The Indeed.com Game: Are you as dumb as HR?

Pssst! Want a job? You might have to relocate to… Anonymous Proxy, Ohio (???)… Read on to learn how!

In The Bogus-ness of Indeed.com we discussed phony success metrics published by “the world’s #1 job site.” The point of that column is that Indeed implies it fills lots of jobs and finds jobs for lots of people (“140 million”) — yet never actually claims anything of the sort.

Bob, an Ask The Headhunter reader who uses no surname, just sent me something interesting — more bogus-ness from Indeed that’s worth a laugh. You can play along, too!

I call this game…

Are you as dumb as HR?

Bob suggests we visit I got a job! at Indeed.com. (Please open a new browser so you can play along without closing this page.)

indeed-i-got-a-jobWow! Look at all the millions of  success stories people have posted! Now click the button at the upper right of that page, labeled “Add your story.” Indeed gives you a form:

indeed-form

Cool form, eh? Well, to play this game, you don’t have to do any more work than the good folks at Indeed do to find you a job. Don’t enter any information. Leave it all blank!

Just click the button labeled “Share your story.”

BAM! You’re done! Indeed will congratulate you on your new fake job and add one to its counter.

indeed-total-stories-shared

Did you win?

You just helped Indeed fake out the next person that comes along!

Bob says, “What this means is that robots can actually click this and increase the job count automatically.”

Boy, those robots must be indeed-anonymous-proxyawfully tired! Indeed is helping people get jobs… where? Why, in Anonymous Proxy! (Hey, is that in Ohio?)

One of Indeed’s big marketing lines is about “How the world works.” Now you know how Indeed works. It doesn’t claim it filled all those jobs. You claimed you got all those jobs!

But wait a minute… You’re not as dumb as the HR departments that dump billions of dollars into job boards like Indeed every day! Yay!

But if you keep playing this game, you still lose — because you’ll keep wondering why you can’t find a job online!

Is there another way? Of course there is — don’t play games! There’s no faking it. There’s no automated shortcut to the job you really want. Check Ask The Headhunter In A Nutshell: The short course for 4 tips that include no shortcuts — or dumb online forms.

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How can I go back and ask for more money?

In the October 28, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, two job seekers make one very wrong assumption. One gets burned, the other still might learn. These two readers made the same mistake–they bungled their salary negotiations. Could they have handled it better?

Question

I got an offer from a prestigious company and accepted it two months ago. During my notice period of three months, I got one more good offer. It was higher than the first offer. After careful analysis, I have decided to join the first company, where the salary is lower. This is my first job, and I accepted the offer without negotiating the salary. Now I would like to ask the employer to increase the offer. I still have 15 days before I start work. Could you please suggest how to proceed? Thanks in advance.

Nick’s Reply

want-moreCongratulations on your offer, and on having a job with a company you really want to work for. If you’re happy with this new job, don’t try to grab a few more dollars. Rather, earn them in your first promotion and performance review. (Here’s the first thing that I think everyone should learn about this topic: That’s why it’s called compensation.)

Now I will caution you: You said you have already accepted the job offer. That means negotiations are closed, over, finished, done.

If you go back now and ask for more money, there is a chance they will become justifiably upset with you and withdraw the offer. After all, you accepted what they offered. In my opinion, what you are contemplating is inappropriate. I think it will suggest a lack of character to the employer.

(However, if you were to rescind your acceptance so you could take the higher-paying job, I’d have no issue with that. I discuss this in Juggling Job Offers, an article that is now expanded in the PDF book, Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master of Job Offers.)

It is common to have second thoughts about salary, especially when another company offers you more. It is also common to feel we could have negotiated a few more dollars. But consider this: You chose the lower salary job for a reason–apparently it’s a better situation for you. That’s a form of very valuable compensation in itself.

I have a rule: When you negotiate, always leave a few dollars on the table. It makes the other guy feel the negotiation was a success, and it makes him regard you and your new relationship more highly. Those few dollars are worth a lot in good will. To put it another way, never be greedy. Negotiate as best you can during negotiations–but when you’ve agreed to a deal, negotiations are done.

Read on to see what happened to another reader who changed her mind–too late–and tried to ask for more money.

Question

I had an interview last week with a professional office, and I told them my desired salary range. My mistake. I quoted a lower amount than I needed. They checked references and they called to offer me the job. I explained that I had made an error and quoted them a range for a 30-hour work week rather than a 40-hour work week. I did not mention a new salary amount.

