AT_Straight _Talk _on IT_Project_Recruitment

Why summer holidays are a great time to recruit an IT Project Manager

"We'll just get by until after the summer holiday and
then see who's around."

These were the words of a CIO who was plugging a gap
in his project management operation with talent and
services from the Project Management as a Service
market. Good news for my friend who is an expert in
this expanding sector and who told me the story but
also a great illustration of a very popular misconception.

That misconception ... that IT Project Management
recruitment EVER takes a break.

Actually, there are a number of reasons why the
summer holiday may actually even be a better time to
recruit Project management talent, Christmas and Easter too for that matter but let's do a blog
about that later in the year!

Let's debunk the myth.

The assumption is that, during the summer, everyone is either on holiday or thinking about going
holiday, so there's no point - no-one's job hunting over the holidays.

Let's consider that.

Sure, when people are actually away, they're possibly not actively job seeking ... possibly! How long
is the average summer holiday though? Travel Supermarket did some research and put it at 10 days.
That's 2.7% of the year. The six-week summer holiday is 42 days, so that's 11.5% of the year. If you
adhere to the assumption that this is a quiet time and do not attempt to recruit during this six-week
period, then you are sacrificing 11.5% of your annual recruitment potential. All because you have a
'demonstrable' dead time of less than 3% of the year.

Do all Project Managers take the same 10 days? Benidorm is going to be pretty busy around that
time if that's the case. No, of course, they don't. Like any industry, holidays are spread out across the
summer holiday period. Furthermore, not all Project Managers have children so are not even
restricted to this six weeks for their break. The point is, as you consider all this… that 2.7% quiet time
starts to shrink as a justifiable block to recruiting.

BUT ... OK… so, let's say your ideal candidate IS on holiday. What are they doing? A bit of reading,
plenty of eating and drinking, perhaps hitting the beach or the dance floor ... and certainly checking
their emails. For better or worse, technology keeps you connected at all times and a savvy
recruitment partner maintains a database of interviewed talent and keeps in contact with them. If
your partner is worth their salt they've got to know you and your business culture and will use that
knowledge to match candidates with your organisation. A less cluttered inbox and a more relaxed
open mind are the perfect target for a focused recruitment message.

Another thing that you do on holiday is a lot of thinking. If your perfect candidate comes to the
conclusion that they fancy a new challenge are they going to wait until they get home or in these
totally connected times are they gonna fire up their iPad whilst sipping a cerveca on the balcony of
their holiday villa?

Many surf the web for new opportunities on their morning commute, eating their lunch in the park
or waiting in line at the Post Office and, increasingly, more and more are looking for a new job while
on holiday. You can check job listings and fire off a CV in your own time, as opposed to during office
hours, and not run the risk of getting caught doing it. One PM friend does this when holidaying at
home because he's more available for interviews.

As a hirer, there are more advantages to casting a net around this time.

For a start, the misconception about this being a bad time to recruit is shared by many other
businesses. In a candidate driven market you want there to be as little competition for talent as
possible so it makes sense to have your message out there when so many others are keeping their
powder dry.

Also, to be devil's advocate, let's play out that assumption that fewer people are looking for a gig
during the holidays. In the last few weeks, we have matched talented project managers with
vacancies - there are some people who are looking. So, what can we assume about these candidates
- the ones who are active in an otherwise "dead" market? They're keen. They're resilient. They're
calculated risk takers. They're determined. They're tenacious. Actually, aren't these the ideal
qualities of the perfect candidate? Is your vacancy out there for them to consider?

As I write this, September is about to arrive. The market place is about to get busier and so are IT
Project management teams across the UK. Do you have the right talent on board, if not with all
those tenacious, keen, resilient, determined, calculated risk takers out there - maybe your job ad
should be too?

Source:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2888280/Typical-British-holiday-2015-ten-
day-trip-Spain-cost-1-220-32-Britons-plan-stay-close-home.html

Why your IT HR function should be as transformational as the talent it
recruits and retains

Something is happening in some IT HR set ups that I am
finding really exciting.

For many years, in many firms, the role of the HR
department and recruitment has been a transactional
one. A department head would have identified a talent
gap or someone would hand in their notice and you
would set about filling the vacancy or replacing the staff
member. Plus, of course, there was all that lovely
admin.

Then something changed.

Many IT HR leaders saw the business value that they
could add by aligning their activities with strategic
objectives and in doing so realised exponential growth in influence and productivity. They became
transformational partners in the strategic development of their business.

Of course, the talent that you recruit and seek to retain has, for the most part, been on this page for
some time. The most successful IT Project Managers, for example, have recognised the value of
aligning project missions with business objectives - if there's no business case for an IT Project
there's usually no case at all.

It stands to reason, therefore, that such paradigms and practices should be mirrored in the
recruitment processes designed to attract and develop this talent. Like attracts like, after all.

Many IT recruiters are enjoying huge success by moving away from traditional recruitment and
retention roles and evolving into facilitators of change, many actually drive change within their
organisation.

Of course, there is still a place for traditional HR thinking, there's still all that lovely admin, but the
consensus seems to be that it is more suited to organisations where a reactive approach is needed,
where a company has a culture set in stone or operates in a settled environment.

None of this sounds like the IT industry that I work in.

Many companies are finding that their corporate cultures are having to evolve to match changing
customer expectations, they are operating in turbulent environments and are therefore looking for a
proactive response from all contributors. Taking a more transformational approach to recruitment of
IT talent delivers this in spades.

Here are just FOUR ways that IT HR leaders are becoming transformative.

Anticipating Need

Traditionally, HR reacts to an alert from a department head. You need someone new in this area or
someone is leaving from that. You fire up the job boards, you harvest the CVs, you hire.

As IT HR leaders evolve into a more transformational role they begin to anticipate need. This could
be as specific as identifying that the next big IT Project will require key skills that currently your
organisation doesn't have or it could be as broad as simply knowing that those requests will come
from department heads and sourcing new ways to recruit that provide scalable 'on tap' resources
that speed up the process.

Talent Management

I suppose this has been evolving since the late 90's when management consultants McKinsey &
Company began to consider the value of talent over processes to an organisation.

The most successful IT HR leaders are adopting a very strategic, considered and deliberate approach
to sourcing, attracting and selecting key talent but it doesn't stop there. The same mindset is applied
to training, developing and retaining the talent and managing how they progress through the
organisation.

Consistently Working 'ON' Recruitment, Not Just 'in' Recruitment.

There's a big difference between working 'ON' and 'in' recruitment. Over 8,000 recruiters are using
the same technology tools, the same job boards to attract the same people. You get a folder full of
CV’s and hope that something sticks.

None of this alerts talent that is currently not job seeking to your opportunity - but you want to
recruit the best - often they're not looking at the job sites. Transformational IT HR leaders are
seeking out ways to identify the best talent and communicate with them. IT Partners that maintain
contact with a database of pooled, previously interviewed talent, for example, can open up
communication and access talent who might be perfect for you but not currently 'on the market'.

Return On Investment

Transformational IT HR leaders are taking a holistic commercial view. It's not just about filling the
vacancy it's about making sure that each hire works hard for the company's bottom line too.

Initially, that means streamlining the recruitment process for maximum efficiency and questioning
things like recruiters' upfront fees and the actual value of rebates if a hire doesn’t work out.

They are also seeking new flexible commercial models that share risk and offer ‘pay as you go’
services.

Then, post-hire they are adopting 'Talent Management' processes that align development of talent
with the business mission to deliver greater strategic returns.

In conclusion, the success of a business depends largely upon the people working within it. Tired,
bored employees make for a tired, bored business and IT Project teams that are staffed by negative
members deliver negative results.

Transformational IT HR leaders are seizing this initiative and realising the impact that they can have
on the strategic course of their organisation and their role in developing its culture.

In her humanresourcesonline.net post, "The Futurist: What it takes for HR to be transformational"
Agnes Chan suggests that "activities that are strategic, forward-thinking, proactive and
comprehensive ... help change and improve the organisation. A transformational HR department will
be an important contributor to the company’s future and will be engaged in activities that will help
move the organisation forward."

Ultimately, moving the organisation forward is the only reason any of us got hired in the first place.

Your IT recruitment goal is to attract the one perfect candidate – how to
attract quality over quantity.

When you have an opportunity to fill within your
operation, what's your goal?

Is it to find the one perfect candidate who really meets
all your needs?

Or is it to get hundreds to apply so you can play the
numbers game?

I suppose I've answered the question with the title of
this post, I hope that you agree that it's the first option.

You're not a You Tuber looking for thousands of
followers or a TV show hoping for millions of viewers -
you're an IT Project with a migration to oversee or a
new product to launch. You have a specific mission and
what you need is the one person who will help you deliver it.

So why are so many IT job ads trying to attract scores of unsuitable applicants?

One firm I know literally places the same ad whatever job they have to offer! Cleaner, distribution
packer, telephone sales, IT Project Manager ... seriously ... same ad ... but with a different job title
and job description cut and pasted in for each position advertised. Do they think that the same
drivers motivate the perfect fit candidates for each of these roles?

It is so easy to apply for a job advertised in this way these days. I just tried it with this firm. Within 12
clicks I could have had my totally inappropriate CV in line for consideration. No harm done. They
probably have software for short listing. BUT that's never perfect and my CV could have made it
onto someone's desk. Valuable resources at this firm could be wasted because of 12 lazy clicks of my
mouse.

The thing is if my application for the vacancy in their packing department could get that far - what's
to stop time and resources being wasted with unsuitable candidates next time they hire someone to
deliver a strategic IT project?

Of course, in this instance you would hope the software weeds out the ‘chancers’, the ‘hopers’ and
the ‘no-hopers’, but IBM’s ‘Making Change Work’ report of 2014 found that just 40% of businesses
had ‘the right skills in place’ to successfully manage future change projects - so I'm not convinced
that it always does!

However, 'perfect candidate' selection is not the software's responsibility - it's down to us humans
who are managing the recruitment process and it has to start earlier. In fact, it has to start right at
the very beginning.

Your firm, charity, or organisation is an amazing place to work, yours is an amazing team to be part
of. If you are using a recruitment partner, make sure that they get this and make sure they really sell
you as an 'employer of choice' to candidates.

You deserve to only deal with the best available talent who are aligned with your culture and your
business ambitions. Do you have the perfect candidate in mind? Reach out to them personally with
your recruitment material.

You can do this by being specific, relevant and honest.

