meritocracy.net

The Value of Love Bombs

There was a good post by Alex at Emurse last week on the value to candidates in writing personalized thank-you notes to the interview team after an interview.  It was particularly timely, as I received the best thank-you note I’ve ever received in my recruiting career that same week. 

Based on my personal experience, less than 10% of all candidates bother to write thank-you notes after an interview.  Even in this high velocity, high volume, transactional job market, this is surprising in that every candidate has invested a lot of time and energy to make it to the interview stage in the evaluation process and to ignore this opportunity to create an impression is most definitely a miss.  It certainly should play at least a small role in an overall strategy to land a job. 

The note I received was from a Stanford MBA that will be joining my team at Google to help with recruiting initiatives as an intern for the summer.  As an HR guy, landing a Stanford MBA to focus on recruiting initiatives makes for a Pretty Good Day.  She was a standout in the interview process, and very remarkable in the way she presented herself overall.  It is not at all surprising her follow up was also exemplary.  I’ll call her Shelly (not her real name) since she might not appreciate me blogging about her career plans. 

Alex’s post caused me to reflect on why Shelly’s thank you note made an impact but also my broader perspective as a corporate recruiting leader on the value of these little gestures.  I’ve referred to them as “Love Bombs” since as long as I can remember… I think it’s something I picked up in the early days of my recruiting career.  As in, “that candidate sent me a really good little love bomb after that final round of interviews…”

Thank-you notes matter for a lot of reasons.  They matter for all the standard reasons (showing commitment, business etiquette, etc) but I think they matter for two other  reasons as well. 

Reason 1:  As part of an overall strategy, thank-you notes are a way for a candidate to extend the engagement level of the interview process.  This is almost always a good thing if the candidate is in contention for the job.  A properly executed thank-you note via email will include some additional job-related questions that continues to perpetuate the candidate/interviewer relationship and dialogue.  I would actually recommend doing two thank-you notes, one via email with some additional questions, and one hand-written thank you as simply another marketing impression on the interview team.

Reason 2:  Thank you notes can convey a unique marketing impression that sets a candidate apart in the selection process, but also begins to advance a personalized relationship with the recipient, regardless of whether the candidate gets this job.  If they don’t win the job at stake, this personalized connection is valuable, and can lead to other opportunities in the future.  If they do get the job, it strengthens the relationships that ultimately are the bridge in the onboarding process into the new organization, which also pays dividends.  I can say the best thank-you notes I’ve received in my career created a nearly indelible memory of candidates I have interviewed… many of them still stand out in my mind today, and this after years and hundreds of candidates and interviews.  That is certainly worth the investment on the part of the candidate.

Shelly’s note was special because it wasn’t just a thank-you note.  It was hand-written in such a fashion that showed it was weighty to her:  carefully scripted and flowing in a way that suggested it was written with great care; not scribbled in the way of most hand-written business writing of today.  It was more than a message to say thanks, it was a recap of our conversation that showed a continued investment in the relationship, for purely the sake of investing in the relationship regardless of the job.  Yes, she expressed her interest and excitement over the role, but there was much more there than just a sales pitch.  It was the type of note that, coupled with her interview, would have solidified the relationship in a way that had she not got the offer, would have led me to call her for other jobs in the future should they become available and be well-suited for her. 

Shelly landed the job long before I ever received her thank-you note, but I think it is a great reminder that the little things, even in this day and age, really do matter.

The Difference between Jobster and In N Out Burger

Now that I am officially a Californian, I stopped by an In N Out Burger over the weekend and had a cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.  The restaurant I visited is right down the road from my corporate apartment of Castro Street in downtown Mountain View, and I was amazed at the quality of the staff that was working.  These people were friendly, attentive, and in genuine good spirits.  It was a unique fast food experience to say the least.  In N Out is doing something right when it comes to talent acquisition.

If you haven’t been there, In N Out Burger sells 6 items.  That’s it.  I counted.  Only six:  Burgers, Milkshakes (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry), Sodas, Milk, Coffee, and French Fries, as I recall.  $350 million per year of these 6 items by most estimates (they are privately held so we don’t know for sure). 

I couldn’t help compare this with Jobster, whose latest change of direction is buoyed with the assertion that they believe the value is in the match (as in the match between person and job), so we corporate recruiting types can now post our jobs for free.   Um, by definition, the value has always been in the match.  No value is created for either employer or employee if jobs aren’t filled and job seekers don’t land jobs.  Given that we are moving from the Search Era (everything available with the right query or question; a la Google search) to the Discovery Era (the right information served up to you before you ask based on complex algorithms, collaborative filtering, and historical data; a la the Netflix Prize or Amazon’s suggestive selling engine) this would be the holy grail of recruiting.   

The talent marketplace is not that efficient.  An efficient market would let us all know all the available, well-suited jobs that meet our criteria (location, compensation, job scope, company profile, leadership team, culture fit, the list goes on and is highly complex).   I envision this as my internet home page (currently Google with lots of widgets) serving up only the jobs that I might be interested in and also well-suited for.   Relevancy is very important, as there are already too many candidates pursuing jobs they won’t ever get hired for because they cannot discern whether they are well-suited for the role.  Similarly, the best talent doesn’t want to be solicited for jobs that don’t suit them any more than I want Amazon.com to recommend something that I’m not really interested in (which they annoyingly do by the way). 

