Social Networking and Recruiting

Friday, May 21, 2010

I’ve been reading a lot about social networking lately—especially as it applies to recruiting. One of the business problems our company is constantly trying to solve is: How do you engage the highest quality candidates possible early in the recruiting process? Or more specifically: How do you entice candidates to engage in a dialog about their careers before they even start looking for a change?

This is a tough nut to crack. In the last couple of years, there has naturally been more interest in social networks as a vehicle for accomplishing this task. Many career sites, including the major job boards, have attempted to leverage the internet traffic that social networking sites enjoy, for their own benefit. Their efforts have been met with a lot of frustration and poor results.

Recently, many of the discussions on this topic have migrated from espousing the great potential that social networks hold, to, “Does anyone have this figured out?” As this unfolds, I believe we’ll start uncovering some of the underlying principles that drive social networking and how it can be more effectively used for marketing and recruiting.

I wish I had a complete list of these principles to share with you at this point, but I’m not there yet. Like many other people who are trying to understand social networking, I’m starting to notice a few things and connect some dots, but the full picture has not emerged yet. This may take awhile!

Over the next couple of discussions, I’m going to share some of the things I’ve noticed in the process of discovery. If you’ve figured out some things in this arena, please share them via email or comments and we’ll learn together.

Earlier this week, Todd Raphael, editor of the Electronic Recruiting Exchange, posted an update from a recent forum on social networking and recruiting. The summary was titled, “A Community Few People Really Want.” Here are some thoughts that emerged from this discussion:

1. Social Network users are concerned about privacy when it comes to career issues.

When sharing things online, users are quick to share information about “where the party is,” or “what’s happening tonight,” but don’t want to share information that later can be scrutinized by potential employers, work colleagues, and other professionals. If we’re asking someone to share what they don’t like about their current job, don’t expect anyone with much intelligence to answer the question–this type of information has a way of getting to the wrong people.

2. Nothing kills a conversation like having “big brother” sponsor it.

“One conference-goer in the session said she created an online group for college-age students and interns to interact. Well, she tried. They didn’t take to it. ‘It’s been a one-way blast to them,’ she said. ‘They would not engage.’ She said many see each other in real life every couple of weeks at an event the company puts on, which involves a short educational session followed by networking. They also do community service projects together. But on the company intranet, they’re not chatty. And this is a problem because recruiters want them online so they can check them out and recruit them.”

3. Online social networking will not replace face-to-face networking.

Another forum contributor advised that “…if you don’t capture people in the medium you want, but you engage them in some other way, that’s plenty good. It’s about fostering community. If the face-to-face networking events work, do more of them. We spend a lot of time fighting what isn’t working, rather than doing what is working and saying, ‘let’s increase the volume of that, and chase those things.’”

Hopefully, this type of input will help you start to see where the major boundaries are with regard to social networking applications. These boundaries should help us define more clearly what doesn’t work. From there, we can focus on activities that have the best potential for reaching candidates. More to come in the next couple WorkPuzzles…

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you’re an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the “comments” link below.

The Art and Science of Interviewing New Agent Candidates – Part 3

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Recruiting the best new agents demands an understanding of how the best recruits think and reach decisions. As previously mentioned, it also requires an understanding of the natural conflict that occurs inside the minds of people further down the ladder of the recruiting pipeline…the people who are just beginning to ponder the possibility of becoming an agent.

In the preceding two blog entries, I addressed some fundamental problems associated with instant gratification thinking. I have seen many managers fall into this pattern of recruiting. Such tactics really undermine any chance of hiring the best new candidates. If you haven’t done so already, I urge you to review the first two discussions on this topic (1,2) so that you are familiar with these pitfalls. Today, I will change gears and address the actual decision making process that unfolds inside the minds of people further down the decision pipeline, and the role you can play in helping them through that process.

Read the next few paragraphs carefully. What might seem ridiculously obvious at first, will gradually build a powerful model toward helping almost anyone with any decision. You must first understand the building blocks…

Throughout most of the decision making process, the wisest people carefully weigh all angles before committing to something new. That means that they typically hold two opposing views (or sides) in their minds that are in temporary conflict.