Specific

State exactly who you are looking for. If you're looking for PRINCE2 say that you're looking for
PRINCE2. Don't assume that widely recognised and used methods will be in every potential
candidate's toolkit. You'll save time and resources shortlisting if you begin whittling down at the
earliest opportunity - so start with your job ad! If PRINCE2 isn’t part of my toolkit and you say you
need it to be I’m less likely to waste your time (and mine) applying.

Relevant

The firm with their cut and paste job adverts are really missing a trick. IT Project Managers and the
guy who seals the cartons in the loading bay are motivated by different things at – I guess that's a no
brainer.

However, individual Project Managers have different drivers too and if your job won't satisfy a
person what's the point recruiting them?

For example, two ITPMs I know, let's call them Steve and Sue. Sue makes no apologies that she gets
her kicks from the money she earns each month - she's working hard to pay off her mortgage early
with plans to retire as soon as she can. Steve gets a buzz from making a difference - he wants to
leave a 'dent in the universe' but most of all he is a family man who zealously protects his work life
balance.

Your IT Project may help a charity save hundreds of thousands of pounds but not make anyone a
millionaire in the process. For this you want more Steves than Sues - so target the Steves with your
recruitment strategy! Use emotive language to sell how great things will be, what a difference they’ll
make and how good it will feel.

Honest

To take the last point a step further, be honest about potentially less appealing aspects of your
opportunity too - you will benefit from it later. For instance, if you know that delivering your IT
Project will mean late nights and the occasional weekend - be up front about it. Spin it as a positive
... staying late and feasting on takeaway pizza on expenses is some PM's idea of heaven ... so attract
them!

Post hire satisfaction levels benefit from openness about all aspects of the opportunity. The likes of
Steve quickly lose their enthusiasm for the mission if their kids are tucked up, asleep in bed when
they get home from work each night. Not mentioning ‘negatives’ may get you more applicants, but if
late nights and longs hours don't work for them – what’s the point?

Mentioning that you’re looking for the kind of talent that has a ‘cheerfully stay late to see the job
done’ mindset is your best route to attracting one.

To attract the best, remember to target quality over quantity. You don’t need to offer perks and
conditions that attract a huge response – just ones that chime with that one perfect applicant. Few
businesses really think what their USP is to candidates, what they really have to offer.

Spending some time working out who your perfect match is, makes it much more likely you’ll find it
next time you recruit.

Straight Talk on IT Project Recruitment

Chapter Two – Talent Attraction & Retention

“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people.
At the end of the day you bet on people, not on strategies.” - Lawrence Bossidy

7 ways to retain talent - or avoid a skills gap when they leave

The process of advertising for, interviewing, hiring and
training new staff can be a pricey one. In fact, when you
factor in salaries, it is probably the second most
exhaustive and expensive use of your finances and
resources.

Second only to having to do it all over again when they
leave.

It's always the way isn't it? You spend thousands on an
individual, honing their raw potential into something
that really adds value to your business and just as
you're about to reap the full reward - they quit. They
get headhunted by a competitor or set up on their own
and it's rarely just about more money. For them at

least, you’ll be left counting the cost.

It has been estimated that to replace a mid-range employee it can cost you up to a 150% of their
annual salary! So, what about your high-level or highly specialised employees? Well, if you lose these
guys, you’re looking at 400% of their annual salary.

Costly! But don't panic, here are 7 ideas that could help YOU retain your Most Valued Players and
keep THEIR key skills within your business.

1 - Embed Your Business Culture In Your Team - Give Them A Reason To Punch In Every Day.

Gallup’s State of the (American) Workplace Report found that less than half (41%) of employees
know what their organisation stands for. If your employees don't know what makes your firm
different to your competitors how do you expect that to be conveyed to potential clients and end
users? The Gallup study concludes that this lack of engagement could lead to premature departure
of an employee.

Share your business strategy, goals and culture with your team and they'll buy in to them.

2 - Recognition, Recognition, Recognition.

A firm I know has an annual employee review process, where a line manager invites a staff member
for a ten minute 1:1.

The format is; sit down, take dusty folder from drawer, revisit goals from last year, set new goals for
next year, return folder to drawer to collect new dust. Morale here is really low.

MVPs (Most Valued Players) want recognition for their best work not yearly or monthly, not even
weekly, when they are performing - they want it all the time. Yet according to World At Work’s 2013
Trends In Recognition survey, just 12% of organisations provide employee recognition training for
managers.

It doesn't have to cost you much - a bottle, an e-card, even a simple thank you goes a long way.

3 - "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free"

If you've got valuable players that you hired because you trusted their ability to do a job, give them
the freedom to do it. Let them express their talent. Being micromanaged is often cited by candidates
as a reason for seeking a new position.

A little honest introspection goes a long way, ask yourself if looking over their shoulder is for their
benefit or yours? If it's mostly yours letting them get on with their job will be rewarded by them
staying to do it longer.

4 - Train 'Em To Retain 'Em.

Three quarters of employees believe that training, mentoring and education provide them with a
sense of purpose in a job.

Regularly take time out to explore opportunities for growth in your team and always be on the
lookout for ways that your employees can learn valuable new skills that can be applied to your
business mission.

5 - Give Them A Career Path

The best employees on your payroll will also be the most ambitious. If they cannot see a career path
within your organisation they will look elsewhere.

When Catalyst asked senior level talent for reasons, they'd leave their current position around a
third cited to "pursue greater advancement opportunities".

Show them the map and they will more than likely travel further with you.

6 - Feedback

Works both ways this. Giving feedback connects and engages with your talent but responding to
their feedback is what makes people really stick around. It's WIN/WIN they feel like you're listening
to them and commit more energy and years to your cause AND it can also unearth some great ideas
to move your business forward.

7 - Engage a Recruitment Partner That Gets Your Culture!

Truth is, that you can follow all the above advice and employees will still move on. The key thing for
you is that you don't suffer a skills shortage that affects your productivity and your bottom line. By
partnering with a recruiter who knows your business as well as you do you can ensure that the right
‘A-lister’ is ready to fill the gap.

In conclusion, you’ll know who your star employees are. The best thing that you can do is retain
those who will stay late to help you meet a deadline or provide the vital insight that unlocks the
solution to a problem.

The next best thing you can do is protect your business from the skills gap that their departure could
leave you with.

Sources:
https://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=72689

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/about-deloitte/us-leadership-
2013-core-beliefs-culture-survey-051613.pdf

https://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/turnover-and-retention
Eremedia.com

https://www.tlnt.com/what-was-leadership-thinking-the-shockingly-high-cost-of-employee-
turnover/

How the experience of failed Project Managers could be the key to
developing a great one?

What makes a great IT Project Manager?

You'll have read many posts on the subject. I have too.

This week, 'Never, ever fear failure. Seven powerful
lessons you can learn when your IT project fails', a post
by David Cotgreave from Stoneseed got me thinking.

David explores the valuable lessons that IT Project
failures can teach us. He writes, "We’re all encouraged
to learn from and try to replicate best practice, but can
more be learned from worst practice? ... Both yours and
that of others."

David's conclusion, that it can, leads me to wonder ...
could the negative experiences of Project managers, the
skills gaps and the lack of certain natural characteristics within individuals' make-up point to what
makes a great Project Manager?

The following is based on feedback from Project Managers who have recently left the 'industry'.
With their permission, I'll share some of the reasons they decided it wasn't for them.

Their candid answers illustrate what you need to succeed as an IT Project Manager - so whether you
are looking to hire one, seeking to become one or being one already you’re wondering why you're
not currently enjoying the success you feel you deserve – the flipside of each reason for quitting
could just be the qualities that YOU should look for.

1 - "I'm great with people but it turns out managing them isn't my strength!"

It's interesting how often I hear this, usually from Project team members who have risen through the
ranks to a position of leadership only to find that it can be quite isolating. You do have to make
decisions that people don't like, often people that you have worked with and had a laugh with. You
also have to become a coach and mentor and some managers struggle with this at first.

FLIPSIDE: If you are a great manager and motivator of people you could make a great Project
Manager! The key, I think, is to adopt a strategy of managing tasks and things and leading people.

2 - "I couldn't get used to being hands-off"

Again, this is fairly common among individuals who have been used to attending to the day to day
details and hands-on work of an IT project. As a Project manager, you have to trust someone else to
do all that or you'll end up drowning in details. Delegation can be a tricky habit to get into at first but
it's crucial if you want to succeed as a Project Manager.

FLIPSIDE: If you are a natural delegator you have a key skill of a highly effective IT Project Manager.

3 - "I struggled with added value"

When pushed to elaborate, this PM clearly saw her department's function as a business cost centre.
Along with janitorial supplies and A4 paper. Exciting!

To be fair this was the way the Finance Director and CIO saw the Project Management function too.
Most organisations take a different view and through strategy aligned transformation IT Project
Managers add real business value.

FLIPSIDE: If you see yourself more dynamic than a mop and can see how YOU can drive business
value, efficiency and growth through IT strategy, then IT Project Management could be the perfect
showcase for your talents.

4 - "I hated all the endless admin"

There is a lot of paperwork, scheduling, reporting, governance, documenting and communicating
scope change, ... etc. etc. ...

You can't hate it though. OK, you don't have to love it either but it is such an integral part of the job
that you at least have to make your peace with the 'paper-work'.

FLIPSIDE: Spreadsheets rarely show up in Top Ten lists about stuff people love about their job. BUT if
you have the discipline for the thorough documentation needed for status reporting and robust
governance you could have the skills that many PMs admit they need to improve!

5 - "I'm not a process person - I found it restrictive and strangling"

As your IT Projects get more complex the more you will need to follow effective processes to
increase the chance of project success. To be frank, if you're more ad-hoc in your approach then
your project management career could be a short one. Of course, it's good to have that spark of
creativity, especially when things go wrong. Often, PMs can enjoy early success on smaller projects
working in this way and then find themselves out of their depth as they tackle larger projects.

FLIPSIDE: Great implementers of processes, who can follow through and communicate the benefits
of a process with stakeholders make tremendous Project Managers.

If you are looking to hire Project Management talent it could be worth polling candidates on how
they feel about each of these five statements. Having said that, if you have an effective IT Project
talent recruitment partner, you should never interview a candidate who identifies with any of them.

'Cultural alignment' should be the cornerstone of your IT Project
Management recruitment strategy

It's now more than a business buzzword, 'cultural
alignment' may actually be the one thing that improves
your IT Project’s chances of hitting delivery and budget
targets. So much so, that I think it should be the
cornerstone of your IT Project Management
recruitment strategy.

