitch into a very obvious sales pitch blog.  So emailing me a new post is probably a better option than sending the same sales pitch as before and i’ll be happy to post it.

Thanks everyone for participating in this weeks #HRCarnival and a huge thank you to @hrminion for letting me fill in and help out this week!

Sometimes things don’t go the way you expected them to.  The time, effort and personal investment we put into something that simply ended in nothing more than a simple “that’s it” in the story of life can be an emotional toll.   The high you ride when things are great and moving along in the right direction often opens its way to a melancholy state of contentment where you are sure they are moving still – but not sure if its the direction you want to be headed until the anti-climatic end to things that you held so close for so long is often more of a let down the then event its self.

I remember the same type of emotion when I was recruiting full time.  The emotional high you get off of things clicking together just right is amazing. When a candidate you know is a perfect gets an offer and you know it changes their life. When you were able to fill a position that had been sitting open for months because you thought of a different way to do it.   Then, the meh way you feel when you are scoring a few wins, but not any slam dunks then the downturn you get when things start going wrong.  The offer you sent out was declined.  The sure thing candidate blew it with the hire manager. The person that sounded so great on the phone was a dud in real life.  You start second guessing what you do, how you missed the signs and your role in the events that played out.

Its at that point you need to take your Big Girl Pill and suck it up.  You have to realize the life (and business lessons) that you are learning or be doomed to repeat them again.

What you learn via a Big Girl Pill:

1. People make mistakes.  If you don’t – then you are making the mistake to assume you don’t make mistakes.  Don’t dwell on your mistakes and don’t hold mistakes over other peoples heads.
2. Learn from everything.  Whether its you or someone else that you watch crash and burn – understand what happened and how you can do things differently.
3. Get over yourself.  You can NOT control other people’s actions.  You can only control your own actions and how you respond to other people’s behavior.  Don’t dwell on things you can’t change.  Don’t wish people would change.
4. Be a friend. Even when someone doesn’t deserve it.  Being compassionate and understanding gives you more than it gives anyone else.  So this is really a bit of a selfish one, but being a bit@h really doesn’t do any good.
5. Grow up. Not everything you do is going to be great.  You will fail.  A lot.  You will suck.  A lot.  Don’t be a baby and blame other people – be accountable when you F up.
6. You are awesome.  No matter what goes wrong, if you tried your best then that is all you (or anyone else) can ask of you. Don’t doubt and second guess yourself.  Revert back to #2 as needed.  (Let the Gen Y color’s fly)

A big girl pill isn’t always the easiest thing to swallow.  It requires you to evaluate your self and your role in your life.  It requires you to make adjustments and learn.  It requires you to have confidence, modesty, empathy and humility all at once.  It requires you to be able to move on.  It may not be the easiest thing to swallow, but it will allow you to grow and develop faster than anything else professionally ever could.

In the real world people are cautious about what and how they say things.  There is something about looking someone in the eye or hearing their voice on the phone that changes the mental decision making process between what you want to say to someone and what you actually do say.  It is in that situation that your brains decision making process kicks into overdrive and helps you make good decisions not to upset, hurt, offend, etc.

In my real world life, I get faced with a tough decision (or lets face it, an easy one) and I carefully analyze it, weigh the risks, potential outcomes of each possible option, the impact it will have on all of the parties involved and make a educated decision based on those factors.  What wins is the path that seems the most logical.  I rarely make a decision based on emotional drivers.

In social media however, most people just put it out there (me included!!!).  I don’t always think through what I do or say or the larger, longer term impact that it can have.  From a decision making factor it is like taking a few shots of tequila then exposing me to 2000+ people to say exactly what I think.  We forget that much like when we say things in our real life, we can’t really take it back.  In fact its worse in social media because the electronic record is there forever.

The complete opposite tends to hold true for most organizations that are tightly controlling their “branding” – There is so much time spend doing the analyzing of what you should/shouldn’t put out there that they often come across so vanilla that a potential employee doesn’t really know them at all.  Your corporate facebook fan page, twitter accounts, corporate blog, etc  are all an extension of your organization and what you put out there about your organization – both good and bad – needs to be analyzed just like you were saying or presenting it to someone face to face.

When you are sitting in an interview with someone or talking to people at a BBQ – what do you say then (positive) about your company?  When they are frustrated or get a call from a headhunter – what makes employees stay with you?  Its typically not what is on your traditional branding material and on the information you feed out online.

