it's ALL about the experience

Can You Manage Consulting?

Michael Maynard provides his perspective on whether a career in consulting is suitable for you.  Sage advice -- just in time for Thanksgiving consideration.  Thanks Michael.

 

Previously I discussed RIF's (Reduction in Force), otherwise known as getting laid off.  Being without a job can be a very jarring experience.  What you thought you knew about your status with your ex-company is no longer true.  For many, this blow to the ego leads to loss of self-worth and depression, even though it wans't really their fault.

A natural emotional over-reaction is to start thinking, "I'm never going to be the pawn of the corporate world ever again.  I'm going to work for myself."  Translation:  I'm going to show how valuable I really am by helping other companies succeed, especially my former company's competitors.

I'm going to be a consultant.

OK, go back to the phone booth and put on your civilian clothes. Just because you want to strike a blow against the evil doings of corporate Jokers, doesn't mean you're ever going to get the opportunity to do so.  I was a management consultant for over 20 years (and I was a very good one at that)... However, I'm the exception, not the rule.

I've read various consulting industry studies that showed 95% of individuals and companies that enter the consulting business leave within 6 months.  Expand the time to 1 year and that percentage goes up to 98%.  My goal in writing this article is not to stop those of you who want to start consulting, but to provide information that will help you make a more informed decision about whether the consulting business is right for you.  These are the major misconceptions about consulting.

Clients call you.  In my time as a consultant, I think I had 3 potential clients call me or my company first.  The business world is not looking for another management consultant who wants to help their business.  The biggest initial challenge for beginning consultants is to land their first consulting assignment, other than those with their former employer or where friends and family work.  Don't wait by the phone expecting IBM, General Motors or even Joe the Plumber to call  you.  It just doesn't happen.

You spend your time consulting.  My analogy about entering consulting is like being a club golf professional.  You become a pro because you love and have passion about playing golf.  However, the various managerial duties of the golf pro limits their time to play to a minimum.  Part of the joy of management consulting is getting to work with your clients and help them solve problems or start new initiatives.  Even in the large consulting companies, like Bain or Anderson Consulting, it is the junior consultants who spend their time on site consulting.  The higher you go in the consultancy, the less time you spend doing the consulting work.

What you really spend time doing is the administration, marketing and sales that lead to consulting assignments.  When you are working on assignment, you still need to spend the same amount of time doing the administration, marketing and sales.  You hope that you can get out from the assignment to make an in-person sales meeting.

You control your schedule.  I once was on a 3 AM conference call with my client's CEO.  Because of the CEO's nocturnal life style, he was raring to go, I and his managers who were on the call weren't.  Back to the golf analogy, I got a lot of "you must spend a lot of your time playing golf with your clients all afternoons."  I can remember 3 times where I played golf with a client or prospective client.

Even if you are doing well, being an individual consultant or part of a small consultancy means spending 60 to 80 hours per week, every week.  My former business partner, Dr. William Mott, had a great term for this:  "persistence over time."  The more you make the time doing the right things:  mailing out pitch letters, writing articles for publication, or lining up speaking engagements, the more business you will get in the long run.

But even when you are consulting, your time is not your own. There was more than one time that I did an all-nighter to put together a proposal or write the findings report.  What ultimately became my last assignment, despite having a strep throat, I worked all night, drove to the client site in a snow storm and delivered the report 10 minutes before the final project meeting.  I knew that I almost put a good client and friend at risk because I could no longer be counted on to deliver on commitments I made.  I needed to get out.

You can consult while finding a new job.  Maybe you can, but I never met anyone who could do this.  As described above, consulting is a full-time job. So is finding a new job.  Occasionally, I know of consultants who go to work for their clients, but I would maintain that if you can be tempted by the offer of a job, then you aren't really a consultant.  You also run the risk of crossing yourself, having a potential employer/client get your consulting materials and your resume.  The risk is not getting either employed or consulting because you've given the executive the idea that you don't really know which one you want.  If you can't manage your own business, then why do you expect executives to meet with you?

