Encore Episode: Failing Through the Hiring Process

Ever thought why recruiters despise their jobs while candidates can't land one? Well, we're diving headfirst into the recruiting battlefield, bringing you firsthand insights from the Recruiting Hell subreddit. Let's dissect the wins and losses of the recruitment process, and find out how each side can better their game. 

We're breaking down the art of resume crafting, highlighting the importance of accuracy and attention to detail. Discover how to stand out - but not too much - and why a functional resume might be your ticket to success. We're also unravelling the mystery behind cover letters and job postings. Learn the real value of tailoring your cover letter and why researching a company can be a game-changer. We’ll also debunk misconceptions about the 'spray and pray' approach and emphasize the importance of having realistic expectations about your qualifications.

And when it's interview time, we've got your back. Learn the importance of being punctual, prepared, and professional. We’ll also discuss how to navigate tricky questions about past employers and why dressing for success is more than just a catchphrase. Hear the pros and cons of having a professional email address.

Join us to glean wisdom from the battlefield of recruitment and, who knows, this might just be the arsenal you need to conquer your own job hunting or recruiting challenges!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Had you actually read the email, you would know that the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit language and offensive content. These HR experts' views are not representative of their past, present or future employers. If you've ever heard my manager is unfair to me.

Speaker 2: 0:18

I need you to reset my HR portal password or can I ride up my employee for crying too much?

Speaker 1: 0:25

Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to Jaded.

Speaker 2: 0:29

HR. Hello and welcome to get another episode of Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the day by saying all the things that you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren Workman and this is Chris Feathers.

Speaker 1: 1:02

So how's it going? Feathers, another day in Paradise, another day in HR. Paradise, right, hr.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Paradise. Every day is Paradise Day in HR, are you sure? Absolutely absolutely. Even bad days just give us fodder to talk about on the podcast. So it's all good, absolutely, very, very true, but speaking of all good, I didn't even plan that segue. So a couple of things I want to talk about real quick. This is going to be released on April 15th, tax day, normally, but we've been granted an extension by our very generous government.

Speaker 2: 1:40

But, April is. April is got a couple of things going on. First, we do have a few listeners who use the app Podchaser. If you don't know already, april is their reviews for good month If you go on to Podchaser and put a review of any podcast, but hopefully J2HR Podchaser is going to donate 25 cents to a charity which I believe is Meals on Wheels, but I didn't write it down. Plus, if we, as the podcaster, respond to that review, they'll add another 25 cents. Plus, they have multiple partners out there that are going to match those donations, so I think the total donation is going to be in the millions of dollars that they're willing to put out there. So please, if you're one of our Podchaser listeners, or even if you're not going to Podchaser, leave us a review and we will comment on all of them.

Speaker 2: 2:33

The second thing, a cause that's a little bit near and dear to my heart. April is Autism Awareness Month, and so what I'm going to do for all reviews left on any platform, whether it's Podchaser, whether it's Apple or any of the other platforms, anybody who leaves a review for us, one star, five star, doesn't matter. I want to make a $2 donation to Autism Speaks and up to $100. And at the end of the month I will post my receipt on our Facebook page so people can see that I followed through on that. So please go ahead and leave us a review. And we did get another review on Apple this past week. Now I'm going to put $2 for that review too.

Speaker 1: 3:18

It was a one star review, so kind of review.

Speaker 2: 3:21

Yeah, yeah, no, if you're one star, five star. I just want the reviews. But the person who gave us a one star review didn't leave any comments. Well, so far in Apple United States, nobody who's left us a review has left a comment, not like Chris in Canada, who left us a review up there, and we haven't had any of our friends from the great white North leave us any more reviews. I checked that again this morning, but every review that goes out there, I will personally put $2 towards an Autism Speaks donation for the month of April. So please get those reviews in on your favorite platform. If you use another platform besides Podchaser or Apple, send us a direct message so I can see it on another platform, so I can count that. So those are the two I will get notifications from when we get a review.

Speaker 1: 4:11

So please, please please help us out there. Extremely generous of you, extremely generous, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 4:16

Let's talk about this one star.

Speaker 1: 4:17

I mean this one star. I mean come on. I mean, if you're going to leave us a one star, at least tell us something.

Speaker 2: 4:22

No, I was thinking of it like a performance review. I've worked somewhere where you had a five point scale, absolutely. If you made it someone to three, you didn't have to put a count, but anything other than three. If you put a two, one, four, five, you had to justify why you're making that.

Speaker 1: 4:38

We have to be meeting expectations. I mean, come on, give us a three, we're meeting expectations at least, but a one, come on.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Yeah, I don't know. We must have pissed in somebody's cordon flex. I said something that somebody didn't say on whatever episode they listened to, so oh well, I'll take it, though you know, at least they're listening. Maybe we can do better. Help us, put us on a performance improvement plan.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Help us do a little bit better we will take that direction.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Make it official.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Make it official.

