It's Talent, Stupid!

Competent incompetence

I was chatting with a HR Director at a FTSE100 business the other day (let’s call him Geoff) and he said, “OK Simon, I get that I need to understand someone’s intellect, values and motivations” (I had been banging on at him about that for a while!), “but why behaviours and not competences? Surely I have to know what this person is capable of?”

A pretty reasonable point I think you would agree. So my first stunning piece of insight in answer to his question was …

“Yes … possibly!”

You see, knowing that someone can do something, is not the same as knowing that someone will do something. This is the difference between competencies and behaviours. There is just no guarantee that someone will ever use a competence.

I have got to admit, I don’t really like competencies. Not the idea, the idea is fine, in fact the idea is brilliant. Of course we all need to know what people are capable of. But, what I don’t like is the way that competencies are used in organisations. They are used to allegedly tell us how good someone is, how effective they are, what they can do and can’t and worse still, what they could do. WRONG!

So here is what I said to the Geoff. Think of it this way. I am competent in dieting. I have read the books, watched the DVDs and my wife has told me everything there is to know about dieting. Truth is, I could do with losing a bit of weight (erm, he sniggered at that point). I could tell you all about how to diet and the benefits of dieting. So I am competent.

In fact, if you asked me in an interview “Simon, could you describe a time when you have lost weight through dieting?” I could. I lost a stone last March. The way that question is phrased is how all good competency questions are phrased. Tick, Simon is competent in dieting.

The problem is that I don’t value dieting. I am not motivated enough by losing a few pounds. So although I am competent, you know what? I will never diet. I won’t develop the habits. I won’t turn my competence in to a behaviour. A behaviour is the continued use of a competence – often and for ever. And unless you investigate my behaviours you have no idea if I will ever use the competence I so beautifully described.

Replace dieting with creating ambitious plans, good commercial judgement, influencing senior managers, challenging the business to do better etc. And I think you get the idea.

Either that, or this blog has been totally incompetent!!  ;-0

 

Diminishing talent pool in the Caribbean can make senior hiring and recruitment decisions difficult in local businesses

The Caribbean has been losing it’s best people since the advent of the slave trade. This outward movement of its most talented people has continued through to the current day. Currently, 12% of the population of the Caribbean emigrate to OECD countries and of the 20 countries with highest emigration rates in the world, 11 are in the Caribbean. So, lots of people are leaving, but who is leaving? 

This efflux becomes progressively worse as education increases, with Caribbean countries losing 60-85% of their tertiary educated population to OECD countries. This is  costing the Caribbean 3.2% of it’s GDP. Perhaps even more shocking is that 18% of the Caribbean GDP comes from emigrants remittances i.e. money sent back in paper envelopes! So why are the people, that the government have spent the most money educating leaving?

The top talent is leaving for very simple reasons; there are better educations, better paid jobs and better working conditions in OECD countries. Most of the highly educated workforce is travelling to receive further education or work abroad, predominantly in Northern America or the United Kingdom.

This exodus of talent causes a contraction of the talent pool available in the Caribbean, which in turn can have severe effects on businesses when they wish to fill senior positions within their businesses. As there is a limited resource of talented individuals locally businesses often either hire local people who are not capable to do the job, or they bring in western managers who can’t relate to the Caribbean markets.

So, what’s the solution? Well, it appears they either have to keep the best talent before they leave which will require some serious changes and intervention by governments, or find a way of attracting talent back from the likes of North America and the UK.

One of our clients has found themselves in this position and short-term attracting talent back from the diaspora looks like the best solution, but we will have to work this through. We will let you know how it goes. Stay tuned to our news page on the Chemistry Group website for regular updates or watch out for the next blog!

Are Recruitment Companies Dead Men Walking?

Short blog, as writing on my iPhone, more of a series of questions actually...

What do recruitment companies need to look like in the future?

% based fees are pants, bear no relation to work done or value of the hire...can we carve these up differently?

Chemistry's value is our
candidate relationships and our ability to predict future performance, is charging for placements the most relevant way of generating revenue? Is there another way?

That's what I'm thinking about, I'll blog some ideas on answers shortly.

Would love to hear from anyone else...

Thanks

R

Best Practice Recruitment...what is it?

