Posts filed under 'attractive job'
Now that it’s a hiring manager’s market, I’m hearing that a number of interviewees are hearing questions such as “Why do you want this job?” or “Why Should I Hire You?”
Hiring managers: that’s a shorthand question. You know what it means, but your candidate may not. You’re looking for ways to know if this person will be successful, or what they want to do this job. Remember, some people just want a paycheck. That’s fine. Don’t assume they will be out the door as soon as the economy picks up–the economy has to pick up darn fast for them to be out the door soon. Instead of asking a shorthand question, ask the question you really want to ask. That question might be:
- “What specific talents, skills, qualities, preferences do you bring to this position?” I prefer to analyze the job myself and ask questions about those things based on what I need, but you might hear interesting insights from candidates. One candidate told me she had the maturity to work with a relatively young team, and the young-at-heartedness to not hold them back from insightful ways to solve problems. She was right.
- “Tell me about the things you’ve been learning recently.” (Wait for an answer.) “How does this job fit into your learnings?”
- “Tell me about a time when you took a job you didn’t look perfect for. What did you do?”
- “Tell me about a time you took a job you looked perfect for. What did you do?”
- “Do you have any concerns about this job?”
- “Tell me how you expect to help me with this job.” This one is particularly difficult to answer well, since the candidate may not know how she can help.
Avoid using shorthand to the question you really want to ask. If you want to ask “Why will you consider a job that pays 20k less than your most recent position,” ask that. Otherwise, think abou the question you want to ask, and if it’s legal, ask away. That makes you a more attractive hiring manager and the job much more attractive.
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May 18th, 2009
I realized today I hadn’t completed the Making Jobs Attractive series, so here’s the final installment.Even a candidate who’s accepted an offer is not an employee. That person is still a candidate, until he or she arrives at work that first day and signs all the paperwork. So make sure you stay in touch with the candidate from the time the candidate accepts your offer until the candidate starts work the first day.The time between offer and first day can still be a time of investigation for the candidate–one reason I like to have a short time between the offer and the first day. The longer the time between offer and first day, the less likely the candidate will actually start.Make sure the candidate’s office space is ready for a first day. When you make the space ready, you can invite the candidate to come in, look around, see the space. People can visualize themselves working in that space. (I have a whole chapter in Hiring the Best …
–that’s how important I think it is.Consider assigning a buddy to the new employee, to ease the transition. An article I wrote a while ago is How2 Create a Buddy (Informal Mentoring) Program.If you consistently perform all of these pieces, you will be making your jobs as attractive as they can be.
Labels: attractive job, first day
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March 25th, 2007
So you’ve interviewed a candidate you like. The interview went well. You’re checking references, and thinking of making an offer. This time is a perfect opportunity to market the job.You haven’t finished selling during the interview until you’ve extended an offer and the candidate has accepted the offer. With any luck, you learned what the candidate wants in a job (and an offer), during the interview. If not, you’ll need to ask now.
One of the questions you can ask is, “What would it take to make you say yes to an offer?” Some hiring managers are afraid of that question, thinking it leaves them open to outrageous sums of money or other perks they can’t provide. But more often, the perks are something you can provide.
Some people want a book allowance. Some want travel money for one conference a year. (One of our AYE participants negotiated AYE attendance and travel each year as part of his package.) When I had small children, I wanted a guarantee I could leave every day at a specific time so I could pick the girls up from the after school or day care on time.
Some of you are probably saying, “Hey, JR, this isn’t marketing; it’s negotiating an offer.” You’re right. And your flexibility in making an offer is part of marketing the job.
Your organization’s flexibility is part of your marketing. That flexibility is what will make your job attractive, aside from you as a hiring manager, your team, and the work.