Speaker 2: 5:06

Put it in writing I mean, that's what HR is all about. Right, put it in writing, it's not writing, it didn't happen, it didn't happen. So I'm basically only have one theme for all of today's episode. I got motivated hearing a couple things, and part of it comes from the subreddit of Recruiting Hell forum that I watch and pay attention to, and if you're not familiar with the Recruiting Hell subreddit, it basically consists of two groups of people. The first group seem to be recruiters who hate their job for whatever reason. The second group of people in Recruiting Hell seem to be job seekers who can't get jobs, and sometimes by their posts I can tell why they can't get jobs. They're unemployable.

Speaker 2: 5:52

But it's an interesting subreddit to follow. So I wanted to talk about each stage of the hiring process and where people fail at. So I've already once again, like last time, I shared my entire show notes rather than just some cryptic notes, chris, so he can see what we've got going on here. But I wanted to start at the very beginning, when somebody's got that first inkling to start looking for a job, and what they don't do to set themselves up for success. So I'll just go ahead and start down my list and please, chris, chime in any time you feel like.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Let's go backwards for one second. Why would a recruiter hate their job? Let's think about that for a second. Listen to people's bullshit all day long about things they have not actually done. But they're making up to get past them to hopefully get to a hiring manager. Then the hiring manager turns around and goes why did you put this candidate in front of me? This was a waste of my time. So let's think about it. Why would a recruiter hate their job?

Speaker 2: 7:02

Oh, in candidates they lie. They want to get that offer from you in hand so they can get a counter from their current employer. They're playing a game. It's all a cat and mouse game. I think a lot of the recruiters on that subreddit are third party recruiters who have to deal with their clients more than internal candidates, and still that's malicious. I've been there, I've done that. It's a great living. It is burning the candle at both ends for quite a while, but the commissions are fat. There's no two ways about it. If you're good at recruiting, you will make some money in a third party, but it is rough, it's a sales job.

Speaker 2: 7:44

You have less control of your clients. Internally, I can pester the hell out of one of my own managers to get feedback. Hey, what about John Doe you interviewed last week? Give me that feedback. What are you thinking? Are you moving forward or not, where I can not be as aggressive and pestering a client who's paying me and things like that? So third party recruiting is absolutely. It's difficult but it is very rewarding and I've seen some of those commission paychecks. I'm sure that once they get those in they will feel much better.

Speaker 1: 8:18

That definitely makes up for the bullshit.

Speaker 2: 8:20

Yeah, no, it helps. Yeah, just, I wanted to start with when you first get that inkling to start looking for another job, what's going to make you successful? So I thought of some things. What are they going to do? Are you going to make a career change? Are you leaving HR and you want to go into sales and marketing, or you want to go to another field altogether? You got to know that. What type of job are you looking? Why? Why is it that you're making changes?

Speaker 2: 8:47

That's going to be one of the first questions a recruiter or hiring manager is going to ask you and, to that end, be prepared for those generic job interview questions. People, you can go just Google most common interview questions and you'll find probably 99% of the questions you'll ever get asked by a job, by a hiring manager or recruiter. Read them, be prepared for those. Be prepared to answer why you have gaps in your resume and don't try and hide it. Hey, you know I got fired from this job. I was fired once upon a time when I tried sales. I got fired as I sucked at sales very, very badly. There are no words to describe the sucking that I did there.

Speaker 2: 9:31

But I got fired and I tell people, yeah, and what was your result? That was 2001. I got fired, if anybody asks, because I did not meet my sales goals. I didn't even meet a single one of the sales goals, so I didn't meet any zero. Say something you know. Let them know that, yeah, I got laid off. Hey, my personal story 2011 was a hellacious year. Got laid off twice in one year. That sucks.

Speaker 2: 9:56

But answer those questions. Know where you want to be. Their locations, do you? Are you open to reload? Are you not really open to reload? Where do you want to go? How far are you willing to commute?

Speaker 2: 10:08

Talk about your salary goals. What do you actually need? Where are you looking for? And make sure it's you know. Yeah, I want to make $2 billion. That's not a realistic goal. Make realistic expectations with that.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Know the industries you want to be in. You know there are industries I would not work in and I think everybody has something that they would not work in a certain type of industry for any reason. If it's, you know moral objections maybe you just heard bad things about it. Hey, know what that is. And no, and especially in the HR world, company size plays into it. Do you want a giant Amazon size company or do you want that 200 person company that you get to know people at? So know that. And then the other thing I want people to know is know your drawbacks.

Speaker 2: 10:56

When someone looks at your resume, know what they're going to be thinking. If you, I live and work in two different states. It's about an hour one way commute. I know the first objection somebody's going to say when they see my resume is wow, they live an hour away. If they even know the name of the place I live, no, not many people do, but they see that address on my resume. Well, they live an hour away. But you can also see I've worked in that general area for the past I don't know 20 years and done that commute. So it's not, it's something I'm familiar with. And just because most people wouldn't do it doesn't mean that it's there. And those are type things you can also address in a cover letter If they ever get read. That's another thing we'll get to later, but those things still exist.

