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The Downfall of Historic Corporate Responsibility

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

I wrote yesterday’s Oldie back in 2007; it ended with this comment,

Corporate responsibility is a major buzzword these days, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s tied more closely to

  • doing what’s right;
  • doing what you can get away with; or
  • not getting caught.

It’s taken 13 years for practitioners of the second and third approaches to even consider changing.

The pressure they face to take such steps is real; the industry’s years of reliance on hypocrisy, lobbying, and misleading public relations tactics is eerily reminiscent of the approach taken by tobacco companies, and its litigation risks are set to follow a similar trajectory, with lawyers and activists framing failure to address climate change as a human-rights violation.

The changes certainly aren’t being driven by the Feds (consider the EPA’s decision to limit scientific research when drafting environmental and public health regulations), but by people.

The corporate responsibility façade is—finally, thankfully—crumbling. Activist investors and angry citizens have forced a reckoning. The Conference Board views the upcoming 2020 proxy season as a tipping point for disclosure of corporate political activity.

Even more potent are Gen Z’s and many Millennial’s attitude on choosing a place to work.

Young graduates evaluating prospective employers know that the true narrative of a corporation’s purpose can be found by reviewing who it does business with and which politicians it backs [emphasis mine].

There is no company that can survive without an adequate workforce and there is no Generation in history as suspicious and downright cynical about corporate America, including Big Tech, unicorns and startups in general than Gen Z — an attitude already infecting other generational segments.

Amazon employee reaction to CEO Jeff Bezos’ climate change initiative is a good example.

Amazon Employees for Climate Justice responded to Jeff Bezos’s recent $10 billion commitment to fight climate change by reminding their CEO that “one hand cannot give what the other is taking away.”

That two-faced approach isn’t unusual; in fact, it’s common practice — more plainly described as talk the talk, but screw the walk.

It will be difficult for that approach to continue working when it seriously limits recruiting efforts, not to mention paying customers.

Image credit: Frits Ahlefeldt

Is Tech Unstoppable?

Tuesday, February 18th, 2020

If, like me, you wonder if there is anything to stop tech from its all-consuming forward march, there may be.

Tech needs two things to keep going

  • workers and
  • users

So what happens when those segments start rebelling?

There’s a tech backlash best seen in the newest crop of workers.

“Working at Google or Facebook seemed like the coolest thing ever my freshman year, because you’d get paid a ton of money but it was socially responsible,” said Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci, 21, a senior at the University of Michigan. “It was like a utopian workplace.”

Now, he said, “there’s more hesitation about the moral qualities of these jobs. It’s like how people look at Wall Street.”

“It felt like in my freshman year Google, Palantir and Facebook were these shiny places everyone wanted to be. It was like, ‘Wow, you work at Facebook. You must be really smart,’” said Ms. Dogru, 23. “Now if a classmate tells me they’re joining Palantir or Facebook, there’s an awkward gap where they feel like they have to justify themselves.”

Audrey Steinkamp, a 19-year-old sophomore at Yale, which sends about 10 percent of each graduating class into tech, said that taking a job in Silicon Valley is seen as “selling out,” no different from the economics majors going into consulting who are “lovingly and not-so-lovingly called ‘snakes.’”

“The work you do at a place like Facebook could be harmful at a much larger scale than an investment bank,” Ms. Dogru said. “It’s in the pockets of millions of people, and it’s a source of news for millions of people. It’s working at a scary scale.”

Oops, seems that the moral considerations of where to work are of much more importance for both college and grad students.

Agriculture is supposed to be a market “ripe for disruption,” including tractors that do everything except scratch your back.

You’d think farmers would be cheering.

Instead they are searching out tractors made in the 1970s and 80s that are more profitable to use.

Tractors manufactured in the late 1970s and 1980s are some of the hottest items in farm auctions across the Midwest these days — and it’s not because they’re antiques.

Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren’t as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.

And it’s the “sophisticated software” they don’t want.

But tractors from the 1970s and 1980s aren’t so dramatically different from tractors produced in the 2000s, other than the irksome software, and at a time when farmers are struggling financially, older tractors can make a lot of business sense.

Both are good news.

Constricting the worker pipeline at one end and a user rebellion at the other are two of the few things that can act as Daniel to tech’s Goliath.

Image credit: Roger W

How AI Can Kill Your Company

Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikemacmarketing/30188200627/in/photolist-MZCqiH-SjCgwQ-78gAtb-4Wrk4s-Dcx4UC-24s3ght-2dZfNaQ-8nBs97-5JpQEE-4GXcBN-RNNXQ4-2eo1VjR-29REGc9-3iAtU2-8SbD9g-2aDXanU-dYVVaB-5Pnxus-29Jabm7-2em8eRN-24DS86P-4KTiY4-87gbND-TnPTMx-UWXASW-fvrvcc-9xaKQj-2dviv8X-7Mbzwn-4WrkmQ-EPaCDj-dWTnJy-4zWGpJ-2fuyjjE-23y8cHC-4HEcBa-585oYX-jR9gc-dZ2ueo-dZ2v6o-2etej9U-dZ2A5J-4vuuEb-TrNV8b-dYVQKp-4HCFvt-6kBMSR-7JvXoF-3Ym8Sz-ShBxCm

Yesterday included a post about how tech has sold itself as the silver bullet solution to hiring people.

