Exit interviews do nothing
Inspired by this article on The Onion (a satire newspaper and website), I wanted to share with you my thoughts on exit interviews.
The purpose of the exit interview is two fold (one obvious, one not so obvious):
1. To gather data from departing employees on working conditions to improve retention
2. To attempt to protect from litigation.
The first one is obvious but probably unnecessary. If you are a company that really cares about retention so much that you consult your employees, you probably already have an idea why they are leaving and what working conditions are like. An exit interview is unlikely to reveal anything.
If you are a company that doesn’t know enough about what working conditions are like and why employees leave, it is unlikely that you’ll ask the right questions or apply the answers in any meaningful way. There are exceptions to both of these but you get the idea.
Now the idea of litigation avoidance is sort of silly to me. I laughed out loud in a classroom setting when I heard this one. If you haven’t buttoned up possible litigation gaps in your company before you get to an employee exit, an exit interview will do zero good. Granted an exit interview is court admissable in most cases, it is usually considered weak evidence (as the situation of an exit interview is taken into consideration, it makes sense). If everything else in your employee file says you were miserable because of your boss and an exit interview says you gave the boss a 3 out of 5, that doesn’t mean much. Companies that do a great job of resolving legalities and work situations immediately have nothing to flush out at the end of a career at that company. The few times it does come around, it is unlikely an exit interview would do anything. You still have to have solid documentation throughout.
If you’re a good company in the employee relations side, an exit interview isn’t going to reveal much and it isn’t going to add much litigation protection. If you’re a crappy company, an exit interview is at best a stop gap solution to a much bigger problem in your organization. Focusing efforts on improving the exit interview would be better spent on focusing efforts on preventing the exit interview from being called in the first place.
Online persona killing your future?
Probably not.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the statistics. Nearly half of employers googled a candidate in the last year and a third made a decision based on that. It is awful to think of those poor people who were disregarded because of some drunken photos on MySpace.
As a disclaimer, I have googled the name of almost everyone who has come to work for us. And no, none of them lost consideration because of it (though a few stuffy companies might have done so with what I found). At best, most of the information I found had little to nothing to do with the ability for these people to perform their job.
The point I make is that assuming your online persona isn’t incredibly unemployable (and I would guess that about 98% of them fall in that category), you aren’t going to be denied a good opportunity at a good company. Most decent companies are going to have some kind of policy about using outside information to come to a job decision. Most decent companies are going to exercise good judgement on this matter too.
But if you are a company that can’t stand if one of your interns has a picture of him and his buddies at a bar and you are the type of person that doesn’t mind making that information public, maybe you aren’t being denied a good opportunity after all. Job fit and company culture play a major role in your future as an employee and along with your future boss, this sort of clash of cultures might kill your job chances anyway.
It isn’t going to become less common for employers to do an internet search for you. If you are concerned about what your chances are with a company based on what you find about yourself, you should try to sanitize it.
Or then again, maybe not. You might just be doing yourself a favor.
Disclaimer 2: My boss at work has seen my MySpace profile. It has several unprofessional pictures on it (including drinking pictures). She thought it was great. Of course, I don’t think it is bad for HR to show any sort of personality. We have to beat accounting!
Self-management 101
Whenever you go to college and you talk about business and management philosophy, a resounding theme comes up. It is a theme about businesses taking responsibility for poor policy. Whenever your employees aren’t reaching their full potential, you should be looking at your organization, its structure and how well you are communicating expectations to employees. It is unnatural and weird to first examine your company whenever there is a breakdown in your organization. At least it is for me. It is still against the norm for companies to be looking at what they could be doing better but it seems like it is getting better.
Whenever there is a problem at your workplace as an employee in communication with your boss, a co-worker or a missed goal, the opposite holds true. Many employees take the easy way out by blaming their employers for their failures at work. As an HR person, I know first hand how often this comes up in interviews. “I couldn’t reach my potential in this position.” “My boss promoted the CEO’s son instead of me.” You learn similar things about a candidate from the offer and acceptance process and the excuses that could come up if she is not successful and she is interviewing for a new job. If a move is made from a large corporation to a startup, she could blame the lack of structure when she interviews for another big firm two years later. He’s been the “CEO” of a very small business and now he is taking a role that is much more structured and much more niche than what he was doing before.
These types of sacrifices happen all the time when switching jobs. You weigh the positives and negatives to taking a job. So maybe you take a pay cut, a different position, a smaller company, a bigger company, a company you know you can’t grow in or a company you have to grow in. You take these sacrifices and say “I can handle it.” Then you forget about all of these and you don’t change your expectations for the job. So now you want more pay, your old position, a bigger company, a smaller company, a company you can grow in and a company you don’t have to grow in to survive.