In order for that conflict to work itself out successfully toward a decision they can commit to, they must be able to think about, consider, and assess the possible pros and cons of each argument that exists in their heads, from both sides. In other words, they have to fully realize and accept that there are two sides, must be open to both, weigh both, and ultimately commit to one. With me so far?

Now, most of you are accustomed to seeing people who have already been through this process before ever speaking to you. They are in licensing school, etc. They have already done the above before you ever meet them.

But, those who have just recently begun the process of discovery haven’t had time to consider both sides of the argument. What do you think happens when you become a salesman at this point? Desperate people might comply and fail, but what about people who aren’t desperate? What happens if your role slips into only offering all the good reasons to become an agent? If this occurs, two things happen:

You force them to take on the other side of the argument; and
They no longer feel that you will act as an objective resource to address their concerns.

In other words, as soon as they sense that you want it more than they do, you lose any leverage or influence. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with overcoming objections, but you must carefully do it without wanting it more than they do.

Your job is to continually push the argument back where it belongs— in their own head. The conflict doesn’t belong between you and them. If you find that you are taking one side, then you are forcing them to take the other. They will defend whatever is the opposite side of the argument.

Many times people even attempt to draw you into a debate in order to force the decision outside their own head so that they can win the argument with you, because they can’t win it on their own. If you feel drawn in, as if you want to close the deal, then this is probably happening. Watch for it.

The appropriate way to handle this is to point out to them that they suddenly seem to be trying to talk themselves out of what they had previously been weighing out so carefully. Confess to them that you suddenly feel like trying to sell them on becoming and agent, when it isn’t your role to do so. Assure them that it’s an anxiety provoking decision, but that it seems like they are trying to undermine what they had previously been excited about.

If you take this patient role of neutral observer and keep pushing the conflict back into the person’s own head, then and only then, can they make a decision they can live with. It takes work, but there will be some jewels you’ll find along the way. And I guarantee that whatever they decide, they’ll respect your objectivity enough to use your company’s services in the future.

Editor’s Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you’re an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the “comments” link below.

The Art and Science of Interviewing New Agent Candidates – Part 2

Thursday, May 13, 2010

As promised, today I’ll continue breaking down the psychology of good candidate interviewees and the anatomy of a decision within the minds of smart people.

Despite warnings from my high school English teacher, I am throwing caution to the wind and plan to mix as many metaphors and analogies in the following paragraphs as it takes to get my point across.

We have to start with a dating analogy. How did you…or would you… find your ideal spouse? Would you wait for people to ask you out, or would you pursue multiple people before finding the best match? Were you one of those who waited for people to pursue you? Not the best plan folks. But this is exactly what many managers do. Desperate people generally grab the low hanging fruit. (No joke was intended here, but yes…I see it…and yes, a new metaphor!) It takes no skill, little courage, no risk, and absolutely no courting skills to ask a desperate person to marry. Often times, these folks later wonder why they are disappointed with the end result…

Of course, even though most of us can relate to the dating/marriage analogy, it breaks down at some point because you (as a manager) want to hire an entire office full of good performers, not just one. So back to the harvesting fruit analogy…

You certainly want to pick some low hanging fruit, (low hanging fruit are those people who you traditionally hire out of real estate licensing schools etc) because doing so eats up the fewest resources, and because you CAN find some great fruit there. But, can you really find the highest volume of good fruit if you settle for only low hanging fruit? The answer is an emphatic NO. If you want abundant good fruit, you have to work harder to get to the fruit that is out of reach and assume that there is fruit that your competitor is too lazy to find ways to harvest.

Great harvesters find the tools to capture every piece of fruit they can get their hands on, even if it takes more time and energy. Keep in mind, you will likely have to throw away a great deal of bad fruit in order to find the best. Remember Kevin Ryan, CEO of AlleyCorp who interviews someone EVERY DAY? He does this because he is willing to expend the energy and time to uncover the best talent. He says:

“I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it’s 80 percent. The best way to be productive is to have a great team. So I spend more time than most CEOs on human resources. That’s 20 percent of my week.”