I remember a Deloitte survey from a few years back
that stated that almost 19 out of 20 executives (94%)
believed that a distinct workplace culture was
important to business success.

An aligned culture feeds many wins;

• Happier employees are more engaged with your mission.
• Employees who are more engaged with your mission are more likely to be with you for the

long haul.
• Organisations with aligned cultures achieve better business outcomes.

So wins all round.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has published many papers on how staff
turnover through poor cultural fit can cost businesses - direct replacement costs can be as high as
50-60% of an employee’s salary and one study estimates that employee turnover related costs can
represent more than 12% of an average company's pre-tax income.

It therefore makes business sense to;

a) Have a defined business culture

b) Recruit with a paradigm firmly focussed on your culture.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent something of a 'cultural fit' shockwave through all recruitment sectors a
few years back when he talked about really putting his money where his mouth is.

After a training programme, that is geared around cultural fit, existing employees who have had
contact with candidates are canvassed about how well their prospective colleagues fit the culture.
That feedback is then used in the decision making process. Finally, and this is genius, the candidate is
offered a $3000 bonus to walk away if they don't think they'll fit the culture - no strings attached -
just walk away. It's the company’s way of saying, “We only want people who really want to work
here.”

Back in 2011, when Hsieh shared his innovative idea with The Society for Human Resource
Management's Annual Conference, he reported that only 2-3% took the money and ran - the rest
were committed to the company's vision, mission and culture.

In IT Project Management poor cultural alignment may have deeper implications. IT Projects operate
in time sensitive environments and mid project team turnover or disaffected team members can be
the difference between success and failure. Most Project Management teams reap the benefit of
aligning IT Projects with business case and business culture and many are now seeing the wisdom of
recruiting with that specifically in mind.

To do this ... you need to commit to the following three essentials.

1 - Know What Your Culture Is.

It seems obvious, but you can't recruit with a focus on your culture if you can't sum that culture up
in a few sentences. So work out the elevator pitch for your organisation's culture and get really
comfortable with it. AND make sure that you live it!

2 - Measure Your Culture.

Once you know what it is you can measure your current performance against your culture and
crucially your current team's perception of it. As a candidate, there's few things worse than buying in
to a corporate culture when you are interviewed only to find that, in reality, it doesn't exist when
you start on the job. Carry out staff surveys to measure how well your organisation is living the
culture.

3 - Recruit For Your Culture.

Hire like-minded people. If you use a recruitment partner, make sure that they understand your
culture. Like the example of the Zappos "leave" bonus ask your recruitment partner how they will
put their money where their mouth is. Things like shared risk or fees that are spread over the first
year of the candidate’s employment and that stop if it turns out they don't fit your culture and leave
focus recruiters’ minds on cultural fit hiring.

Dennis Crowley who cofounded Foursquare claims that much of the success enjoyed by the
company in its early years was down to hiring friends he knew could work together. They built a
culture of teamwork and sharing that grew with the company. Intuitively, there is massive sense in
hiring like-minded people to work on IT projects that require a like-minded approach to direction of
travel - boats of rowers rowing in the same direction get there quicker.

Jim Fowler, the CEO of Jigsaw, says that great cultures start with eliminating those "who are
poisoning the well." In IT Project Management recruitment you can't afford to hire them in the first
place.

Know your culture, live your culture, recruit for your culture.

Sources:

http://www.inc.com/paul-spiegelman/company-culture-matters-to-employees-survey-says.html
https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/research/Documents/Retaining%20Talent-%20Final.pdf
http://www.fastcompany.com/1825404/cultures-big-business-moment

Great talent is not easily replaceable

When your firm loses a great team member, they take
with them a business value that cannot be easily
replaced. First, there's the rich knowledge that they
have of your organisation, its products, culture, systems
and processes. They may have fostered relationships
with your clients and internally with colleagues over
many years and they have experience of what has and
hasn't worked for your company that can be lost to
your greatest competitor.

No wonder talent retention is increasingly important to
many organisations. If you have the chance to retain
great talent you should do everything you can to do so,
it's the people working for you that makes you what
you are, as one friend of mine puts it, "if you use different ingredients chances are you'll bake a
different cake."

However, people do move on so is great talent replaceable? I mean, your company can hire
someone to fill a vacancy but what about the hole their departure leaves in your experience and
knowledge bank and your corporate culture? How can you be sure that you fill those when you hire
new talent?

You're kidding yourself if you think you can do it by simply hiring someone with a more impressive
CV or list of qualifications. Many generalist recruiters offer this and on paper it looks like you're
getting a "new and improved" version of the person you lost. Often though, unless your recruiter has
their finger on the pulse of the industry and a thorough understanding of your culture you won't get
the maximum return on your investment.

Of course, no-one knows you better than you do so you may decide to go down the “D.I.Y.” hiring
route. You may already be a personality assessment expert, you may know what to look for in a
covering letter or CV, you may have a set of killer interview questions ... or you may just get lucky
BUT it's not just about identifying the ideal candidate. Half your battle is attracting them and even
just getting their attention in the first place can be hard.

A specialist recruiter should yield a greater quantity and quality of candidates for you, but it's more
than that because the holy grail is replacing the ingredients but not affecting the flavour of that
cake!

This is why a really good specialist IT recruiter should get to know you and your culture first - they
need a big taste of your cake! This is how they to produce superior results. Aligning talent with
business culture is the best way to ensure perfect fit.

To do this they should be able to demonstrate an understanding of your needs, they should get to
know your goals and how you go about achieving them and be able to recite them back to you.

Then, because they have a database of pooled interviewed talent, they should be able to quickly find
you the perfect match. In short, they need to have their finger simultaneously on the pulse of the
industry and your organisation, its structure and its business needs.

That ongoing relationship that your specialist IT recruiter has with talent is important to you. The
best specialist recruiter builds such relationships because, let's face it, a candidate is likely to switch
more than just once in their career but it helps you too because it usually means that they can
suggest suitable candidates without having to even advertise. Reach and speed are vital when
replacing great talent.

If they do have to enter the market you have to be confident that they know where to look and that
they have the relevant industry background and experience to know what they're looking for. A
proven track record or a connection and working experience within your industry are things you
should look for in a partner, it is these guys who will find the right candidate for you.

That word "partner" matters too. To ensure that you get the right cultural fit you should look for a
partner who sees themselves as just that. Look for specialist recruiters who will share the risk of the
hire for example.

Your niches should dovetail too. If for example you have a vacancy in Project Management your
partner should be able to field any questions that you ask them on the subject. They should speak
the same language as you and your potential candidates. The more they know about your subject,
the better they'll be at recruiting the right person. Subject matter experts and peer profiling are
ways that the best specialist recruiters achieve this. When hiring for key roles or when replacing
great talent, it is worth spot testing your potential recruitment partner on their knowledge of your
specific area to make sure that they are best positioned to get a result for you.

In conclusion, 2017 is going to be a challenging year for IT employers. In the past you'd only have to
worry about rival companies in the same field headhunting your staff. As more firms become 'tech
firms' there will be a greater number of opportunities for your talent to transfer their skills in a wide
range of businesses. You may not be able to hold on your best people.

The title of this post was "Great Talent Is Not Easily Replaceable" and that's true but with a plan and
the right talent attraction partner it is not impossible.

How to be an IT talent magnet

If you're looking on eBay or searching on Google, you
make your search criteria as specific as possible, so you
don't waste time with results that don't fit.

It's the same with a job search. Either consciously or
subconsciously the criteria that fits with a candidate's
search is what stands out when they scour the job
boards or do some research online about a potential
employer.

Sometimes, when recruiting, the things that make your
company a great place to work can get forgotten in the
"busyness of business" and you can find yourself falling
into the mind-set trap of offering a job or placement -
rather than an opportunity to be part of something
truly amazing! Why would you go the trouble of being a fabulous employer and not tell potential
candidates?

Working with companies to produce meaningful, bespoke adverts focused on candidate attraction to
match their business or company culture, I have identified many things that I believe every business
needs to offer to IT talent, apart from a great salary! However simply offering these things is not
enough, you have to loudly announce in your recruitment collateral or company mission statement
or website exactly what candidates can expect when you sign up with you.

Here are just ten things that both active and passive IT talent have said that they want from their
next position. Are you a magnet for these? How many do you offer? Furthermore, how many of
these things do you tell candidates that you offer?

1. Trust

Can employees speak out without fear of consequences? If something is wrong most IT Talent wants
to be able to call it regardless of who is involved. Makes sense. If a strategic IT Project is veering
away from delivering the agreed business change anyone on the team who identifies this should be
empowered to flag it up without upsetting (for example) the Project leader. Making sure that
candidates can identify if this is your culture will attract talent with a collective responsibility
mindset.

2. Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

A recent LinkedIn Talent Trends report put this as the number one thing that talent wants to know.
In your business, grey areas in client expectation cost money, cause breakdown of relations and
delay. Similarly, if you were to think of your business as a client of your talent can you honestly say
that roles are locked down and clear?

3. Proper Acknowledgement for Hard Work and Achievement but Also Constructive Feedback
When Things Don't Work Out

One company has the phrase "We never fail. We either succeed or we learn" on the wall above the
water cooler which is a great mantra but such sentiment is never evident in their recruitment
literature. This means talent attracted to a philosophy of continual experience-based improvement
and 'credit where credit is due' may not have them on their radar.

If total honesty in all communication is key to you then you need to attract like-minded talent.

5. Ample Opportunity to Grow Both Professionally and Personally

Organisations that have programmes in place to accelerate the development of the most talented
people see a greater return on their investment. Increasingly talent is attracted to positions that
have a career path mapped out or the opportunity to pioneer their own. Win/Win

6. Solid Leadership

Research shows that of all the people candidates would like to meet at their interview, their direct
boss should they take the role is number one. Having the supervisor or manager to whom they will
report available on the day of the interviews or at least available to answer questions during the
process can be hugely beneficial. If you have good, competent leaders - put them in the shop
window.

7. Respect for Life Away from The Office

When LinkedIn studied responses to recruitment messages sent via InMail they found those sent on
Saturdays were 16% less likely to get a response than those sent during the working week. What's
more, the closer it gets to the weekend, the less likely talent is to respond. Recruitment mails sent
on Thursday between 9 and 10 am were 12% more likely to get a response than those sent on Friday
during the same time period. This tells you that talent values the work/life balance - reflect that you
do too in your communications with candidates.

8. The Ability to Make a Dent In The Universe

Having a more influential role within the organisation or working on projects that make a real
difference are often cited as key influencers in choosing which offer to accept. One of the legacies
left by Steve Jobs is that great quote, "We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else
even be here?"

