Yearly archive for 2024

Question

I head up a large sales team. Every year it’s harder and harder to attract and hire good salespeople. I’m fed up with HR’s lack of answers. HR posts our jobs on all the top websites from LinkedIn to ZipRecruiter and several specialty sites. I used to read your advice columns on Adobe’s CMO.com so I know you know something about sales. Where should we be posting jobs? What can I do to get our HR to wise up and make recruiting a priority?

Nick’s Reply

We covered a related topic last month but judging from the number of hiring managers I’ve heard from, I think it’s worth taking another whack at it.

Posting jobs doesn’t yield the best talent because the best workers expect what your customers demand: the personal touch. They don’t read job boards or respond to recruiters dialing for dollars. They want to hear from people like you — top managers who can talk shop, and who can attract exceptional workers.

That’s why — if you want to hire the best talent — you need to consider a few old recruiting rules that have never changed and that will serve you well if you follow them. The state of corporate recruiting is so bad today that I’m framing two of these rules as “do nots” simply because, before you can do this right, you have to stop doing it wrong.

Rule 1: Do not send a flunky to do your recruiting

Yes, I said a flunky. A stand-in. Don’t expect a personnel jockey from your HR department is going to impress a hard-to-get salesperson. Only you can do that.

It’s also an old rule that most jobs are found and filled through personal contacts, not by posting jobs. So, why would you take an impersonal approach to hiring while your best competitors are scarfing up the best people by making recruiting personal?

 If you want your HR department to do something useful to help speed up intelligent recruiting, assign them the task of figuring out where the best talent hangs out. Then go there and impress the talent with your motivation to reach out and attract them yourself.

Rule 2: Do not ask busy people to fill out forms

Do you launch marketing campaigns that require prospective customers to fill out five pages of online forms to qualify for a sales pitch to buy your company’s products? Of course not.

So what makes you think it’s okay for your HR department to treat sales professionals like they have to qualify to talk to you about a job? Your head of HR will explain that someone has to “screen” and “qualify” those people — that’s why they have to fill out forms and provide their experience and history.

Sheesh. Why is your HR department recruiting people whose experience and history HR doesn’t already know? Do you let your sales team chase low-probability prospects, or do you invest loads in big data analytics that tell you exactly who’s worth selling to? Why do you let your HR department post jobs that anyone can apply for? That’s not recruiting. That’s trying to drink from a fire hose.

When you identify people worth recruiting, wine and dine them like you do the customers you hope to land. Don’t ask them to fill out forms.

Rule 3: Be ready to close the deal now

When you have a high-value sales prospect in your office, someone who’s ready to buy your product after they’ve heard your pitch, do you thank them for listening — then explain that you’ll get back to them in a few weeks about closing the sale? Why do you let your HR department do that to job candidates?

This rule can actually be re-written another way: “Interview only candidates worth hiring.” It’s no different than qualifying a customer before you invest in selling to them. Of course, you know it requires a big investment to qualify customers. So, where’s your investment in real recruiting?

When you bring a job candidate into your office, you should already know whether they’re worth hiring. You should have made that investment in advance. The job board industry wants you to forget that step, because the more people you interview and the fewer you hire the more money the job boards make from you.

Before any interview, ask yourself, do I already know enough about this candidate to make a hiring decision at the end of our meeting? If not, your recruiting process is broken and you’re wasting enormous resources talking to essentially random people. Plan your recruiting so you’re ready to close the deal now.

Put down the fire hose!

This is not to say that job interviews are for making job offers every time. A job interview helps you determine whether a person is really worth hiring.

Now I’m going to blow up the unspoken rule virtually every hiring manager and HR jockey accepts and follows blindly: “Interview all the candidates then decide which to hire.” Wrong!

When an interview meeting ends, you should have the final bits of data you need to look the candidate in the face and say, “No, thank you — this won’t work out, but thanks for your time,” or, “I’m so glad we met to talk shop. I want you to work with us, so I’m going to offer you a job right now, before my best competitor snatches you up!”

I can hear the HR posse coming to torch my house. Hire on the spot? Nick, you reprobate! What about all the other candidates we got by posting jobs? But think about this carefully: You should be recruiting and interviewing only candidates that you have vetted first. Put down the fire hose! Stop posting jobs. Pursue only sales candidates that have already been highly recommended to you. Another way to think about this: check references before you decide to even approach a candidate.

Be ready at the end of any interview to do what candidates wish every manager would do: Say “REJECTED!” or “YOU’RE HIRED!”

Nothing has changed in sales and marketing or in recruiting. Know your target in advance. Pursue only high quality targets. Be ready to close a deal quickly — before our competitors get the jump on you.

It’s critical to remember that when hiring we’re not dealing in commodities. Our competitive edge is hiring only the best, and we cannot let HR do it. The basic rules have not changed: Do it yourself, respect your candidates, and be ready to hire them now.