The hiring manager told me he was “put back by the lack of communication” and wanted me to come back in and speak with them again. I responded with, “It’s not a problem. I will accept your offer and I’m ready to start work.” He seemed frustrated and said he would call me back after talking to his partner again. He did not call back. I called yesterday and left a message, but he has not called me. I don’t want 25% more. What’s your advice?

Nick’s Reply

I’m a big advocate for negotiating the very best compensation possible. But as I pointed out in the Q&A above, you can’t change a deal after it’s struck. (You can walk away from it, but that’s another story.) The problem is clear: You destroyed your credibility by changing your salary range. I understand you made an error. But when you called to explain it, all they heard is that you want to change the terms. That worries them. Now they don’t trust you to be up front and accurate with them.

You introduced uncertainty. I think that’s what turned them off. I’d send them a short, handwritten letter. I’d apologize for causing confusion, thank them for their time and interest, and tell them you understand why they may have decided to drop the matter. Sign it with best wishes and forget about it. There’s a small chance they’ll consider this a classy action and call you back. But if they don’t, I’d leave them alone, chalk it up to experience, and move on.

This is a hard lesson. I hope it’s one that the person who asked the first question above takes to heart. I don’ t think these are greedy people; I think they are naive negotiators. Never go into a negotiation without knowing exactly what you want. (Here’s some very simple but very powerful help: How to decide how much you want.) Once you state what you want, you kill your credibility if you change your position after the deal is settled–and it’s perfectly understandable if the other party withdraws the deal altogether.

Can you go back and re-negotiate a settled deal? I think there’s a difference between rescinding your acceptance of a job, and re-opening negotiations to get a better deal. What advice would you give these two readers?

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Should I have returned the job offer?

In the October 21, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a job seeker gives back a job offer:

I had an offer for a great new job a few weeks ago. Before accepting, I had to resolve some issues regarding my relocation. The company was great during this time and worked with me to make it agreeable for both of us.

no-thanksHere’s the dilemma. It was taking longer than expected to resolve my personal issues. I felt uncomfortable delaying my start date further, so I returned the offer letter. Two days later, my personal issues were suddenly resolved. I called the company and said I was now free to take the job, but they were lukewarm and said they might want to consider other candidates.

I’m left with no job because I resigned my old job of 10+ years. The new company had remarked on numerous occasions that they would not pull the job offer from the table and I was free to work out whatever issues I had.

Although I felt I was doing the right thing by letting them move on, I feel somewhat betrayed by their treatment at this point. Did I handle this wrong?

Nick’s Reply

First: Never, ever, ever resign a job until you have accepted another.

But there’s more to this: Please read When should I tell my boss I’m resigning? It’s too late, but please remember this next time, and I repeat it for everyone else: Never, ever, ever resign a job until your new job is nailed down tightly.

Now to your main question: If anyone should feel betrayed, it’s the company. You made a decision that forced this company to deal with the situation in a way they didn’t expect.

You rejected an offer that was left wide open to accommodate you. When you returned the signed offer, you terminated the hiring process. Now, they quite reasonably want to turn to other candidates. I’m afraid you may have damaged your credibility with the company. (See Do what you say you’re going to do. This company gets credit for doing it right.)

The better choice would have been to let the deal sit on the table until they withdrew it, while you tried to resolve your personal issues. I realize you were trying to be considerate about this, but in the end you hurt your own position, without giving any real benefit to the employer.

At this point, all you can do is go straight to the hiring manager and make a clear commitment. (See Do I have to say it?) If you don’t act, then nothing at all happens. Offer a firm start date; something the company can bank on. I think this is worth a shot. But don’t be surprised if they look at you like you’re crazy. In that case, apologize and move on.


For more about how to handle job offers, see Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master of Job Offers, which includes these sections:

  • FJH-9The company rescinded the offer!
  • Non-Compete: Did I really agree to that?
  • Am I unwise to accept their first offer?
  • Can I use salary surveys to goose up the offer?
  • The bird-in-the-hand rule of job offers
  • Juggling job offers
  • Give us the pay stub
  • Vacation Time: What’s good for the goose
  • How do I decide between two offers?
  • How to decline an offer
  • Does a counter-offer include pay-back?
  • Am I stuck with this non-compete agreement?
  • How do I ensure the job offer matches the job?
  • How to avoid a “bait and switch” job offer

The lesson in all this is that a company is perfectly capable of looking after its own interests. It was indicating its strong interest in you by keeping the offer open and giving you the time you needed. You should have kept the offer.