I’m not suggesting you dive overboard and go to the extreme that a lot of us do as individuals – putting things out there that you probably shouldn’t have.  But, I am encouraging brands to move in that direction and be more human.  Be more real.  Be more vulnerable. Show the quirks and the not so positive part while highlighting the rest.

In doing so, you’ll gain the people that appreciate your company for who it is and want to work their regardless.

Just like the people who stay friends with me even when I do (and say) really stupid things.

I’m new to Tapas so I love going with people who know what they are doing.  They look at a menu with 100′s of options and just shout out numbers at people that pass by.  Food just shows up in totally random increments – nothing in order, not knowing what exactly to expect, assuming its going to be what you are looking for.

Tapas is like a dream eating situation – if you don’t like something you quickly move on – no commitment, no second guessing if you made the right decision, no envying across the table at what everyone else got.  You just take a few bites and sample a little bit of everything – its like a food nirvana. That is until you find one that you really like and you realize that everyone else also liked that one the best and you can’t ever again figure out what it was or how to order more because the plate is empty, replacements have been distributed already and you have nothing left to even show the waiter as an example – any remnants of that favorite one have already been devoured by the hungry table who is really just eating ‘real food’ to fill in for more plates of bacon wrapped dates to come from the kitchen and sangria pitchers to be refilled and the waiter.  I tried to reorder something i liked once and got a plate of sausage.   I don’t like sausage.  I wanted more spicy chicken.  I suck at ordering Tapas.

As with so many other random things in life, I immediately saw the correlation with hiring.

How Tapas is the Same as Recruiting

Recruiters = Diners.

They are like me – the hungry consumer waiting to eat and not exactly sure what we are going to get.  We hope that what we are asking for is what we are really looking for and we often go on what others have done before us as a basis of future activity.

Tapas = Applicants

There are hundreds of options out there – each one slightly different from the next but on the menu they all kind of look the same.  The applicants (tapas) fly at the recruiters (diners) at crazy speeds – each being pushed my the servers (ahh….think 3rd party recruiters) that are telling you what they have and why its great.

Eating = Screening

Actually eating the various tapas that fly at you and narrowing down the ones that you really like is kinda like the screening/interviewing phase.  The hungry diners (recruiters) are so busy going around getting a little bit of everything off the plates that they don’t always pay close attention to what they are sampling.  You are excluding the candidates you don’t like, trying to find more of ones you did – and overlooking the details that will really matter in the long run when you try to replicate the hire again.  This is the most important part of the tapas and recruiting experience – yet we often rush through it seeing if there is something better – overlooking the greatness we already have.

ReOrder = Interview

Know what you want – pay attention in the earlier phases so when you get to the point of the interview (re-order) you are asking for what you really want and need from that candidate.  Don’t just ask questions at random – make sure you target in based on their needs and yours.  You don’t want to end up with the wrong thing because you didn’t pay attention and ordered wrong after being left with just a table full of empty plates.

Moral of the story is to pay attention when eating your applicants Tapas so you don’t end up with sausage when you wanted chicken.  Oh, and I totally love Tapas now.

We often overlook the power of language.  We don’t always appreciate the emotional impact a word can have on the dynamics of a relationship – the way the same word can bring 2 people together, or pull them apart. A single word can evoke feelings of excitement, amazement and anticipation in one and fear, denial and regret in another.  The selection of that single word can forever change the path and journey you are taking. We forget that as hard as we try, once said, those words cannot be taken back.  The impact is out there – the fall out (good or bad) is ours and ours alone to deal with.

There can be nothing more powerful than a single word.

Yet as we go about our daily lives we forget about that awesome power.  The way that what we say shapes others perceptions, feelings, mood.  It why you choose to by one product over another.  Its why a picture of LaCoste can make two people laugh for no reason.  Its why we pay $5 for a coffee when we could have one just as good for $2.  Its about managing the emotional response through carefully crafted lingustics.  Instead, we often pretend like this impact doesn’t exist.

In human resources – no where is the power of language more evident than in your job postings.  The way you word a job ad – will make a dream candidate fight for what they want (your job) or by pass it totally.  It will give the impression to others of the cultue, mindset and vision for your organization.  It will make them know its better than what they have or make them apprehensive and scared to take that next step.  It is the language that defines your company for a number of job seekers beyond any branding or website that may exist.  It is their reality.

When you are going through your jobs this week – take a few minutes to look at the posts from a job seekers perspective.  What words are you using to build or destroy a relationship?  What language have you selected that is the emotional catalyst to draw the right people in?  Take control of the reality and manage what you say carefully – make sure it is what you mean and you aren’t having to be playing catch up after the fact and explaining yourself later.