What are hiring managers missing? Is the idea that job candidates deserve and need real attention so hard to grasp? Is the importance of “doing it in person” really lost on employers? What’s it going to take before hiring managers show respect to the people they need to hire?

: :

Question

As a new grad I think I’ve got the I can’t get a job blues! I remain unconvinced that a liberal arts major has transferable job skills in today’s job market. My experience in the workplace has been that I’m seen as overqualified and under-qualified at the same time. Is there a way for a generalist to market his or her skills in business and get out of the academic straitjacket? Thanks to all for your comments.

Nick’s Reply

The New York Times’ Peter Coy recently interviewed me for his excellent column, Why Can’t College Grads Find Jobs? Here Are Some Theories — and Fixes. (It may be pay-walled.) You’re not the only new grad that feels like you’re throwing your resumes into the void!

In my comments to Coy I emphasized that the real problem is the reductionist nature of recruiting. Employers own their hiring problems because the don’t recruit and assess people. They recruit and judge keywords! That’s why you’ve got the blues!

New grads have loads of relevant skills

The only academic straitjacket is often the new grad’s perception. It’s normal to feel at a disadvantage because you’re fresh out of school, but don’t fall prey to the idea that you’re lacking the right qualifications, or that a degree means you’re over-qualified. The ridiculous emphasis in the employment industry (job boards, ATS systems, HR) on lists of keywords and inflexible skills requirements is just that — ridiculous.

You have powerful, relevent skills that you acquired in school. The problem is, no one has shown you how to apply them to a job. Don’t expect anyone to. You have to figure it out for yourself and be ready to explain it to a hiring manager. And that means getting out of the academic mindset. You need to shake the attitude that your education is the chief determinant of success in the job hunt.

Identify your real skills

The chief determinant of your success is how you communicate and demonstrate your value. And that requires that you first understand the real requirements of any job — not the job description! It’s not possible to see the connection between your skills and a job until you first understand exactly what tasks you’d have to do in a job. (Before going any further, please read Does your job match its original job description?)

I was an English major who shifted to Psychology — and I’ll venture that I’ve used more skills that I acquired studying literature than psychology. The ability to write, in itself, is a powerful tool to use when job hunting: most people in business simply can’t write or organize information to save their lives.

Here’s your advantage: with a liberal arts degree, you possess many fundamental skills and attributes that your competition may lack:

• Writing
• Organizing ideas
• The ability to plan and execute research
• Knowledge of information retrieval systems (not just the Internet and ChatGPT but libraries, books, periodicals)
• A critical eye
• An open mind
• Good work habits
• Breadth of exposure to ideas and philosophies, and most important,
• A well-honed ability to learn what you need to in order to accomplish a task.

You sound pretty impressive, eh?

Select companies and jobs carefully — this is KEY!

Here’s your challenge: you now need to thoroughly study the business you want to work in. There is no way around this if you want to succeed. Your main obstacle is “all those jobs I can apply for”. But that’s illusory. There are no more than a few companies and jobs that are right for you. Start with companies, not jobs — just four or five of them, no more! Identify them and pursue nothing else. (See Pursue Companies, Not Jobs.)

Once you have learned enough to begin mapping your skills to the business, you will be on your way. Few businesses are so complicated that this is impossible. But few job hunters are diligent enough to do the exercise that yields the job. Few job hunters ever realize that they can choose their job targets and prepare to tackle them. You cannot do this for 100 jobs — so don’t take the job-board bait and snap at them all!

Lose the blues. Start with the basics.

The reality is that college students are at the mercy of their schools. I’ve seen precious few college “career programs” that help students apply their education to the real world. And that’s the sort of failing that should have you on the phone to the president of your school. The argument, “education is for its own sake” is a legitimate reason to go to school, but it’s a poor excuse for a school to leave you hanging when you’re done, because both masters (knowledge and work) can be served by a school that knows its graduates must be able to earn a living.

If you think you are fatally disheartened, I’ll try to show you why it’s probably not your fault — and what to do about it. Please see Why am I not getting hired?

Don’t have the blues. There’s another way to do this that works. It requires that you:

• Take off the straitjacket the employment system puts on you.
• Get to work choosing companies you really want to work for.
• Take time to study what they need help with — not those personnel-jockey-generated job descriptions!
• Figure out how the skills I referred to above enable you to do the work.
• Please check some of my other articles here on Ask The Headhunter, especially The Basics. They’ll help you get started.
• Then post additional questions in the Comments section below.

I’ll offer my advice, but you’ll get the best tips from the incredibly smart folks that make up this community.

I wish you the best.

What’s the best way for a job seeker to show an employer “this is why you need to hire me”? Is it any different for a new grad? What advice can you offer this disheartened reader?