Would you give back a job offer? It’s one thing to decide to reject an offer. But to return it? How should this reader have handled an awkward delay? Now put yourself in the employer’s shoes — what would you do?

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HR Pornography: Interview videos

In the October 14, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a job seeker won’t make a video:

My wife, a veteran in her field, began a search for a better job and company. In the past, she used the broken and traditional job hunting methods. After showing her the Ask The Headhunter website and purchasing the companion books — and with a little coaching from me — she landed two job interviews with hiring managers within three weeks.

watching-computerSuddenly, a personnel jockey injected himself into the ongoing discussions with the hiring manager. The recruiter insisted that my wife submit herself to a one-way, online digital video taping, answer a series of pre-selected “screening questions,” and upload it to who knows where for “further review and screening” by who knows whom.

She found the request creepy, impersonal, presumptuous, Orwellian, exploitative, voyeuristic, unprofessional, and perhaps even unethical. (I’ve attached HR’s e-mail.) She declined, instantly prompting an automated “Do Not Reply” rejection e-mail. She was not worthy because she wouldn’t subject herself to a dehumanizing “HireVue Digital Video Interview.”

This new wrinkle in HR practices seems like the most unsettling and counterproductive yet. It not only removes access to the hiring manager, but also live, human interaction. It sounds like “HR pornography,” where perverted personnel jockeys huddle around a monitor to gawk at videos of “virtual job candidates,” picking apart perceived blunders while they screen you out.

Would you please share your comments and advice on this new and bizarre interviewing phenomenon?

Nick’s Reply

This HR department cheapens itself, the employer, and everyone it subjects to automated interviews. “Talk to the camera by yourself” is not an interview. It’s stupid. Your wife is right to say no, and she’s smart to move on to a better employer.

A recent survey of 600 HR professionals by McQuaig Institute, which develops talent assessment tools, found that 65% of respondents said their company’s hiring managers are not very good interviewers. Meanwhile, HR says its job is to train managers to interview. Is it any wonder HR cuts itself and hiring managers out of interviews and farms the task out to a video company?

A 2013 ADP survey found that, “Consistently across the globe, employers have a significantly more positive impression of how they manage their workforce versus what their employees experience in the workplace.” ADP concludes that “as a whole, HR does not have a handle on the asset it is hired to manage.”

In short, HR is doing a lousy job at interviewing, and HR seems to think it knows what it’s doing — while employees disagree. HR has cornered the market on stupid.

If your wife has already decided not to “make a porn with HR,” I suggest she call the hiring manager and say something like this:

“What’s up with your HR department? I’m glad I spent time talking with you about the job and how I could help your company. But I don’t make videos. I’d be glad to come in for an interview with you. If we decide there’s a match, I’ll fill out a form for HR, but I don’t talk to imaginary interviewers on camera. I find that insulting. I leave the rest up to you.”

Of course, use whatever expressions you are comfortable with. But let the manager know you’re interested in further discussion with him, but not in solo videos for HR.

  • An alternative is to offer to do a Skype interview with the manager. HR may not realize that Skype is basically free, while video interview services can be pricey.

Managers who relinquish control of job interviews to HR likely also let their mothers vet their dates. The culprit here is HR, but the real problem is the hiring manager. Will he stand up and do what good managers do — make his own decisions? (For more about how HR’s missteps can cost you a job, see 7 Mistakes Internal Recruiters Make and The Recruiting Paradox.)

I reviewed the e-mail instructions your wife received — all boilerplate. It’s pitiful and sophomoric:

“One of our Recruiters will review your information and if there is a good match, you’ll be contacted either via e-mail or phone to schedule additional time to speak live.”

But the hiring manager has already decided to spend “additional time speaking live” with your wife. So what’s up with this? How is a “Recruiter” (capital R) going to judge whether there’s a good match better than the manager who has already been interviewing her? Stupid.

“This is a real interview! Be sure to treat this interview as you would an in-person interview.”

Bull dinky, not it’s not! It’s a fake interview with no interviewer.

