jump to navigation

Thanksgiving, 2008, part II November 28, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

So, the post that Penelope Trunk wrote that I referenced yesterday has raised a LOT of comments, particularly as it relates to age discrimination.

One of the interesting bits in her post was the Fox News article that stated that unemployment for those over 50 was hovering at 50%. And, not surprisingly, this one raised a lot of the comments. And, there were many anecdotal references supporting this statistic. One noted that this seems to be very noticeable in Boston and Silicon Valley.

Now, I don't have any statistics supporting this argument one way or the other, though I have had a number of candidates tell me they've run into age discrimination.

For argument's sake, let's say that this is all true.

As a hiring manager, why wouldn't you hire a more experienced worker with equivalent technical skill sets for the same role and the same compensation over a worker with many fewer years on this planet.

Seriously, make your list of the reasons why.

Now, validate all those reasons. Come up with the statistics or studies that say you're making a better decision hiring the younger worker.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of money you can't. You are simply operating off of 'common knowledge' or your own personal biases as to how things should look in your group.

Second, how much more do you think you'll get from someone who is REALLY appreciative of the work you're offering them?

There is no question that hiring the right people for your team is hard. But, when your prejudices get in the way of making good decisions, it's that much harder.

Question your assumptions, and if you can, use better measures than the other guy.

All About Big Angie November 28, 2008

Posted by hardly Bar, Dips, Other, Pullups, Pushups, Sit-ups Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Warmup:

Workout:

Workout:

Thanksgiving, 2008 November 27, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Today is such a great holiday, a chance to think on all your blessings.

It can be tough, though, when it seems that all the news is bad. In the good news column, Penelope Trunk has a great post regarding some underlying employment statistics today....

Happy Thanksgiving!

About those Google Layoffs November 26, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

WebGuild's very interesting post (and the comments) regarding layoffs at Google got me to thinking about what is going on there, and perhaps at other companies.

Bottom-line: Roles which do not directly bring in revenue, or reduce costs are at risk to be eliminated. Temporary workers are, of course, the first to get cut. Along with low-performers.

But, are they getting rid of Developers? Hmm. Probably not.

Despite what things look like in the broad market for talent, the market for Developers and Testers continues to favor the seller, not the buyer.

The most important question to ask November 26, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Once upon a time, in a magical land called Red Mund, a Masterful Wizard named Linus sat down to coffee at P. Eats and said, "I am unappreciated by my boss, my boss's boss, and the boss's boss's boss likes me, and listens to me, but won't lend a hand. I tell them how to solve the problems they have, and with elegant solutions to boot, and they do not understand until later. They are then very happy with my magic, and in spite of this, they give me bad reviews for the first time ever in my Wizarding career."

It so happened that the Masterful Wizard said this to another Masterful Wizard named Bob and a Level 12 warrior-wizard (who felt very over his head) named Carl. They thought P. Eats coffee was quite good.

Bob, the Masterful Wizard, crossed his legs, placed his hands in his lap, and said, "That may be O.K. Not everyone is ready to hear your message or understand your magic."

Bob then cleared his throat, "The question you need to ask of them is, 'How is it that I can help you with the problems you face?'"

And that may be the most magical of all the questions to ask anyone, but most especially seemingly very powerful Wizards.

It’s the little things… November 26, 2008

Posted by hardly Bar, Kettlebell, Other, Sit-ups Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

I continue to work on the nuances of some of the key movements we do time and again in our workouts.  I really struggle with these, and I know I need to get the movement ‘grooved’ so I know the payoff will be a good thing, but until then, it’s really frustrating.

Warmup:

Workout:

Workout:

Open Letter (Well, Blog Post) to Entrepreneurs - Why the best long-term relationships have plenty of give and take (striking an agreement). November 25, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

One of my favorite business maxims comes from 'Murphy's Laws of War', "Always keep in mind that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder."

Is this the way you view hiring a third-party recruiter? A Developer?