: :

Question

I’m afraid I disagree with your objections to using a traditional type of resume. [See Resume Blasphemy.] Here is the basis for my misgivings. I am a hiring manager at a Fortune 50 company. If I want to fill a slot I must complete a job requisition. On the req I have to list the base requirements for the job (e.g., degree, years of experience). When the recruiting starts and resumes begin to arrive, the first person to see them is an HR clerk who screens the listed skills against the req. If you don’t match, I never see your resume. No resume, no interview! Keep in mind that I am a manager and hire highly trained professionals. These aren’t entry level people. I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.

Nick’s Reply

If you’re a manager and you hire specialized professionals, what does it say about you (and your company) when an HR clerk has the power to decide who you should interview and who you should skip? What qualifies HR to judge and filter candidates?

Who should do the recruiting?

I know managers who skirt the HR department every day. They don’t use req’s, and HR doesn’t touch their candidates. The reason is simple and compelling (if it’s no longer obvious in HR-heavy corporate structures). Managers know their business better than HR clerks do. Keywords on resumes are an abysmal way to filter job candidates.

These managers find their own candidates. Sometimes they turn to specialized headhunters; sometimes they use their professional connections.

I believe that any manager who isn’t devoting a couple of days a week to recruiting isn’t doing their job. To rely on HR to source executives is like relying on your mother to find you a date – she’s good at a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them. (See Recruiting: How to get your hands dirty and hire.)

Resume solicitation is not recruiting

Managers with good relationships in their professional community are scarfing up the best candidates in this competitive market because they go out and find them, leaving you with candidates who come along. Please think about this. When you interview only candidates who submit resumes, you’re dealing with a very limited field. Resume solicitation is not recruiting! Can you really live with that? Should you?

(Before you accuse me of pitching headhunters as the solution, I’m not. You don’t need headhunters. You can do it yourself. There is nothing mysterious or magical about what good headhunters do. They go out and actively search for the best candidates.)

The risk of false negatives in recruiting

Consider how many great candidates you may have lost because a clerk rejected their resumes. For example, some of the best candidates I find for my clients lack one or more of the specified keywords (skills, “experience,” credentials, degrees). This means HR would likely reject them, then pay me a handsome fee when I demonstrate why they’d be a great hire anyway. In probabilistic decision-making this is called a false negative — a costly rejection error. Beyond a handful of keywords, what does your HR clerk know about the right candidate for a job you need to fill?

By the way, what I’m suggesting doesn’t just apply to filling highly skilled jobs. If you were a manufacturing manager looking for production workers or a finance manager looking for cost accountants, I’d tell you the same thing.

Send your team to identify potential candidates

I’ll offer you a suggestion. Send one or more members of your work team to a relevant professional or industry event, with the instruction to attend the presentations and return with business cards or other contact information from notable presenters and attendees. No resumes. (Even just names and company affiliation will do!)  There is no reason to even intimate there are jobs to be filled. Just get the contact information. That’s more valuable to you than any resume, and you’ll get more for your recruiting buck than if your clerk posts a job to gather resumes.

Now your job is to call those people yourself — the people whose cards you’ve got. Ask them who they might recommend highly for one of the jobs you need to fill — if they’re not potential candidates themselves. At the very least, those people know far more about your business than your clerks do. Such referrals are what a good headhunter would bring you for a huge fee. Without a resume.

Why don’t managers take a more direct role in recruiting? If you’re a job seeker, how could you use what I’m suggesting to get a job without relying on a resume?

: :

Question

What are the prospects for a whole department toppling their boss? The boss is a typical “Management by Fear” practitioner. He is not liked or respected by his subordinates or by other employees including peers and some higher up in management. He is not technically competent and has been assigned the post for the mere reason of “retaining” him.

I would like to muster up some courage, get together a group and make a case against him with HR. How should I approach the matter with the authorities in an appropriate manner?

Nick’s Reply

You’re talking mutiny, and the price of failure is walking the plank. Are you sure you want to take that risk? I expect the group of you has already discussed the risks, and also your motives and justification for taking such an extreme measure. (Try to avoid behaving like a mob with torches and pitchforks!)

Is it even possible to dump the boss?

What you need to do first is find out what kind of support the boss has from upper management. Are they giving him lots of rope so he’ll hang himself? Does he have something they want, so they won’t touch him? Does he have a lord and protector who watches his backside? It isn’t so much how to go about getting him canned as it is finding out whether you stand a snowball’s chance of beating him.

Forget about courage. Get some smarts. Talk casually with higher-ups and find out what they think of this guy. Watch their eyes, listen for the pauses and hesitation in their responses, watch the body language. You need to judge whether other managers are waiting for someone to attempt a coup they can join, or if they’re in solid with him.

Identify support

It’s smart to talk not only to execs up your boss’s chain of command, but to others on chains that interact with him but don’t have a reporting link. For example, if he’s the head of engineering, go talk to managers at his level and above in manufacturing, operations and finance. These people may have the same concerns you do. Maybe they’d like to dump the boss, too — and they may be able to lend support from a level where there’s more power than you and your buddies have.