So, we've been looking at doing an article for a magazine on what is Best Practice Recruitment. Put simply it is the matching of the right candidate with the right job.  Let me be clearer, from a corporations side it is the hiring of an individual who will add significant value to the organisation in their time with them.  From an employee's perspective it is joining a company that fulfills their work and personal ambitions.  The lack of Best Practice Recruitment costs the UK economy dearly, estimates put the cost of managing poor hires at over £24 Billion (Future Foundations Report).  Brad Smart believes the cost of mishiring to be 14X the employees base salary, the CIPD between 4-6X, whatever the number it is huge!  Furthermore only 4% of Global Organisations believe they have "best in class talent management" (Bersin & Associates), therefore best in class recruitment.  Added to this we know at Chemistry that current recruitment methodologies are only 25% accurate in predicting the future performance of new hires.  This means that 75% of hiring is wrong!  The conclusion has to be that Best Practice Recruitment is scarce bordering on non-existent!

For all those that haven’t yet experienced Best Practice Recruitment, here is an explanation...we call it Predictive Assessment:

The starting point, Defining the Need, frequently organisations start hiring with no clear definition of what they are looking for, actually many start without a job description!  Remember the job description is merely a list of responsibilities and tasks, i.e. a set of experiences.  Important Note: Experience is the least reliable predictor of success for your new hire, so note it but don't rely on it!  Focus your time working out what are the key factors of an individual that will make them successful in their role.

Use this model as the basis for your definition:

 

The job description fits in with the last box.  For the other items, such as "strong work ethic", "can cope with change", "creative"...think where else these fit.  The chances are your most important criteria will fit in to Values and Motivations and a bit of Behaviour (trust us, they always do).

The reason this model is the core of Best Practice Recruitment is that Intellect, Values & Motivations are intrinsic traits, we don't change them, therefore these are the most important bits of an individual when judging whether they will be successful. If the organisation values something you don't then you won't be able to perform, no matter what skills you have learnt.  Motivated people happen when their motivation and values match those of the organisation.

The other important box is Behaviours, good news is that these can be developed and this is where you can take someone who is not the finished article and finish them :-)

So define what you are looking for using the 5 box model, then measure your potential candidates using your definitions.

The measurement can be achieved using psychometric tools, behavioural or competency based interviewing and of course the old trusted chronological CV based interview.

So you will have a definition of what you are looking for and a profile of each candidate...the matching is now over 75% accurate.

This way of "matching" has a number of benefits:

1. The candidate receives a "rich" experience and will feel they have earnt the role.  Research suggests that candidates are more likely to accept a role they believe has properly assessed their compatibility, good candidates, enjoy a robust process.
2. The manager receives far more data to make their hiring decision with, they will therefore make the decision faster and with more confidence and will believe the candidate will succeed because they have made a better decision, lo and behold they do succeed :-)
3. The process is fair and equitable for all.  It is also objectively measurable, ticking all of the diversity requirements you may have.  For example in one technology organisation this process moved their percentage of female employees in their workforce from 8% to 41% in just one year...it ensured the best candidates got the roles not the ones that looked like the current line managers!
4. By focusing your attention to areas other than experience it broadens the potential number of people you can source from, Best Practice Recruitment fundamentally breaks the notion of a "War for Talent", the talent pool is now wide, varied and deep!

Of course the "matching" is only one element of best practice recruitment.  Other key elements include:

Candidate Communication - This is frequently the downfall of all recruitment, Best Practice Recruitment sets the expectations for the candidate in how they will be communicated to and then delivers on them.  The worst crime of all is not giving the candidate any feedback when they have gone through the process, always give them feedback.

Candidate Sourcing - Best Practice Recruitment delivers cost effective recruitment, the cheapest and most accurate way of hiring is by referral.  It demonstrates you are delivering a great experience.  A measure of Best Practice Recruitment should be the %age of hires from referral!

Speed of Turnaround - Get those offer letters and contracts out fast!

Induction - That first day can completely ruin your entire recruitment experience, make sure that first day is sensational

Best Practice Recruitment is therefore an entire experience. What it is not is a flashy website or a cool web enabled database or a Virtual Second Life Job Fair or an applicant tracking system...it truly is none of these things, don't spend your money on them until you have a process that at it's core delivers two things:

1. A process that matches the right candidate to the right role, so that the organisation and the individual can be mutually successful
2. A process that communicates consistent, reliable and quantifiable data to all stakeholders (candidates, line managers, HR et al) in a timely and efficient manner, i.e. All parties do exactly what they said they would do, when they said they would do it

Sounds great, doesn't it!

R

Candidates guide to Recruitment in 2009

It seems every candidate (and nearly every client) has one question on their lips..."what's the market like?".  OK, so it's like this, if you are a candidate the number of jobs in the market place is decreasing (slightly), if you are a client the number of candidates is increasing rapidly and if you are a recruitment agency, you'd better have some value to bring your clients!

