Archive for November, 2009

Reflections on the unconference TruLondon

Today was an auspicious event: Trulondon an unconference planned by Bill Boorman, and his merry band of geniuses.  I have admired Bill from afar because he embodies something sorely missing from the industry of recruiting: a heart of gold.

It has been an honor to participate in Bill’s blogradio show over the past few weeks.  I am the girl who toots the horn of compassion.  We simply can’t take the “human” out of human resources, yet so many try.  There’s been much discussion about whether or not HR is dead.  No, not dead yet, to quote Monty Python.  Perhaps we might kill it with the soul sucking attitude that recruiters are there to tag, bag and deliver candidates for positions as if they are cattle to be herded into positions.  Ok, I get it, recruiters find people for jobs, rather than jobs for people.  However; with that said I am inspired by the model of recruiting that many in the UK have embraced.  In England, recruiters value the needs and concerns of the candidate equal to those of the client.  They are not merely square pegs in square holes.  They are human beings.  They are also in a position to provide job orders to recruiters in the future.  Therefore, I assert it makes sense to treat candidates with respect, and offer them the generous time one would an employer.

On today’s show there were recruiters from Scotland, Canada, and the UK.  While I sincerely appreciate the diversity of many viewpoints, I beg to differ with certain opinions.  For instance, a guest on today’s panel suggested that recruiters must be ruthless in order to be effective.  I heartily disagree. In fact, I posit that the word “ruthless” ought to be removed from the recruiter’s vocabulary.  It is neither effective, nor does this word engender the spirit of sales.  Isn’t recruiting, in its finest form, a type of skilled salesmanship?  Does it not make sense to be customer focused? I understand the viewpoint of the recruiter who suggested we ought to be ruthless. Does it not make better sense to reframe the argument to say that rather recruiters should be discerning and pragmatic. From a practical standpoint, this is a more helpful viewpoint.

I make no apologies for being a customer service evangelist.  From the time Blanchard published his book “knock your socks off customer service,” to the present tense, recruiters should take a note out of the play book.  Customer service is the NEW customer service, as I stated on today’s blog radio show today.  Everyone is our customer, both candidates and employers.  Therefore doesn’t it make sense to provide rave worthy customer service to everyone we work with in today’s tenuous market?

During the discussions of #Trulondon, I picked up on another trend: Gen Y, the new recruiting strategy.  Does it make sense to develop a new recruiting strategy to attract and retain bright young people?  Or, should we customize our recruiting strategy to the needs of the client, and of the position regardless of the age of a candidate?  The business model must be re-examined, or we should have our heads examined.  We customize, personalize, and evaluate the needs of the customer on a case by case basis.

While I digress, the point is the same.  Recruiting is every bit as responsible to the art of stellar customer service as any other industry.  In fact, if we are to be successful, we must never lose sight of this fact.

Respectfully submitted,

@HRMargo Margo Rose http://hrmargo.com

Bookmark It

This week, Mike VanDervort requested blogposts from his colleagues. He said he would match a charitable gift to each blogpost he received.

Inspired, I decided to write a post about why http://www.diabetes.org/ finding a cure for diabetes is so very important to me.

My Father died of complications of diabetes. Both my Mother of blessed memory suffered with diabetes. While ultimately, Alzheimer’s claimed her life, diabetes plagued her for most of her days. My brother, may he rest in peace also suffered with the deadly disease. My former husband suffered with juvenile diabetes.

So, as you can see, this is personal and it hits home.

Why is this an important HR issue? Because according the the American Diabetes Association more than 24 million Americans suffer with the disease.

According to recent legislation, consider the following:

The question of who has a disability for purposes of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(“ADA”) and is thus protected by the ADA’s anti-discrimination provisions has been the subject
of frequent litigation since the Act’s passage in 1990. The Americans with Disabilities Act
Amendments Act of 2008 (“ADAAA”), Pub. L. No. 110-325, however, mark a sea change in
how courts are to answer this question, particularly as it relates to individuals with diabetes and
other chronic conditions. The new law provides numerous ways for people with diabetes to
establish coverage under the ADA. The purpose of this paper is to guide attorneys through the
developing law in this area and to present strategies for establishing that individuals with
diabetes, whatever its classification or symptoms, have a disability within the meaning of the
ADA.

Support and consideration for employees who suffer with diabetes is long overdue. I am grateful for this opportunity to submit this post for consideration not only to raise awareness, but to obtain support and a potential donation to a cause that is so very near, and dear to my heart.

Sincerely,

@HRMargo

Bookmark It

One of the hardest aspects of job hunting is deciding what I want to do next, with whom you want to network, and finding the motivation to search.

How do you discover what you want to do next in your career?