9. A Supportive, Collaborative Environment Where Teamwork and Innovation Are Actively
Encouraged

In her Huffington Post blog, culture expert Karin Volo makes the point that collaborative, not
competitive environments are at the centre of the modern workplace. Supportive relationships
between co-workers raise job satisfaction and employee retention so it pays to make this your thing.

"There is a definite energy that comes from employees who enjoy working together," writes Karin,
adding, "They stop being a cog in the machine and know that what they do makes a difference —
they are able to contribute on a personal level to a company contributing on a much bigger level.
This excites them to get up in the morning and come to work." Collaborative talent is attracted to
collaborative environments.

10. A Great Interview Experience

83% of talent say a negative interview experience can change their mind about a role or company
they once liked, meanwhile a roughly similar number (87%) say a positive experience can change
their perception when they had initial doubts. Getting your interview process right or making sure
that you have a recruitment partner who will get it right on your behalf is more important than ever!

Getting to know what interview content will make a difference is also important. Almost half (49%)
say that getting business questions answered is the most important interview takeaway - make sure
you're ready.

These are just ten to consider. The point is that whatever makes you a great place to work, whatever
is going to attract great talent your way, THAT should be the lead story when you recruit. Make sure
you identify where you and the talent you want are aligned and then make sure that they know all
about it - or get a GREAT specialist recruitment partner who will do it for you! That's how you
become an IT Talent magnet.

Sources:

https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/en_us/c/pdfs/global-
talent-trends-report.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-volo/how-collaboration-is-a-
solution_b_4738169.html?utm_hp_ref=business&ir=Business

Is your IT recruitment strategy leveraging transferable skills?

Interviewing an IT Project Management candidate this
week, one of my colleagues heard an answer to one of
those 'standard interview questions' that made us all
think.

The question was ... "Where do you see yourself in five
years?"

The answer was ... "I have no idea!"

Back in the day, this may have led you to think that the
candidate lacked ambition or a career plan but she
went on to explain that, as the technology that made
her last project possible didn't even exist five years ago,
and with tech advancing so rapidly ... how could she
predict a further five years into the future with any accuracy?

She concluded with, "Whatever cutting edge looks like in five years, I will be there."

Great answer.

She is right too. Technology is moving fast, and businesses have their fingers in increasingly diverse
pies. Do you remember the first Apple computer being launched? Who knew that one day you'd
make calls from one that you carried in your pocket or wear one around your wrist?!

Transferrable skills have never been more important.

Only this weekend, the tech notifications that I set up on my iPhone have been buzzing with news
that Dyson is looking to create 300 new tech jobs as it plans to build its first electric car by the end of
the decade. Take a moment to consider that. Nissan, Tesla, Renault, BMW and Hyundai already
manufacture them and now Dyson, makers of vacuum cleaners, could have an electric car on the
road by 2020. If it also vacuums up the leaves from your driveway, I'm in.

This project appears to be accelerating fast. Only last September the BBC reported that "the car does
not yet exist, with no prototype built, and a factory site is yet to be chosen." Half a year later Dyson
are looking to take on an extra 300 team members and it seems that the site has been selected.

To me, this is a perfect illustration of transferable skills.

At the launch, Sir James Dyson showed a video of ‘Blue Peter’ from back in the 1990s. He was being
interviewed by Anthea Turner about his new invention, a device that would to clean soot from the
exhausts of diesel vehicles which, basically, was the cyclone from his vacuum cleaners put to use in
another way.

Since those days, he has developed motors and batteries that have powered everything from his
famous vacuum cleaners to Supersonic Hairdryers and now he is hoping to bring all that knowledge
together and make an electric car. He has taken talent along with him on the journey too - I wonder

how many who were first employed to develop a rival to a Hoover would have envisaged that one
day they could be challenging a BMW?!

Transferrable skills have never been so valuable.

Smart hirers are leveraging this. When considering new talent to develop their IT offer they are
looking outside their own specific industry, so a food delivery logistics firm might hire a Project
Manager with a background in IT at a public transport operator, a financial services business might
head hunt a PM from the public sector, a fighter plane valve manufacturer may recruit from a retail
chain. The point is that if your ideal candidate's thing is, for example, Agile - it doesn't matter what
they last used their skills to deliver or for whom - as long as they will work for you!

Smart IT talent has also cottoned onto this and they are now job hunting in the best possible place
to get the greatest return for their knowledge and experience. Talent is accessing specialist IT
recruiters, as opposed to industry-specific journals or traditional job boards and getting better
placement results for their specialist skills. Who better for identifying where your transferable skills
could be employed in a different industry than a subject matter expert in your specialist area with a
cross-sector knowledge of and access to opportunities?

The point of all this is that you don't have to know exactly where you'll be five, ten or fifteen years
from now, no more than James Dyson could have realistically predicted that one day you'd be
driving your kids to school in a supersized version of one of his vacuum cleaners.

To make the most of transferrable specialist skills though ... whether you're the hirer or the talent ...
you do need to make sure that you search in the right place.

Source:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43236619

IT dependant firms must focus on talent recruitment and retention

Businesses that are reliant on IT need to pay special attention to their recruitment and retention
strategies in 2018 as a recent survey suggests that a third (32%) of IT professionals hope to switch

jobs within the next 12 months.

Given that just about every business is now reliant on IT
for delivery of its core business offer - this probably
means YOU.

The survey, carried out by Spiceworks, backs up what
I'm hearing. IT professionals are happy with the
industry and, generally, they are happy with their
employer, but they would be tempted by a better offer.

It's worth just pausing to digest that headline claim ... a
third of IT professionals are planning to either begin
looking for or switch to a new IT job in 2018. A third!
Take a second to consider your amazing business plans
for this year, reflect upon the role that IT will play in delivering those plans. Now, look around your
IT office and imagine the impact of a third of your key IT talent handing in their notice.

So how do you attract and retain the best talent?

Three quarters (75%) hope for a pay rise - over half (51%) EXPECT one, 70% want to learn new skills
and 39% says they are more attracted towards companies that consider IT a higher priority. So, if IT
is central to your business strategy and growth, you offer great training and the best remuneration
package, you may well be OK. Just so long as the firm down the road doesn't up its game, trump you
on these criteria, and steal your best players - a third of whom, remember, already have one eye on
the door.

I honestly think that the pay thing is a red herring, even if three quarters cite it as a reason for
considering a move. A lot of talent mention money as a motivating factor for a move, but when you
do the deep dive with them, most open up to deeper considerations. In fact, there is plenty of
research that suggests that increases in income have little or no effect on life satisfaction levels, the
University of Stirling tracked 18,000 adults over a nine-year period in the UK and Germany, asking
annually about income level and how satisfied they were with life ... bigger pay packets did little to
improve the latter.

When you delve deeper with talent, it doesn't take long for them to move past the pay rise as a
driver for their job search and onto the second motivator mentioned earlier - training. Indeed, the
lead researcher of that University of Stirling study, Dr Christopher Boyce, commented, "There are
ways other than focusing on income increases that contribute more meaningfully to our life
satisfaction - for example ... obtaining a greater understanding of ourselves and trying to develop
and grow."

As well as increasing self-esteem of your existing employees, becoming famous as a great training
employer may attract better new talent.

Opportunities for self-improvement being a key feature many look for in their job search. I
remember years back, a poster on the office wall of a firm I once interviewed with that said "We
cannot guarantee employment, but we can guarantee employability” – a commitment to training
that made them a REALLY attractive proposition.

So, self-improvement, it turns out, is usually more important than a pay rise - but even this doesn't
tell the whole story.

We often place talent in a new position where the training offer is not noticeably greater and where
pay scales are comparable.

Drill even deeper and talent increasingly is seeking to feel that they have made a difference at the
end of their day. That third driver of career moves, cited by 39%, that talent is attracted towards
companies that consider IT a higher priority could be the most important piece in the recruitment
and retention jigsaw.

It stands to reason, you spend an awful lot of time at work. You're going to get more satisfaction out
of your workday if you believe that your labours are integral to a greater plan .. that IT is an integral
part of the bigger picture.

We saw a pattern start to emerge about five years back, with talent migrating from businesses
where IT was still a "keep the lights on" back office function to firms where IT was a strategic
partner. I'd argue that, as most businesses now fall into the latter category, this migratory pattern
has evolved. Perception is reality, in other words, IT is key to most businesses but those that
acknowledge the strategic importance of IT are better placed to attract the best talent than
employers who harness the strategic potential, but fail to fully give credit where credit is due.

This could be the greatest lesson for all of us.

Within many businesses, IT Project teams are leading innovation and actually creating new revenue
streams and IT talent is being brought into strategic planning discussions earlier. Firms acting in this
way are finding that they attract and retain the best IT talent, they are the proof that talent is
attracted to employers where IT is given a higher priority. Of course, the trouble is that you can do
all of this but if your competitor goes one better, for instance, gives IT leaders a seat with the C-
suite, then they become a shinier proposition. The status quo doesn't long. Just as with the best pay
and the best training, prioritising IT may not give you immunity against an increasingly fluid
workforce.

Your best bet is to accept that IT talent will move on and prepare yourself. That preparation should
address the short-term, immediate capability gap that is caused when your star player advises you of
their intention to leave AND the mid to long-term needs of your business.

Short term you should definitely broker an arrangement with a provider of talent 'as a Service'. This
will allow you to patch in necessary talent to maintain delivery standards.

Mid to long term you should have a trusted specialist recruitment partner on speed dial - reach and
speed are key when you need to access talent to fill strategic IT roles.

As an employer you want a partner with excellent reach to quickly find the right candidates, you
want bespoke adverts to find them in the first place! Peer selection, ongoing contact with a
maintained database of previously interviewed candidates, candidates profiled by Subject Matter
Experts to ensure best fit, these are all vital tools that you need at your fingertips when looking to fill
a key role. Having a partner who can quickly match the skills and personality of an individual with
your company culture and their career goals with the opportunities offered by your business can
make all the difference.

Most of all, you need a partner who will sell yours as a great place to work.

Statistically, attracting or retaining staff seems to depend upon a combination of good pay, good
training and the level to which IT is prioritised within the business. You should attend to these to
make your business as attractive as possible to the IT talent upon which your business strategy
increasingly depends. They are not silver bullets though. So, with regard to that great relationship
with a specialist IT recruitment partner - I'm looking forward to taking your call.