This is a huge challenge for Jobster, and I’m not optimistic that they will be able to pull it off for several reasons:

1.) Complexity:  Creating relevant matches between jobs and people is one of the most complex algorithms I can think of.  Amazon can’t even get relevant matchng  right and they know a lot about my preferences for books and music.  It’s not clear to me how Jobster will be able to create relevant matches (and they must be relevant) by matching the multifaceted, multidimensional requirements of jobs with the multifaceted, multidimensional requirements of human beings. 

2.) Range restriction:  People don’t want to change jobs that often.  Yes, the velocity of careers has accelerated to where the average person changes jobs every couple of years, but in reality, there’s not a lot of time window when non-job hoppers really want to hear about other opportunities.  This makes the data set smaller.  For example, if you only order one book every 2.5 years, Amazon’s not going to serve you up much of a relevant menu.  Funny anecdote:  the week after I started with Google, I got a call, in my office at Google, from a headhunter about a head of staffing job at Home Depot after the Nardelli Implosion. Talk about poor relevancy matching…

3.) Unclear job specifications:  Those of us in recruiting know that the key to an efficient and ultimately successful search is really qualifying the requisition with the people responsible for making the hiring decision.  Very few hiring managers have thought through what really drives success in a job, and generally don’t develop a robust specification for the job.  This complicates things even further.

I’ve alluded to this topic a few times, but simplicity forces value creation, whether it is running a recruiting department, a burger chain, or a software company.  Admittedly, I’ve only done one of these.

What I have done is made a career out of observing and assessing behaviors, competencies, and the subsequent results of executive leaders with whom I’ve worked with at both large companies like Starbucks, Microsoft, and Google, and at the small 50-person start-up Oracle technology consulting company that my team and I helped rapidly scale in the late 1990s.  I have become a student of competencies, behaviors, and their resulting impact on business results.   

One of the key behaviors I see effective leaders consistently dispay is to separate the productivity from the activity in their pursuits, and winnow that down to clarify business results around a single, well-defined objective.  Generally, things aren’t as complicated as we make them.   I haven’t seen Jobster create this level of laser focus around a business problem that can clearly be monetized.

I mentioned in a previous post that I didn’t know what business problem that Jobster was trying to solve.  Unfortunately, now that I know and as much as I want them to succeed,  I am no more optimistic about their probability of success.  It will be interesting to follow their latest tack. 

The Post I Swore I Would Not Write

I've had a lot of conversations about blogging in the last 6 months, in particular with thought-leaders in the space like Jason Davis, Penelope Trunk, and other people who are much smarter than I regarding this topic.

Everyone told me that the key to blogging and getting read is to write often.  I knew right away that wouldn't happen, particularly given the fact that I have 2 young children, a demanding job, a long commute, a personal life that involves a lot of reading and some motorcycling when I can swing it, but I convinced myself that I could at least do 2 posts a week.  When I looked around, I saw a lot of bloggers writing much more than that, but many of the posts were not that substantial.  Because of that, I swore I wouldn't ever write a "Jason's Top Ten" post or something trite along those lines.  I'm not really that concerned with SEO or extending my reach in every way possible.  Mostly I write just for for me.

So now it's been a week or two since my last post, so I'm breaking my own rule, but part of the reason is that I've been commuting from Seattle to Mountain View, CA every week for the last couple of weeks until I relocate permanently down to sunny California.

In no particular order, here is my list of 'top things' from the last 2 weeks, in no particular order.  Lame, I know. 

