Tuesday February 16th, 2010
The 8 questions that cost you the job

(Are you a recruiter/hiring manager who often has to follow up with candidates, post-interview? Bookmark this link - you may find it handy to send to unsuccessful candidates.)

If you're like me, scarcely a week goes by without receiving an email or phone call from a job-seeker saying something along the lines of, "I've been looking for a job for months, and I keep getting interviews but I don't get the job. I have no idea why - the recruiters and hiring managers never give me any feedback."

Whether a recruiter/hiring manager should provide detailed feedback, and whether that feedback would ever actually change a candidate's behaviour is something we've talked about before.

Some recruiters/hiring managers think that they have a responsibility to provide feedback; others not so much.

So I asked one of the best recruiters I know, Maureen Carroll, for her expert opinion.

"Of course recruiters should provide feedback to candidates who have gone through a first interview and haven't been selected," she says. "It's just part of delivering a good candidate experience."

But when candidates - especially those who have been in the workforce for more than a couple of years - make common interview mistakes, it's not surprising that the recruiter/hiring manager doesn't want to spend a whole lot of time providing feedback.

"Googling 'job interview tips' delivers 39 million search returns, and most of them contain the same basic guidelines," remarks Maureen. "So when candidates demonstrate they don't even know these basics, they're really saying that they don't care enough to learn about them - so the recruiter thinks it may be fruitless to say anything."

So what interview gaffes do candidates make? "Eight basic questions cause 90% of first-interview disasters," she says. "Avoid asking them, and you'll probably cut your job-hunt time by 50%."

8 QUESTIONS THAT'LL COST YOU THE JOB
Ask these questions in the first interview, and you're unlikely to get a second.

1. "Before we go any further, I need to know:  How much does this position pay?  Because there's no point in this interview if you're not going to pay me enough."
2. "How much vacation is there?"
3. "How many sick days and lieu time days can I use/accumulate in a year?"
4. "I need to leave by 3:30pm every day to pick up my kid/go to counselling/walk my dog.  Is that a problem?"
5. "When do the benefits start?  I need my prescriptions refilled."
6. "How much can I work from home?  Will you be giving me a good laptop to use from home?"
7. "Can you hang on a minute?  My cell's ringing and I really have to take this call - my sister had her court case today."
8. "How much do you monitor emails and internet use?  What about outside of work hours?"

(As always, I'm interested to hear your interview disaster stories in the comments!)

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Saturday February 13th, 2010
Bringing dogs to work: cool, fun -- or just really freaking annoying?

As many of you know, I have recently become a dog person.

This is our cocker spaniel, Lady.  (This photo - and quite a number of other really fantastic shots - was taken by a friend of ours named Lee Harkness, whose Flickr account is full of great pictures.)

I've never had a dog before, and we've only had Lady for a year, so I'm still in the 'gushing' stage. I'll bore you with anecdotes about Lady's adventures at the park, her relationships with other dogs, my disapproval of other dog parents - all I have to say is that it's a good thing I'm already married, because if I wasn't I'd be in danger of turning into one of those 'Lowered Expectations' women whose dog is their whole life.

I love to take Lady with me everywhere - I take her when I run errands or do grocery shopping, we take the subway all over town, we walk in the Toronto underground system (like other big cities, Toronto has a huge underground network connecting train/subway stations, stores and office buildings), and it's not unusual for her to sit at my feet in an office-building food court while I eat lunch.

(No one seems bothered by this - Lady's well-behaved, well-groomed, and ever since celebrities started bringing their dogs along in little Louis Vuitton handbags, the rules about having dogs indoors seem a little fuzzier than they used to.)

So of course it's natural for me to want to bring Lady to the office, and I do. (I'm not the only one: both of the co-founders of Head2Head have dogs that visit the office, and a couple of employees also have little dogs who they bring in from time to time.)

Even before I became a dog person, I thought that the idea of dogs in the office was cool - that as long as the dogs were well-behaved and calm, there was no downside to having them in the office, and that it clearly communicated 'coolness' to visitors.

I mean, whenever anyone talks about how great it'd be to work at, say, Google, they always mention the "You can bring your dog to work!" factor (usually right after the "Free snacks!" perq).

As it turns out, however, not everyone agrees with me on this.

There are a couple of people at Head2Head, for example, who are really quite frightened of dogs. Sure, they acknowledge that it's not an entirely rational fear (it's usually related to a bad experience in childhood), but, like a fear of heights, it's not necessarily something they can control. So knowing there's a dog around means they can't concentrate on their work.