There is a lot more I can write about becoming a consultant at this time, but I think the above gives you a realistic picture of what the consulting life is really like.  You have to want to do it or else you're just wasting precious time that you should be spending finding a "real" job.  Consult with yourself and manage yourself to be successful with the career choice you've made.

About Michael Maynard:  Michael is a free-lance journalist and management consultant.  As a freelance writer he has written for CEO and CIO magazines and other magazine and newspapers.  He was managing editor and featured columnist for Global Business Newsletter.  He was also a featured columnist for the Washington Post-Newsweek syndicate.  For more than 25 years, Michael has been President and Co-Founder of Azimuth Partners, a marketing and business development consultancy.  Michael is currently lending his consultant talents to Improved Experience, which helps employers use feedback to measure and manage competitive advantage, engagement, and retention. You can reach him at michael@improvedexperience.com.

 

Technorati tags:  consulting, self-employment, Reduction in Force.

Employee Training a Path to Retention?

Guest author Steve Krajewski has dropped in for his perspective on retention and the role employee training has in boosting it.  Thanks for dropping by, Steve!

There's a fair amount of digital ink spilled these days on the role ongoing education plays in retaining--and engaging-employees.  London candymaker Swizzels Mathlow recently said turnover in one department dropped from 42% to 2% after it began offering courses in food and drink in partnership with a local university.  The Container Store, a Coppell, Texas-based storage products retailer, famously provides first-year salespeople with 241 hours of training in an industry that averages just seven.

Striking a balance between the quantity and quality of training may not be the biggest hurdle to clear for companies interested in following suit.  One key to developing a meaningful training program may hinge on accepting an apparent contradiction:  the most effective way to make employees better at what they do for you is to make them better at what they don't do for you.

Walt Disney acquired Pixar Animation in 2006 for roughly $7.4 billion.  As much as anything else, Disney was buying into Pixar's employee education philosophy.  The Emeryville, California-based company doesn't give a nod to employee learning--it weaves it into the fabric of studio operations.

With more than 110 course offerings, Pixar University (P.U.) offers employees a buffet of film school courses, taught by some of the best in the industry. Randy Nelson, tapped as Dean of P.U. in 1997, says employees are encouraged to devote up to four hours each week to their education.  Explaiing the thinking to one reporter, Nelson said, "Why teach drawing to accountants?  Because drawing class doesn't just teach people to draw.  It teaches them to be more observant.  There's no company on earth that wouldn't benefit from having people become more observant." 

While cross-pollination is important--company cooks taking scriptwriting classes--the next wave of employee education may have to draw on more than classroom lectures.  A whitepaper from Gartner Research predicts an 80% chance that half of all corporate e-learning projects will involve games by 2011.  For an upcoming generation of tech-savvy workers raised on digital distractions, the medium may be just as important as the message. 

The notion of all work and no play is getting turned on its head.  Companies that aren't willing to re-think the changing nature of employee education may have to face the hardest lesson of all. Contrary to popular belief, a heavy investment in employee education doesn't necessarily send your best employees packing.  In fact, just the opposite may be true.  The Container Store has a turnover rate hovering at less than 25%--in an industry that averages 100% annually.

Making an investment in your employees by encouraging and supporting active learning may teach them a priceless lesson:  sometimes the smartest move is staying put. 

About Steve Krajewski: Steve is a free-lance writer based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  His perspective is fueled by a background that includes stints as a tutor, magazine reporter, and billing team manager.

Technorati tags:  employee development, recruiting, selection and hiring, employee retention, The Container Store, Walt Disney, Pixar Animation, Pixar University.

Keeping Passive Candidates in Orbit -- a webcast

Hi there!  Claudia and I will be conducting a national webcast on Tuesday, November 13th.  This Human Capital Institute program is being sponsored by PeopleClick, which means that it is complementary for you to attend.  If you'd like to join us, please sign up today via either of the links below:

http://www.humancapitalinstitute.org/hci/tracks_creating_talent_pipeline.guid

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6958589803&ref=mf

See you there!

Alise

The Road to Providing Quality Candidate Experience Leads to Seattle

     We are happy to have been contacted by Samantha Barth, Board Member and Program Manager for Northwest Recruiters Association.  She has invited us to join a panel discussion about the importance of providing a quality candidate experience in today's competitive marketplace.  The event takes place Thursday September 20th.  We'll be in good company, among the likes of Judy Wright, Employee Engagement Director at Safeco and Matt Youngquist, Founder of Career Horizons.   