So whenever somebody says to me that they weren’t challenged or weren’t paid enough, I always ask a follow up to detect if they knew this before they were brought on board and if they attempted to make the best of the situation.
Changing jobs because your expectations were not met isn’t a big deal but if it happens repeatedly in your career, hiring managers will figure it out and they might suspect you have a hearing problem. If you are aware of the sacrifices you are making to take a job, write them down. Keep them. Reread them in three months. And don’t take anything a company says at more than face value. If you get blindsighted by an expectations gap, work as hard as hell to personally conquor that gap. Not only will you be bettering your prospects at the company, you’ll be prepared to seek another position elsewhere if it comes to it. Then you won’t be making excuses for poor performance, you’ll simply be explaining the steps you took to improve your situation and the progress you achieved.
The Force Multiplier Affect – Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters
David Perry writes today for the blogswap. He talks about using technology to further your job search.
There’s an old sales adage that applies to job hunting which goes something like this: “success is 98% just showing up”. Following Hr Guys post yesterday I want to expand on the use of technology and how to apply it to your job search.
The new rules of modern job hunting change daily as does the technology and counter-technology companies use. Because of that, a traditional staple in the job-hunter’s arsenal is coming back into vogue - FAX. Guerrillas know that often the best weapon is “old reliable”. I wrote an article for California Job Journal on the use of fax technology as an effective alternative to email, snail mail and web forms. It’s well worth reading. On the Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters site there’s a free trial offer as well. With Fax your document cuts through all the technology barriers in your way.
Fax was pivotal in a successful marketing campaign I ran to place two candidates as a team [no easy feat]. Fax was the KEY distribution tool for the launch which also consisted of direct mail, web site and blog - along with a direct marketing campaign lead by me - to leverage the full power of the Force Multiplier Effect. Without the initial traction from MyFax, it’s very likely I would have worked a lot harder to schedule the 39 interviews. With it I simply zeroed in on who had opened the fax as the hottest prospects.
The two candidates where successful in closing on 38 offers from the initial round of 39 meetings. Their progress was tracked – in near real time - and podcasted on LandedFM in 3 segments over a 6 week period. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3. As far as tools go it’s also worth while looking at the web site he designed and the accompanying Blog. Using one tool in isolation will increase your ability to penetrate the companies you want. Using several of them in tandem has an exponential impact.
Organizing your job hunt
Whenever I looked for my last job, I used a notepad on my laptop to make notes of the contacts I had made, the jobs I had applied for, what kind of custom resumes and cover letters I was using and all kinds of good stuff. Managing a job hunt as a professional is like being an account representative, salesperson, researcher and administrative assistant rolled into one. No wonder very few people do a decent job at it.
There are a handful of tools out there to manage your daily tasks but how about your job hunt? Myjobtips.com is a good start. Since so much of the job hunt has moved online, so moves your tools.
Are there any other tools that you use (or used) to manage your job hunt?
Longevity
I’m David Manaster, CEO of ERE Media, the leading trade publisher for recruiting professionals. Your HR Guy is generously hosting this (very late) guest post on his blog as part of the Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap.
I’ve been reading Beth’s post on “job hoppers”, the comments on it, and Your HR Guy’s thoughts on the subject with a great deal of interest. As the CEO of a small business (about 10 employees), I thought that I might have a slightly different perspective on the topic.
Small companies often feel very different than their larger counterparts with thousands of employees. Generally speaking, it’s more of a family feel. Yeah, we really only work together, and most of us at ERE are not even physically at the same location, but we spend most of our days talking, emailing and IMing with each other, so culture is not just some warm & fuzzy idea or a matter of drinking the Kool-Aid, it’s vitally important.
We’re all in this together, and we know it.
I’m not speaking hypothetically here. When someone here screws up, everyone feels it. When someone knocks the ball out of the park, we all benefit.
Daisy Dukes
A quick little intro for those of you tuning in to the Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap… My name is Tod Hilton and I will be your host for this post. What I am: a software developer at Microsoft and a bunch of other things [father, husband, gamer, snowboarder, etc.]. What I’m not: a recruiter or hiring manager, although I do interview candidates and give the infamous ‘hire’ or ‘no-hire’ recommendation.
Do you remember The Dukes of Hazzard from the late 70’s? Well, I was all of 10 years old and watched that show religiously. I wanted to be Bo or Luke Duke…I didn’t care which one, they were both cool [back then anyone who wore a Buck knife on their belt was cool]. And then there was Daisy. Oh my goodness, Daisy. Yes, I had a huge crush on her…in fact, name me a 10-40 year old male from that period that didn’t! And of course, there were those Daisy Dukes. Denim cut-offs [when those were also still cool] that barely covered the necessities. Yowza! 