And as a couple of commenters noted in response to the dog question in one of my January blogs, if you've got clients or candidates visiting the office, and they're afraid of dogs, you run the risk of losing business as a result of a dog running around.

Here's what I'm wondering, however: Some of your clients will really love the fact that you allow dogs in the office, because to them it's an indicator that you're edgy, modern, friendly, etc. (again, it's that 'shades of Google' halo). Will the incremental business you gain from that brand image more than offset the business you might lose because a client/potential client is put off by dogs?

I have a feeling the answer is 'yes'.

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Monday February 8th, 2010
RECRUITING: Saving the world, one hire at a time

When was the last time you got a call like this:

"Oh, I'm so excited! We need to hire a new Manager of Widgets for our Mississauga office and I can't wait to interview candidates! This is a great opportunity to transform the organization!"

Pretty sure the answer is a big fat 'never'.

Whether you're an agency recruiter with external clients, a corporate recruiter with internal clients, or a hiring manager doing double-duty as a recruiter, the calls usually sound more like this:

"Well, I just found out that our Manager of Widgets is leaving at the end of next week. We're kind of screwed because we've got our new Widgeteroo launch next month and I know the comp plan is $10k below market. Can you dig up some candidates by tomorrow?"

Recruiting as opportunity - not headache

We all know that putting the right person in the right position at the right time can transform a company. Heck, just one great hire, even in a large company, can deliver dramatic, demonstrable results which are clearly reflected on the bottom line.

You know that feeling you get after you've just bought the computer of your dreams? You can't wait to get home and set it up, because you're thinking of all the great stuff you're going to do now that you've got the right capacity and capability.

That's how we should feel about recruiting. That every 'vacancy' is an opportunity to inject the right capacity and capability into an organization - which in turn will help the organization do 'great stuff'.

Don't let the 'process' obscure the 'opportunity'

I know, I know - recruiting would be a lot more fun if it wasn't for those pesky people running around all the time.

'People' tend to beget 'process', and before you know it you're selecting a recruitment supplier based solely on whether their account managers drive you nuts or not.

In other B2B professional services, companies sell their wares on a positive "Look what you'll be able to do if you engage our services...", end-result-oriented basis. In recruiting, it's more of a negative, process-driven sell: "Look at the hassles you won't have any more," and "Look at the money you'll save."

Hey, we're changing lives over here!

The right hire can transform an organization. The right job can transform an individual's whole life. Thinking about it that way might just make your next recruiting call start with "Oh, I'm so excited!"

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Saturday February 6th, 2010
Will a 6-month resume gap ruin your career?

The other day, Melanie Benwell of Poly Placements tweeted:

What do you think of candidates who take 6-12 months off to travel or re-energize before starting their job search?  Does it question drive?

and 

1 or 2 months I can understand but anything over 6 months I see as a red flag = lack of focus/drive etc.

I was surprised by Mel's take on work gaps, and since I know her to be a successful, experienced recruiter, it got me thinking.

Are resume gaps a red flag?

A couple of years ago I read an article which said that one of the ways in which Gen Ys will transform the workforce is that over their working lifetimes, they'll take on average 6-12 months off every 7 years.  (Of course I can't find this article now, but here's an interesting one about the 7-year sabbatical cycle.)

In other words, I've always thought that, as long as you had a good explanation for the gap, there was nothing wrong with having a 6-12 month gap in your resume -I mean,  what employer wouldn't want to hire someone who said they took 6 months to work in an elephant sanctuary in Kenya or finish their novel or go to cooking school?

(I myself have an almost 12-month gap circa 1996-97 - I got engaged to this guy from the States, so I moved to Philadelphia for a year, during which time my visa status precluded me from working.)

According to the New York Times, sabbaticals are more popular than you think, especially in an economic downturn:  With companies looking for ways to reduce their full-time salary obligations without losing their best and brightest employees, sabbaticals are a great way to hang on to talent while improving the bottom line.

But I think what Mel was getting at was:  If you say you took/are taking 6 months off to 'recharge your batteries', does it make you look like a milquetoast who can't handle the pressure? 

As always, your two cents are invited...

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About the Authors

Paul Dodd
Co-founder and President
Head2Head Canada

Paul has one simple goal: To help companies hire great people - and get the most out of every recruiting dollar they spend. That's why he's recognized as one of the best recruitment-industry thinkers in Canada.

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