Speaker 2: 11:41

Know what you're doing. If candidates will just get a clue about what they're doing, it makes such a world of difference. So the next stage I had in the hiring process is resume writing. And you know we had that episode of a while back, one of our earlier episodes of HR Ponies and their underwear, about the person who made their my Little Pony resume and things like that. There's so many stories like that of people being just too cutesy with their resume.

Speaker 2: 12:14

And another thing that I can't stand about resumes is too long of resumes. When your resume is six or eight pages I've lost interest after page one. So if you're showing, tell me on your resume what you did in 1965. I'm not very interested in what you're doing in 1965 on page eight of your resume. Make it long enough to cover just the highlights. But also too short can be a problem. Although if you remember the office episode where Pam interviews with Bob Odenkirk for a position and she gives him her resume and it's one-third of a page and that includes her name and address because she's only worked at Dunder Mifflin and that's all she has, she's the receptionist at Dunder Mifflin. You know what? I'd rather see that resume all day than this overhyped. You know, monstrosity of a resume.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Six pages. I think the person had four jobs because they were using like 72 font or whatever it is. On everything I'm like man. This guy has spent his career in logistics Hold on, oh, he's only had like three jobs.

Speaker 2: 13:23

No people just write your resume. Get some help also People, with writing a resume. Talk to an HR person, talk to a friend, have a family member read it. You know my first resume coming out of college. I'm the worst speller in the world, no doubt about it. I live off the office little red line, what's those red squiggly lines.

Speaker 1: 13:44

What's those squiggly lines?

Speaker 2: 13:45

Yeah, that is what I live my life off of. And I didn't realize that my resume coming out of college had multiple typos because word 3.1 or whatever it was back then didn't have the squiggly line ability. And I actually found out about the misspellings. I'd applied to a company and somebody at that company got a hold of my resume who was a friend of my mother oh geez. And he told I'm a college graduate now and he's told my mother that he saw my resume and it had some misspelling. So I was not. How was your retention?

Speaker 2: 14:20

How's your retention of detail.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Well, I can't spell, so I can't proofread very well because I don't know how to spell Exactly.

Speaker 2: 14:28

But we've talked any number of times about pictures on the resumes and how many companies will just instantly decline or not accept your resume as a picture on it. Get rid of the pictures, people, I don't care. I don't care at all about your picture. Formatting is another thing. People get too creative when it comes to their formatting. Oh, my God, some of the formats you've seen and trying to read it and oh, I think I mentioned it on a prior episode my daughter's senior class that prepares her to go out into the world. She has to write a resume and I helped her and the feedback she got from her instructors it needs to be more flashy, more catchy and I did a. You know I thought it was very good entry level resume, had some good formatting, was clear, easy to read, will be picked up well in applicant tracking systems and things like that. But her feedback was they wanted to be more catchy, more attention getting. I'm like I don't like attention getting resumes, so much goes wrong there.

Speaker 1: 15:33

I had a buddy who was a manager for a technical trade company and he received a resume one time and he was looking at multiple different jobs and this one resume kept popping up, popping up, popping up. Well, the guy had distinctly gone into the functionality inside of word or whatever program it was using and basically put like 27 pages of buzzwords and then used all the light or the clear font color or whatever. So every single buzzword you could ever think of was listed in there. So anytime they didn't have like a tracking system, the ATS found it popped up. He popped up for every single job. It didn't matter, it was always this guy. And finally they called him and was like, okay, what did you do? The guy admitted it and it was great. It was like, oh, I'm guaranteed to get my resume looked at every single time. I'm like, yes, you are, you beat the system. It's funny Speaking of people, I don't know how much time you spend recruiting.

Speaker 2: 16:29

Cut my teeth in recruiting, even been doing recruiting since I moved back to this area. In what year? 2001, when I moved back to this area, started off recruiting. There is one particular individual. He's applied to so many I know if I'm putting out a type of position and there's over a million people in the Hampton Road region there. But if I put a job posting out, regardless of what company I've been with, I will get for in his field. I will get his resume and I so bad wanna call and talk to him and I feel like I should know him by now because I see his name in his background every single time and even recently in the last couple of weeks. I have a recruiter now but I was just playing around in the applicant tracking system doing some work and I saw this resume yet again. I'm like I've been seeing your resume for the past 20 plus years.

Speaker 1: 17:27

You gotta call more you gotta just introduce yourself, I know, How's your career been? Because I've seen you, like everywhere I've worked, I've seen your resume.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Yeah, and he hasn't been qualified for the positions any of them that he's applied for all the way back.

Speaker 1: 17:42

So it's Go buy him a couple Starbucks. Go do something for the guy.