Algorithms actually do a lousy job of screening resumes and companies that rely on them miss a lot of great hires.

Why?

Because the only thing an algorithm can do is match key words and experience descriptions. Based on 13 years of tech recruiter experience I can tell you that rarely does anyone change jobs in order to do the same thing somewhere else, unless they hate their manager or the culture.

Not things that an algorithm is going to pick up on. Nor will the initial phone call usually made not by the hiring manager, but by someone who know little about the job other than to match the candidates responses to a list of “preferred” answers.

No discretionary knowledge based on the manager’s experience or the candidate’s potential.

We all know that management loves to save money and many of them feel that AI will allow them to reduce the most expensive item of their fixed costs, people — including managers.

Imagine an app giving you a quarterly evaluation—without a manager or HR rep in sight—and you have an idea of where this is potentially going.

What management forgets is that a company isn’t an entity at all. It’s a group of people, with shared values, all moving in the same direction, united in a shared vision and their efforts to reach a common goal.

It exists only as long as people are willing to join and are happy enough to stay — excessive turnover does not foster success.

So what do workers think about the use of AI/algorithms?

However, workers don’t necessarily like the idea of code taking over management functions—or hiring, for that matter. Pew research shows 57 percent of respondents think using algorithms for résumé screening is “unacceptable,” and 58 percent believe that bots taught by humans will always contain some bias. Nearly half (48 percent) of workers between the ages of 18 and 29 have some distrust of A.I. in hiring, showing that this negative perception isn’t going away anytime soon.

They are right to be distrustful, since AI is trained on historical datasets its “intelligence” includes all the bias, prejudices, bigotry and downright stupidity of past generations.

This is bad news for companies looking to “increase efficiency,” but great news for companies that recognize they aren’t hiring “resources” or “talent,” but people, with their infinite potential and inherent messiness.

Image credit: Mike MacKenzie

Avoiding Unicorn Burn

Wednesday, January 29th, 2020

If you interview or work for a unicorn or unicorn wannabe that excels at raising money you would be wise to take a step back.

Forget charisma and founder vision and consider what is really going on profit-wise and sustainability-wise.

Fast growth is good mainly for VCs, not employees.

If you can discipline yourself not to be dazzled by shiny words and concepts you can learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Do that, and you won’t need to buy this sign or tattoo the words on your frontal lobe. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/347269821244887187/

Image credits: Sarah Rebecca on Instagram  and Zazzle

Your Boss’ Values

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/41666097@N07/48628989688/

Decades ago, when I was a recruiter in Silicon Valley, I preferred working directly with managers, avoiding HR, so I worked primarily with startups and smaller companies as opposed to large corporations — unicorns didn’t exist back then.

Aside from disliking HR’s bureaucratic read tape, I found I could provide better matches by understanding the culture of the hiring manager, whether founder or not.

Yes, there is an overarching company culture, but the manager-specific cultures that exist in every company rarely duplicate it and may not even bare any similarity.

Culture is the direct result of values.

Culture is only ageist, misogynist, bigoted when that manager’s values are ageist, misogynist, bigoted.

To thrive in a culture, you don’t need to duplicate your boss’ values, but they must, at the least, be synergistic.

Accepting an offer from a boss whose values are incompatible, let alone diametrically opposed, to yours can mean setting yourself up for disappointment or worse.

Image credit: pmillerd

Ageist Gender Parity

Tuesday, January 21st, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/numberstumper/142474172/

Hey guys, are you doing your all to optimize your existence?

Success, money and disrupting an industry just doesn’t cut it anymore.

“Optimizing” is the male version of the same techniques women have been forced to use for decades to avoid being labeled old, AKA, unhireable.

Of course, old is relative.

The stretch number used to be 30 for women and no top for men.

While aging out for women hasn’t changed much, men’s has dropped like a stone, especially in the rarified atmosphere of Silicon Valley and other tech environs.

So what’s a guy to do?

The same thing women have been doing for decades.

These men are turning to procedures like Botox, fillers, laser treatments, and radio frequency microneedling, a technique that stimulates collagen and rejuvenates the skin. In some cases, they’re going under the knife for eye and neck lifts, according to the Post.

Who would have thought that any form of gender parity in tech would be driven by rampant ageism?

Image credit: paul stumpr

Silicon Valley’s Biggest Con

Tuesday, January 7th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/theilr/5091351124/

A couple of years ago I wrote about a stupid, soul-gutting Silicon Valley myth about work and people’s value.

It spelled out the idiocy of believing that only the best were hired by startups, let alone unicorns, and everyone else was second caliber. As I said then, what a crock.

Throughout a long career as a recruiter and since I’ve said the same thing and it hasn’t changed.