• Always rent a car using a Visa Credit Card.  By doing so, you gives you car insurance up to the replacement value of the car.  Thelma and Louise come to mind.  This link gives you the skinny.  I know this because recently I've been renting cars like there's no tomorrow and inadvertantly provided Hertz with some free customization to one of their Gold-colored Pontiac Grand Prix's (there is nothing Grand about this make and model of automobile incidentally).  I swiftly and cleanly removed the driver's side mirror from the vehicle while trying to navigate the parking garage in building #43 at Google on Day #2. 
• The food at Google is ridiculous.  Because it's so good.  Here's the deal with this benefit that unless you've worked here you might not understand: Yes, the food is gourmet.  Yes, it's fantastic and there are 12 different cafes on campus serving everything under the sun (I'm enjoying the fresh sushi a lot, and they were also serving Kangaroo one day but I didn't go for that).  But the really great benefit is it allows me eat healthy without having to be organized.  Yes, I can eat like a King and turn myself into a much larger Jason, but I can also easily grab healthy snacks whenever I want and it makes it easy to eat right.  This morning for breakfast I had fresh steel cut oats, an organic banana, some fresh grapes, and these really great healthy protein bars.  At Starbucks, I was never organized enough to pack a fresh lunch, and as a result, always ended up eating at the cafe on the 3rd floor (usually at Taco Del Mar - ugh).  Best of all, at Google it's free.  People of course will draw their own conclusions that it is a 'secret' tactic to make us all work long hours and never leave work.  I call it a brilliant value proposition for today's busy lifestyle, and one that lets one live in congruence with one's values (everyone values being healthy, right?).  Very cool.
• Relocation is a very busy process, and not much fun at all.  I would say it's right up there with college admissions preparation and mortgage loan processing.  Those of you who know me understand that 'attention to detail' and 'planning and organizing' these sorts of things are not my strong suit.  I am renting lots of cars, so Hertz loves me though.  Or did love me, until I wrecked their Grand Prix.
• Spending a significant amount of time at one company really shapes you as a person.  It is remarkable how my 5+ years at Starbucks has shaped my perspective on leadership, talent, business culture, and values.   This is a very positive thing.  I've been reflecting on this topic a lot recently.  There's an interesting dichotomy though:  while you are at a company, it really serves to define a lot of your approach to getting the work done.  Once you leave however, you realize that most of the paradigms, guidelines, and rules were really self imposed.  This is worth thinking about in regards to one's own personal and professional development.
• Bicycling is probably a good thing to start doing at my age.  A good friend of mine is formerly in the bike business and is friends with the Cannondale rep, and was able to score me a smoking deal on the Ferrari (or Corvette since Cannondale is made in the USA) of road bicycles, the SystemSix.  I used to ride road bicycles in my teens and early twenties, and have been pretty big into mountain biking for about the last 10-12 years, so it's cool to think about getting back into riding on the road.  I'm really looking forward to getting on this new bike - the technology is amazing these days - think titanium and aluminum and carbon fiber and complex frame geometry and you'll get the idea. I cannot believe the craftmanship that went into this bicycle.  It's a work of art, and weighs next to nothing.  I have to admit I am a sucker for buying more gear than I need.  I just love well-made stuff. 
• Exercise is critical for success on the job.  I really fell off the workout bandwagon the last 6 months, gained about 8 lbs, but recently have started back in the gym in the mornings.  There are lots of things that can get in the way of regular exercise, but I believe exercise is a force-multiplier when it comes to professional achievement.  Any time you spend exercising is repaid with interest when it comes to focus, quality of work, and getting stuff done.  You cant' afford not to exercise.  It's part of being successful in life. 
• Simplicity forces value creation.  This is a doosie, but I am becoming more and more convinced that the key to successful companies, recruiting organizations, and other people-filled dynamic entities is their approach to simplicity.  As humans, we overcomplicate things which really erodes our chances of success in our efforts to truly create something of value.  As a leader, I think one of the keys to being succesful is to break things down into simple components, and then evaluate those efforts by asking, "what economic value is this creating?"   This separates the activity from productivity.  When I'm not being lame I will probably write a post on this topic to further my thinking. 

Google is a great company, and I really think I'm going to like it here in Northern California. 

Talent Retention Musings

Someone, I think it may have been Confuscious, once said that if you are not recruiting your own people, you are the only company that isn't. 

Lots of people have asked me why I chose to leave Starbucks.  In fact, given my transition to Google, that has been one of the most common questions I've been asked.  It is interesting to be leaving one of the world's most respected and highly successful companies.  In over five years of service to Starbucks, we more than doubled the size of the company.  It's funny when you work at a hyper-growth company - when you think back, you can't really remember how big things were 'back then' so the growth is sometimes hard to measure.  This whole episode in my life makes me really consider the topic of retention of talent, and what the key tenents of successful talent retention really rest on.

It is hard to imagine a greater intangible cost to an organization than turnover of top talent (except for maybe brand erosion), yet I think the majority of companies do not proactively address the issue effectively.    One significant challenge is that when someone leaves a company, the opportunity cost of their departure is never really identified or measured.  If it was quantified, I think more companies would pay much closer attention to this cost of doing business. 

The older I get, the more I think this topic of 'talent retention' is really just about effective leadership.  Given that I've had a fair amount of time off the last two weeks, here are some of my thoughts regarding retaining top talent. 

1. Leaders Must Authentically Value People: 

This is simplistic in theory, but often difficult in practice.  It's been my experience that there are those that model this very well (few) and those that don't model this at all or to an ineffective degree (many).  This is a leadership philosophy that must be authentic.  A leader of people cannot sustainably feign the behavior of truly valuing people.  There are three pitfalls that stand in the way of this:

One natural pitfall that most leaders face is an inherent ambivalence towards talent as one grows in one's career.  I think it is rooted in human nature to become this way, unless one identifies this risk and addresses it mindfully and proactively.  Let me explain.

One of the significant human challenges of leadership is that in highly dynamic corporate environments (such as hyper-growth companies such as Starbucks or Google), teams and people are constantly in motion, so the process is one of continual investment in relationships that, at least from a team-building perspective, are nearly always temporary, and fairly short-lived.  This is highly problematic on a human level, as it's a constant investment-then-cleave cycle.  Just as one builds 'the right team' something changes to upset the apple cart and the rebuilding process starts again.  This can be a catalyst for ambivalence.  In reality, leadership is a state of constant-build, and one has to monitor one's attitudes and sentiments as a leader so the motivation and effort regarding valuing people continues to be sustained in a healthy manner.

I just finished reading the book Resonant Leadership and I think it explores this topic in helpful detail.

The second potential hurdle that leaders face is that many organizations measure productivity for a leader in ways that run counter to a 'servant leader' approach.  This creates an inherent tension between building for the long haul through leadership and people investment or 'getting the work done' that is succinctly measurable in the here and now.  Effective leaders must balance these two goals, and have the courage to slow the production lines (if necessary) in the short term in order to achieve long term gains.   

The final obstacle is simply that human beings tend to think of themselves first, so changing that focus to rest on others is difficult, particularly in light of the stresses inherent in worklife.  This is compounded by the long-term versus short-term ROI dichotomy.