Speaker 2: 17:46

He's trying. He's definitely trying. Well, I'll talk about. You talked about keyword stuffing. Now I'm not talking about putting it in white font behind a layer of white font. I've heard that. I've never seen it for a sand, but I've heard of people doing that to get the applicant tracking system pick it up, just stuffing keywords needlessly into your resume. Synergy, if you're going to use a word, make sure you're using it A correctly and B it makes sense, like it belongs in your resume. I've just seen so many people are trying too hard to stuff these keywords in and oh you know.

Speaker 1: 18:24

Google. What's the top 10 buzzwords for 2021? And this, all of a sudden, there and everyone, in every line of your resume.

Speaker 2: 18:31

Exactly exactly, I wonder. Hmm, I'll have to Google that myself at some point. Here is one of my least favorite things, and I recently hired somebody who does this speak in the third person in your resume, Mr Workman. I don't understand the need, but we did hire this individual. He wrote in a third person. We did hire him. He does talk in the third person about himself talking to you. Well, Warren would like to have a raise, or someone like this. I don't know. That's just awkward, so awkward to me, speaking in third person and writing in third person.

Speaker 1: 19:15

Mr Feather just wants to hit the lottery and just two podcasts.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Hey Share the wealth yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:23

I'll give this a sponsor.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Oh, here's another huge fail and I've seen this so many times where they could have a great resume but they try and do a functional resume versus a chronological resume and they don't have the skill and background that can make a functional resume work. Functional resumes are awesome If you can do it well. If you can't do them well, they are God awful and they're impossible to read and follow and things like that. We had a functional resume. Come in and me and the CEO, who were actually sitting there reading this resume together and I was like what the hell? And we just after a few seconds now he got more than it was the stereotypical eight seconds of someone who's looking at a resume, but we both looked at it. For a minimum, they're like you know what Don't pet.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Next, we're not here to decipher your resume for it and going along with the chronological aspect, missing dates on your resume. If you're not putting dates on your resume, you're hiding something and I don't care about your graduation date. You know that whole thing about. Oh, you can tell how old I am because I graduated from college in 1996 or what have you. And okay, you're 21, 22 years old when you graduate. So now that makes you, however, old, so we can discriminate against you.

Speaker 2: 20:43

Now I want the dates at your employer and I want to know your succession, your plans, and then, if there are missing dates, talk about those missing dates. I said it earlier Be ready to talk about gaps. There's nothing wrong with having a gap in your resume if you can tell us what's going on. You know, hey, I left a job for another and it didn't work out, so I was open or I got laid off or, hell, I got fired. Just put the dates in there, people. But one of my favorite things that people forget to put on the resume are contact information. I wish I could tell you how many resumes I haven't had all these nasty bad things I'm talking about, and I go to want to contact them and oh, there's no phone number.

Speaker 1: 21:31

No email address no phone number, no email address.

Speaker 2: 21:34

Nope, I'm like, I'm not going to find a yellow pay or white pages somewhere to look you up? Well, they do actually. At least in my little town the white pages still exist. I haven't seen one anywhere else. But no, I'm not going to go looking you up or anything like that. And hopefully you filled out the online application and put that information in. And then back to my nemesis. I spoke about spelling grammar. Now, as a reader of a resume, I'm going to be the last one to catch spelling errors in your resume.

Speaker 2: 22:06

But if I do catch it, that means you're really just jacked up your resume at another world if I'm the one who's catching your spelling and grammar errors.

Speaker 1: 22:16

I had a guy one time apply for a position, and this is something I love is when people have just crazy email addresses, and I'm sure we'll get to that at some point in time. However, the guy's email address was highly educated at whatevercom and when I opened it up, going all right, this is intriguing. Well, first of all, they weren't necessarily highly educated and, second of all, their ability for proper grammar and spelling did not necessarily fit the email address they were putting out there for me to look at. So I had a good chuckle on that one.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Once upon a time I used to carry and I hope this notebook isn't lost or gone I used to keep a notebook of all these crazy resumes I would receive. I'd print it out for my own personal pleasure and keep these resumes. And I remember I was working at the CPA firm. A recent college graduate with about a year or so experience applied for a position with us and our email address was whackasswhitegirlatwhatevercom and that's just such a bad. I think Patrick and I did an episode where we covered some of these bad email addresses. Oh Lord. But speaking of email addresses aowellcom people you may as well have a prodigy or a comp you serve and say here I am, I'm over 40 years old, I've got a AOLcom email address.

Speaker 1: 23:48

I parasol AOL, but it fits.

Speaker 2: 23:54

But I say that we actually hired an IT guy.

Speaker 1: 23:59

You can't have AOL.

Speaker 2: 24:01

He's younger and I did. I called him out on the AOL address and he said, well, his parents got it for him when he was like eight years old and they allow people to keep their email address forever and like okay. So he's just sort of had that. But I said, when you're looking for a job, get something you know. Yeah, well, I, just when I'm pictured that person with the AOL account, I'm thinking of that boomer.

Speaker 1: 24:24

Don't, don't, don't, be biased don't be biased.