Sources:

https://community.spiceworks.com/research/tech-career-outlook

http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/pay-rise-wont-make-you-7524107

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3483685/Think-pay-rise-make-happy-Think-
Increases-income-NOT-make-people-satisfied-life.html

Values create value. Hire culturally aligned IT talent

Sat on a train, I overheard a refreshing view on IT
recruitment this week.

I was trying not to listen to the conversation the chap
opposite was having with his office, but you know how
it is!? The man mentioned IT Project Management and
was discussing a strategic hire that his firm had to make
... so as an IT recruitment specialist, naturally my ears
pricked up!

He was talking about how he would fit interviewing into
his busy sounding diary, repeatedly instructing the
person on the other end of the call to 'cancel,
rearrange, or postpone' appointments and then, finally,
he said, "Clear Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. There
is nothing more important next week than getting this right."

Manna from heaven!

Many firms see recruiting as a chore, something to be crowbarred into a busy schedule, a side issue
that gets in the way of the day job. Not this guy! No sooner had he put the phone down to (one
assumes) his PA, he was on a call with (one assumes) his HR director. It was fascinating hearing him
whittling down candidates he wanted to interview, he had obviously read and digested about a
dozen CVs and the reasons he gave for each "yes" or "no" decision were thoughtfully based on how
he thought each candidate matched the company's values and culture - the words he kept using to
define this were innovation, integrity and industry.

Sadly, the train pulled into my station before there was a break in his calls long enough to introduce
myself so, as I got up to alight, I slid a business card over to his side of the table. Never miss an
opportunity!

I've always believed that the greatest return on investment that you can get from any recruitment
process comes from closely aligning the talent you hire with your culture.

If you're using a recruitment partner, make sure that they understand your company or
organisational culture too! I've always seen recruitment as a huge privilege. When I'm asked to help
recruit talent for a client it's a real honour, to be asked to represent your firm and try to attract the
talent who will achieve your business goals - that's a big deal! The least I can do is get to know your
culture and who will fit it perfectly.

The biggest challenge for many firms and IT organisations is that they don't know what their culture
is. Or if they do, it's a little vague or subjective and open to interpretation or it's just not unique to
them.

Sameer Dholakia, CEO of business email service SendGrid wrote in his firm's application to go public,
"We believe people are our most valuable asset. Highly engaged employees are a competitive
advantage for any business ... values create value ... having a deeply shared set of beliefs actually
creates economic value."

Values create value! I love that! His argument is that there is tangible economic and commercial
benefit from recruiting talent aligned with your business or organisational culture.

So, if you don't know what your culture is maybe it's time to work it out. It will give you one of the
most powerful tools against which to measure prospective talent for suitability.

It has to mean something though.

"We think in full-colour pictures over black and white numbers" – I still smile at this. One of the
values of a company I worked with years ago - try telling that to the CEO when sales take a dip. Nice
words, creative, but what does it actually mean? Over my career I've worked with IT organisations
who have proudly trumpeted mission statements like "To discover, develop and deliver innovative IT
business solutions" (yeah, you and every other IT team on the planet) and "Developing the industry's
best IT solutions" (right, as opposed to developing the worst?).

The problem is that you can't hire against these benchmarks. No candidate ever turns up declaring
that their career dream is to deliver lousy IT! So, your culture has to say something to prospective
candidates for them to feel attracted to you. As Sameer Dholakia puts it, "Your culture has to have
some edge to it!"

Actually, Dholakia is probably one the IT industry's finest builders of culture, his philosophy of "focus
on people" was the central pillar of an engaging talk for Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders
series. The "4 h" culture of "happy, hungry, humble and honest" he initiated at SendGrid is probably
the simplest and most effective cultural statement in IT. He says, "they are core to the way we built
our business, the way we run our business, how we interact with one another. It shows up in every
meeting room and every interaction and every review done. This is how we live and work together.
And it's very clear ... I've seen a lot of companies ... write down 13 things. I don't know about you,
I'm not smart enough to remember 13 things. I just can't. But four H's, well that's easy."

And it's easy to recruit against too.

Take "humble", when SendGrid interview they literally do a pronoun count. They count the number
of times a candidate says "I" and how many times they say "we" in answer to questions like 'what's
the thing you're most proud of that, you've accomplished to date?'. Too many "I"s and you're not
progressing to the next stage because you won't fit the culture - no matter how good you are at the
advertised role.

SendGrid's 4H culture is brilliantly simple - brevity is the key. Richard Branson once wrote, "I think
you should try for something closer to a heraldic motto than a speech. They were often simple,
because they had to fit across the bottom of a coat of arms, and they were long-lasting because they
reflected a group’s deeper values."

The chap on the train was very clear, two candidates might have the same experience and the same
qualifications, but the right candidate would be the one who fitted their business culture ... industry,
innovation, integrity - you could easily fit that across the bottom of a coat of arms!

What words would be on the bottom of yours? That’s your template for your next culturally aligned
IT hire.

Sources:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1477425/000104746917006706/a2233668zs-1a.htm

https://ecorner.stanford.edu/video/focus-on-people-entire-talk/

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/most-company-mission-statements-are-
rubbish-richard-branson/

Straight Talk on IT Project Recruitment

Chapter Three – Peer Profiling & Selection

"As a business owner or manager, you know that hiring the wrong person is the most costly mistake you
can make."- Brian Tracy

Why peer profiling makes sense

Peer profiling has become an integral part of the
interviewing process at Access Talent. We ensure that
the person who profiles the candidate has experience of
the role being interviewed for. It allows us to
understand how potential candidates may perform in a
role and to determine a good fit for clients.

Why is this process particularly effective in choosing the
right candidates?

Narrowing the field - The recruitment space is crowded,
with over 8,000 recruiters in the UK, who are using the
same CV libraries, job boards and technology tools. If
you asked 10 recruiters to search for candidates for a
project role, how many would come up with the same
‘suitable' candidates. How do you filter how suitable these candidates are?
Ask an expert - chances are, when it comes to recruiting for specialist roles like Project Managers or
Business Analysts, most general recruitment agencies have not 'been there, done that'.

One of the best ways to achieve this is profiling of candidates by 'Subject Matter Experts'. Someone
who performed the role you are looking for is best suited to achieve a perfect match between
opportunity and candidate. They've done it, they know what success looks like and what it will take
to achieve. A ‘suitable’ candidate really will be suitable.

At Access talent, we are extremely selective in the first instance and then by peer profiling every
candidate before we put them in front of you, you know that you are hiring someone who is going to
turn up on day one.

Project Managers profiling candidates for a Project Management role, a PMO Director profiling
candidates for a key pmo role - that make sense, right?

So why do so many companies still not do this?

Get a partner with the capability to peer profile. You'll get a better fit. Again, the better the fit - the
greater the chance that talent you hire will be with you for the long term!

7 ways to predict a good IT project hire. But first, ignore education

Predicting job performance is vital, after all, that's the
whole point of recruitment.

You want to hire someone who will stick around! So,
you read what a candidate has written in their CV and
you try to make an objective assessment, creating an
"identikit" picture in your head based on what they've
written. That can be hard when, as a hirer or a recruiter,
you are bombarded with a lot of, often quite subjective,
data about a candidate.

I have been thinking about this lately after I had an
interesting conversation with a prospective new client
about how they select the right person to hire and what
they look for first and foremost. The usual criteria were
reeled off, employment history, depth of experience
(scale of projects handled), how well the candidate would match the culture of the business, and so
on. Scanning over the notes, I remarked that education was nowhere on the list.

"Educational achievements and performance in exams never correlate with on the job delivery," I
was told.

Interesting.

Take a look at job ads and most specify a level of required education. Also, fairly recently an "eye-
tracking" study (by The Ladders) showed that “education” gets a disproportionate amount of
attention from professional recruiters when they scan a CV. Of six data points demonstrated by a
heat map of where a recruiter's gaze lands on a CV, education was among, if not, the hottest area.

Yet, this employer dismisses it. He's not alone.

According to a rather grandly titled study, "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel
Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 100 Years of Research Findings", education
performance is a poor indicator of job performance. Put in numbers, education provides only 1%
predictive ability, the study says. 1%!

So, if education is a bad indicator of future on the job performance, what should you look for?

Cognitive Ability and psychological testing of candidates can help. US workforce assessments
company Predictive Index claims that measuring cognitive ability (together with behavioural
assessments and structured interviews) delivers a predictive ability of a candidate’s job performance
of 58%!

While that is better than the 1% your candidate’s education history might provide there is still a lot
of room to make a bad hire based on the data. We are currently investing a lot of time and energy in
this field but would expect a greater predictive ability as a return on that investment. Watch this
space ...

In the meantime ... here are 7 ways that you can boost your powers of prediction.

1 - Specialist Recruiters For Specialist Roles

The rule of thumb is the more specialist a role is, the more you need a specialist recruitment partner
to fill it. General recruiters are brilliant at filling general roles but if you need an IT Project Manager
or a Business Analyst you need a recruiter with a track record of placing such talent.

2 - Proper Role Understanding

We put a massive effort into this. It's crucial that you know exactly what you need. At Access Talent
we have subject matter experts who know most IT and IT Project roles. More than that though, we
get to know what you (uniquely) want out of the hire before entering the market on your behalf.
One firm's needs from hiring a PM might be different from the next, it's crucial to know what yours
are before you even place your job ad.

3 - Subject Matter Expertise

Interviews should be carried out by Subject Matter Experts. It's logical! If you have an IT Project
management vacancy and you want to hire someone who will fit the role and stick around, ensure
that you have someone who has performed that role involved in the interview process.

4 - Get Access To Top-Notch CVs

We meet every single candidate before we agree to represent them, to make sure we get to know
them as people before delving into their experience and formal qualifications. Then we keep things
simple for you by being extremely selective, we do this by peer profiling every candidate before we
put them in front of you. That means candidates are profiled by subject matter experts, people who
performed the IT or project role you are looking to fill. We also undertake Skype interviews, it's
amazing how much more you get from a candidate in this exclusive environment than, for example,
a two-minute telephone call.

5 - Shared risk

When you use a recruitment partner ask them how much of the risk they are willing to share?
Commercially, we believe in shared risk. What does that mean? Well, for us it means no retainers
and no upfront costs and fees that are spread over the first nine months of the candidate’s
employment. If the candidate leaves, the payments stop. No questions asked. Hiring new people is a
risk. Your partner needs to understand that and share that risk with you.