There are a number of assessments from the Gallup Strength Finders Inventory, The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, The DiSC profile and the Strongs Interest Inventory. I’ve been a facilitator and administrator of personality sorters, and occupational profiles. They have merit and value. However; they can be expensive. When traversing the path of a career search one must be frugal. Here’s a simple way to narrow your options. It’s free of charge, and worth a shot before you invest in career coaching.

1) Visualize all the jobs you’ve ever thought of doing. Ask yourself, what would bring me joy?

2) Research those options via google.com, salary.com, and the department of labor. These sites can offer information about the job, the career path, the tasks, and the national compensation scales.

3) Ask the people in your network who they know that currently holds the position of the career you want to explore.

4) Contact those people and request an interview. Develop a list of questions in advance that identifies the key responsibilities, tasks, challenges of their job. I like to ask what they love most about their job, followed by what they like least. It is also helpful to find out what education, experience and certifications might be required for the position.

5) Once you gather this information, make a pros and cons list. Ask yourself:

A) Do I have the core competencies required for this position?
B) Do I have the budget and the time to acquire the education or certifications required for this role?
C) How badly do I want this type of job? Am I willing to go to any length to get it?
Create a list of benefits Risks Challenges

6) Once you have this information in front of you, develop a list of target companies, and industries that interest you. You can do this by going to the library. Many business periodicals have a business book of lists. The libraries also have remarkable reseach staff that are more than willing to help you find the resources to guide your search. Your local library is an incredible resource. Don’t be afraid to tap into a great source of information.

The last issue I want to address in this post is motivation. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. It’s hard to wake up, shower, look at your briefcase and realize there’s no place to go. That’s where finding a job search buddy can come in handy. Most cities have jobsearch focus groups. This site also has other job seekers and volunteers that would be more than willing to get behind you, support you and motivate you when you feel down. Personally, motivation is the hardest part of the search. Asking for help is also really hard.

I’d like to open the discussion. What roles are you currently exploring? Is your researching providing meaningful results in your search? What’s blocking you from moving forward?

Please let me know how I may be helpful.

Bookmark It

I have so many blessings to count. Twitter, and the friends I’ve made as a direct result is one of them. My connections on twitter have made it possible to attend conferences for free. As a professional in transition, this is an invaluable asset for which I am extremely grateful.

This week, I look forward to catching glimpses of #socialrecruiting in NYC and #trulondon in the UK.

There’s a new movement: the “unconference.” Small loosely organized upstart organizations are forming both on and off of twitter. I discovered these movements by following the #hashtags attached to tweets.  For instance, that’s how I found #hrevolution and #Onrec09 (the recruiting conference in NYC) that took place recently. I also was able to learn from @chrisbrogan when he was at the #summitup in Dayton OH (again I attended in my living room.) Twitter has also introduced me to incredible blog radio shows like #hrhappyhour with @steveboese and @hrminion.

During last week’s #hrhappyhour many interesting topics were raised by the team of bloggers from Fistful of Talent.
During one of the side bar discussions on #hrhappyhour I tweeted:

Small upstart movements like #hrevolution and #hrhappyhour are slowly replacing orgs like SHRM
9:09 PM Nov 12th from web

This started a long string of discussion. I was asked, are these small upstarts complementing or replacing these large organizations. The answer is both. They are complementing, and also filling an important gap in our professional culture.  I realized something important. Movements like #HRevolution, Social Recruiting, #hrhappyhour are filling a gap that is currently not being addressed by large organizations such as, SHRM, ASTD, and The ODNetwork. Certainly, these large organizations play an important role in our professional lives.   During the live stream of #hrhappyhour, @cincyrecruiter asked, “I wonder how many of these people are actually SHRM members.” Well, truthfully, I am not. I can’t afford the national membership fees. The monthly meetings are expensive to attend.   Personally, I don’t get a good return on my investment from attending. While these small groups will never replace the value of our large professional associations, they fill an important gap by enabling people to attend free conferences via podcasts, twitter stream and google wave. The fact that I was able to attend #onrec09 from the comfort of my living room exemplifies the worth of twitter. Many of the presenters make their white papers, and presentation slides available online. If you closely follow the hashtag stream you can get the gist of the entire keynote address.
Fortunately, locally here in Cincinnati, Steve Browne started a group called #HRNET. Their meetings are free. The networking is great, and I always take away great learning from these meetings. Belonging to these huge organizations are cost prohibitive for so many of us during this recession.   These wonderful small, targeted groups focus far better on my professional development needs. This is why I make this case! These small groups are free, or low cost, they are readily available and accessible. Their members are generous with their time, and most of them enjoy helping people a long the way.