     The Northwest Recruiters Association has been conducting a series of lunch panel discussions, each focusing on a distinct perspective in the recruiting process.  So far, the group has held a panel discussion to explore the perspectives of the hiring manager and the recruiter.  Next to be ventured in our September session is the view of the candidate.  Later in the year, the final view to be explored will be that of the recruiting leader.  So far, each of the sessions has been sold out.  Apparently, they take this whole recruiting thing pretty seriously in Seattle.... (grin).  Thanks to you Samantha for reaching out to us!  We'll look forward to frequenting our old stomping grounds and meeting some incredible professionals.

Technorati tags:  Northwest Recruiters Association, candidate experience, selection and hiring

Recruiting Intelligence Meets Sourcing

On Friday I had the exquisite opportunity to lunch at Pei Wei with Moises (pronounced moy-SAYS) Lopez.  Turns out we both like to pen a word or two on blogs, both live here in the Dallas area, and both speak some Spanish and Portuguese.  Oh, and we both ordered (and loved!) the Mongolian Beef with Fried Rice.  How's that for a fabulous start?

But on closer examination, it also turns out we work in very similar arenas within recruiting.  Moises makes his magic by sourcing top talent at PDS Technical Services, which serves clients across the nation with long-term contracted staffing.  He makes it his business to know all the inner workings of the various industries in which he sources in order to procure the best talent as quickly as he can.  And to find talent before his company really needs it -- now, that's strategic. 

Meanwhile, we at Improved Experience are all about collecting and then translating candidate experience data into recruiting intelligence.  Stuff you can use to make intelligent, data-driven business cases.  Stuff you can take to the Board Room.  All so you can more competitively position your company in today's hiring-challenged world by improving the recruiting process, by crafting more targeted outreach programs, and by shoring up your employment brand initiatives. 

For both Moises at PDS Technical Services and we here at Improved Experience, the power of knowing -- or, recruiting intelligence -- drives everything.  For Moises, the power of knowing manifests itself in creatively finding great and often passive talent so recruiting professionals can open the dialogue and begin the all-important courting dance which ultimately culminates into a placement.  Improved Experience's power of knowing as third party researchers lies in serving our clients with real-time, benchmarked feedback from their talent pool.  Data-minable by demographics and job search motivations, the result is recruiting intelligence.

Moises and I both agree -- working on the strategic side of things is fun!  And helping to put those strategies into action is what allows us to be of value to our clients.  We were thrilled to discover that what began as a mutual interest in blogging also translated to a common business focus.  Together we realized that sourcing and recruiting intelligence have the same objective:  to empower a company with actionable data that drives its lifeblood initiative of finding and keeping great talent.  Who'd have thought we'd have so much in common -- outside of our obvious great taste in food?

Technorati tags:  recruiting, sourcing and recruiting, recruiting intelligence

Why should I care what you think?

In a recent conversation about the importance of understanding job seeker perception of employers, the heart of the discussion was this:  With the exception of the small percentage of those they might want to hire anyway, why should an employer care about what job seekers think as a whole?

Why indeed, unless perhaps the broader laws of competition apply to hiring and retention in your world, too.

Let’s take a look:

1. Customers have an unfulfilled need.
2. Customers are willing to pay for a solution.
3. Businesses create solutions and compete for the attention of Customers.
4. Customers select and pay for the solutions they perceive will best meet their needs.
5. Customer needs change over time, and the cycle begins again.

Sound familiar?  Gee, I wonder why.  You can almost replace the words “Customer” and “Business” with “Employer” and “Job Seeker” and not skip a beat.

On one hand, companies that know in advance the precise identity of the person who will be hired really don’t need to spend resources on those who won’t.  Their time and money are no doubt better spent on initiatives deepening relationships with the chosen few.

For those of us without a crystal ball, however, the process of attracting, selecting and retaining talent is a complex one.  Mostly because it is not a process at all – it is a relationship.  And let’s be honest; knowing who we want to hire (much less retain) is relatively impossible until discovery of that relationship is underway.

