Give a Con a Break

The City of San Francisco banned the use of criminal histories as part of the pre-employment process. Several other government jurisdictions have considered similar legislation. This trend is born of the idea that criminal histories may be racist (because minorities tend to be convicted at a higher rate than non-minorities) and that it exacerbates the unemployment problem – especially among those with criminal records. OK – so I am sympathetic to the whole concern about racism creeping into our judicial system and I understand how that can correlate to unintended job discrimination. But isn’t this more an issue that should be taken up at the judicial level? When it comes down to our responsibilities as hiring professionals, aren’t we the ones best suited to assess whether a person represents a “bad hire” for our companies? If a person represents a real risk to the safety of our employees or our customers or if the person could potentially abuse their position to hurt our company and our shareholders through fraud or theft or some other action that reflects poorly on the company – shouldn’t we try and reduce that risk? Of course we should!

But for me the more interesting question (and more difficult challenge) is how do we truly assess that risk and make smart hiring decisions about people with previous legal or drug problems. Should they all be damned forever and a day? Story ended. That would be the easy way to handle the problem. No need to worry about complex hiring procedures or concerns that people won’t follow the exact dictates of the company. We hire no one with a previous conviction or a previous problem with drugs. Period!

We’re better than that.

A previous conviction does not have to be a permanent sentence of unemployment. The real solution to the problem above is that criminal history alone should not be the only reason for rejecting a candidate. Yes – I understand (I am in the background checking business after all) that there are very real circumstance that mean zero tolerance (access to vulnerable populations like children or elderly for example) where the risk is just too great. But that is what I mean when I say that a criminal history record alone should not decide the hire/no hire choice. A criminal history record PLUS a high sensitive position – should mean no hire. Other situations such as repeat offenders, people with a pattern of multiple problems, a conviction along with lying on your resume might all be reasons for rejecting a candidate. Patterns and context should dictate hiring risk – not just single data points. Its people we are dealing with and people can make mistakes and still move beyond them. This is where our professionalism comes in. We use data to help make decisions – we don’t let data make the decisions for us. 

5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Helps Recruiting

There are a lot of new trends in HR around data: Big Data, Social Data, Data Analytics. But one area that is gaining ground is the use of Artificial Intelligence in support of HR. (of course many may argue that those of us in the HR products world have always been artificially intelligent – but I won’t go there). What I want to discuss briefly here is 5 key ways that Artificial Intelligence can be used to improve the processes of recruiting: finding the right talent quickly.

1.       Goes Beyond Key Words: most search and discovery solutions can only find candidates that use the same words you use when you write the job description. If you say Marketing Manager, you’ll get people who use that term. But you might miss the perfect candidate who happens to have the right skills but a different job title and maybe a less traditional career path. AI uses data clustering techniques to create job clusters so you can identify these alternative skills and titles.

2.       Fast and Accurate: Have you ever spent hours poring over social and professional media sites to try and find that perfect candidate? Artificial Intelligence based search can look through that same data in seconds using refined searching and matching that helps you narrow in on what you are looking for.

3.       Perfect For the New World of Social Recruiting: Data in the social “ether” is growing and become more and more relevant to work place decision making. But not all the data follows the traditional rules of old-style recruiting. People talk about their skills and experiences in different ways, their job titles are unique (and funky) and while all of this is fun, it can make it harder to find people. AI based data matching has no problem with these anomalies. Chief Idea Officer, no problem, Chief Moral Officer, no problem, Beer Ranger, AI loves that title too!

4.       Customizes to your Needs: Not everybody who says they want a project manager or a sales lead or a client support specialist means the same thing. Sometimes you can see that clearly in the job description, other times, not so much. With artificial intelligence based matching, you can work with predicted outcomes to customize the kinds of people and skills you are really looking for. This allows you to build the customized profile for a particular job that is matched to your needs.

5.       Gets Smarter: The final and perhaps most important element of Artificial Intelligence is that it gets smarter the longer you use it. AI adjusts to patterns it recognizes. So it you hire sales people with a certain background and experience level, every time you accept or reject a match the system finds for you, it begins to understand that pattern and adjusts the types of recommendations it forwards to you.

Artificial Intelligence is gaining a foothold with HR products. If you want to find out more about it, feel free to talk to us at Innotrieve. We can get a little nerdy about it, but we’ll make sure you learn what you need to know about this valuable HR tool.

TaskRabbit is the New Recruiting Model

Image from TaskRabbit, Inc.