6 - Cultural Fit

We put a lot of work into this. We get to know your company culture and then we go out to market
on your behalf to source, not just the best people, but the best fit. By this point we are acting like an
extension of your business, handling the initial response in the way you would, treating all
candidates with respect and taking great care to protect your reputation. We write bespoke adverts
focused on candidate attraction to match your business or company culture, selling your business as
a great place to work.

7 - Competency Profiling

Our assessment process is unusually robust. We carry out a competency profile on each candidate
which tells you much more than you would typically know, including how well they will fit into your
company and how you can get the best out of them. It’s a rare level of insight in today’s fast-paced
environment!

So, rather than sticking to the false belief that education (and other subjective factors) may be good
predictors of job performance, get a clearer idea by using objective, job or role-related, data points.

Specialist and strategic roles deserve the greatest possible attention, and in increasingly competitive
times, you need the greatest possible return on your recruitment investment.

Sources:
https://cdn.theladders.net/static/images/basicSite/pdfs/TheLadders-EyeTracking-StudyC2.pdf
http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-recruiters-look-at-on-your-resume-2014-11?r=US&IR=T
https://www.predictiveindex.com/blog/how-good-is-education-at-predicting-job-performance/

Cultural fit: Hire IT talent like you'd do a jigsaw

Have you ever hired a new team member who
interviewed brilliantly, had exactly the qualifications
you were looking for and on paper had the right
experience listed on their CV ... but somehow just didn't
fit in?

It happens a lot.

Making the perfect hire is like putting together a jigsaw
puzzle and while these are all crucial pieces, without the
last, really important piece, the picture can be
disappointingly incomplete.

That piece is cultural fit.

Teams that gel together have always worked better
together but cultural fit adds an extra dimension to the mix - now talent whose DNA gels with that of
the hiring organisation will get more from the relationship and vice versa. In an environment where
marginal gains can make the difference between success and failure, cultural fit is increasingly
important in IT.

So, what can you do to get it right?

1 - Know What Your Culture Is!

Sounds obvious but it's surprising how many firms, organisations and project teams haven't got this
nailed. To return to the jigsaw metaphor, knowing your culture is the equivalent of having a picture
on the front of the box to refer to.

If you don't know what your culture is how can you go about attracting talent that complements it?

Your business culture is a composite of your vision, mission, values, working practices,
methodologies, management style, experience and behaviour - and that's often just for starters. The
criteria that build a culture can vary from sector to sector and even business to business.

Cultural fit is compatibility between this and a candidate's personality, attitude, beliefs, working
style, etc.

2 - Know Why It Matters

A candidate with a strong fit with their organisation’s culture will be more likely to hit the ground
running and be considerably more effective, giving you a greater (and more instant) return on
investment. When employees fit in, they tend to stick around and stay in position longer.

When recruiting a new team member, many hiring businesses focus first on the skills that will be
needed for the role. The trouble with this is that, while these skills may be relevant now, things
move fast in IT - what you need TODAY may not be what you need in a year, or for the next project.
Current skills can be an unstable foundation for hiring. Much better to aim for cultural fit, unlike role
specific skills, this cannot easily be taught or trained. Although talent can adapt to fit in better over

time, this is no match for a natural meeting of company culture and an individual's attitude and
behaviour.

The impact that a new recruit who comes "plug and play" ready can have on a team can be
transformational, the impact of a poor cultural fit can disruptive and not in a good way!

3 - Know How To Achieve It

If you do your own hiring, then aligning your recruitment strategy and collateral with your company
culture is a must. If you have a culture based around achieving best practice, then don't be shy about
saying that you're interested only in candidates who want to do their career's best work. If you have
a culture of staying on task until the work is done, then you don't want to attract candidates for
whom late nights and long weekends are not an option.

When you recruit don’t fall into the trap of trusting just your instinct about a candidate's cultural fit
with your business. Instinct alone can only take you so far and can, at times, be inadequate and
misleading. There are measurable ways to identify compatibility, personality tests, for instance, can
quantify how the attitudes of your candidate match up with the culture of your business.

An independent third party is best placed to carry this out, often a recruitment firm will deliver an
impartial and neutral assessment and if they are worth their fee they will recommend matches using
this data and an understanding of your culture.

If you use a recruitment firm to find your candidates be sure to use one who understands the
importance of cultural fit. Choose a partner who will get to know your culture and the little
idiosyncrasies that make you unique. Select a recruiter who can access talent from a database of
interviewed candidates and only suggest talent who fits your culture. Finally, ask your partner about
shared risk - let's be honest if the candidate they recommend doesn't fit and things don't work out,
you shouldn't be paying full whack!

Lastly, the more specialist the role you are looking to fill is, the more important it is to use a
specialist recruiter. The best way to hire a project manager who fits your culture is to use a recruiter
with specialist knowledge of project management. Subject matter expertise combined with an
understanding of your culture make for a potent recruitment mix.

In conclusion, cultural fit is probably more than a piece of the jigsaw, on reflection, it IS the jigsaw
and like all puzzles, some are harder to solve than others. If you struggle piecing together any part of
yours - ask for help. While it may take a little work at the start, compared with the cost and hassle of
rehiring after a poor fit, knowing your culture and how to recruit in alignment with it is time and
money well spent.

How to hire best fit IT talent. The 7-step strategic partner checklist

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh once estimated that bad hires
had cost his firm company "well over $100 million",
almost half of hiring/HR managers (41%) believe that
bad hires have cost their firms "thousands" and the U.S.
Department of Labour puts the price of a bad hire is at
least 30% of the employee's first-year earning.

However, beyond the impact that a bad hire has on the
financial balance sheet there are more tangible,
immediate effects. A bad hire can impact productivity,
morale and the reputation of your firm.

So, you get an in a recruitment firm.

And bad hires still happen.

This was the case for a new client recently who challenged me to demonstrate how I will be different
from "all the rest". These are the seven points I made that morning, seven firm commitments to
ensure that I'd be a strategic recruitment partner rather than a service provider who would take a
fee and run.

1 - Don't Share Until You're Sure

I recall a client calling periodically across the day (it felt like every hour) chasing to see how we were
doing filling a specialist IT role at her firm. In the end, it took a couple of days longer than usual but
through a carefully targeted social media campaign, we were able to promote a candidate as the
perfect fit. The truth is that we could have easily put forward a 'best fit solution' from our database
of previously interviewed talent but to me, that wasn't good enough, in spite of the regular calls!

When I make a recommendation, I am mindful of the cost of a bad hire to both the company with
the vacancy and the candidate, but I also feel that it is my reputation that is on the line. If I make a
'best fit' recommendation because the client is getting impatient or a candidate is especially pushy,
and it goes wrong the chances of the client trusting me in the future are diminished.

I also make sure that I am clear about why I am putting them forward. My friend, who was part of a
hiring team considering candidate recommendations, asked the recruitment firm representative why
they'd put each candidate forward. You'd expect them to be able to point to specific skills,
something that stood out in the interview process or their CVs but instead, they gave a vague
answer. The candidates had been selected using profiling software and very little actual human
assessment had taken place, they were just the suggestions made by a computer. A recruiter should
be VERY clear WHY each candidate is the right hire and be able to communicate that to their client.

2 - Not Too Many Choices

In 2000, Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper published a fascinating study about ... jam. Run with me
on this!

Shoppers at a food hall were presented with a display table of gourmet jams. On the first day, there
were 24 varieties - a lot of choice and is an extra incentive these shoppers were given a money off
voucher when they tried the jam.

Another day, a similar table was set up, except this time, only 6 varieties of the jam were displayed.

The larger selection attracted much more attention than the small one so you'd expect that, due to
the law of averages, purchases might follow the same pattern. In fact, shoppers seeing the larger
variety were one-tenth as likely to buy as those presented with just six, even with the money off
voucher. Further studies have confirmed the result of the jam experiment - more choice often leads
to lower customer satisfaction.

It can be like this in recruitment. I have a friend who is a recruiter whose company's USP is the
volume of candidates they put forward to choose from, she recently boasted of presenting a client
with twenty CVs. To me, this sounded overwhelming! I think that it's the job of the recruiter to
whittle candidates down to as low a number as possible, becoming more certain of matched criteria
with every cut until you are left with the one perfect candidate.

3 - Make Sure Your 'Identikit' Picture Is Reliable

It's fascinating to compare identikit photos published by the police with the mugshots of people
eventually convicted of the crime they were investigating. The point is, it's easy to get the wrong
person when you're relying on unreliable stimuli.

It is the job of a recruiter to ensure that the picture they get from a client of the ideal candidate is as
accurate and detailed as possible. Vague wish lists are a common enemy of the perfect hire and it's
up to recruiters to ask great questions that deliver a very clear picture of who you want to hire.

At 9.05am on the 10th September 1984, in a laboratory in Leicester, scientist Alec Jefferies made a
discovery that would change the criminal justice system. He discovered that by examining variations
in genetic code you could identify a genetic fingerprint - DNA evidence. Within half a decade,
criminal prosecutions became more robust and over the next twenty years, hundreds and hundreds
of prisoners were exonerated through DNA testing that proved that the police had got the wrong
person.

When you can identify the DNA of the perfect candidate you can go about attracting them.

4 - Maintain Contact With A Live Database Of Interviewed Talent

To not do this is like attending a networking event, gathering thirty business cards and getting back
to the office and feeding them all through the shredder.

The more specialist an IT role the more you need to trust that your recruitment partner has their
finger on the pulse. The best way for a recruiter to do this is the meet all the best potential solutions
to every potential specialist vacancy and keep a database of their contacts and availability.

So that's what we do.

Everyone we interview, who stands out ... we keep in touch with. We know when the contracts
they're working on are up, we know what excites and motivates them and we know what they're
capable of delivering.

5 - Understand The Importance of Culture

Matching great opportunities and great talent together doesn't always deliver great outcomes.

How many times has a seemingly good hire not delivered in the way that you'd hoped? Most times
when this happens, in my view, it's because the company culture and values and those of the
candidate were not properly aligned. A recent example I recall was a project team who were in the
habit of working late into the night (and weekends when needed), they hired a really talented
Project Manager with a young family - the two "lifestyles" weren't aligned.

The problem often is that at an interview both hirer and candidate are wearing their Sunday best -
they are projecting an image of themselves that may not necessarily be the whole truth. Having a
specialist recruitment partner 'referee' this space can mitigate the risk of cultural misalignment.

6 - Recruiters Should Put Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

Think how recruitment usually works. You take the risk with an upfront fee and maybe you get a
rebate if things don’t work out. This has always sounded a bit stacked in the recruitment firm's
favour to me. How much more focused on making sure things do work out would the recruiter be if
their livelihood depended on it? There'd be less throwing CV’s at you and waiting for something to
stick!