Speaker 2: 24:27

Well, that's what I'm thinking when I see AOL on that.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Thanks, boomer.

Speaker 2: 24:36

Oh Lordy, but I wanted to go next to cover letters. Now, what, chris? What? What are your thoughts on cover letters? Do you a when you're recruiting? Do you read them? No, you don't? Okay, I love cover letters.

Speaker 2: 24:51

I think a well done cover letter can be a huge accessory to a good resume. I think people can do a very good job of explaining things and selling themselves a little bit more in a cover letter than it can in a resume. But part of having a good cover letter is targeting your cover letter, customizing it to the company you're applying to, not just a generic. You need to actually come up with something unique and put it out there. But the other thing I see people do in cover letters which doesn't help them is make it a me, me, me, me, me. I did this, I did that. You want to say, hey, I saw your XYZ position. I feel I can be a great job because that in my past company I did this and I think I can do the same for you. I think I can bring this to the table and just put it out there.

Speaker 2: 25:41

I do read the cover letters. I I probably spend more time on a cover letter than I do on a resume If I get a cover letter, the. The percentage of cover letters I get is very, very low, but I do read those.

Speaker 1: 25:54

Now I'll read cover letters. In a situation where, if I'm recruiting for a more senior type position and I'm getting a candidate from out of state or I'm getting a candidate from different locations or has a unique skill set, then I will look and see if there is a cover letter there, because then I can hopefully learn better about the story.

Speaker 2: 26:12

And no, that's a perfect example coming from out of state. Hey, my spouse just got transferred to Virginia Beach where we'll be there in June. You're not gonna put that in your resume, but hey, now I know why you're. You're in San Diego, now you're coming to Virginia Beach. Okay, now I know why and I have a better idea and it makes it work out. Well. But also the downside, the flip side of a cover letter. People who send XYZ companies cover letter to ABC company that's so customized for the other company but not quite so much for us. You attached, you made the wrong attachment.

Speaker 1: 26:49

How's that? Attention to detail.

Speaker 2: 26:53

Not, not not doing too well, but I know I've been harping on candidates. So I do think and Chris, I'll call you out on it things employers need to do is read the read the cover letter. Even if it's one page, it's going to take you what 30 seconds to read a page or something like that. Not even read the cover letter, get a gist of it is. I think they can be so helpful in making a decision there. But I want to harp on employers some more. When it comes to job postings, this is where employers really start to suck wind. But they write these god-awful, poorly written job postings and they go either one of two ways. They're either too vague that anything can happen or they're so specific that you know nobody who reads it. There's one person on the whole planet that can do that meets all those 25 requirements, and da, da, da da find me that unicorn.

Speaker 2: 27:52

But then some managers, when they put out that job requisition with 25 must-haves, they're expecting to find someone who has each one of those 25 must-haves and it's not gonna happen. Sometimes you actually have to grow your talent and develop on yourself and find someone who's close enough and mold them and make them your own to do the job.

Speaker 1: 28:12

Job postings seem to be either like the poorly written, very archaic job description, just copied and pasted and that's the job posting, or it's over marketing, it's overselling, it's it's using too much descriptions to try to entice you to apply for the position it's either one or the other. There's nothing that seems to be in the middle of the road.

Speaker 2: 28:33

Exactly. And on going to the candidates, read the posting Absolutely, how close are you going to get? I'm currently advertising for a position which we have second interviews later this week, so hopefully I'll be closing it, but the the title I'll go ahead and say is a project controller, and 90% of the people that apply for this position have zero business applying for a project controller type position. What we get are like CFO, controller type people, heavy accounting, which that's not what this position is. And then we get project managers, pmis and and things like that also not what this position is. If you read the position and government contractors have project controllers and if you are in the industry, you know that what this position is, you know and you know whether you fit or not. But we've probably received well over a hundred applications for it and I think we've had exactly five that are in the ballpark of reality.

Speaker 2: 29:37

In terms of you, you fit the position, and the same goes for the damn kids coming straight on McDonald's want to apply for a senior engineering position that requires a master's degree in electrical engineering dot-a-dot-da. But you, you've got your high school diploma, you're getting your high school diploma in May this year and you're still at McDonald's that. That frustrates me to no end. When you have that person who's not even remotely close you know I talked about project controller and a CFO accounting controller applying okay, we're at least in the same ballpark. But when you have the kid from McDonald's with zero experience wanting to apply for 10-year experience engineering position why? Because and here's the answer to that why, question? It's easy you just click apply now and you've applied and they take the shotgun effect. I probably applied to 200 app positions a day just to sprain pray some's got a stack and God bless them, want something, will.

Speaker 2: 30:39

But contacting people. You've gotten through the first few stages. You, we liked your resume, like your cover letter. You applied to a good position, it fits you. We try and contact you and, oh my god, your voicemail is full or you don't have voicemail set up on your phone. This is huge thing on the generation Z folks and Lord knows I've been preaching at my daughter have your voicemail set up, make sure it's a professional voicemail message and then respond appropriately to it.