     2.  Make Talent Feel Valued: 

There is a ridiculously deep irony buried in a discussion of 'talent retention' or 'turnover' in that making people feel valued costs nothing.  One doesn't have to spend a single budgetary dollar to make people feel valued.  This relates succinctly back to point #1, but the two elements are distinctly different.  Point #1 happens internally with a leader, and is a critical part of self-awareness.  Point #2 are the demonstrative behaviors and observable actions that demonstrate Point #1. 

Most people feel the most valued when you help them get better at what they do, and assist them with achieving their own best self.  I've always told my management teams that leaders are like coaches in sports, and even the best players (Michael Jordan comes to mind) need feedback to achieve optimal performance.  Mostly, a coach simply observes behavior and gives feedback in order to fine tune performance and results.  Doing this activity alone with a team makes people feel imminently valued by a leader.  This coaching model of leadership relies on direct feedback of observable behavior, which many leaders don't find the time to do. 

Beyond helping people become their own best self, there are a host of other tactical things to make people feel valued that are well-documented in books and other readings.  I submit that all of these additional tactics are ancillary and less important than an investment in people that helps them get better at what they do, which is how to truly value people.

     3.) Monitor the Health of Your Organization by Building Relationships at All Levels: 

If you don't have relationships built with people throughout your organization, you'll never know that talent is satisfied until it is too late.  This is one of the systemic mistakes that I've observed many leaders make -- the mistake of only gauging the health of their organization by what their direct reports tell them.  This is a big mistake.  Everyone matters (see point #1) and if you build solid relationships with people at all levels, then you'll know what is really going on. 

Again, it sometimes difficult to accomplish this relationship building because paradoxically there  is always a lot of work to be done.  Effective leaders must take the time to make these investments. 

Interview with ERE

Elaine Rigoli from ERE fame interviewed me about my decision to depart Starbucks and join Google yesterday.  The interview, although brief, is located here.

More interesting is that I'm taking my kids to Disneyland tomorrow.  Although I'm sure it will be lost on my 1 year old son, my daughter Brooklyn is enamored with Cinderella and Ariel, so it is going to be a cool thing to see her experience the Magic Kingdom through 3-year old eyes.   

One Answer to The Question

There is one question that I get asked more often than any other question by people I meet who are aspiring to be great recruiters.  In fact, I've now come to call it The Question. 

It is a little ironic that the inspiration for this post came from the side of a Starbucks cup this morning.  I ventured out of the house today, despite the Seattle cold, rain and snow-threatening skies, and went to my local Starbucks to get my morning Grande Drip Coffee With Room for Cream.  I personally fill the room with nonfat milk but that is how you order it.  Did you know there are 55,000 different drink variations at your local Starbucks?  That is one of the things they told me before I left. 

So I'm sitting there sipping my coffee, and on the side of the cup is The Way I See It #119.  I actually saved the cup, and am staring at it now.  Have you seen these?  These are little quips or quotations that are designed to make you think, and start a conversation whilst you are sipping on one of those Starbucks beverages.  Number 119 works pretty well I guess.  I always thought we should have slipped in a little subtle employment branding on that cup-side real estate, but I digress.   Maybe The Way I See It #984 will say, "Why I work at Starbucks...or my greatest experience as a Starbucks partner was when..." and then tell a little anecdote about how great the company is.  You can actually read more or respond to these cup-side quotations by going to this link.

The Way I See It #119 says, "As you sip your coffee, think about all the science behind it: in agriculture, processing, roasting, extraction.  Then think of all the science around you:  in your cell phone, your computer, even your food. Shouldn't everyone be educated to understand the science that permeates their lives? -- Dr. David Baltimore, President, California Institute of Technology, and Nobel laueate in Physiology or Medicine."  Which leads me to The Question.

As I mentioned, I get asked The Question by junior recruiters or other people who are new to the recruiting profession on a regular basis:  "What advice do you have for me as I'm starting out on my way to becoming a really great recruiter?"

Because of how prevalent this question is, I've spent a fair amount of time during the last few years of my senior leadership career contemplating The Question, and I've boiled it down to this foundational tenent:  The difference between great recruiters (or recruiting managers) and other recruiters (whether that be average recruiters or 'not-great recruiters' or anything in-between) is how they approach their personal learning.  I believe this is the primary differentiator between The Great Ones and The Others. 

I was having this very conversation with a member of my extended team at Starbucks right before I left.  Her name is Eden and she is very smart and has great communication skills (which are two prerequisite competencies to be a great recruiter) but she doesn't have much recruiting experience as she is just getting started in her recruiting career.  She asked me The Question, and I tried to share with her this concept of what I call Advanced Personal Learning (APL).  I'm sure this holds true for other professions, but all I know is recruiting so if you aren't in recruiting, YMMV.

So I was sharing with her that as one considers all of the learning one does in one's life, it mostly falls into the schooling years, and then dramatically drops off after one graduates from an institute of higher learning.  Letting this commitment and discipline related to learning diminish after school is one of the biggest mistakes a recruiting professional (and others) can make.  We all worked (at least relatively) hard in school, because that was the purpose:  cram as much learning into those years in order to prepare you for The Next Part of Your Life.  Using my advanced Microsoft Excel skills, I created a nifty graph you can click to illustrate what I'm talking about.