Look among your group and see who has the best contacts upstairs in the organization. Have that person poke around. If you can establish that the boss is vulnerable, you need to get support before you act. Go to the one top exec who is likely to back you, and ask for advice. This is best done one on one, not as a group. Then follow the advice.

Proceed with caution

It’s hard to topple a manager. It requires support from others more powerful than your target. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.

The only way HR can help is if you have several solid, documented violations of law, ethics or corporate policy. In my experience, they’ll back the manager every time, unless there’s such a preponderance of evidence against the manager that they’d be jeopardizing their own positions by ignoring it. (I hope your boss is not as bad as this, but take heed if it’s the case: Say goodbye to your psychopathic boss.)

We haven’t talked about you trying to talk this out with the boss, but your question is very direct so I expect this is not really an option.

You’ve got a battle ahead of you. Proceed with caution.

Can employees get a boss fired? How do the politics work in a situation like this? Is it worth going to HR about the problem? Are there other alternatives worth considering? Have you ever been involved in deposing your boss?

: :

Question

Your article about “What’s the best interview question?” to ask a hiring manager has served me well in many job interviews. Managers have actually complimented me. But that’s one question! What else have you got — questions to ask a hiring manager that will break them out of their “interview haze” and really talk to me, while giving me a chance to stand out?

Nick’s Reply

That’s a really good question for us all! I mean — I’ll bet other readers have excellent, insightful questions to ask hiring managers; questions that really make a manager think while also making the manager realize they’re talking with a candidate who reveals true insight and deep interest in the company.

You made me scratch my head, trying to recall managers who told me they were blown away by a particular candidate who revealed unexpected acumen.

Here are five of the very best questions that no one but the best candidates I’ve known have asked managers, thereby standing apart from their competition.

Questions to ask a hiring manager

1. A year from now…

…how do you hope your company will be better as a result of hiring the person you choose for this job? (Follow-up question: A year from now, how will the person who takes this job change for the better?)

2. What’s the one thing…

…you wish you could quickly figure out about every candidate in an interview?

The next two questions should perhaps be asked prior to the actual interview, perhaps at the end of a phone screen with the manager.

3. What do you wish…

…a candidate for this job would read or study prior to interviewing with you?

4. What concepts are a must…

…for the candidate to understand if they are to succeed at this job? What other concepts are critical, but can be learned on the job?

The next question seems to elicit a knowing grin from managers.

5. What do most candidates…

…routinely say or do in the interview that tells you they’re wrong for a job at this company?

What kinds of questions help you get hired?

Do you agree about the value of these questions? How or what does each question help a hiring manager learn about the candidate? How can these questions help you get hired?

Of course, what we really want is more questions like these from your personal experience! If this turns into a lively discussion and there’s interest, I’ll share a few more highly effective questions in another column.

(I’m sure that thinking about this also brings to mind some of the most over-used, banal questions you’ve turned up in your reading about “what to ask” in a job interview. Feel free to share the clunkers you’ve encountered, too!)

: :

Question

I’ve been working for company #2 for two weeks. I had interviewed at company #1 as well, but I thought nothing was going to happen there. It now turns out that I have a much better offer (and benefits) at #1, so I’ll take it. I know I’ll be burning my bridges, but I still want to approach this the best possible way. What do you suggest?

Nick’s Reply

This is one of those situations that cause pain. There is no win-win.

A company deserves that a just-hired employee will stay put. It also deserves the employee’s full attention and motivation.

Likewise, an employee deserves the most money and the highest-quality job that the market offers. If you’re going to be distracted and less motivated when you choose to stay for “ethical” reasons, then you’re not being ethical at all.

Integrity vs. more money?

Some will argue that you are obligated to your current employer because you accepted an offer and made a commitment. That’s integrity, they will say. And they are partly right. But they’re also party wrong, because it depends which foot this shoe is on.

I will point out that companies find themselves in the same quandary when they downsize because of sudden financial setbacks. Even recently hired employees get summarily terminated. In that case, it can be argued that integrity dictates no one should be fired — the company should suffer the financial loss and deal with it. Yet the conventional wisdom is that you can’t expect a company to compound a financial reversal by continuing to pay employees it cannot afford. No one’s happy, but “it’s a necessary financial decision.”

There is no win-win outcome. The fired employees are hurt and the company’s reputation suffers damage.

A better job offer… or your reputation?

Money is how our culture measures our success at our work. Like it or not, that’s the standard. It’s not crass. It’s reality. But so is pain and so is reputational damage. Unless you can demonstrate a more compelling measure of your success than money — e.g., the work at company #2 is more satisfying than the work at #1 — then you must act rationally and switch to the better offer. And be ready to accept a ding to your reputation.

Employers face the same choice and pay the same price.

If you’re jumping around for a marginal difference, then I say stay put. The other offer must be compelling.

What’s the best way to quit for a better job offer?

Now to your question. How do you handle this the best possible way? Look your boss in the eye, express your regrets and resign. You are under no obligation to disclose the details — just your regrets.