Now that I’ve revealed some of my teenage angst for you, let me get to my point. Dress codes at work. I have never agreed with them. Every employer’s dress code should be limited to two words: common sense. That’s it. Nothing more and nothing less. Meanwhile, Your HR Guy says “some people need to be told what to wear.”
Here’s the rub, I agree wholeheartedly with HR Guy’s sentiment. Yes, some people do need to be told what to wear, but why should that translate into telling everyone what to wear?
I have worked a number of jobs in retail, the private sector, small business and large corporations. Most of them had dress codes and the most prominent thing I remember about them is the amount of agitation, discomfort and controversy they caused among the employees. Here are a few examples:
Back from Vacation
I had a great time away from work (and my blog) and am now back in full force. Hope some of you stuck around.
I received some interesting tips from one of the vendors we work with (CareerBuilder), the Top 10 Recruiting myths. Here are some myths:
1) Good interviews always select the best employee
Managers hire unqualified people every day. Many qualified candidates simply lack interviewing skills. Nerves and other outside factors can also affect a candidate’s ability to interview well.6) Testing is more important than interviewing
Recruiters should rely on tests, interview performance, resume, background information and references. Tests can evaluate aptitude, or how a person reacts to a given situation, but will not paint a complete picture.
Structured interviews are the best approach
Many people who conduct interviews possess no interview training. To avoid issues with untrained interviewers, companies implement structured interviews that ask each candidate the same questions. This can be a terrible approach because companies neglect the listening, observing and testing nature of the interview.
And some other great things as well. I really think that HR/Recruiting has become more of a science in recent years (as far as looking at more factors) but it will never be a sure thing. We are dealing with human beings here and that will always make any perfect process…well, not perfect.
For everything recruiting, checkout ERE.net.
Txt2fire is great for rude companies
Worker is fired by text message
The biggest surprise to me is that it hasn’t happened sooner. Job offers are being sent by e-mail now and I check my e-mail by PDA more frequently than on a computer. I am sure someone has been sacked by e-mail by now.
Companies evolve in their method of communications. I rarely snail mail an offer letter. I am a big phone person but if I can’t get a hold of someone on the phone, I send an e-mail and sometimes get a response quicker that way.
I would never do that to an employee but to think of the number of times since e-mail’s popularity that I’ve received an immediate resignation by e-mail (over a dozen), I secretly laugh a little at the person that was canned using a ruder method.
I fought the law and the law won
While many of the HR people I know in the field are very principled people but one thing where that changes is in regards to the law, specifically employment law. Litigation avoidance is one of the main assumptions most people in my field make about their employers. And not to get too political on you but over the last 30 years, it has become less and less difficult to bring litigation against employers. Whether you agree or disagree with that enhanced ability, there is no denying that it has changed the face of the business world.
For one, the concept of litigation avoidance was unheard of 30+ years ago. Companies rarely got sued and if they did, it was typically by consumers who had suffered through some sort of physical harm. If you paid minimum wage and you weren’t physically abusing your employees, you were probably alright.
In those days, being an employee was like being a child on a teeter-totter with a 300 pound adult on the other side. The equation was out of balance.
Since the formation of the EEOC, the balance has slowly shifted. Sexual harassment policies started taking effect and those who were used to the good old days had to adapt or be out of a job. Same with discrimination (which is still in the process of being full adapted). And for the most part, these regulations have been for the better. It has put the focus on work. Studies have been focused on the glass ceiling in workplaces where people are not allowed to advance due to non-work related reasons.
The balance has changed and we can argue all day long as to where that balance is but it is incredibly important to realize that most businesses have changed policies and that has had both a good and bad effect on the performance and morale of employees.
Whenever a sexual harassment charge comes to me, the “factory” shuts down. Regardless of my view of the reliability of such a charge, I must take certain actions to ensure my butt (I can be sued personally) and my company’s butt stays out of the line of fire. Whatever I was doing before is of no consequence. A sexual harassment investigation could take weeks of interviews, documentation and communication between all parties. If it goes to litigation, it could be months or years. Not all of that is going to be spent on this case but it is going to change my workload severely.
So whenever I make sexual harassment policies within the workplace, I am pretty much banning almost every type of non-work related conversations imaginable. That may seem over the top and my enforcement of it may be incredibly rigid but look at the alternatives I have. Either we spend the hours up front to ensure that people understand that we want them talking about spreadsheets and TPS reports, not big butts and Jesus or we spend days, weeks, months or years defending why we didn’t talk enough about it to begin with. The choice seems pretty clear to me.
Not all businesses are that strict but there is a significant risk attached with that. So if I seem a little keyed up while people tell jokes around the water cooler, maybe you have a little taste of why that is the case.
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About
Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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