  But if one considers that the world continues to grow in complexity year over year (and I would argue at an exponential rate) a career strategy that does not involve APL is a road to obsolescence.  Many professions have an inherent checks and balances component that keeps people in the game.  For example, members of the medical profession are continuously challenged to learn and grow their personal knowledge and skill base or they will quickly become ineffective (and unemployed) practitioners.  Advances in medicinal technology, diagnosis, treatment and drug therapy, et cetera all require a medical professional to apply APL as part of the way they manage their career.  Software development, lawyers, IT professionals,... the list goes on regarding the types of professions that have these 'checks and balances' to keep their professional careerists focused on personal learning.

One challenge with professions like recruiting (or HR in general) is that the inherent checks and balances are generational in nature.  Indeed, many do not recognize this dynamic until it is too late.  If one is a corporate professional, one might want to think about this statement for a moment.

But recruiting and HR have grown in complexity over the last decade in the exact same manner as medicine or other more technically focused disciplines.  10 years ago, things were a lot less complex in recruiting then they are today (and because of this, the skills required to be a recruiter were different):

• applicant tracking systems were all client / server achitecture (if that) and none were hosted applications or had near the feature set of those today.  Restrac comes to mind.
• technology based assessments were uncommon
• other recruiting tools such as Jobster, H3, LinkedIn, and similar technology extensions did not exist
• few companies had websites and the level of transparency and information that candidates possessed was nothing compared to today
• the candidate population was barely online.  Faxed or hardcopy resumes were the norm
• and the list of changes and additional complexities go on and on and on...

So the answer to The Question is to develop a discipline to apply Advanced Personal Learning so as to become and remain a true subject matter expert in recruiting.   I am always a little surprised how few people recognize this in their careers, or apply any sort of proactive efforts to evolve their skills, given that the world around them is racing ahead in terms of complexity and innovation (yes even in recruiting).  Based on my observations there are few true SMEs in the recruiting profession.  To be truly great at recruiting, one should become an expert in all components of the recruiting lifecycle.  How does one get there?  Apply the discipline of APL.

There are some relatively simple things that recruiting professionals can do to propel their career if they apply a level of discipline to the effort:

• Read Books:  By books I mean business books.  Some recent ones I have read are to the right.  Reading makes you smarter, and uses a different part of your brain than you use at work.  Additionally, all of a recruiters' best customers and business leaders are reading books.  Savvy recruiting professionals should read them to.  My advice:  One should always be reading a good business or skills-related book.  When you are done with the book, give them to your customers to read, and talk about them with others.
• Read Other Stuff:  Blogs.  Periodicals.  Other online resources.  Other periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review, Businessweek Magazine; I like Wired magazine as a fringe example.  My Advice:  One should read 2-4 hours a week if one wants to to be an expert.  Make it part of a daily routine. 
• Network:  I wrote this post a few months ago on the value of networking.  The value of networking cannot be overstated, regardless of the profession you might be in.  My advice:  Crack the code on effective networking, but keep the bar high with regards to the connections you make and the quality of those relationships.  Learn from others, and ask questions of those that have gone before.  One should spend 1/2 hour to 1 hour a week focused on networking outside of one's company.
• Get really clear on what Subject Matter Expertise means:  If you aren't an expert at negotiation, objection handling and understanding negotiation theory, then you aren't a SME.  If you aren't an expert at qualifying the needs of your hiring managers, and asking the tough questions, you aren't a SME.  Sales skills.  Sourcing skills.  Consultation skills.  Communication skills.  Interview skills.  Time management and productivity skills.  The list goes on.  My Advice:  map out everything that goes into the candidate lifecycle (I like to do so with a pie chart or a wheel chart.)  Then pick an area and go deep in your studies and develop expertise.  Find those around you that are great, and learn from them. 

So going back to the Starbucks cup:  maybe we should understand the science that permeates our lives, or maybe we shouldn't.  I personally do not need to know how my cellular phone works.  But to be really great at recruiting, one should apply advanced personal learning as a discipline in one's career.

And that is one answer to The Question. 

Why I Ride Fast Motorcycles

People are so interesting. 

It's pretty amusing when I tell people that I ride sport motorcycles at high speeds (like on a racetrack).  When I tell people this, I always try and get really attentive because their reactions are enjoyable to really watch.  These reactions normally fall into about 3 categories:

Category 1:  The Alarmists - these people generally immediately go to the risk and inherent danger of riding motorcycles.  Facial expressions are typically filled with disdain, followed by commentary  using the words "donor cycle" (as in organ donor... clever) or "do I know how dangerous that is?" or my all-time favorite, "My uncle Johnny was killed on a motorcycle in 1978...".  It's odd to me, because I wouldn't criticize their hobbies, as in, "Knitting is a really slow way to make a scarf.  Don't you know that?"  I always ask these people, "Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?" knowing that their answer is always the same.  When I first started to ride motorcycles, I would always try and explain it to them but now I've stopped trying.  The most interesting aspect of their response is this underlying feeling of contempt that oozes out over something that they've never really even tried, and their lack of consideration for whether I might take offense at their critical words. 

Category 2:  The Contrarians - These people are downright shocked that a clean cut corporate guy like myself would do something so... on the fringe.  I suppose I may not fit The Mold, but that's the great thing about motorcycling...you never really know who does it.  We are kind of like a secret society.  The Contrarians generally get really inquisitive about my hobby after that, saying things like, "I never would have guessed you ride a motorcycle..." and "That is so interesting..." and then asking (always) "How fast have you gone?" (175 mph) and "Have you ever crashed?" (only once) and "What kind of a bike do you a ride?" (Honda CBR1000RR).  These are people that don't quite get it, but appreciate that I do something kind of cool and (at least I think) that I wear a leather suit sometimes.  Not everyone wears a leather suit at some point in their life.  Or admits it.