The basic view of any business agreement is to understand the needs & wants of all parties at the table. You as the hiring manager need hard-to-find talent. You need to do this as fast as possible and with the least use of resources (time, people, process, and money), and you'd like some sort of guarantee so the Recruiting firm in question has some sense of longer-term skin in the game (aside from their fee). The Recruiting Exec, Account Manager, or whatever they term themselves wants to conduct your searches, and preferably the high-value stuff like repeat searches and Executive Searches. Oh, and if it's exclusive and on a retained basis, so much the better.

These are the main boundaries for both sides, the lines of tension are fairly obvious, and you could easily write up a term sheet around this.

But would it be a solid business relationship?

This is the crux of the problem in my mind, looking at it from both sides of the table. The ideal recruiting arrangement for the hiring manager is one where the recruiter is intimately involved in your business, and understands what you're up to strategically. They can help you with your immediate searches, and they have an eye out for great talent you should be adding to your team.

Also, both sides have to be willing to invest in the relationship and make things work. Recruiting is hard because people do funny and unpredictable things at odd times. When you're in strong relationship, one where trust is the lynch-pin, things can go wrong, and they will, and both sides know that they'll wake up tomorrow and work to fix it.

For you as the Hiring Exec or Manager, you might want to think about employing a third-party recruiter in similar manner as selecting an outsourced Dev team. Here's one approach on this:

  1. Meet w/the Account Exec, the assigned Recruiter, the assigned Sourcer, and anyone else the firm will have you engaged w/on a regular basis.
  2. Find out what their turn-over rate is for the roles that each of the people you are going to work with represent.
  3. Ask for references (I'd go w/both clients and placements on this)
  4. Ask them how they will go about finding your candidates. Ask them how they go about their ads, their sourcing, interviewing, assessment, and reference checking.
  5. Ask them what their differentiable advantages are v. their competition. 
  6. Ask them what they would recommend as criteria (metrics) to assess their work. 
  7. What is their fee for a) Executive Searches; b) Regular Searches for FT staff; c) Multiple searches for one role; c) Contract recruiting for Devs & Testers.
  8. Ask them to put together fees for parts of the recruiting process, should you choose to use one part of their services. For example, you might want them to write up ads for you, or do reference checks.
  9. Select 2 or 3 firms at first, and tell them they are in competition with each other, and will be so for a year. At that time, you'll make a decision to cut it down to 2, and review the pricing models. You'll revisit this decision yearly.
  10. Come to terms on the contract with each vendor.
  11. Pull the trigger & go find some people.

Circling back around, do not go with the low-priced vendor unless there is some demonstrable reason that is totally unique to this firm. This is not so much a recruiting firm issue as a bad-deal in the making issue. As Manager/Leader, I never struck a low-ball deal that didn't eventually unravel and consume an inordinate amount of my time to the value the supposed savings represented. Resist the urge to go cheap. It never ends up being that way.

Look at it another way. You wouldn't short-change your Dev process, would you? So, why would you short-change the process that brings you your Dev Team members?

Garbage in, garbage out.

Washington State Unemployment - October, 2008 November 24, 2008

Posted by hardly Strategic Concerns Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

On the 18th, Washington State put out the October Employment report, and here are some of the high-level items of import:

For the technology sector, we're starting to see the overall economy take a toll:

Basically, we're seeing firms in the Software Publishing arena being more financially conservative with their primary cost item - people. Too, I don't think these numbers reflect a number of the recent layoffs that have been reported, so I suspect that our November numbers will be lower. And, the Microsoft & Google hiring machines have been idled (mostly), so it will be interesting to see how the numbers change next month.

Was that a personal best? November 24, 2008

Posted by hardly Bar, Kettlebell, Medicine Ball, Other, Pushups, Row Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 1 comment so far

Warmup:

Workout:

Workout:

Who likes Conspiracy Theories? November 24, 2008

Posted by hardly Other Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , add a comment

Mark Anderson of SNS fame has a thought-provoking post, The Men Who Killed JFK.

What I continue to find fascinating is the death-bed confession by these former spooks (is there any such thing as a 'former' spook?). Why is it that these men, who believe staunchly that they are highly patriotic, have to confess to these deeds? If they really thought they were doing right, why admit to something they're guilty about?

Some strong lessons there for everyone, especially those figuring out what they want to do with their lives.

And, a great last question by Mark: What do we do about this?