Commercially, we believe in shared risk. I think that this is vital to ensuring a perfect fit, fees should
be spread over equal monthly instalments during a significant initial period after the hire, and by
that, I mean the first nine months of the candidate’s employment - three quarters of the first year! If
the candidate leaves, the payments should stop. No questions asked. No retainers and no upfront
costs.

When your recruitment partner does this, it is in their interest to ensure that your next hire is the
perfect fit, the risk pendulum is more equally balanced.

7 - Use Subject Matter Expertise WHEREVER Possible

Reviewing a new client's previous vacancy marketing efforts once, I asked if they had any idea who
had written the job ads and role profiles.

Whoever it was, it was clear that they'd had little or no experience as an IT Project Manager. When
hiring specialist roles, you really should seek specialists with field experience to design your
recruitment process.

So, the least you should expect are meaningful role profiles written by subject matter experts.
Beyond this. we have a two-stage interview process, with profiling conducted by experts and
professionals experienced in working in the IT project management sector, people who are more
empathetic to your needs.

To conclude, it's worth considering something I wrote at the start. When recruiting, especially for
more specialist IT, Project or Programme Management roles, you don't want a service provider
whose interest will end on that first day the new hire clocks in. You want a strategic recruitment
partner. Checking recruiters against each of these seven points should help you find one

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-making-the-right-hires-2010-10?IR=T

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244730

https://www.forbes.com/sites/falonfatemi/2016/09/28/the-true-cost-of-a-bad-hire-its-more-than-
you-think/#693bacc44aa4

https://hbr.org/2006/06/more-isnt-always-better

How to make your next IT Project Management hire less of a struggle

You need talented IT Project Managers but attracting
them proves difficult.

Does this sound familiar? If it does, breathe a small sigh
of relief because you're not alone. IT Project
Management is a candidate driven market and many
businesses are finding recruiting them can be a struggle.
However, knowing this is of little comfort so what are
you going to do about it?

Based on conversations with CIOs, HR Directors and
PMs themselves here are FIVE things that you should
consider.

1 - Work Some Employer Brand Mojo

The term “employer brand” dates as far back as the 1990s and yet many firms are still not paying it
enough attention.

The thing with IT now is that every firm is an IT firm which means when it comes to recruiting IT
talent every other business is your competitor. You may be trying to attract a Project Manager who
had never heard of your company until they saw your ad. Job looks perfect, right salary ... but who
ARE you? Put yourself in their shoes - you'd hit up social media, at least do an online search, so how
attractive does your firm look online?

In an HBR poll, 74% said they have "at least a moderate employer brand presence on social media"
but only a third had dedicated staff regularly posting content and responding to users. Not good
enough.

Social media now means all companies are operating in a glass house. Potential employees are far
more inclined to trust a potential employer based on what existing employees have to say than
anything that you write in a job ad. So, if your competitor has a stack of content uploaded by
engaged employees and your guys are negative or say nothing online you are at a disadvantage.

Employee advocacy of your firm as a great place to work costs little but can pay back hugely. Worth
looking at!

2 - Be Specific.

"Half of the candidates don't even have Prince2," complained a CIO who was struggling to recruit a
Project Leader.

I looked at the job ad. Prince2 wasn't mentioned.

OK ... More than half of those surveyed for an Arras People's poll had a PRINCE2 qualification but
that also means almost half don't. If you want to attract those that do .. say so!

It's like walking into Manchester with a United ticket to give away wearing an 'A board' that says
"Football Fans Follow Me" and wondering why, when you turn around, half the people behind you
are City fans! Don’t imply it – say it. Be specific!

It can work the other way too. Imagine that you are a Prince2 qualified Project Manager. You have
the certificate, gained through blood, sweat and tears, proudly framed on the wall! You're looking
for a job and, as it's a candidate driven market, you can be picky. Of the five jobs that caught your
eye, four specify Prince2 and one doesn't. Which would most allow you use your qualifications?
Truth is that all five probably would but by not specifically mentioning the qualification you may
create an unnecessary subconscious bias against your opportunity!

3 - Mind Your Language

I nearly put this under "Be Specific" but I think that it warrants its own section.

Don’t just “copy and paste” old job descriptions onto a job board and hope for the best ... always
write bespoke adverts that mirror the language of your ideal candidate – talk the talk. Produce
meaningful role profiles written by subject matter experts, focus on candidate attraction that
matches your business or company culture, sell your business as a great place to work.

In job ads, words are not just given a meaning limited to a dictionary definition, they are drenched in
emotional attachment to a vocation or career and contextualised by the experience and passion of
the candidate. Tap into this and you attract hearts. Attract hearts and brilliant project management
minds are quick to follow!

4 - Know Where To Look

If you're using a recruiter to access talent be sure to choose one that's right for the job. Did they first
get to know you, your business and how you operate so they know who will fit your company? Do
they have a proven track record of recruiting exactly the talent you need?

Beyond this, do they have experience in the field? Not just as recruiters but actual experience - it's
amazing how like attracts like, so does your IT Project Management specialist have a background in
IT Project management?

It could be that your recruitment partner is casting the net too wide or in the wrong place. We see
this a lot with general recruiters who use the same channels to try to attract PM talent that they do
(successfully) for other roles. IT Project Management roles are not like other gigs though. Your trade
magazine, for instance, may be a great place to advertise for a someone who needs industry specific
expertise but for an IT Project Manager, it's their transferable skills that will make all the difference.
Right now, the ideal candidate may be working in a whole different sector so it's unlikely they'll pick
up your industry journal.

Knowing where to fish is as important as knowing how to bait the hook!

5 - Don't Procrastinate!

IT Project Management is increasingly a role that is strategically central to business goals. For this
reason, many firms take a long time considering who to appoint. Now, this is a fairly good thing,
often a bad hire can have as damaging an effect as no hire. However, again put yourself in the
talent's position ... it's a candidate driven market, other businesses are snapping at their ankles while
you deliberate and ponder and make your mind up. Could you be sacrificing your ability to hire your
'A' choice by over thinking leaving you with access only to your 'B' choices?

One PM told me, "They don't even realise they're sending out this message ... when I ask, 'when are
you looking to make a decision' and they hesitate or give a date that's after when I'd like to be in
place ... that's when I'm out."

You can mitigate the risk of this happening by having a crystal clear, specific idea of what your ideal
candidate looks like before you even start to recruit or choose a recruitment partner who excels at
this with a proven track record for reach and speed - you want a partner with excellent reach to find
the right candidate quickly. Do they have a pooled database of already interviewed candidates and
maintain ongoing contact to increase response times?

Finally, when you focus your energy on candidate attraction based on cultural match you quickly
establish who will fit your firm and who won't. If you work with a recruitment partner be sure that
they set out to understand that culture before advertising your role.

Once you declutter your recruitment process identifying the right candidate becomes easier ... as
soon as you know who they are ... ACT!

So ... That's just five suggestions based on recent conversations with people on both sides of the
recruitment see-saw.

When it comes to attracting and recruiting IT Project Managers, there is no single magic bullet that
will guarantee success but there are proven methods that, together, work time and again. Tapping
into them for your next Project hire will make the process feel like much less of a struggle.

Sources

http://universumglobal.com/2020outlook/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057%2Fbm.1996.42

If 8 out of 10 job ads are badly written. How to be one of the other two

It caught my eye. I cannot find robust research that
backs it up, but I have to agree, that when you look
through the 'situations vacant', you do see a lot of basic
errors in grammar and spelling. Also, there’s often a
lack of focus on who hirers are actually trying to attract.
So, for the sake of argument, let's accept the claim at
face value ... and if 8 out of 10 job ads ARE badly
written. How do you make sure that yours is one of the
other two?

First, let's reframe the question.

How do you go about hooking your perfect candidate's
attention and how long do you think you have to do it?
The answer to the first bit is usually is some kind of

advertisement.

To answer the second part, open the stopwatch app on your smartphone, switch on commercial
television and time each advert. They are probably, on average, around thirty seconds, right? There's
a reason for that. Thirty seconds is both an adequate amount of time to get your message over and
still hold the attention of your target customer.

That actually sounds reasonable, think about a good elevator business pitch ... would you say that
should last 20 to 30 seconds? Cool, so thirty seconds ...

Now grab the jobs section of a newspaper or fire up a recruitment website. Be honest, do many of
the ads catch and hook your attention for half a minute? Actually, thirty seconds is probably
considerably less time than a candidate will give you these days because something else happened
... Smartphones.

According to scientists, smartphones have left us humans with a shorter attention span than a
goldfish! Back in 2015 researchers in Canada studied brain activity using electroencephalograms and
concluded that the average attention span has fallen to eight seconds.

So, it turns out, that you have just eight seconds to make such an irresistibly good first impression
that you catch and hook the attention of your ideal candidate.

Or, to put it another way, the length of time it took you to read that italicised last sentence. Eek!

Badly written job ads are not a luxury you can afford ... but how do you make sure that your ad is
one of the 2 out of 10 that isn’t badly written ... here are 8 tips.

1 - Get Specialist Help

Think about the advertisement timing experiment earlier or the last time you sat through a
commercial break without pressing the fast-forward button.

How many of the ads that you saw do you think were made in-house by the advertiser? Probably
none, right? They were written and produced by specialist agencies with years of experience and a
proven track record. It's the same with recruitment, especially for specialist IT roles. A specialist IT
recruitment partner can advise on where and when to place the ad to get the best results, the
language you should use and the content of your campaign collateral.

2 - Have Your Ads Written by Subject Matter Experts

The more meaningful your ad is the more powerfully it will work for you. Having everything from
role descriptions to job ads written, or at least looked over, by experts in the role for which your
hiring will help you attract the right talent - like attracts like! Recent example, a company looking to
hire an IT Project Manager set about the challenge like they did for any other role. Their HR Director
called their usual recruitment firm and said find us 'a Project Manager'. The ad was produced and to
the untrained eye it kind of looked OK but it didn't connect or engage with the talent that it was
meant to, resulting in a bad hire. We have since started to work with this business and now that
their ads are written by subject matter experts the client is reaping the benefits.

3 - Don't Copy & Paste

It can be tempting to seek out a competitor who is using a specialist recruitment partner and copy
and paste their recruitment ads, I actually saw one of my ads reproduced word for word once. Apart
from being quite rude, this is HUGELY self-defeating. The ad that you are ripping off was designed to
attract talent to your competitor's firm, not yours. You have a whole different set of challenges,
maturities and needs and, what's more, you want to attract candidates to buy into your USP not that
of the firm across town.