How to Say It
“I took this job after careful thought — it was what I wanted. But another, unexpected opportunity that is a better choice for me just surfaced. I can’t ignore it. I deeply regret that I must resign to pursue it.”

The only way you can try to avoid burning the bridge is to be honest and to take full responsibility for your actions. It’s good if you can leave any work you started in good condition, and offer to do anything that might help with the transition. Still, odds are high your boss will never talk to you again. You must deal with that. (Beware of other issues with Parting Company.)

A warning: Under no circumstances should you use the new job offer to leverage a salary increase at your current job. If you did that and I were the manager, I’d kick you out of my office.

If your ethical nature really needs to be sustained through this, you could return the salary you were paid for those two weeks.

I hate situations like this. They require an awkward choice, and there may be real reputational consequences. That’s the price. Be ready to pay it and move on.

Have you ever had to choose between a job you just started — and a better deal that suddenly appeared? What did you decide? How did it turn out? How would you advise this reader?

: :

Question

I’ve successfully searched for work for over 20 years. I always lead with what I can do for an employer and with my ability to learn quickly, and I get hired. But it’s getting harder to find a manager to explain that to! Now it’s ATS this and ATS that. Applicant Tracking Systems don’t ask what you can do or what you can learn. They just want you to dump your data into the bit bucket so they can sort you out. But data about your experience is not useful information until a qualified person reviews it, and the ATS is designed to keep qualified judges away from you as long as possible! No wonder it takes thousands of applicants to fill a job. You’ve written a lot about ATSes. Please give me your low-down.

Nick’s Reply

My good buddy Paul Solman at PBS NewsHour shared with me the most concise description of Applicant Tracking Systems that I’ve seen, an article by Wahyd Vannoni, What are Applicant Tracking Systems? How Do They Rank Potential Candidates? It’s nice and brief and although it wasn’t Vannoni’s intent, it highlights everything that’s wrong with ATSes and how they are used. (It also includes a list of ATS vendors. Bet you didn’t know there are so many!)

I think you put your finger on the fatal problem: Relying on an ATS to select and hire workers isolates the job applicant from the person best qualified to judge them – the hiring manager. That’s how employers miss some of the best candidates and why they frequently interview and hire the wrong ones. It’s why you’re frustrated.

It’s virtually impossible to apply for a job today without encountering an ATS, so it’s worth taking a close look at what we subject ourselves to when we let an ATS process our data. Let’s look at Vannoni’s key points about what ATSes are and how they, uh, work.

Lie #1: An ATS manages the entire hiring process.

“An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software tool that streamlines the recruitment process for companies. It is designed to manage the entire hiring process, from posting job openings to screening candidates to scheduling interviews and hiring.”

If the promise of the ATS were fulfilled, who would need an HR department? That’s what the text implies. We know it’s not true.

Companies take their most important competitive edge — the ability to hire the best people — and turn it over to be managed by an ATS, which can be generously called a bag of algorithms that don’t work well, if at all.

Investigative journalist Hilke Schellmann has laid this out compellingly in her book, The Algorithm. (See The A.I. Job Interview: You need to know why it’s crap.) These systems are biased, indefensibly reductionist, and about as smart as a cocker spaniel pup that pees exactly where it peed last time because the spot smells like pee. In today’s competitive hiring market, ATSes can’t deliver as promised. If they did, we wouldn’t need HR.

Lie #2: An ATS is a database of candidate information that makes job matches.

“At its core, an ATS is a database that collects and stores candidate information. When a job opening is posted, the ATS will scan resumes and cover letters for relevant keywords and phrases, and then rank the candidates based on how closely their skills and experience match the job requirements.”

A database does not store information. It stores data. (“Data on its own has no meaning. It only takes on meaning and becomes information when it is interpreted.” -University of Cambridge) More accurately, data collected by an ATS is strings of ASCII symbols that have no inherent meaning like words do. It is a very simple pattern-matching system made to look “smart” because the computers behind it can process staggering numbers of patterns faster than we can conceive.

Matches are made based on how closely one pattern matches another. There is no information, there are no skills, there is no experience, and other than a list of ASCII characters masquerading as semantic entities we call words — and there is no “job requirement.” This is precisely why ATSes can process millions of candidate database records per second. They need millions of those records in order to demonstrate that pattern-matching can sometimes work.

Try an experiment: Give the ATS just 5 records that describe 5 people accurately but include none of the magic ASCII strings and the ATS fails. Try it with a million people and it will perform like a boiler room of monkeys tapping on old Royal typewriters.

Wharton researcher Peter Cappelli tells the story of a corporate executive who asked why, after 14,000 engineers applied to fill a couple of routine engineering jobs, his HR department’s ATS deemed none of them worth interviewing. I’ll bet any engineering manager could screen 20 of those applications, interview three and recommend a good one to hire that would perform well.

Lie #3: An ATS removes bias from hiring and ensures fairness.