Labels: attractive job
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March 1st, 2007
I don’t normally market a job or “sell” a candidate during an interview. I have found that by asking great interview questions, and having everyone on the interviewing team ask great interview questions, I don’t need to sell. One of my clients is convinced that they need to sell during the interview.If you too, think you need to sell the candidate on the job or the company, first you have to know what’s attractive to the candidate. That means you need to know more about why the candidate is leaving/considering leaving his current job.I sometimes start with a question like this, “Why are you leaving your current job?” You might hear a good answer, but more likely not. Too often, people are reluctant to say they want more responsibility or more money or a different product. More often, I’ll start with a question about previous job changes, “Tell me why you went to the company you’re working at now. What attracted you to that position?” Now I have some information about why the candidate went there. Now, I might be able to ask the why are you leaving question, but I’m more likely to ask about previous moves.Once I know what’s attracted a candidate before, I can say something about that in this interview–if it’s true. (Never lie or even just stretch the truth in an interview.)When I changed jobs back when I was working inside organizations, I changed jobs when I was no longer having fun learning new things, or if the company was about to go under. So, what attracted me was the ability to learn new things, and know my paycheck was relatively safe. As an interviewer, I can use that knowledge and talk about learning new things and the financial outlook for the organization.So the way to market the job during the interview is to learn about the candidate–especially why that candidate is looking for a new job. Do that with behavior-description questions and maybe an audition, and now you’ll have enough ammunition to sell the job in the interview. If you need to.
Labels: attractive job
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February 28th, 2007
So you’ve got a job description that offers an opportunity, not a job. You’ve come to terms with how you see the value of the job. Now it’s time to start looking for people–candidates–to help fill that job.One way to make a job highly attractive is if you, the hiring manager, actively participates in the recruiting. There are several ways you can actively participate:
- Write the ad for the job so it sounds like you.
- Spruce up the ad on your company’s web site so it sounds attractive.
- Make sure you’ve let everyone in your group know you’re looking. Your employee referral system might be your best ally here.
- Attend professional group meetings where your candidates are likely to be.
- Perform phone screens for every resume you think is a “yes” or even a “maybe” if you’re having trouble finding candidates.
- Attend job fairs.
The more active you are in the recruiting, the more likely you are to find someone quickly who will find the job attractive–because you’re involved.
Labels: attractive job, recruiting
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February 25th, 2007
Part of making a job attractive is to market it well. But you can’t market it if you don’t respect it. So the first part in marketing is to come to terms with how you feel about the job.Are you hiring someone to do something you consider “grunt” work? That’s a hard job to respect. And, it tends to lead people to sheepwalking. If you’re hiring someone to do grunt work, why? Sure, it’s work that needs to be done, but if you think about it as grunt work, that’s going to come across to your candidates.Instead of considering the work “grunt” work, reconsider if you even need a person to do this work. Or, think of how you can explain how the work enhances the work of others in the organization. Here’s an example of how two companies dealt with this with an HR administrator job. Company1 decided to buy one of those large systems that allow their employees to administer all their work. They hired someone who could teach the system, deal with the vendor and the IT staff. Of course, that person ended up having to help people enter their information, but that’s a different problem 
. Company2 hired an administrator, to free up the people who were supposed to do other work. This administrator could have felt like a servant, but they hired a delightful woman who took pride in saving the technical staff from the “chaff of their jobs–they got to work on the wheat.” Company2’s administrator dealt with the vendor, and made them make her job easier, so she could keep doing “chaff.”Two different approaches to the same job. Each approach allowed the administrator autonomy and a way to look at the strategic parts of the job. Not bad for an administrative position, right?Once you configure the position so you can respect, it’s a lot easier to market it. Sourcing (what recruiters do) is a form of marketing. There are a ton of marketing techniques, and I’ll address that in the next post.
Labels: attractive job
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February 20th, 2007
The first step in making a job attractive is to create a job that’s an opportunity for someone, not just a job (Adler). An opportunity allows people to grow in some dimension, not just do the same-old, same-old. That means you need to develop a hiring strategy, and do a job analysis so you can see what problems you need solved and the kind of person who can help solve them.Let me make that a bit more concrete. Say you’re hiring a Tier 3 support person. A Tier 3 support person is a developer who likes developing small things with close-to-immediate gratification. The great Tier 3 people don’t think that they do maintenance; they think they do small development.If you call a Tier 3 support job “support” or “maintenance” you are offering a job. If you call it something like “small, short development projects to existing products” you are offering an opportunity–especially if you structure the job so this person works with the other developers, not just with support.I’m assuming you’re not just writing a job description like this, but that you will structure the job like this. (Never lie in a job description.) When you structure the role so that the person bridges the gap between hardcore development and hardcore support, you have a great opportunity that will attract exactly the people you want.