Category 3:  The Other Renegades - These people are either motorcyclists themselves, or if they aren't, completely understand why I would want to do something like ride a motorcycle through a corner with my knee dragging on the ground at 80mph.  These people's faces light up, and we usually end up talking about this and simiar topics for as long as time permits.  These are the skydiving, bungee-jumping, scuba-diving, safari-trekking, mountain-climbing, marathon-running, kayak-paddling, drop-everything-to-go-to-Europe-with-too-little-money-but-way-to-much-time type of people.  I love these people, because they appreciate that life is short.  It is really cool to talk to people who extract a lot of joy out of their lives.

I ride motorcycles for a lot of reasons.  Mostly because it's completely all-engaging.  It's not like driving a car with four wheels where you can get by and only pay attention halfway.  You are in the game when you are on a motorcycle.  There's this inherent tension between the risk of crashing (always present) and the pure exhilaration of seemingly defying physics and carving through a corner or braking so hard going into Turn 1 at Portland International Raceway that you have to slide back in your seat to keep the back wheel on the ground. 

There is really nothing like it that I've found in life.  It's actually one aspect of moving to California that I'm really excited about - being close to some really great racetracks like Laguna Seca but also some of the best weather and motorcycling roads around.

People are so interesting. 

How to Break a New Year's Resolution in 44 hours or less (or yet another post on JobsterGate 2006)

I promised myself right around the holidays that I wouldn't comment on the current events at Jobster but low and behold here I go.   If you are still getting over the New Year's Nog, there's a lot of buzz about it and indeed the blogobuzz has even hit the mainstream news media (an admittedly low bar).

So much for that resolution.  By my math it lasted roughly 44 hours into the new year.  Damn.  It is now starting to remind me of that old kid's game.

Let me start out by saying that I've been a fan of Jobster since they were but an idea and some PowerPoint decks and a couple of us Seattle recruiting types were sitting in a conference room at Ignition Partners in Bellevue with Phil, Jason, several VC types, and a couple of other people whose names I now can't remember.  We were discussing the merits of technology to provide an improved referral system to be used for recruiting.  Anyone that wants to make recruiting easier or cheaper (or both) using technology in smart ways has my support.  And the ideas Jason and team were presenting were indeed new approaches and innovative. 

I think the whole recent event is an interesting case study, but for different reasons than others have blogged about.  I suggest that we pause and remember that the blogosphere is just another form of media, for better or for worse. 

It is more interesting that the evaluation of Jobster's probability of success was not evaluated in the blogosphere to a great extent prior to the recent kerfuffle.  Not many (if any) posts proclaiming their value proposition as 'new' or 'highly valued'.  Not many (if any) blog posts regarding whether their suite of offerings were creating results for customers or not.  And this is 3 years into the Jobster evolution.

What I have observed are old-fashioned back-channel conversations:  live, person to person dialogues between recruiting minds to get the straight scoop on whether Jobster's offerings were credible and worked as advertised.  I must have had 15-20 of these types of conversations in the last 24 months, given that Jobster referenced Starbucks and me in some of their marketing efforts, particularly early on.  People call me or email me and others I know, and say, "hey, can you spend 15-20 minutes with me and tell me about your experience using the Jobster tools, I'd really like the straight scoop...?"   I got a call like this as recently as this morning. 

There were plenty of back channel conversations happending at ERE in Hollywood, Florida last fall, and at every other event I've attended, particularly given the approach that Jobster has taken to market their services (in many ways as The Next Big Thing).  Lots of whispers, lots of sidebars over coffee, lots of "Wow, they are spending a lot on marketing (but this sure is a great party)..." types of discussions.

Yes, the most recent developments are noteworthy and somewhat significant because the blogosphere is once again creating its own news and it is a case study in transparency and communication.  There's a great post at Copywrite, Ink on the communication component.  In general terms, I do think those (Shannon, Amitai in particular) posting in the blogosphere showed an appropriate point of view in recognizing that the Seattle Post Enquirer Intelligencer 'news' commentary was...er... speculative.

The irony is that in many ways, the recruiting blogosphere has not done a good job of picking up the whispers, which I think would have been a true sign of the power of this (relatively) new media.  I think this day is coming and fast.  This transparency will be good for business, although few startups are likely to listen (see TechCrunch for loads of examples). 

From my perspective, nothing has radically changed at Jobster recently, despite the 'breaking news'.  Jobster is still following the same direction, or what some have called lack of direction, as they were 6 months ago.  Their product offerings are inherently the same as they were 6-12-18 months ago, or at least from what I can tell. 

What is most interesting about this story is that given all the transparency created in the blogosphere, why haven't more people suggested that things might be trending towards 'askew' at Jobster most recently than now?   As a former customer of Jobster's, a relatively tenured recruiting guy in the industry, and a follower of the burgeoning recruitment technology trend, I cannot share with you the primary business problem that Jobster is designed to solve.  That is a significant business problem for Jobster. 

I spoke to this a little in my recent post regarding complexity.  Technology works best when it solves real-world issues; and therein lies a quantifiable ROI.