“In addition to streamlining the recruitment process, an ATS can also help companies stay compliant with Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws by ensuring that each candidate is evaluated fairly and consistently. It can also help to reduce bias in the hiring process by removing personal information such as name, address, and age from the initial screening process.”

Here’s where naivete and ignorance about the ATS industry shine forth. I’ll direct you again to Schellmann’s book, and I can show you 10 more links like this: Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women.

ATS and AI vendors market the hell out of “Eliminates bias!” We now know that algorithms can actually introduce more biases.

Lie #4: An ATS saves time and money and results in better hires.

“Overall, an ATS is a powerful tool that can save companies time and money by automating many of the time-consuming tasks associated with recruiting. By using an ATS, companies can more easily identify and attract top talent, ultimately leading to better hires and a stronger workforce.”

First, saving time and money and automating tasks tells us nothing about the single most important metric in a business endeavor like hiring: accuracy. ATSes sacrifice accuracy for volume. But more is not better.

You can build a machine to crush 10 tons of stone per hour, but how much will you pay for one of these if the output you want is wheat flour? ATSes do not produce hires; they produce matches of ASCII strings. No reading between the lines is possible until all of those 14,000 engineer applicants have already been rejected.

Lie #5: If we keep saying it, ATSes will actually work!

Vannoni did a nice job in his brief survey article about ATSes. He clearly gauged it for readers who want the basics. That’s why there’s not a word about the impacts on the job applicants who are subjected to the wonders of ATSes that save companies money and time.

But I do have a beef with Vannoni because he should know better. He’s a communications consultant and marketing professor. Having an MBA, it’s frankly stunning that he doesn’t apply the test all MBA programs teach their students: Where’s the outcomes analysis?

What does it matter how clever the ATS appears if we’re not going to discuss whether it works and how well? But we forget how good marketers are at selling benefits. That is, it’s all about what you can get a market to swallow.

• It manages the whole hiring process!
• It matches jobs with the right candidates!
• It eliminates bias and ensures legal compliance!
• It saves money and delivers better hires!

While I was writing for NewsHour, I interviewed CareerBuilder, one of the leading job boards. I asked about outcomes. What’s the job-filling and job-finding success rate? 57% of all jobs are filled by CareerBuilder, they said. Can I see the data? Well, we don’t release that. 57%. I’m still laughing.

My low-down is that I’ve had a standing challenge to ATS and job board companies: Where is your outcomes analysis? Show us the data about results. None have done it.

What lies have you been told about ATSes and how they’re going to help employers hire you? Do you have examples of how ATSes work or don’t work?

: :

Question

I’ve been reading a lot of books about job searches. They all say you have to send in your resume then follow up with phone calls. In other words, be a pest! I am really annoyed by the junk phone calls I have to put up with both at work and at home, so I feel really stupid calling busy professionals and bothering them. Is this really the right way to go? Your advice and comments would be welcome. Thanks.

Nick’s Reply

That depends on who you’re calling.

A hiring manager’s dream

Suppose you’re at your job and you need to discuss with your boss how you plan to do your work more effectively and to get the boss’s advice. Would you feel like a pest (that is, annoying or a nuisance) if you called your boss to talk about work? Of course not!

So, how are you being a pest if you call your future boss about the work? You’d be the hiring manager’s dream.

A pest

It also depends on what you’re calling about. Are you calling to find out whether the boss received your resume? Or to say you’re just like all other job applicants — that you’re “really interested in the job”? Whether you call the hiring manager or the Human Resources department, how are you making their day or their jobs better? You’re not being helpful, are you? That’s annoying.

If you think you’re going to annoy someone, don’t call them.

If you think you can help a busy hiring manager (or your own boss) solve their problems, meet the challenges they’re facing in their department and contribute to the bottom line, then call! Good bosses (and smart hiring managers) want to meet job candidates who can offer solutions. That’s who they will hire. Is that you?

Prepare to talk with the hiring manager

But here’s where the fun really starts. Forget the job application protocols you’ve been taught. Skip the traditional process and sequence of events. Don’t act like every other job seeker! Your call need not be a follow-up to a resume or to say you really want the job (like every job seeker does), or to follow up on an interview. Your call — not your resume — should be your first contact with the manager!

Be ready to talk shop with the hiring manager just like you’d talk shop if you called your own boss! Stand out from the resumes.

This advance call about the work creates an advantage that your competition doesn’t have. When the manager finally meets you, they will know you and what you have to offer. The interview will quickly turn into a working meeting where the two of you can immediately get down to brass tacks. That gives you a tremendous edge.

There’s a catch

What’s the catch? You’ve got to do lots of work to prepare a brief call where you can offer the help that a specific manager needs. But isn’t that exactly what thoughtfully picking a job to pursue is all about? If you can’t walk into a manager’s office and demonstrate both your understanding of the work to be done and your ability to do it, then you have no business in that interview! Why should a manager hire you? To pull this off, you must do a lot of homework and preparation so that you will be worth talking with — not a pest!