Labels: attractive job
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February 16th, 2007
According to my colleagues inside organizations, we are officially in a buyerseller’s market for technical jobs. They are reporting it’s difficult to find people, and they want to know how to make the jobs attractive.I don’t claim to know a lot about sales (just enough to keep myself in business!), but here’s the one thing I do know: you can’t sell something you don’t believe in. That means that the job you’re looking to fill has to “offer an opportunity” (that’s an Adler quote) to someone; that you respect the job to market it well, and that you respect your organization enough to market the organization (you, your team, and your organization) well.When I’m done with the series, I’ll post the links here.
Labels: attractive job
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February 16th, 2007
Ok, I admit it. I have this strange fascination with “The Apprentice.” This morning on the “Today” show, Donald Trump and Matt Lauer “interviewed” 8 candidates to be on “The Apprentice” next season. (If you’re watching for interview tips, stop. Watch for the entertainment value 
I heard one fabulous interview question: “Do you love your job?” One candidate said no, and Trump told the candidate to find a new job. It’s not worth spending time at work unless you love your job.
Some of you unemployed folks are snorting, and saying, “I’d love any job that paid me.” And yes, if you’re not receiving an income, any job looks pretty darn good. Hiring managers, you can hire people who aren’t in love with your job in this economy, and you’ll still receive lots of value from them.
But there’s an even better way to determine if a candidate is right for your open position. You can ask, “What about your job do you love?” And follow that up with a why or example sort of question. If the candidate says “I love the people,” ask “What is about the people that makes you love your job?” and “Tell me about a time the people made the job wonderful.” If the candidate says “I love the technology” ask about the technology and ask “Tell me about a time when the technology rocked your socks.” Don’t forget to ask about the previous job, not just the latest one. I had jobs I loved for widely varying reasons.
Once you’ve heard the answers, review your organizational culture, the people, the technology, whatever. Is the candidate going to find the same kind of fulfillment with your open position? If not, is it worth changing anything so the candidate can love the job?
If the candidate admits to not loving any job, ask more questions. The candidate is probably in the wrong role. You don’t have to perform career development for the candidate. Nor do you have to provide feedback. But you also don’t have to hire that person.
You don’t have to care if your employees love their jobs. Not everyone will. But people who love their jobs stay longer, becoming more productive. They bring their friends and colleagues. Pretty soon you have an extraordinary culture full of people who love their jobs who help you hire people like them. If you’ve ever worked in an organization like this, you know how wonderful it can be. The technical staff accomplish way more than you could ever imagine. If you don’t care if your employees love their jobs, remember this: when the economy picks up, the best employees will be looking for jobs they can love.
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March 17th, 2004
If you manage people, at some point, you’re going to deal with titles and job descriptions. Here are my perceptions about the constraints on titles:
- Make sure the titles for developers, testers, writers, anyone who performs project construction are parallel. That is, don’t have junior testers unless you also have junior developers.
- Make sure the titles are politically correct. People have to be able to work in the organization, and your title scheme has to help people do their jobs. I’m particularly allergic to people who perform management work being called “leads.” Leads are not managers. Managers may lead in the sense of leadership, but if people are supervising other people’s work, they’re managers. Make them managers.
I wrote What Does Your Title Say about Your Job? when I was particularly frustrated with testing titles. I had just completed a consulting engagement to unmire a project. The root cause was misalignment between job expectations and job deliverables.
When you’re generating titles, first think about each person specifically, instead of your group in toto. You’ll find that people who you thought were working at the same level are not. Now, think about who each person works with, and at what level that person works. Then think about the essential technical and non-technical skills, using the four dimensions of technical skill. In a job description, I then add the non-essential non-technical and technical skills.
Perform the job analysis for each person in your group and see where they land. (In my tutorial next week at Star West, I’m testing an assessment tool I’ve used to see if it’s useful for other people too. If it is, I’ll post it here.) Now test where each person lands against your gut. If your gut and your data agree about where you’ve placed people, your job analysis and description are correct. If they disagree, you haven’t complete the job analysis. Go back and figure out what you’re missing.Once the book is published, I’ll ask the publisher if I can post the job analysis template. (Right now, the answer is no, I already asked.)
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October 21st, 2003
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