Making the case that experience only matters for some is more than a little short-sighted.  It’s impossible to know who is disengaging until it’s too late – and in this age of viral networking you don’t know who that person knows, either.  This is a dangerous game to play.

Now compound the issue when supply and demand for talent shifts to the candidate’s favor; suddenly a company finds itself in the position of applying even more resources to bring that same talent onboard. The ramifications of this go straight to the bottom line, as that which decreases efficiency negatively impacts profitability.

You can argue whether or not you believe that we're in a war for talent, but you're already competing for them with every contact.  Transparency - the art of openness, communication and accountability - may truly be the next great competitive differentiator for talent, because it sends the message that you're listening and you want to earn the respect of those you employ.  Transparency builds trust - and isn't that what great relationships are made of?

Technorati tags: recruiting hiring employer_brand

Permission Recruiting

One of the most exciting changes I see in recruiting today is a general shift in perceiving job seekers as customers rather than as transactions to be processed in a system.  To be sure, it is still a small shift in awareness – but a very powerful one.

Recruiting can learn a lot from our friends in Marketing, specifically as methods relate to taking incremental steps toward building strong, loyal relationships with customers.  Seth Godin, who spoke last month at the ERE conference in Florida, was an early pioneer of Internet marketing methods; the phrase “permission marketing” has become a common one in business circles since the release of his book in 1999 under that same name.

The premise of permission marketing is quite simple: turn strangers into friends, and friends into customers. The litmus test for this is also simple: does every marketing effort create a learning relationship with the customer? Does it invite that person to start communicating with you?

The beauty of correlating this concept with recruiting is almost a no-brainer.  We get clear about the combination of skills and abilities that fit within the hiring environment, and then we design every recruiting effort to engage a candidate (the “stranger”) in a dialogue over time that turns them eventually into a hire (the “customer”).  A bonus is that they may in fact become actual customers of the business – but that is food for another article.

The beauty of “Permission Recruiting” is also in the outcome: it places the company in a position that I like to call “Right of First Refusal.” This means that regardless of the candidate’s relevance for hire in a specific requisition, you have provided an experience that gives your company the right to say “no thanks” before the candidate does. In fact, the candidate’s experience is so good that you turned them into a friend - and friends become good referral sources in the recruiting realm.  It is a circular argument.

The challenge of “Permission Recruiting” is that it commits us to behaviors that provide results over time.  It is not a band aid approach to hiring, as it requires discipline and planning.  In pure relationship terms, it is the difference between going steady and playing the field.  If you want variety, the transaction method works just fine; however, if you seek a long term relationship with another human being, you must first define what you are looking for and then be willing to invest the time and energy required to obtain the results.

Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.

Buck Up, You Big Baby

Jack Yoest says that there are seven reasons why the military is having so much trouble recruiting these days (eight if you count Iraq, and the link to his post is below if you want to read it).   It got me thinking about the global shift toward candidate-driven markets, and how prepared companies really are to compete all-out for talent once again.

Do me a favor and don't whine to me about politics when you read this.  Sometimes suspending your frame of reference can be refreshing (or at the very least interesting in the clinical sense).

Jack's Seven M's for Military Recruiting (or what I like to call Tough Love for the Private Sector):

Muscles.  "Political Correctness" has done more than create an even playing field for men and women in the Army; it has "gender normed" training, lowered the proverbial bar of physical excellence, and made the Army soft as a result.   

All hires are not created equal.  To treat them that way is about as silly as making engineering candidates take finance exams to get a job in marketing.  Figure out what the business needs in terms of talent to get the job done, then recruit, select, hire and onboard with the riveted agenda of making that person productive ASAP.  When you're done with that, measure, fix what isn't working, and go back to repeat step one.

Marketing.  Sending a message of individualism has taken the teeth out of military culture.  Social engineering has turned the Army into a group of solitary independents instead of a collection of teams acting as one unit for one mission.

Companies, like sports, are either individual or team oriented.  KNOW WHICH ONE YOURS IS.  And use that knowledge to screen for cultural fit.  Cultural fit enhances productivity, which can be measured and improved.  There's a step one for this bullet point, too; when in doubt, go back to visit it.