Speaker 2: 31:13

I think I told the story on the podcast earlier. I was recruiting, I was calling someone and is for a professional level position, had a degree, had experience. But his voicemail outgoing message is like oh, yo, yo, yo and I'm smoking a blunt with my bitches and it go and get some hose tonight, get a little crazy and all that. I'm like okay, yeah, and I did leave a message while I was calling to talk to you about a job opportunity, but I think you're a little preoccupied with your bitches, so I think we're going to pass on your, your resume. I think I left something along those lines on his voicemail. God just.

Speaker 2: 31:53

But when it comes to voicemails, candidates are not as bad as recruiters, because recruiters and some of the voicemails they leave are pure awful. I'm sorry, there there's you, recruiters out there. You, oh Lord, leave your talk at a normal cadence and a normal pace. Do not try and get through that voicemail in five seconds. Leave your name, leave your phone number clearly and maybe even repeat your name in phone number so, as they're writing it down, they can get that. I just, oh my gosh, some of the people who I just think as I was looking for jobs. This is Jane Smith. I'm coming from Balabala company and you call me back at dadada. I don't even understand what the numbers they're saying to give them a call back. So, oh, that's something. It Just irks my nerves.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Then there's always the side when you're cold calling a candidate. My favorite is you'll make the phone call and they're like what do you want? Why are you calling me? Are you a collection agency? Well, actually this is so-and-so, calling about a position you applied for. Oh hello sir. Oh, thank you so much for calling me today. Oh well, you know that first impression you just made. Thanks so much, but I'm going to get to my little spiel. It'll be about three seconds long and then we're probably going to end that conversation.

Speaker 2: 33:12

You know, I've noticed that happening quite a bit more than I have in the past. People get defensive, you know, maybe it's because of their call or warranty calls they get 20 times a day that they actually answered the phone. But in nowadays I don't think I don't answer phone numbers I don't recognize. Now I'm not actively on the market, but if I were, if I were, I'd probably answer the phone and just suck up the car insurance warranty calls that I get. No, I would answer and it'd be pleasant and upbeat. And hey, how are you doing? Thanks for calling. But also that's another thing Let the recruiter know if it's not a good time.

Speaker 2: 33:50

I've had someone once upon a time. They answered the phone and they're trying to speak in code so they can get through their. You know, I guess they can't speak openly and they're speaking. Hey, if it's not a good time, just call me back, say it's not a good time. Hey, I'm at work and can I speak to you later? Quick and easy.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Oh, going back to recruiters, hi, my name is Warren. I am calling from. You know, being just very mechanical, you're reading from a script. Nobody wants to hear you reading from a script. They're reading a script and they cannot deviate from that script. And oh, that's. You know that's not a good way to that. Doesn't set yourself up. Well, no, not a good impression there, but as much as I've harped on recruiters recently candidates who have disdain for recruiters and they say I want to talk to someone who knows what they're talking about.

Speaker 2: 34:42

When I call someone, you know my spiel is real, quick and simple. Hey, my name is Warren. I want to talk to you about your resume. I'm an HR person. I'm not a technical person. I'm going to keep things at the 10,000 foot level today. Just want to find out some basic information so I can get your information from our project managers. Bam, I've set the expectation that I'm not going to be able to do that deep technical dive with you. I'll get you the information. Just just work with me and answer the questions. Just answer the questions If it don't be all egotistical or trying impressive be talk over my head Once I say.

Speaker 2: 35:15

I've had people I feel have intentionally talked over my head after I've given them my spiel. I'm not a technical person, I'm an HR person. I can keep things at that high level, but not going to the deep dive. And they want to go on the deep dive with me and I'm like, okay, let's reel this one back in.

Speaker 2: 35:30

I don't know really what you're talking about, but you spoke about cold calling, candidates cold calling. I've experienced that more this year. I know a lot of people lost their jobs with the pandemic and things but people just randomly calling in asking to speak to the recruiter, someone in HR, and they say I'm looking for work. Well, what do you do? I can do anything. No, you can't. What type of work? Well, I want to be a manager. Well, what type of manager? If you're going to do cold calling, do some homework on the company. Just don't click next, next, next and find someone to call. That's just a waste of time. And well, what have you done in the past? Well, I've been a manager. Okay, we're not going. Manager doesn't really mean a lot unless you tell me what you're managing. What type of Are you? You?

Speaker 1: 36:19

know process people. There's a lot of different things when it comes to managing Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2: 36:24

So I'm going to skip around on my my list here a little bit. Phone screens We've actually gotten ahold of you. Do phone screens? Know what your resume says? Be able to verbally walk someone through your resume? That is just one of my most frustrating things. I call Walk me through your history or career history and tell me a little bit about yourself. If you can't tell me the places you've worked, the primary functions you've done, you're not going to be able to get a job. And then the flip side goes for managers. Tell them being able to tell them the basics, the 10,000 foot level about the company and the job itself. Managers need to be able to do that as well.