(When is the last time you delivered a completed project to your boss without first discussing it? A job interview is a project. You can’t do it without first defining the scope and the deliverable. That means talking to the manager.)

Pest vs. dream

Are you beginning to see the distinction between making a useful phone call and one that wastes a manager’s time? The difference lies in preparation. (No idea where to start? Try the most important question in an interview.)

Traditional job hunting protocol says you should call after you submit an application. Yah. What are you going to say? “Did you receive my resume? I really want the job and I want you to know it!” Such perfunctory information is no more valuable than the sixth marketing message you’re harassed with: “Did you get the e-mail we sent you last week? You’re gonna love our product!” It’s all irrelevant and annoying.

Good managers pay attention to smart people who can talk shop. So, worry about being a pest only if you’re going to act like one. Be the manager’s dream by telling them something they need to hear—and relish the advantage you’ll gain over your competition.

So, what should that call be about?

Have I left you wondering… Okay, but what do I say to the manager when I make that call? What should the call be about?

Uh-uh. Nope. I’m not telling you. (I’m not going to set tens of thousands of people loose on managers, making calls reciting the same message.) You figure it out, then give your potential next employer a call. Don’t be a pest. Be the manager’s dream — and deliver value. No resume is required.

I won’t tell you what to say, but I’ll give you this tip: To plan what you should say to a manager, put yourself in the manager’s shoes. If you were a manager, what would you want to hear from a caller who wants to work for you? As the job hunter, What does it mean to talk shop to that manager?

Think. Upon introducing yourself to a manager who knows nothing about you and who has never seen your resume, what could you say to make the manager want to meet you — and hire you? Then come join us in the Comments section below to share your ideas about How to Say It!

NOTE: My apologies for not providing a heads-up that there would be no newsletter last week! I was in Texas with friends chasing the total eclipse, which we found in a Walmart parking lot in Killeen. Four and a half minutes of totality, but only a few glorious seconds without full cloud cover. It was totally worth the 3+ hours each way from Houston!

: :

Question

I lost my job over two years ago, and have applied for over 4,000 HR (Human Resources) opportunities, with 97 interviews, and I am still unemployed. I’ve updated my resume to an ATS format (Applicant Tracking System) to meet the current job search filters implemented by recruiters who use ATS platforms. I am still being rejected with an automated message saying, “Thank you but No Thank You.” I have an MBA in HR Management. Can you tell me why I am not being hired? I’ve attached a copy of my original resume and a copy of the ATS formatted resume for your review. Thank you for your time and attention. I’ve been following your “Ask the Headhunter” newsletter for at least 10 years. I would like your expert advice on handling the current job search market. I look forward to hearing from you.

Nick’s Reply

Sorry, I don’t review resumes, ATS-formatted or otherwise. It’s not my intent to berate or ridicule you but you do, after all, work in HR. How can you not know how the ATS game is played? The house wins, you lose. The house is the Employment System — ATS vendors and the job boards (and any employers that use ATSes). The rest of us are the gamblers.

The job-search addiction

This gambling addiction is pernicious because that’s how job boards and ATSes are designed! ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, Indeed and their ilk don’t make the big money when you get a job. They make the big money when you don’t get a job and when employers don’t fill jobs because then everyone keeps coming back to place another bet (or 3,000)!

The fundamental technology underlying the job-board and ATS ripoff is illustrated by another addictive con: dating apps.

Jobs and dating: It’s all a gambling addiction

Consider these clips from recent NPR news items about the “applicant tracking systems” used for dating:

“If you’ve ever done online dating, you know that it can be exhausting — the endless swiping, the conversations that go nowhere, the weird interactions where it feels like somebody is just on a different planet than you… Not to mention the emotional roller coaster of really vibing with somebody on the app and then getting to the date and it’s just nothing. Nothing there. It can make you want to stop dating entirely.” [How to ditch the apps and date offline]

Sound familiar? Endless applications, interviews that go nowhere, weird interactions where it seems the interviewer is on another planet… and the emotional roller coaster when you really think you found a match and BAM! you get ghosted.

It’s all the same gambling addiction. While job seekers haven’t really fought back legally, people seeking romance have:

“The popular dating apps Tinder, Hinge and the League hook users with the promise of seemingly endless romantic matches in order to push people to pay money to continue their compulsive behavior, according to a federal lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Wednesday.” [Maker of Tinder, Hinge sued over ‘addictive’ dating apps that put profits over love]

Addictive features & corporate profits

The parallels to the big job boards and ATSes are startling:

“While Hinge’s advertising slogan boasts that it is “designed to be deleted,” the lawsuit claims Match Group’s dating apps are really designed to turn users into “addicts” who do not find true love and instead keep purchasing subscriptions and other paid perks to keep the publicly traded company’s revenue flowing.”