Money.  Patriots aren't motivated by cash - they aren't mercenaries.  Sign-on bonuses are a bad recruitment strategy.

Substituting pay for passion is a bad idea.  It increases your training budget and requires that you recruit for the same positions again when your new hires run down the road at the first sight of blood (or a pay increase somewhere else).  Want people to stay for all the right reasons?  Then recruit them with those reasons.  But don't start recruiting at the last minute and expect to underpay the competition.  Build the relationship AND the job offer over time, and let your competitors compete on price.

Mirror.  In an emphasis to build self-esteem, the Beret (formerly the coveted headgear of elite units only) is now worn by every soldier in the Army.

If you don't have to work for it, you didn't really earn it - and if you got it gratuitously, where's the pride in it?  Your company stands for something (and if it doesn't, you're probably already looking for a new job yourself, in which case you're the LAST person who should be recruiting for the business)...figure out what that mission is, and go find people who believe in it as much or more than you do.

Mother Earth.  Being green is leaving a mark: "the Army can't recruit, but it can recycle," while terrorists are sawing off the heads of US soldiers.

Get real.  Or rather, get real focused on what's important.  If you feel like you are spending time rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, then your attention is on all the wrong things.  Risk and compliance have their place in recruiting - but it is NOT in the driver's seat.  If your hands are tied, you can still recruit...but I can promise that it will take longer, cost more, and produce marginal results.

Mensch. War fighting is a violent activity requiring violence from men.  Sensitivity training guts that emphasis.  If you want winners, there must be losers.

Mensch is about character, or more specifically about the character you want around you when you're in the heat of things.   Recruit and hire people with the fortitude to do what needs to be done, say what needs to be said, and take the company to a full blown WIN.  People who will reach higher, work smarter, and do what's right instead of what's easy.   Of course there will be losers; let them be on the competitor's payroll, not yours.

Momma.   There should be no soft, feminine side to life in the barracks and trenches. 

Buck up, you big baby.  Your mom doesn't work here, and that means you'll have to be accountable for your own contribution as a recruiter.   If your recruiting organization doesn't have a strategy, make this one yours:  clarity, outreach, selection, hire, onboard, measure, improve.

Now get out there and hire someone today.

Jack Yoest's article can be read in its entirety here.

Technorati tags: corporate recruiting recruiting hiring

Courting the A-List Candidate

Michael over at Recruiting Animal is always making me think about something interesting (thanks, Michael).   

His post here about applying triage to candidate relationship management actually makes a lot of sense when you know what you're doing.   Come to think of it, most things in life make a lot of sense when you know what you're doing.

But what if you're going about your happy little life and - BAM - along comes a candidate in pain.  Better yet, along comes a WHOLE BUNCH of them.  They are all clamoring for your immediate attention, some of them with sad faces, some of them appearing quite justified for being there at all.  What do you do, Recruiter?  I repeat, WHAT DO YOU DO????

Over the years, a lot of really smart people have researched and written generally accepted practices for triage in emergency situations:

1. Listen and establish rapport;
2. Conduct the assessment;
3. Make a decision using the established protocol or guideline.

Wow - sounds a lot like conducting an interview, doesn't it?  The biggest room for argument among recruiters lies in that last point, because its so darned hard to get all of us to agree on one protocol or guideline.   

When you  meet a candidate the first time you don't know if they're an A-lister, or hanging out with Kathy Griffin on the D-list.  Even if they are referred by someone you respect and admire, you still don't know enough about them to make an intelligent recommendation to a hiring manger until you go through the process of finding out.

I like the logic that comes from ranking people in terms of attention required; lots of resources can be used more efficiently after that.   I just think it's important to remember that triage is a process, and not the decision itself.   

I agree that there is inherent risk in giving candidates a better or worse experience because of "The List" they are on.  On second thought, that idea sucks.  Wouldn't it be better to focus on giving a great experience to every candidate while moving them through a process that efficiently meets both of your needs?  Then you don't have to worry about who you've dissed along the way.

Technorati tags: recruiting hiring