  • An alternative is to offer to meet with the hiring manager again, rather than do the video. There is no need to say no if you offer a sound alternative.

If anyone fears saying no means “losing an opportunity,” the far bigger risk is having your video rejected by HR — and then having it float around the company forever — if not in some video-interview vendor’s database. (How do you know it won’t be shared with other employers?)

“Feel comfortable to be yourself. We want to see your personality.”

What they mean is, we don’t want you to see the personalities of our personnel jockeys because, face it, they’re a bunch of data diddlers that we don’t want talking to anyone. (I wonder what they’d say if you asked for a video of HR answering your questions? For more stupid HR tricks, see WTF! Inflatable Interviewer Dolls?)

If I were your wife, I’d want to talk with the manager one more time, to find out what he thinks about all this. If he tells her he has no choice, my reply would be, “I’m amazed. I left our discussions very impressed, but I’m going to be blunt with you. I’d never take a job in a company where managers don’t manage the hiring process. It says a lot about the operating philosophy at your company. I wish you the best.”

Is your wife taking a risk by talking to the manager like this? I think there is little, if anything, to lose when you are forced to the back of the line by the HR department and the manager concedes. A professional community that does not call out questionable behavior is not worth living or working in.

watching-computer-2To see the punch line in all this, you have to visit HireVue.com, the company that handles video interviews for this employer. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage, where HireVue offers a “success story” from a leading customer — Rodney Moses, VP of Global Recruitment at Hilton Hotels. But Rodney doesn’t tell his story in a video; it’s a slide show hosted not on HireVue, but on SlideShare.net. Video interviews are good enough for you, but not for HireVue’s best customers. HireVue and HR need to eat their own dog food before feeding it to job seekers.

More important, HireVue reveals the real problem employers face, in the introductory video at the top of its homepage.

HIREVUE AUDIO: “In a sea of candidates that all look the same, how do you find the ones that stand out? Since 2005 the number of applicants for any given job has increased four-fold, making it impossible to properly screen and assess each individual…”

No kidding! And what do you suppose caused that increase?

HireVue’s business model is predicated on employers blindly soliciting staggering numbers of applicants — far too many — via indiscriminate digital advertising. The results overpower any employer’s HR resources, so HR needs a video screening process to deal with a job posting process gone haywire. The real solution is to turn off the firehose and eliminate the flood of inappropriate applicants.

If HR would stop drinking from a firehose, it wouldn’t need to throttle its candidate pipeline. Besides, it’s unbecoming to do either.

A manager talks to a candidate again and again, only to have HR demand that the candidate make a video in front of an unmanned camera so HR can decide whether to continue discussions.

Just say no. But it’s the manager who should be saying no — to HR — about making inappropriate requests of job applicants.

Your wife did the right thing. Is it worth letting top management know what’s going on down in HR’s playroom? If HR is busy playing digital spin-the-bottle, HR should get out of the hiring business.

HIREVUE AUDIO: “Your best candidate could be the 100th to apply, yet you’ve only got time for the first 25.”

Ah, the promise of being able to view a hundred or more candidate videos!

How many videos can HR watch before it goes blind? How does HR explain its disrespect of hiring managers’ interview skills — and its own failure to teach them? Would you make an HR porno? :-)

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News Flash! HR Causes Talent Shortage!

Hold the presses! I’m going to show you how HR created “the talent shortage.”

I recently did a Talk to Nick consultation that illustrates why employers aren’t filling important jobs — while they complain there’s a talent shortage. The real talent shortage is in corporate management, where hiring is treated as an expense rather than an investment. Here’s what crummy job offers cost employers.

In the October 7, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a job seeker turns down a lousy job offer:

I heard from my old employer today. I got an offer that’s approximately the same amount I was getting paid when I left five years ago!

Background

low-offer“Mark” (not his real name) is a successful engineer who asked me for help in 2012 — to land a better-paying job elsewhere. He succeeded, and since then his engineering skills have grown and he has developed expertise in operations and quality assurance. This talented R&D engineer can now convert technically challenging concepts into products ready for production. His skills and abilities are far more valuable today than they’ve ever been. He contacted me again a few months ago when a manager at his old company encouraged him to apply for an R&D engineering position — in other words, to return.

After an hour’s consultation with me, Mark had a series of interviews, including a meeting with the manager who knew him so well the first time around. Here’s what Mark reported happened next.