When it comes to interviewing the best candidates, you have to change your entire mindset. The best fruit will probably not be low hanging. Any one of your competitors can find those folks–they’re easy to get to. But who is going to spend the time and energy working to attract the candidates who are already good at what they do…only they happen to work in a different industry? Who’s going to have the patience to court these people over several months of indecisiveness, licensing school, and occasional second thoughts? NEWS ALERT- The brightest and most motivated people will not say yes right away. (More on this next edition.)

Who among you are willing to turn over enough rocks and do the necessary work to dislodge those hard to find diamonds? (I warned you! If you’re keeping track, that’s metaphor #3.) Doing this takes patience, consistent engagement, and finesse.

The finesse part is knowing how to talk to people who you suspect will become very good agents, but who might not be able to pull the trigger as fast as you’d like. This is often the hard part. How do you get them to arrive at “yes” without sounding like an impatient salesman? The brightest candidates will resist this pressure.

In part three of this discussion I’ll explain the anatomy of a decision and how you can best facilitate arriving at the right decision. The process I’ll share is used in psychotherapy by every well trained psychologist and will enable you to help anyone through any decision.

The Art and Science of Interviewing New Agent Candidates

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Recruiting the best new agents demands an understanding of how the best recruits think and reach decisions. It also requires an understanding of the natural conflict that occurs inside the minds of people further down the ladder of the recruiting pipeline…the people who are just beginning to ponder the possibility of becoming an agent.

Many managers have told me, point blank, that they don’t have time to waste on someone who has trouble deciding if real estate is right for them. One manager has been known to say, “If I have to interview a person for more than 20 minutes, then the candidate isn’t right for real estate.” Here’s another one I hear a lot: “If they don’t have a license, then I’m not interested.”

The managers who say this are very confident in their views. And for the first few years that I worked in this industry, I naturally had to respect their views because I hadn’t seen enough to gauge the accuracy, or fallacy, of what they were so convinced of.

But now I have. And I have ample evidence to suggest that their strong-headed, somewhat bullheaded way of interviewing new agent candidates rarely uncovers the best candidates, rather it attracts the most desperate and insecure candidates who fake cooperation and decisiveness just to get the approval of the inpatient narcissistic manager. Now, I don’t really expect these types of managers to change.

However, most managers I’ve met really want to know how to interview well, and are hungry to understand what is going on inside the minds of high caliber people. That is…most managers fit somewhere between the ones who naturally and somehow intuitively act to facilitate the decision process, and those who treat candidates like peons. (Side note: Knowing how to facilitate the decision making process in someone without appearing to want it more than the they do is hard to learn, and even tougher to practice: 9 years of school and 25 years of practice and I still make mistakes with this.)

So, for those who want to learn more, I’ll spend the next few blogs breaking down the psychology of those ideal recruits, including the anatomy of their decision making process.

In the meantime, send me your comments and stories either through the blog or my email.

Stay tuned…

The Importance Of Grit

Thursday, May 06, 2010

We all know people who aren’t necessarily exceedingly intelligent or particularly talented, who have a way of succeeding no matter what they do.

A researcher noticed this about ten years ago and set out to learn what this is and how it works. Since then, Angela Lee Duckworth, PhD, has conducted a series of studies on a concept called “grit.” Grit is another word for backbone, chutzpah, fortitude, guts, stick-to-it-iveness, etc. It all started when Dr. Duckworth (while a student in Graduate School) observed that it wasn’t necessarily the smartest people who succeeded and made a lasting impact on science.

She had a hunch that it was a person’s personal “grit” recipe that made the difference in their level of success. Across six studies, Duckworth found that grit significantly contributed to successful outcomes: Undergrads with the most grit earned higher grade point averages than their peers. West Point Cadets with the highest levels of grit were more likely to return after the first summer. Even “grittier” spelling bee competitors (a situation where IQ would seem the best predictor) out-spelled their less tenacious competitors. Among older individuals, people with substantial grit had higher levels of education and made fewer career changes than less gritty peers of the same age.

In reviewing the literature, there appears to be little explanation as to how a person can acquire grit. So, is this something innate in some and not in others? Is it based on our genetic make-up? Or, are there outside influences that haven’t been explored as of yet (socio-economic status, traumatic circumstances early in life, family dynamics, etc…)?