#HRevolution the “unconference” was only $50.00. I was able to split the cost of the hotel room with @tlcolson and @blogging4jobs which made attending extremely affordable. This is so important not just for me, but for countless others who find themselves in career transition during these uncertain financial times.   I still need to learn and to be able to network.  Not only are small conferences like HRevolution a great learning experience, it allowed me the opportunity to forge bonds with other like minded professionals. In addition, I had access to the thought leaders in my field. Access to learning and networking makes all the difference in the world to me, and others like me. When I had my own business, I used to complain that either I had the money and didn’t have the time, or I had the time, but didn’t have the money. Well, the internethas made possible these extraordinary learning and networking experiences. Now with twitter, live internet streams, and google wave you can feel like you are at the conference without actually being there. That is a stroke of genious.

I wanted to write this blog post to express my heartfelt appreciation to those generous people on twitter/facebook/linkedin who make these learning experiences available to people low cost or free.   This week, I will follow up by interview the conference planners, and a few of the presenters as promised.  Please stay tuned.

Bookmark It

The energy was alive, pulsating, and electric. That’s what happens when 50 like-minded people gather to discuss HR and blogging. We discussed how we learn to use social media to disseminate a message, open the streams of communication, and transform the way we blog and thus communicate with our colleagues, employees and friends.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to interview the conference planners, presenters and a few of the guests. What I want to offer you is a flavor of the different perspectives of how our colleagues are using blogging and social media to meet their goals. I will be announcing future posts on twitter, but in the meantime, Trish McFarlane, Maren Hogan, Laurie Ruettimann have agreed to be interviewed for this blog. I hope to bring you many other viewpoints as well.

Friday, I arrived to find my room-mates Tammy Colson, and Jessica Miller-Merrill in the lobby. I was thrilled to finally put faces behind the names and the many tweets we’ve shared. The event was kicked off with a reception. The room was a-buzz with the enthusiasm of greeting and networking. People were so delighted to meet one another.

The day was broken down as follows: the opening session, “HR: Not Dead Yet,” was led by the lovely Trish McFarlane, and Ben Eubanks. It was tough to choose which breakout sessions to attend. I chose to attend, “Beginner Blogging” led by Paul Hebert of i2i. I hope to interview Paul to further describe what we learned in future posts.

We saw a wonderful video featuring Alicia Arenas of Sanera. Alicia advised us by offering to keep in mind as we learned and embraced our day:

1) Curiosity
2) Honesty
3) Commitment

Allow the spirit of curiosity to guide your open mind to be like a sponge and soak in new ideas. Be honest with yourself and other. She stressed the importance of commitment. I plan to deepen my relationships by engaging with fellow participants on a whole new level.
In the afternoon, I attended Steve Boese’s session “Web 2.0 for HR.” Steve and @HR_Minon broadcasted HR Happy Hour live during lunch. This was followed by “The Future of HR,” facilitated by Mark Stelzner, who wrapped up our day. My tweet from that session :

“Is this is a grassroots HR uprising, asks @stelzner DO NOTHING is not an option-moving fwd HR is changing. R We obsessed w/change I wonder?”
3:31 PM Nov 7th from UberTwitter

After the session we dined, and danced the night away. All was well until I decided I’d try karaoke for the first time. Big MISTAKE! I thought it would be fun to try Madonna’s “Vogue.” Here was @ewmonsters tweet which says it all:
ewmonster
” Omg. Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ tortured by @hrmargo with @blogging4jobs and @marenhogan as wing-women. Fun! #hrevolution http://pic.gd/3c963e”
about 18 hours ago from UberTwitter

Louisville is such a gracious, classy town. The city welcomed us with web postings, and Stephan Johnson, a reporter from the local Fox affiliate did a story about our “unconference,” that was discussed by their news anchors. Who knew what started one tweet from Trish McFarlane would blossom into an incredible meeting of the minds with thought leaders in our industry.

I cannot end this post without thanking the conference sponsors Monster,com @ewmonster, who is not only a great dancer, he’s one of the funniest men I’ve ever met. Monster treated us to wonderful gifts, and goodies. One of my favorite Eric quotes came out in this tweet:
“I must exclaim @ewmonster/s passion, and love for his work inspires me #hrevolution he recommends “buck up-get a spreadsheet.”
3:42 PM Nov 7th from UberTwitter

I loved meeting @LoisMelbourne, of Acquire, Inc. The tweetup was sponsored by Nobscot Corporation. I also met Crystal Peterson, unconference planner and sponsor from Doe Anderson. I also had the pleasure of meeting Lyn Hoyt of Fusion Frames who also a sponsor . While I did not meet Alicia Arenas from Sanera, I am grateful to her for making this a special experience for us all.

Bookmark It