Quite good really, the truth is the recruitment market in the UK is a £26Bn a year business, REC (The Recruitment & Employment Confederation) are predicting a 20-30% shrinkage of the market...that's still a £18.2Bn market at worst.  This implies there will still be jobs for candidates and unfortunately still a market to support a lot of poor recruitment agencies (ah well you can't have it all...maybe not quite as many though).

As a candidate you do need to sharpen your game and think hard about how you will get your next job.  Referral and networking is by far and away the most efficient way and we are seeing a lot of clients using tools such as LinkedIn (if you are a candidate, get on it and build your profile to 100% now!) and doing a lot more direct advertising.  If you are going to use recruitment agencies, please do not register with every man and his dog, call a few, meet a few but work with the people you like.  Truth is most recruitment agencies are rubbish, however you will find a few great consultants who don't see you just as a walking fee. (My God here is an awful story, I was told by a client that she had been offered 2 candidate placements for the price of 1 last week.  F$@k me, candidates are now being sold in BOGOFs like cans of beans! These are human lives we were dealing with!). 

Qualify the recruitment agency, ask them outright "do you think you can help me? It's OK if you can't I just want to use my time effectively".  Make sure you work with the ones who can help you and don't spend time chasing those who can't or who just don't want to.

Take time to revisit that CV, hone it...get your achievements screaming out of the page (ditch the god awful summary at the top that tells us you are inspiring, motivating etc.).  Get your education at the top, if you haven't got one, no matter, but please don't list a long trail of qualifications that add up to nothing, skills in WordPerfect were probably useful 20 years ago but now it reads like a filler.  Do NOT USE Word templates, format your CV to be unique, a reflection of you.  With the number of CV's rising, the human beings that read them are switched off by the same old boring Word format.

Make sure your last job/current job's responsibilities and achievements make it on the first page and keep the whole thing to 2 pages, 3 if you must, but it probably won't be read.

You are not going to want to hear this but this is how most agencies work.  They look at:

1. Your education, bottom line most of the time Graduates get priority
2. Location - does it fit with the jobs they have
3. Age (this is not to see if you are old) they are looking to see if your career progression fits with your age, if you are 50 years old and a territory sales representative the agency is going to struggle getting an interview...50 and a Sales Director or in a position of seniority they will look more kindly on you.  Bottom line is if you are 30 and a Sales Director your phone will ring off the hook.  It's there, you can't ignore it.  If you don't put your D.O.B on the CV they will work it out from your school leaving or graduation date.  If it were me, I'd save the hassle and stick my D.O.B. on the CV.  Bottom line is I turn 38 this year and I know for a premier league footballer I am finished and for a candidate I may be pushing it to stay in the squad.
4. Blue chip company, who are you working for? Do they know them, do you compete with a client?
5. What have you done? Chances are if you are selling in a B-B environment you will get called about B-B selling jobs, lateral thinkers most recruitment consultants are not.  It's not their fault they are paid to play closest to the fee and put in as little effort as possible.  Putting you as a candidate in a box is the most effective way of doing this.

That's it, it doesn't get more complicated than that.  So to cut through the crap, give them what they want up front and then qualify whether they can help you or not, keep it simple. 

If you are going to post your CV on job boards, keep refreshing it, agencies are now just searching the most recent posts.  Make sure you accurately fill in salary and skills data, a lot of agencies have Indian outsourcing companies doing their searching. These companies use very strict rules when searching the databases, they do not do broad thinking, rather sticking to strict criteria. Attention to these details is important.  If you do post your CV on a job board, include your contact details, don't block agencies from calling you, rather qualify hard when they do.  If it's not right for you be crystal clear you do not want the opportunity.

This is an important point, a lot of agencies are getting desperate (2 for 1 is a sure sign of desperation) that means there is more chance an unscrupulous consultant is going to use your details in a manner you may not want them to.  Be crystal clear with them, if you don't have enough information on the job tell them to NOT send your CV, be firm, leave the call with the consultant clear on what YOU want the action to be.

Of course this could all be nonsense and I am sure it's going to upset recruitment agencies but I have been doing this now for 17 years with time spent both agency and client side.  I know what a great agency looks like and does and I also know what the majority do.  If I were a candidate I would work with people I like agency side but this would be few, I would focus most of my time on referring and actively supporting and nurturing my personal and business network.  Hiring in these times can not be left to chance and most companies given a solid referral candidate would take them over a candidate supplied by an agency, fact.

Of course Chemistry are one of the few I would work with, with 80%+ of our hires made via our referral network, we practice what we preach :-)

Hope this has helped some candidates (and if it has annoyed some agencies then that's a bonus).