I would suggest that there are only 5 demand-side business problems that exist regarding talent acquisition (comments welcome):

1. The Scarcity Problem - how to find the talent when it's hard to find (enter search tools, other widgets, headhunters, specialized sites, et cetera)
2. The Abundance Problem - how to find the talent when it's too easy to find applicants (enter online screening, assessments, et cetera).
3. The Compliance Problem - how to do #1 and/or #2 legally, lest the government offer your organization some assistance.
4. The Efficiency Problem (the Mo' Better Problem)- how to do #1, #2, and #3 cheaper and faster. 
5. The Strategy Problem - how to do #1 and #2 today, while building for the future and taking into account risks and opportunities inherent in a dynamic talent marketplace.  In other words, what works today might not work tomorrow, so let us take tactical and strategic steps to be prepared.

There are of course similar supply side business problems that companies like Indeed.com , Emurse.com, and yes even Jobster have taken a swipe at optimizing.  It's not clear how Jobster fits into this matrix either.

This episode suggests to me that we in the blogosphere should do a better job of transparently dialoguing about the whispers as opposed to letting the news break after the fact. 

If we do that, then we will know the recruitosphere is really humming and a benchmark of the blogging world.

Netflix Prize: Stories in Stories Part IV

In my continued following of the Netflix prize story, I've uncovered a few additional facets of the event that are interesting. 

My previous posts regarding this topic are here:

Post 1 , Post 2 , Post 3

First, there's an entire community of prize contestants hanging out in a forum that Netflix sponsors.  You can visit the forum here and read through some of the commentary that participants are talking about.  It's interesting reading if you are a follower of this story.  I didn't notice any overt recruiting efforts going on, but I'm sure they are.

Second, I decided to contact the current leading contestant, as listed on the Netflix Prize leaderboard.  I reached out to the leading team wxyzconsulting.com.  It's interesting that they are gaining substantial marketing exposure through their position on the leaderboard. 

I asked them some questions, here is how they responded:

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1. What made you decide to enter the contest? What motivated you?

We've been in the machine learning and personality discovery area for a long time. We are exciting about the Netflix opportunity since it provides us a real scenario to test and proof our innovations. Another major reason is, Netflix competition enables such a worldwide platform that we can benchmark ourselves with other top researchers in the world.

2. I've noticed that wxyzconsulting.com is a new web address as of October of 2006, I presume you formed the company after you entered the contest? What's the history with this venture?

Actually, the .com was formed at the same time as we entered the contest. The reason to have wxyzconsulting.com is, we hope we could find some consulting opportunities by showing our expertises in this field. But we rethinking our goals and targets given the very positive responses received from various sources.

3. Are you the same Yi Zhang that teaches as UCSC? (http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~yiz/ )

You're right, yes, Yi is the professor in UCSC and she is one of the partners.

4. Have you garnered any consulting business from your status as the frontrunner on the leaderboard? You've had a fair number of hits to the web site since launch just a few short months ago (16,000+ hits to their website).

We're in talks with some companies for possible consulting opportunities.  And yes, as the frontrunner of Netflix contest, we do get good exposure.

5. There's been a lot of discussion regarding "gaming the game"; in other words, delivering solutions with a strategy attached to ultimately win the $1M, as opposed to simply solving for the best solution and submitting your results along the way. What is your opinion on this, and how does that tie into your motivation for entering?

Gaming is reasonable given the structure of this game. But gaming itself cannot guarantee the No.1 position. It is the innovation that will make the ultimate difference among so many contesters.

6. Can you verify that your Los Gatos address (the home town of Netflix) is purely coincidental?

Pure coincidence-:) And thanks for your remind, I just realized that Los Gatos is the home town of Netflix.

7. How big is the team that you are working with to solve the puzzle?

Very small, the core technology team consists of only two experts.  We're individuals who interest in this field. And we don't have any assistants or computing labs around.

8. Do you think this contest has generic implications for how talent is employed to get work done? Is this a new paradigm that you think will be replicated in the future?

The contest itself is not new at all. topcoder.com, Google and many others have been using such paradigm already. But we do think the problem Netflix wants to solve has huge potential.

9. What do you make of this 'open-source-like' approach to solving a business problem?

We think it has very good potential. The contest at least demonstrates some level of problems big companies are facing right now--- in house R&D usually lacks of real innovation.

10. What would you do with the money?

Well, the money is still in Netflix's hands. To be honest, we have not thought of it yet. We're still 100% focusing on keep innovating and improving.

11. What's your favorite Starbucks beverage?

cappucino

12. Why do you go by Tiger?

My English name is Tiger. In Asia, people think tiger is the king of the jungle. And we want to be the king of the personalized discovery.

13 Anything else you'd like to add?

We think Netflix competition itself is a strong indication that the industry is moving from search to a new era -- discovery. The recommendation is one important piece of the personalized discovery service. We believe we can do much more with our innovation and technology.

------------------------------------

It is pretty cool that after a few short months, the teams have made significant improvements on Netflix's own algorithm, and seem to be moving forward at a brisk pace. 

This story is worth continued coverage.

I am feeling pretty Googley...

As you might have noticed, my posting rate has been substantially reduced over the past few weeks (not that it was acceptably frequent before), and one of the primary reasons is that I've made the difficult decision to leave Starbucks and have accepted a position as the leader of recruiting for Google's Global Online Sales and Operations group, which is led by Sheryl Sandberg.  She will be my primary internal customer. 

