Why companies aren’t like chickens

April 5, 2007 · Filed Under Adventures in (Mis)Management · Comment 

chicken.JPGIf you are familiar with the term “running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” you’ll understand what I mean when I say companies aren’t like chickens. Without a head, companies don’t do anything. Chickens can run around for minutes without their heads on, companies don’t last seconds without their head in place. And if they were to do anything, it wouldn’t be running around. Maybe grabbing some free sodas before they leave but that’s it.

I realize that I am tipping on the edge of absurdity so I want to bring this down a bit.

Jason Goldberg and Jobster seem to have what amounts to a major problem. A few people (I don’t know how many) are questioning not only the direction and business model of Jobster (which wouldn’t be a major problem in and of itself) but is casting out their head cheese as a major bully, jerk, and a person of poor business acumen. And even that wouldn’t be a major problem in and of itself (people do business with jerks, bullies and people with poor business acumen all the time). That is, of course, if Jobster wasn’t trying to grow and penetrate into an extremely competitive and cut-throat market. Not to mention they might want to try and hire some people.

The whole issue of whether or not how Goldberg is portrayed is accurate (or portrays himself for that matter) is for people with a bit more time than me. But I wanted to use this opportunity to reach out to people still holding the belief that “A company is the sum of all of its parts. Let’s all hold hands and sing kum-ba-ya. Everyone is important at our company.”

You’re wrong.

A company doesn’t run itself without a head. And while you may make an argument that it becomes less important as the companies get bigger (though where would these large companies be without their screaming (Balmer), hyping (Jobs) and jetting (Branson) CEO’s?), any sub 500 employee company is made or broken by their top dawg.

That may play to the ego but it also plays to the ego drop. Jobster’s biggest successes are a direct reflection of Jason Goldberg’s work and hires and their biggest failures…well, it isn’t that sexy whenever you attribute them to Goldberg’s work and hires too.

I don’t feel sorry for Jason Goldberg (I don’t know him, personally or professionally) but I don’t envy his position either. The importance of the leader, the head, is always going to be the most important (hence why CEO searches are often expensive, lengthy and failure prone). And that should give some hope to Jobster faithful since the company, as of this posting, seems to still be going. If Goldberg was gone (either physically or just sitting in his office staring at his slinky wondering what now), they’d be collapsing and in this era of transparency, we’d know. Why?

Because companies aren’t chickens. They need a head to move in any direction besides collapsing.

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Tired of not getting an interview?

April 3, 2007 · Filed Under Finding Your Job · Comment 

Employment Digest (one of my favorite oft updated blogs) has three great articles in a row about getting in front of more hiring managers. Granted, I don’t think sending out resumes and doing well in phone interviews is the best way to go about (networking and making personal contacts is better) but this is an incredibly popular route. Not to mention that in some companies, this is the only way to get in the door.

How long should your resume be? Long enough to cover your work experience so that the employer may make a balanced judgment of your competencies. How long shouldn’t it be? Eight pages. I can tell you that for sure. But the one page rule is unnecessary for seasoned professionals who have more experience to cover. I will always recommend people err on the side of short with higher impact (tangible results, major accomplishments, etc…).

Do you have a high impact resume? If you are asking your question, the answer is no. Adding pop to your resume involves invoking phrases that make sense in any business. When you say you added $15 million in sales over three years, I understand that. When you say you met your goals for the last three years (even if those goals were to hit 15 mil), that doesn’t speak to me. You’re a great employee, don’t make me work harder to figure that out or someone else will show it to me.  Go for tangible results. If you don’t know them, start tracking them.

How do you get past the phone screen? The phone interview was invented by a person who didn’t want to meet too many people in person for interviews. So they do these phone interviews to get to the cream of the crop. Those 5, 30 or 60+ minute conversations are typically a yes/no conversation. It isn’t the time to hold back. Go for it. Sell yourself. Make the choice obvious. Many people feel that the phone interview is just a formality but that is becoming less and less the case. Respond appropriately.

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If the cog doesn’t fit, you must acquit

April 2, 2007 · Filed Under Adventures in (Mis)Management · Comment 

CogMap, a wiki styled project to collect org chart info, seems like a must have for any passive sourcer or curious bystander. The most interesting thing to me are how telling an org chart can be about culture.

Looking at Microsoft’s chart, you can see why Balmerman always seems strung out. He’s got eight high level direct reports (if the chart is correct). Eric Schmidt of Google has 9 direct reports. Cingular is a pretty flat organization. GM is looking that way too.

And I know that flat is all the rage now but there has to be some stressed out C-levels out there that have 11-12 direct reports (internationalized of course). That can’t be good regardless of whatever increased productivity erasing a couple layers of management does.

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Not Surprisingly, More Businesses Outsourcing HR

April 1, 2007 · Filed Under For the love of HR, Recruiting in the 21st Century · Comment 

A recent article about small businesses outsourcing HR functions should come of no surprise to those in the HR field. With the legal complications involved in hiring, maintaining and ultimately terminanting employees taking its toll on small business operators, it is making much more sense to throw it to a PEO and let them take care of it.

These days, it is nearly insane for a small business to try to manage all of their own financials. They likely go the outsource route to outside accountants who take their scraped together financial documents, tell them what to do to maximize their deductions, and file their taxes for them. Now, HR is starting to go that way. Recruiting has been an indicator of that but now PEO’s are starting to go that way. The issue for HR departments everywhere?

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