Mark’s Story

I heard from my old employer today. I got an offer that’s approximately the same amount I was getting paid when I left five years ago! I declined to state my current salary in the screening interview, and instead explained the salary range I’d expect for an engineer with my experience. The personnel jockey replied that, “You know you will have to provide this at some point to move forward.”

I suspect the HR people pegged me based on my last known salary. If I had stayed with this company for five more years, I would be making more than the offer — a figure around my current salary.

I negotiated with the hiring manager, but HR handled the offer. There was some motion on their side, but only in the form of a one-time check that had large strings attached. The deal fell through. Companies succeed in spite of themselves!

The reasons why they could not improve the offer were as bizarre as some of the excuses I used to hear on my personnel reviews about why I could not be rated higher. In my conversations with the hiring manager, he stated that they recently lost a good employee in much the same way they lost me. I just chuckled. Thanks again for your assistance.

Nick’s Reply

The McQuaig Institute (a developer of talent assessment tools) recently polled over 600 HR professionals. The #1 reason they lose job candidates — reported by 48% of U.S. companies — is because the offers they make are too low.

HR knows where the talent shortage comes from: Lousy job offers.

Peter Cappelli, a human resources and labor researcher at the Wharton School, confirms that “employers can’t get candidates to accept jobs at the wages offered.”

Employers know exactly what the problem is, but they play dumb.

Cappelli points out, “That’s an affordability problem, not a skill shortage. A real shortage means not being able to find appropriate candidates at market-clearing wages. We wouldn’t say there is a shortage of diamonds when they are incredibly expensive; we can buy all we want at the prevailing prices.”

loserEmployers today refuse to pay market salaries and wages, then blame the labor force. (See How to decide how much you want.) That’s how HR — which took control of your job offer — lost you, along with other employees, and created the talent shortage at this company. This is how HR turns companies into losers.

It can be hard to swallow the reality that a company just isn’t going to make a prudent decision when it makes a ridiculously low job offer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve advised clients to raise offers — after I’ve shown them what it’s going to cost to leave work undone. Crummy job offers also cost employers their reputation — in their own professional community when word gets out that their offers are too low.

Many just don’t get it. Employers incorrectly view hiring as an expense rather than an investment with an ROI. The great irony is, the actual extra dollars spent on higher offers are almost irrelevant when compared to the value the new employee will create. The more subtle lesson that some companies — but not most — learn is that enhancing an offer can make a new hire happy, more loyal, and more productive. Money doesn’t buy love, but it can buy better work.

However, Cappelli points out that corporate accounting systems do not track the cost of leaving a job vacant, making it appear that the “cost savings” of leaving the job empty translate into “profit.” (Yes, I’m still laughing my A off at that one. Call it revenge against the bean counters!) A crummy job offer costs an employer — and our economy — quite a lot.

Employers are shooting themselves in the foot when they make silly job offers. An engineer plus five years’ more experience, plus expertise translating designs into buildable, quality products, plus the maturity to work across corporate departments is worth more than the same engineer five years ago.

Except to a cheap employer with a serious talent shortage in the executive suite.

Good for you for rejecting a lousy offer. I realize not everyone can afford to do that. (See Turn down that job offer.) I think such jobs get filled because employers wear applicants down and convince them that “this is the way it is, and you should accept it.”

In Pursue Companies, Not Jobs, I suggest that you (or anyone) should pick a good company, take the best job you can get there, and navigate the company once on board to get to the jobs you really want in time. It’s all about the quality of the company and the people. Salary is such a small component of a company’s business, yet HR is so focused on it that enormously bad business decisions are made over a few bucks. (Meanwhile, HR blows billions on job boards, applicant tacking systems, and other automated “tools” to help it make more low-ball offers to save money… gimme a break!)

Your old boss confessed to you what crummy salaries and job offers do: They make talent disappear. So you don’t need a news flash — you already know.

Thanks for sharing the outcome. Seriously – move on to a better opportunity. Start picking your next target, and be ready to express your desired salary range, and to negotiate a fair compensation package. You’ll learn more in Fearless Job Hunting, Book 9: Be The Master of Job Offers, and in Book 7: Win The Salary Games (long before you negotiate an offer).

Have employers created the talent shortage? Are they paying for crummy job offers in ways they don’t realize? Have you been smacked with a ridiculous offer? What implications do you think this has for our economy?

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