AdSense, AdWords, future revenue-generating product offering "X", you get it.   In foundational form, it is the business unit where lots and lots of revenue flows from people outside of Google to people inside of Google, in exchange for the best advertising solution in the world.  I am pretty sure talent acquisition fits into that equation somehow.

Google's recruiting department has taken a few knocks, as recently reported in the Wall Street Journal.  Too many interviews, too much process, lack of a competency-based model for selection, attitudinal issues as they engage in the talent marketplace and similar concerns.  It's refreshing that Google has chosen to be transparent about it.  It seems like the organization is ready for change.  The most interesting descriptor I found was the reference to the Google recruiting process as 'glacial'.  I'm not an MBA, but that can't be good for business.  Despite all the criticisms, I would suggest that in recruiting they are still winning.

While I was working out in the gym this week, I discovered a new term in an article in Newsweek magazine that really resonants with me, and is applicable to my new job at Google:  Radical Transparency.  I've been talking about this theme and for a long time in previous posts.  There's a great post on this topic by Chris Anderson of The Long Tail fame on his blog from last month. 

Recruiting departments that leverage radical transparency will win more than their fair share of talent.   As a leader of recruiting departments at some of the world's most well-known companies, I should point out that I am really in the business of telling people "no".  Unfortunately, most people who want to work at Starbucks don't get hired.  I'm sure this is the same at Google, and other well-branded companies with reasonably solid employee value propositions and certainly for those that are market-leading.  It is a supply and demand equation, and companies with particularly high bars (like Google is notorious for having) but also huge talent requirements due to growth tell people 'no' on a grand scale. 

Given this, one strategy is to tell candidates "no" and do it in a way that is better than your competition:  more authentic, with more sincerity and respect, and in a way that inspires them.  Yes, inspires them.  It is a wortwhile value proposition in a 'radically transparent' world to inspire the innumerable numbers of candidates who aren't selected for a job at your company.  The chasm of technology and process that has been created between organizations (ie, groups of human beings) and their potential future workforce (ie, other groups of human beings) can be bridged by simply exceeding people's expectations through the interview process:  making every impression (in the marketing sense of the word) through the recruitment process uphold and strengthen the brand and the promise represented by the employment value proposition. 

This is true because people make decisions to join companies based on the value proposition that is offered (salary, culture, stock options, brand, job) but also because they make decisions based on how the process made them feel, and the connection and engagement it creates between themselves and the people they interact with during the interview process.

If organizations do this well, the talent market becomes inundated with talent who did not 'get into' your company, but still greatly aspire to.  This is smart business.   

Under my leadership, we were able to do this well at Starbucks: recruiters wrote hand-written thank-yous to candidates who were not selected, sent them Starbucks Cards preloaded with a few dollars, and made the interview process unique by doing things like coffee-tastings with candidates, which incidentally most of our competitors couldn't really do.  But really, it came down to what kind of an organization did we want to be. 

This is a particularly useful strategy if talent becomes scarce.  It is also a useful strategy given the real potential that the desirability of your offering (employment brand, general company brand, etc) may fall out of favor with the free-agency-minded workforce of today.  And make no mistake, there is always this potential - this is a risk that all companies face, and now more than ever. 

Lest we forget that company success is not an entitlement, historically there are very few companies who remain in the top spot, by any measure (whether financial, market share, or 'best place to work'), for very long.  Success is tenuous at best, and recruiting strategies related to this topic should plan for the long run with regards to how you engage with talent.  Reputations are hard (and expensive) to change. 

This is not to be confused with the difference between available talent and qualified talent and the issues with scarcity.  There still may be issues with relative shortages of qualified people to meet business requirements.  The point is that even the unqualified people have a voice and impact perception, brand, and the perspective of qualified talent. 

In the case of Starbucks or Google, most everyone that wants to work at the company is also a customer.  Or a future customer.  Or in the case of a radically transparent world, will inform a customer or a thousand customers or a million customers depending on how well they are able to extend their reach.  To change the game, an organization needs to, each and every time, exceed candidate/applicant expectations (which are at an all time low anyway) in a way that inspires them.  As I've said in other posts, the big things matter, but the little things (like how you treat people, whether they be inside or outside of your company) are also critically important in a radically transparent world.

An illustrative anecdote:  Years ago, before the Lexus LS400 automobile was introduced by Toyota, they developed a mantra towards customer service that went something like this:  "We will treat customers who walk into our showroom as if we had invited them into our home".  At the time and in many cases still to this day, this approach was and is exceedingly divergent from the norm of a car sales or service experience. 

Lexus has since gone on to lead the car industry in customer service satisfaction scores (which of course have been proven to positively correlate with profitability and revenue... um...yeah).  It is inarguable that this mantra helped shape their entire company and played a huge role in their overall company success. 

Smart companies that want to win in the new game of talent, in a radically transparent world, will need to adopt a similar philosophy and talent market strategy.  It is smart to be rigorous and have a high bar in recruiting, but the key is to do so with graciousness and humanity. 

And that is smart business.

On a personal note, I will be moving from Seattle to the Silicon Valley sometime around February/March and am looking forward to the changes this will bring.  Given the weather that we've had in Seattle recently, I must say the whole earthquake thing is beginning to seem a little mundane.  Falling trees, frozen roads, downed power lines, massive flooding... those have real entertainment value. 

My first day with Google is January 22nd.