Speaker 2: 37:03

People who stand oh gosh, sounds so desperate there. There you can tell I really want this job, I really need to get this job and that tone of desperation comes out. I understand if you're unemployed. Like I said, I've been there more than a couple of times in my life Desperation, keep it in check, keep it in check. People, help yourself out. And also being too familiar with the, with the crew. Oh hey, buddy, what are you doing this weekend? Not doing anything with you.

Speaker 1: 37:33

Sit my ass the damn off as trying to recruit somebody because you're not going to go anywhere.

Speaker 2: 37:38

Yeah, no, it's start becoming too familiar and being their best buddy and things like that. But one thing that irks me a lot is not willing to discuss salary expectations. I'm not asking you to put it in stone and commit, just give me a range. Give me my general, generic question is what salary are you ideally seeking? Don't ask your salary history. You're not allowed to do that in most of the country anymore. But what are you ideally looking for? And if you give me a range, hey, I can work with that. But if you oh, I'm not going to discuss salary now I need a number to put in front of our program managers, because numbers are very important. And if you're looking for 250,000 and we're looking to pay 50,000, you know we need to know that pretty upfront and people don't.

Speaker 2: 38:25

People just don't know and understand that it's like. But on the flip side, recruiters who won't discuss salary, it's got to go both ways. It's got to go both ways. You don't have to give them a commitment and I, when people ask me, oh, our target salary is X, I don't give a range, I give a single number. Our target salary is X. And you know whether they're above or below X. That's fine, we can, we can work with that. But because I'm not going to say, oh, we're looking between 75 and 90,000. So now everybody else on up there, they only focus on that 90,000. And that 90,000 is, if you need all 25 of the, the, the Rex, and have the, all the experience in the world, that unicorn, he'll get that, that high end of it.

Speaker 2: 39:09

And then it comes to the interview. Interviews are so much fun. I do enjoy interviewing people. For the most part I do enjoy that. That part of it it's most of. It's just really good if people just have a normal conversation with you. But first and foremost, be on time to an interview. People Be on. There's being late. There's virtually no excuse to to being late. And if you are running late, call ahead, don't just show up 15 minutes late. That goes for the manager to be on time.

Speaker 1: 39:40

There's nothing more than I hate when I'm recruiting for a hiring manager and the hiring manager is either a wait or changes things last minute or something like all the work that's gone into it and the candidates there and you're just making that candidate sit there and wait.

Speaker 2: 39:54

Well, they can wait. They're trying to get a job.

Speaker 1: 39:55

Now you're. You're making a bad impression about the company.

Speaker 2: 39:59

Bad impression. And if you are, hey, you know, get a message up to him. Oh, I'm tied up in a meeting. I'm sorry it's taken longer. I'll be with you just as quick as I can.

Speaker 1: 40:07

That's acceptable. But just making them wait, just for the sake of making them wait.

Speaker 2: 40:12

Now I have done that to someone intentionally made them wait. They no called, no showed one interview. I'm sure there you go, that's fine.

Speaker 2: 40:21

And then they called back and said, oh, I had this. So I scheduled them again. They were at least half an hour late without calling and I'd gone on. I think I had. I was in another interview, I'd gone on with my day. I got out of that interview and I was sort of, oh, somebody's here I interviewed from an hour ago is here now and I'm like, oh, ok. So I went back to my desk, I checked my emails, I got a drink I took. I didn't take like an extra half hour or anything like that, but I did what I had to do.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Just just 29 minutes, Not half an hour. It's fine yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 40:54

I did what I had to do and I talked to him briefly and he didn't even acknowledge oh, I'm sorry, I was late again today, or something like this. Of course, didn't get hired.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Didn't get hired either, but doing homework on a company.

Speaker 2: 41:08

Now, this is a double edged sword, because people can either do too much homework on a company and they want to start regurgitating facts and figures in the news article about the company and everything they've known, and just throwing all the things showing how smart I am Da, da, da da. That that's a huge turn off. I hate when it seems like they're trying to show that they know more about the company than me. But you also do have to do your homework to a certain extent on the company before you do that. We're going so far on time.

Speaker 2: 41:40

Nervousness Nervousness is a two way street. People, I do expect you to have some degree of nerves, because if you have some degree of nervousness it means this interview means something to you. It's important, but you need to be able to get through that nervousness. One more quick story on the employer side what not to do. Let people answer to flipping questions, don't. But the number one killer of an interview is got to be speaking negatively about a past employer. 100 percent. We've all been there. We've worked some shitty jobs. We've worked for shitty bosses, we've everybody's been there sometime but got to spin it. People, you can't just say they were making me work 60 hours a week. My, you know. Just say you know that just really wasn't the job for me. I worked there for a while. The environment isn't what I expected and you can say things without being overt. You know how crappy and shitty the company is. And then two more things.