R

“HR Business Partner” – another great idea flayed to the bone by mediocre business leaders

This is Simon here, Roger’s partner in crime/business (delete as appropriate – Ed). AND big news, it’s my birthday next week!

So what should I wish for? An economic upturn? Lower carbon emissions? Derby County to win the league cup? (OK, it all seemed realistic until the last one!) Perhaps I should wish for all of these.

But what would I want for the world of business? What would have the most impact, create more value, make more people happy and successful?

Simple, it’s got to be about people.  People create all the value in business. They make the decisions, create and run systems and processes. They make mistakes, are rude to customers, buy too much stock. They amaze you with their ideas and ingenuity, they take on new markets and beat competitors in to submission.

And better than that, it has to be about the part of the business that should be driving people issues forward, helping managers to become better leaders and coaches, matching the business strategy to a people strategy etc etc.

And that group of people would be who? … erm, HR, and there’s the issue.

The challenge we have in business is that the most value creating resource for business would be a strategically relevant, driving and delivering HR team. A HR team aligned to the business, partnering with the business. Resolving people issues, yes, but way ahead of the game, driving talent investment and creating the most amazing resource a business can have - the best team in your market, motivated and co-ordinated.

Not a new vision. This one has been around since the mid 90’s when a guy named David Ulrich introduced it. The problem is that it has just not happened. HR has struggled to be connected to business in the way they and the business hopes for. But why?

Because in life you reap what you sow. We get the HR service we deserve. When I have seen great HR leaders and teams it is because the business has set them high expectations, has challenged them to create value, has given them space to do it, has measured their business impact, has recruited HR people who are more than administrators.  But most businesses don’t do that, in fact they do the opposite. How stupid is that?!

So what do I want for my birthday? Two things:
1.    I want business leaders to recruit HR teams full of people who want to make a difference to business, not just to survive. This might mean even having a number of people who have never even worked in HR before – salesmen, marketers, bakers!
2.    And I want business leaders to measure these HR teams on their business impact and quality. So of course, keep them to budget, have them drive through put, but for example in recruitment reward them for recruiting ONLY the right and best people, not just filling empty posts

Simple really.

Oh, and another thing, don’t feel you have to send me a card!

Cheers,
Simon Cooper

What War for Talent?

I believe the War for Talent talked up by headhunters  is phoney.  There is enough Talent for any role, it depends how you define the talent required.  Let me give you an example, we are frequently asked to hire sales people, the conversation with the sales manager or sales director frequently goes like this:

"What type of person are you looking for?" - Consultant

"Well, they need to be bright, dynamic, on the way up in their career, an achiever, have a high degree of initiative, creative with an ability to think on their feet, blue-chip background and clearly experience of selling in our space" - Sales Director 'X"

And there you have it, a War for Talent because that's clearly what everyone wants to hire and the type of people who fit that mould will undoubtedly be small but is it what they "want" or more importantly what they "need"?

Let's for one minute suggest that not all sales people are the same and that not all organisations need the same sales people, if they aren't and they don't, why do we prescribe to one "great" type of sales person, surely there must be other types?  We found this to be the case with one FTSE 100 client, upon analysis the types of sales people that performed best in their environment, were not as depicted above, actually their best sales people were neither stereotypically bright or creative, actually it was definitely better that they were not!  For this organisation a better understanding of what made a great sales employee (not a general assumption) opened up a whole world of potential employees previously untapped, they defied the War for Talent, because for them it was phoney.

Oh I hear the cries from the technical people that that theory is all very well but in some technical areas, such as Women in IT, the War for Talent exists because the talent doesn't exist at all.  Actually i kind of sign up to that, they are right it doesn't exist.  So you have a choice, engage in a non-productive vicious cycle of attrition, i.e. we'll just steal other people's talent and they'll steal ours etc. Or create your own, be brave, don't engage in a war, take a different path...at Chemistry Recruitment (http://chemistryrecruitment.com) we have a choice steal other people's recruitment consultants at a price or create our own, as a small business the temptation to "buy" people who can hit the ground running is great, think of all that early revenue!  However for our brand and business it's the wrong choice, so we invest in hiring individuals with the right level of Intellect, Values, Motivation and Behaviours and we then train them on the experience required.  Our retention and individual performance figures speak volumes about how right our choice is, we have a team of loyal, passionate people who have no preconceptions about how recruitment should be delivered, they are fantastic.

Saying all of this hiring great people is not easy, it doesn't have to be expensive but it's not easy...

Cheers

Roger