Duckworth is still trying to find the answer. But I want to remind you of the research on the growth mind set, which states that if you simply teach people about how the brain has the ability to change and grow, they can change and adopt new behaviors and learn beyond what they imagined was possible. This is not pop psychology. This is an empirically proven fact.

So, ask your most gritty managers, executives and agents, “What has made you gritty?” or, “What is it about how you think that makes you capable of overcoming so many obstacles?”

I guarantee that you will have a powerful discussion develop that you never could have anticipated.

Many successful people don’t attribute their success to their IQ or level of talent, but rather to their tenacity. Genius Thomas Edison was one of those people. Edison once said: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

Here is another prime example of grit: Poet David Baker is Director of Creative Writing at Denison University, and author of seven books of poetry, including “Midwest Eclogue.” Mr. Baker laments:

“Unfortunately, no one comes in my window and whispers poems to me… Poets [have to] work hard. I may work on a single poem for weeks or months and write 60 or 70 drafts—only to decide that draft 22 was the good one.”

Along these same lines, people often refer to Mozart’s diaries, where he divulges that an entire symphony appeared, supposedly intact, in his head. However, Jonathan Plucker an educational psychologist at Indiana University points out:

“But no one ever quotes the next paragraph, where he talks about how he refined the work for months.”

So what can we learn from this? The data shows that if we praise talent and accomplishments, we get stagnation, and even failure. However, in studies where “effort” was rewarded, the result was growth and greater success. Stick to rewarding effort in you and in others and you’ll develop a successful team.

Success comes to those who work harder…

In the meantime, if you want to contribute to science, visit http://www.ppresearch.sas.upenn.edu/ to take a ten minute grit assessment.

Source: Psychology Today

Authenticity: Does Anyone Believe What You’re Saying?

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

As we work with companies, we’re often asked for advice concerning how to “get the message out” regarding recruiting. Everyone seems to have a keen interest in the tapping and optimizing marketing vehicles that deliver their recruiting message to the widest possible number of candidates.

Case in point– I was with a group of real estate managers a couple of weeks ago who were bemoaning the effective techniques their competitors were using to bombard their agents with recruiting messages. There was a legitimate concern and even a little fear in the eyes of those managers who thought that their competitors were going to be successful and ravage their company.

Do you think they had anything to worry about? Not if these managers are authentic and credible with their own agents and candidates. The problem with the “carpet bombing” approach their competitors were practicing, is a lack of authenticity. Their recruiting messages were self-centered, filled with exaggerations, and very repetitive in nature. They weren’t very believable and bordered on annoying.

These are the types of messages that talented people tend to screen out quickly. Of course, the campaigns are having some impact (or they would stop using them), but it is a numbers game that requires a huge dissemination of the message because the return is so low. In addition, the new hires that are captured through this approach will tend to be low quality or be candidates who are so “abused” in their existing organization that even something gimmicky looks appealing.

So, how does one defeat a competitor who is recruiting like this? The best way is to attack them where they are weakest—their own lack of credibility. Do this by making sure that your messaging is authentic.

Dr. John Sullivan recently wrote an article that provides some great insight regarding how to make sure that your recruiting messages contain this quality.

Seven Factors That Increase Authenticity:

There are a variety of factors that increase a message’s probability of being perceived as authentic, including:

Support data — the availability of data or specifics about a program that support the subject of the message.

Credibility of the source — the credibility of the source based on the accuracy of previous messages.

Shared values — the perception of shared values and experiences between the author and the reader.

Candidness — the degree to which messages acknowledge imperfection.

The degree of professionalism — the extent of professional appearance in the design, editing, and writing, as well as any pictures that are included (too much isn’t a good thing).

The degree of filtering — the extent to which messages are scripted, screened, or filtered by corporate executives.

Two-way messaging — the extent to which you provide opportunities for questions, feedback, and comments by others.

To get started, use these principles as a checklist to evaluate your existing recruiting messages. If your messages do not contain these components, then they are not being perceived by your candidates as authentic and need to be changed. As you make changes, build messages that contain the components that Dr. Sullivan lists.

Next, make sure that you’re being credible and authentic with those who are already on your team. If a candidate interacts with your organization and finds that your messaging matches the reality in your organization, a bridge is built. If it turns out that you have a low-quality team, no amount of messaging to the contrary is going to help.