4 - Sell Yourself as a GREAT place to work

For me, this is why you could argue that 8 out of 10 ads are badly written. They nail the role
description and a list of responsibilities, salary and reporting hierarchy, they even pepper the ad with
keywords ... but so do all the other ads on the same page. What makes your ad stand out is the same
thing that makes your firm stand out as a great place to work. I'm not talking about the table football
or the beer that you put in the fridge on a Friday afternoon, it's not your Secret Santa or lottery
syndicate ... dive deeper! When you know what makes you an irresistible place to work and you can
communicate it clearly, the potential power of your recruitment advertising increases massively. In
short, sell yourself! Say it plain. Say it straight. Tell candidates why they HAVE to choose YOU. If you
struggle with the deep dive a specialist recruiter (ie, an independent pair of eyes) can really help!

5 - Approach Recruitment as an Advertiser - Treat Potential Candidates Like Potential Customers

Compare your product advertising with your recruitment advertising campaigns. Why is the budget,
time and effort spent on the first greater than the latter? It always is and massively
disproportionately so. The best explanation I ever heard was that product advertising brings in
revenue whereas recruitment advertising results in a cost - the employee! What a lovely way to be
seen by a prospective employer - a cost! OK, I accept that you're never going to spend the same on
recruitment that you do on 'regular' advertising, but it is worth remembering that in both instances
you are projecting your brand into the marketplace. While budgets may never be the same,
disciplines, process and methods should be! When you apply the same focus on candidate attraction
that you do on customer attraction you will get better results. Know who your target candidate is
like you know who your target customer is!

6 - Be Brand Aware (And Consider Including Your Logo In Job Ads)

My colleague always talks about how he once worked with a major high street name that spends
millions every year on its brand. If I told you the company's name you would instantly see their logo
in your mind's eye. Despite this, they never used that logo in any of their recruitment advertising
until my colleague pointed out the massive trick they were missing. If you have invested in a logo to
make you stand out in the marketplace use it to make you stand out in the equally competitive jobs
market. Increasingly, ‘employer brand’ is becoming a more pressing priority for businesses, if you
don’t have one consider finding a specialist recruitment partner to help you create yours.

7 - Put the Job Ad in the Right Place

This sounds obvious ... and yet I still see adverts for IT Project Managers in the 'situations vacant'
sections of industry sector magazines and journals. Let's say you run a train operating company,
right now your next great IT Project Manager is working for the local council's IT team or a chain of
chemists or pubs ... what are the chances that she's scouring the job ads at the back of Rail
Technology News? Either get a specialist recruiter who will know where to advertise and how to use
social media to attract the right candidate or, if you have a large enough team of similar
professionals, ask them where they would look for a job.

8 - Use The Language Of Your Candidate - BUT Not Your Jargon

One of the worst examples of a bad job ad, or best depending on how you look at it, was a posting
advertising a vacancy for a Business Analyst. Although the firm didn't call the position Business
Analyst (BA) they called it "Business Requirement Manager" (BRM). Not only had they re-invented
the wheel, they'd renamed it and made it unrecognisable to anyone in the market for a wheel. The
ad itself explained the duties of the BRM and, if you read it long enough, the penny would have
dropped that they were after a BA. But remember we established earlier how short attention spans
can be, just about every BA who saw the ad zoned out at "Business Requirement Manager" figuring
it wasn’t for them! When placing a job ad, you need to think beyond the language and jargon used
by you, your business or industry sector and reach out using the language of your ideal candidate.

In conclusion, I'm still not entirely convinced that 80% of job ads are badly written and, in many
ways, it doesn't matter. It could be 99% for all you care! All that matters to you is that YOURS is well
written, designed to attract the perfect candidate and posted in exactly the place where they'll see
it. A specialist recruitment partner can be pivotal to that end but addressing each of the points
above will help too. Good luck with your next recruitment campaign and thank you for staying with
me longer than 8 seconds!

Source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-
goldfish-thanks-to-smart/

Six steps to never making another bad IT hire

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh once said that his bad hires had
cost the company "well over $100 million."

Whilst it's reassuring that a firm that usually gets
everything so right ... occasionally doesn't ... it is mind
boggling how much a bad hire can cost.

I mean, there's the obvious cost of having to recruit all
over again and the fact that you invested in things like
induction and training of the last guy but there are
hidden costs too. Hidden costs like having someone
underperforming in a strategically key role, for example.

Then, there are the hidden, hidden costs. Although I
have never been totally bought into that maxim that A’s
hire A’s, B’s hire C’s, C’s hire F’s, there is significant evidence that great talent attracts great talent -
or as one of my friends puts it "there's a reason why a circus has more than one clown". The impact
that poor talent choices have on morale and your power to attract the best talent in the future can
be huge.

So ... What can you do?

Here are six ideas ... all instantly do-able!

Six Steps to Never Making Another Bad IT Hire

1 - Recruit Culturally.

This doesn't mean having a jazz quartet playing in reception to welcome candidates (although how
at ease would they all be?!). Recruiting based on cultural fit is key to a good hire.

Fitting a square peg in a round hole rarely ends well - for either you or the person you hire. Once you
have identified the culture that you have or would like to have recruiting based upon it gives you a
blueprint of the ideal candidate.

In a recent example, a firm with "We either succeed or we learn but we never fail" written into its
mission statement hired a Project manager who previously worked at a company where mistakes led
to such penalties and derision that they got hidden. The open culture of the hiring business and the
more "buttoned up" nature of the PM were a terrible match and within a year the job was re-
advertised.

2 - Your Recruitment Partner Must Know You. How Will They Know A Good Match Otherwise?

With the above in mind, when choosing a recruitment partner, make sure that they are prepared to
put in the spade work to get to know you ... how you work ... what makes you tick.

Simply choosing a specialist recruiter might not be enough, the perfect candidate for exactly the
same role at two different firms might not be the same person.

So, your recruitment partner has to know your industry (that's a given) but to be really effective they
have to know you and your culture.

3 - If In Doubt Keep Them Out

Working with a client once, after a bad hire, we spent some time working out what had gone wrong
in the past so that we could avoid the same mistakes in the future. What amazed me was that both
the HR manager and the CIO had had doubts but the CEO, who had the casting vote, liked the guy so
they hired him. When I drilled down further with the head of HR and the CIO it was nothing more
than a hunch ... nagging doubts ... but doubts none the less.

If you had a doubt about the sobriety of your designated driver would you let him drive you home? If
you had a doubt about the structural safety of a house you were viewing would you buy it?

The point is that doubts are red flags that are put there to make you stop and think. Hiring matters,
trust your instincts ... if you have a doubt ask more questions. If you're still in doubt let them pass
on to the next vacancy, don't hire for the sake of filling yours!

4 - In Job Ads Be Very Specific

When you imagine the perfect hire, you create a profile against which to measure applicants. For
instance, if your IT Project work means enthusiastically working late nights and weekends, including
this in your job ad increases your chances of attracting someone like that.

I remember one hiring firm who had this very need but they omitted it from their ad because they
‘didn't want to put off potential talent’. In reality, the only candidates put off would be ones not
willing to work late nights and weekends ... which is good, right?

By being specific, you begin the process of filtering for the best hire right from the start. TOP TIP -
Consider having your ads and role profiles written by subject matter experts.

5 - Peer Profiling by Subject Matter Experts

Peer Profiling is perhaps the most potent tool deployed in recruitment. You want candidates profiled
by Subject Matter Experts, ie, someone who performed the project or programme role you are
looking for.

Project Managers profiling Project Managers, for example, makes perfect sense and adds an extra
experience based element to the shortlisting process.

Most bad hires have looked great on paper - the HR manager or recruiting firm has measured the
applicant against a tick sheet of candidate requirements and checked every box. Often you need to
have done the job to recognise suitability for the same role in others.

Peer Profiling by Subject Matter Experts is, in my opinion, the best way to achieve this.

6 - Share the Risk

If you bought a dishwasher, a television or a vacuum cleaner and within three months it wasn't fit for
purpose would you happily just go and buy a new one? No, you'd take it back to the shop and get a
replacement or a refund.

So why, when you hire through a recruitment partner should you put up with talent who is not
matched to your requirements? Why should you pay (again) to replace them with someone who is?

The best specialist recruiters will share the risk with you. If they won't put their money where their
mouth is why should you?

Shared risk should mean no retainers or upfront costs. It should mean fees spread over a significant
period of the candidate’s initial employment. So, if things don't work out ... you stop paying.

In conclusion, perhaps never, ever making another bad hire might be an ambitious wish but just like
in every other area of business, it's all about mitigating the risk. Try these six tips and if you have any
of your own please share. In the meantime,…

Good hunting.

Source:

http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-hsieh-making-the-right-hires-2010-10?IR=T

Successful onboarding of IT Project Management talent starts before they're
hired!

Successful Onboarding of IT Project Management Talent
Starts Before They're Hired!

Many clients have recently identified onboarding of IT
Project talent as a pain point.

It shouldn't be this way! Someone new joining your
team should be terribly exciting ... fresh ideas,
alternative perspectives drawn from different
experiences and new skills to share.

What's not to love?

Well, if they don't hit the ground running, the
momentum that a Project can lose can be fatal to

successful outcomes.

I wrote a great *blog on the subject for our sister company, Stoneseed. It's worth a read, in terms of
referencing Steve Jobs and how "staying beginners" can help you to see onboarding from the point
of view of your new hire! Now there was a man who knew how to make team members feel part of
something special! Steve Jobs wasn't bad at it either!

It is my belief that the onboarding process starts way before you show your new starter where the
coffee mugs are kept before you map out their induction week, it starts even before you decide to
take them on.

It starts with you and your culture.

David Cotgreave puts it well, under the header "Make Culture Part Of The Onboarding Process."

"Methodologies and processes, risk management, budgeting, cost control .. all of these matter to
effective onboarding but they are all administrative functions," he writes adding, "A lot of IT Project
success comes from the heart! When IT Project talent is really bought into your organisational values
they operate in a more visceral, intuitive way and successful outcomes appear more effortless."

One of the biggest challenges is that many firms haven't identified what their company culture is ...
so how do they even begin to communicate it to others?

David adds, "Get to know your culture so that you can effectively communicate it to new talent. The
earlier you start the better, working with a recruitment partner to access talent that is culturally
aligned with your values makes for a smoother onboarding experience."

Hear, hear.