Speaker 2: 42:51

Well, I will talk about dress for an interview, how you dress, and I think dressing for an interview has changed over the years. It used to be no matter what you're applying for. You should go in in a suit and tie, be ready to go. I don't know the last time I had someone come into an interview wearing a suit and tie. You know, most of the times it's khakis in a button down shirt and still looking professional. But I haven't thought twice about it. I wouldn't still feel comfortable going for an interview and anything less than a suit and tie. But maybe that's because I'm old geezer type dude. Thanks, yeah, thanks, boomer. That's that's me. I wouldn't feel comfortable in the interview, but I'm not going to hold. As long as you're not coming in ridiculous, you know, t-shirt, flip flops for a professional level job, then I'm going to be fine.

Speaker 1: 43:41

There's definitely been a paradigm shift when it comes to the dressing for an interview. So I'm with you, I'm not going to go into an interview without a suit on. But I think it's also depending on the role or the environment that you're going into. I mean, when I was in logistics, I had everything. I had somebody in a gown a prom dress to a suit. That was probably four ties is too big for them, or vice versa, four sizes too small for them.

Speaker 1: 44:08

It was always the honest ones for me that I would. We would talk and say, look, if you're coming from your other job, I don't expect you to dress up. You're coming from one logistics job, another logistics job. That's fine, I may come. However, you're addressed for work. The previous shift, I'm OK with that. But now working more professional setting and the insurance industry, I think it's pretty acceptable for you should be in a suit.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Yeah, and when I was doing college recruiting and bringing people in to their first in-person interview, I had this one gentleman and he was sweating bullets. Oh, poor guy.

Speaker 2: 44:44

I liked him when I interviewed him on campus so I got him up to the partners and I didn't tell him he still had the tags on the out. You know how men suits tags on the outside of the sleeve yes, he still had those attached. So bad wanted to tell him or something like that. I didn't. My wife said oh, you absolutely should have told him. You know he would have felt better. You know what is he going to think afterward, after the fact, if he had the suit you know, probably his first suit or something like that. I don't know. I thought that was that was funny. I still give an A for effort, though.

Speaker 2: 45:16

Oh, absolutely, I think we did hire. We did hire him. But let's get you know, wrap things up, start getting into the offer process. During the interview process you talked about salary, hopefully, and you talked about other things. And now you make an offer. You said originally you're looking for salary between X and Y and the offer comes in something between X and Y. But you say, oh, I was actually looking for Z. That's not a good negotiating tactic, I don't think. To give us a range we fit in that range. Hey, ok, you give us X and Y and we come in somewhere between I was looking to actually to be a little bit closer to this towards Y. Now we can have a conversation. But if you're going for Z, you know that that's just bad form. And then and I've had this happen to me recently, so it's more of I'm a little fired up about it playing you. So they get a counter offer.

Speaker 2: 46:07

For Christ's sake, people Just write a fake offer letter on a on word. Get your own offer letter. Don't bring other employers into the mix. Yeah, xyz company is going to give me $20,000 more and I'm relieved if you don't. If that's the game you want to play the current employer. Do it. Just put up, make a fake letterhead and making timely decisions and that goes both sides, for the employer and the manager. Make timely decisions about whether you're going to accept an offer or make an offer.

Speaker 2: 46:38

Then it comes to onboarding Fill out the damn forms, people. You see that LeBron James meme all the time where he's all yelling and irritated. But I just loaded my resume and you still want you know my work history. Put it in there, just do it. It sucks, but just do it. But on the employers, I don't make it overly burdensome and complicated. Don't do things like that and be welcoming when that person gets in. Now I just wanted to talk about all the fun and wonderful ways people can fail through the hiring process. If you have ideas about ways people have failed in the hiring process for you, hey, send us a note. Feedback at jdhrcom, connect with us on all the social media sites, let us know. So that's all I got for today, feathers. How about you? Anything else?

Speaker 1: 47:28

Let's throw it. Let's throw out one best practice. Go for it. Have a professional email address. I don't need Big Booty Ho, I don't need highly educated, I don't need something mixed or mistrister or whatever Hotmailcom. I don't need that stuff. No, just just have a simple email address that you do for professional things. Keep your other fetishes.

Speaker 2: 47:55

BSDM Master Right.

Speaker 1: 47:59

Good for you.

Speaker 2: 48:02

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 48:03

Now I'm already thinking about sexual harassment claims.

Speaker 2: 48:07

You know that's the absolute truth. Don't, don't just advertise it. You're going to be a walking sexual harassment claim.

Speaker 1: 48:13

Right.

Speaker 2: 48:14

All right. Well, thanks for joining us for another episode. Like I said, please go on Podchaser, apple, make some reviews. Podchaser has a review for good promotion going on. I'm going to put two dollars up to one hundred dollars for every review made on any platform to autism speaks, so please get your reviews out there. Thanks for listening again, and I'm Warren Workman, and this is Chris Feathers, and we're helping you survive HR One. What the Fuck Moment at a Time.