Addicted to a dating app? (How about a job-hunting app? Is there a difference?) The complaint filed by six plaintiffs from several states claims:

“Match Group has violated state and federal consumer protection, false advertising and defective design laws… Harnessing powerful technologies and hidden algorithms, Match intentionally designs the platforms with addictive, game-like design features, which lock users into a perpetually pay-to-play loop that prioritizes corporate profits over its marketing promises and customers’ relationship goals”

That’s why you’re not getting hired – or finding love

Sound familiar? What exactly triggered you to keep submitting applications after the first thousand? After 3,000? Doing the same thing 4,000 times sure seems like an addiction to me! And, as with the dating apps, at the heart of the ATSes are… algorithms seemingly designed to suck you into believing there’s a proverbial brown pony underneath all that…crap. And you — and millions like you — keep coming back to look some more!

Ka-chink!

You’re applying to thousands of jobs, you’ve done 97 interviews, you have a keyword resume that’s supposed to play nice with the ATSes and you’re still not hired. And you ask me why you are not being hired?

That’s why you’re not getting hired.

What works

As an HR pro, you should know none of that stuff works. Now you know you’re also getting ripped off. As an Ask The Headhunter newsletter reader, you should know that on Ask The Headhunter we discuss what doesn’t work and what does every week. I know this can be hard to see when you’re so close to it.

Here’s my advice on handling the current job-search market. And there’s no A.I. or any algorithm that went into writing these articles. This is what works.

Library Vaction beats the Internet when job hunting

Job search success stories

How to get a job: Don’t write a resume

Drop the resume script: Be the wired candidate

The key to good networking

You mean doing it online doesn’t work?

A number of years ago I did a news segment with PBS News. If you watch it, check the date. Nothing has changed materially between then and now. It’s time for a Congressional investigation.

Is applying for Jobs Online Not an Effective Way to Find Work?

Dating apps, job-search addiction — it’s all the same algorithms

In How to ditch the apps and date offline NPR offers the advice of a relationship expert to help wean the addicted from their poison. Take a few minutes to read it. The parallels to job search make it painfully obvious that the addictions are fundamentally the same — and so is the cure. It starts off like this:

“There is another option. It may not seem like it, but you can meet people to date in person.”

Sound familiar?

When the system is broken, you can’t use the system. You have to go meet people you want to work with — in person! I wish you the best. But, please — if you do get a job in HR, do something to stop addicting people to the algorithms!

What’s wrong with the dominant systems we depend on to match people to jobs? Do they serve us effectively, or are we just addicted to them without much care for how well they work?

: :

Question

I have been on 6 interviews with senior management at a highly regarded company. Although the interviews were exploratory, the hiring manager looked to me to take over and manage a good portion of the department. After the second interview with the hiring manager, he advised me that he wanted to expand the role of the position due to my extensive project management experience.

Since I worked on an industry committee in which this company was represented, I was familiar with their operation. All the interviews went quite well, and I was told that a decision would be made within two weeks. I received a voice mail from the hiring manager yesterday and he advised me that it may take a little longer to make a decision. He stated that they are still developing the position, and some other “things” came up that diverted his attention.

What do you suggest I do to bring this to closure? Thank you.

Nick’s Reply

You have two choices: bring this to a head, or let it alone. My advice is to let it alone. Let’s explore the other option, then I’ll explain why I think you should leave it alone

After 6 interviews, invoke your own timeline

You can bring it to a head by calling the manager and giving him a polite ultimatum, along these lines:

“I appreciate that you have internal reasons for this taking so long. However, I have some key decisions I need to make, too, regarding my work and some new commitments. I’d like to set a deadline for us both – say, two weeks? Respectfully, if your team can’t make a decision by that point, I will need to withdraw my candidacy for the job. I want you to know how much I’ve looked forward to working with you. I know I can do this job profitably for you. I hope you can respect the other decisions I have to make in the next couple of weeks, but I hope we have the chance to work together. Feel free to call me any time.”

The risk you take is that he may say they can’t deal with the deadline, and you’ll have to walk away.

Control

Sometimes closure is under the control of one party more than the other – in this case, the employer. When a company is ready to hire, they do it. When they hesitate, we could speculate about what’s really happening until the cows come home – we’ll never really know what’s up. So, don’t put your life and career on hold and wait by the phone. You’ve already given them 6 interviews. That ‘s way more than enough.

I’d focus on other things and leave the hiring manager alone. The ball is entirely in his court. Let him play it. He’s already told you he doesn’t quite know what this position is really all about — but you will never really know whether that’s a serious problem. You may get a job offer at some point but, depending on how long that takes, you may need “a little longer” yourself — to judge whether you want to work with these people.

There is really only one way you can take control. Get on with any other opportunities or plans you have. Pretend this one job doesn’t even exist. You’ve done everything you should. Don’t be sidelined because someone else isn’t ready to make a play.

What does it mean when an employer delays a hiring decision? Should you even care? What’s the best way to handle this kind of situation?

: :