The right place for you to work is the one that satisfies what you want — whether that’s the opportunity to work on bleeding edge technology, build a network, upgrade your resume or even plain, old curiosity.

The wrong place is the one you join with an eye to getting rich quick or for bragging rights.

For some people those reasons still stand, but a lot has changed.

For many Silicon Valley engineers money has taken a front seat to most considerations and it’s startups that are suffering, since they can’t compete salary-wise with giant companies and unicorns (which are nothing more than giant companies that haven’t gone public — often because they aren’t profitable and likely never will be.)

That’s understandable, considering the cost of living, but when you add the aspirations so many consider “necessities” then salary becomes even more important.

The problem, for both employers and employees is the same.

Money is not and never has been a source of loyalty — in either direction.

When companies feel the necessity to lower their burn rate the highly paid are often the first to go.

And my old adage that people who join for money/stock/perks will leave for more money/stock/perks still holds true.

Loyalty is the result of managers and companies giving a damn and employees invested in a mission that has meaning beyond money.

Silicon Valley is big on smoke and mirrors; the two biggest are

Image credit:  theilr

Golden Oldies: If the Shoe Fits: Why People Join Startups

Monday, January 6th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/5726760809/

Poking through 14+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

First, Steve Wozniak’s comments from 2016 are even less true today than they were then. Secondly, money has become the all-consuming focus for most people regardless of profession, driven for some by necessity, but in tech more often by ego, stuff and an aspirational lifestyle. That said, startups as a source of wealth may be falling out of style, as you’ll see tomorrow.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

I only partly agree with Steve Wozniak’s recent comment.

“I think the money that’s been made has attracted a different kind of people looking at technology today and saying ‘Oh my gosh, I could maybe have a startup and make a bunch of money,’” Wozniak said. “And the ones that come out of business school, money’s the priority. For the ones that come out of engineering school, being able to accomplish and design things that didn’t exist before is their priority.”

 Woz gives too much credit to the engineers.

It’s not just the biz school crowd that’s focused on the bucks.

The money bug has bit a good number of techies, too.

Years ago, no matter their role, people joined startups because they craved the bleeding edge, whether software, hardware or services.

This was true of both tech and non tech. In the words of Star Treck, they wanted “to go where no man has gone before” — or at the least go there differently.

Today the journey is more about getting rich and/or making connections for the future.

For decades I’ve told clients, “The person who joins your company for money/stock/perks will leave in a heartbeat for more money/stock/perks.”

That hasn’t changed, if anything it’s just gotten more so.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Golden Oldies: Entrepreneurs: A Lesson From IDEO

Monday, December 16th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jm3/519148031

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Our population is aging, so more and more products are being developed for that market. The problem is that they are being developed by 20 and 30-somethings based on their idea of what’s needed — but in most cases they don’t have a clue.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

How would you respond to the following if you a large segment of your target market was older?

    • Would you hire a woman?
    • Would you hire an old woman?
    • A really old woman?
    • Could such a woman contribute significantly to a project?
    • What could she teach your hot, young engineers?

While most founders would answer ‘no’ or ‘nothing’, IDEO thinks differently.

The company recently hired Barbara Beskind and both she and IDEO consider her 90 years a major advantage.

She applied after seeing an interview with IDEO founder David Kelley, who talked about the importance of a truly diverse design team and hires accordingly.

The aging Boomer market has companies salivating and hundreds are developing products for them.

The problem, of course, is that younger designers have no idea what difficulties older people face; not the obvious ones, but those that are more subtle.

Beskind does.

For example, IDEO is working with a Japanese company on glasses to replace bifocals. With a simple hand gesture, the glasses will turn from the farsighted prescription to the nearsighted one. Initially, the designers wanted to put small changeable batteries in the new glasses. Beskind pointed out to them that old fingers are not that nimble.

It really caused the design team to reflect.” They realized they could design the glasses in a way that avoided the battery problem.

It’s the little things that make or break products and the knowledge of the little things comes mostly from having been there/done that.

That kind of insight is priceless.

Now how would you answer those questions?

Image credit: jm3 on Flickr

It’s the Boss, Stupid

Tuesday, October 15th, 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/vuhung/12461011705/

It’s said that people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses, but now and then it’s the top bosses, the ones who control the culture, who create the circumstances that incite an exodus, as opposed to an immediate manager.

That’s what’s going on at Google, according to James Whittaker, who left Microsoft for Google and then left Google to return there.

The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.

Googlers have left because of harassment, retaliation, various governments’ contracts/projects, treatment of contractors, and other ethical considerations.

Google’s bosses are also some of the biggest hypocrites in tech. Worse even than Zuckerberg at saying one thing while doing the opposite covertly — especially something that negatively affects the entire planet, not just people’s privacy.

Despite making noises about becoming more environmentally friendly, Google has been quietly funding organizations which say climate change isn’t real [emphasis mine].

Fortunately, all the clandestine stuff keeps surfacing and people are coming to the realization that Google is anything but benevolent.

All these things fall under the culture umbrella.

A culture controlled by Google bosses.

Image credit: Nguyen Hung Vu

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