Have you heard about the company Task Rabbit? Basically it is a site (https://www.taskrabbit.com/) where you can post a task you want done: Walk the dog, pick up laundry, or wash your windows. You name it, you can post it. But there are no employees sitting behind the scenes waiting to be tasked to do your chore. Instead it is an open market exchange where people post a task and other people (just everyday people) bid on doing the job for you. I read that the # 1 task requested in TaskRabbit is building your Ikea furniture. (I think my wife would agree with that after the last time she had me build something…I don’t understand why she thought it was bad to have a lot of leftover parts).

There is a lesson in the TaskRabbit model for recruiting. And this lesson may be in both how you recruit and whom – or should I say what – you recruit.

First – how you recruit. Recruiters talk about the importance of networks, but in reality act either like islands and do all the work themselves, or act like King Edward VIII and abdicate their role to third party recruiters. But there is a better way and TaskRabbit has a hint of that better way. Get someone to help you. Both recruiters and employees have a vast network of people who you can ask for help. Employee Referral Linking Solutions like Innotrieve’s Referral Link is a great example of one of these solutions. With these tools you can quickly find people in the vast network of connections you have that might either be interested in the open job you posted, or know someone who is. Let your employees help you find the resources you need.

The second trend is who you recruit. Most companies, especially big companies think they need full time help. Yes, there is a trend to do more contracting, but that is the lazy way out. Companies should use the network of contacts that their employees have to create a grand marketplace of talent. What do you think it would be like if IBM or Cisco, or GE had a Task Board, where everyday people could simply bid on a task? Would the world come to an end? Would we blame it on Obamacare?  No, we’d simply get a good task done by someone we don’t know.

My bet is that we will all use advanced employee referral solutions to connect us to a bigger world, and we will all be better for it.

An HR Entrepreneur in the Navy

When I was a kid my dad told me being in the Navy was all about hurry-up-and-wait. As he explained it you were always supposed to quickly move from one place to the next, but once you got there you typically had to stand around and wait. Hurry-up-and-wait.

As an entrepreneur in HR (probably not unique to HR) I feel like this sometimes. Everything we do is urgent, but when we get there, we typically have to wait. Wait on software development, wait on investor funds, wait on sales prospects, and wait on customers.

Our product Referral Link was over a year in the making and finally went live in November. I felt like a Formula 1 race car sitting at the starting line ready to roar into high gear. 0 to 180 MPH in practically no time. We are ready to win the race.

Thing is, products that break old boundaries and introduce new ways to do things are rarely a race. Maybe a marathon, but never a sprint. Good ideas take time to take hold.

We have started to introduce the Referral Link product to the market place. Like any company full of more smarts than cash, we are following a Lean Start Up model. We are well beyond the MVP, but we are well into Lean Marketing. No Super Bowl ads for us. (Although I do think Jennifer Lawrence would be the perfect person to endorse our product at halftime – fiery and fierce, yet innovative…yes we do have an inflated image of ourselves). Instead though, we are slowly bringing the product to market by introducing it to certain targeted customer groups. We are getting a feel for how customers respond to the product, how the product performs and where the product best fits in the value chain.

So I guess taking over the world with our new innovation in recruiting is going to have to wait. In the meantime, I need to hurry up and get some things done. World domination takes preparation.

Can I Refer A Co-Worker

I think the guy I go to lunch with everyday really would be great as a business analyst in the IT department but I don’t think anyone over there takes it seriously when he applies for a job. I want to formally refer him next time they have an opening.

We've been having an interesting dialog with some of our customers about whether or not they would include current employees in their referral programs. Our application, Referral Link, automatically searches an employee’s network and prompts them about potential candidates they could refer. Everybody has lots of their co-workers that they are connected to in various social and professional networks. Should we filter out those names?

A few customers say absolutely yes. Filter out all current employees. That was not too unexpected.

But what is more interesting is the companies who are saying, NO: do not filter them out. Their argument is that a co-worker’s opinion about a fellow employee is valuable input and, when you are a fairly large organization, it can be hard to stay close to everybody’s interests and skills (even when you believe you have a good program to promote internal movement and career growth).

This can freak out employees too. When they get a name forwarded to them as a potential candidate for referral and that person is someone they already work with, they usually discount it as a bad recommendation. But is it?

How many of us know employees who languished in their organization for years and then finally left for better opportunities elsewhere. Don’t we wish someone would have let us know they were well suited for a new job within the organization?

"I work in PC support but what I’d really like to do is work in customer service, but no one over there seems to take me seriously when I apply."

Maybe a little “internal referral” help would push this along before the company, pushes them out. 

Hey buddy, can you spare me a referral!

Change and the Death of the Chocolate Santa Claus

The chocolate Santa Claus first poked his head out of my stocking in 1965. All you could see was that shiny, silvery red head just above those glinty Santa eyes. He’s appeared in my stocking every year since then. That’s 48 years of Santa heads peering out at me. There won’t be one there this year. My family informed me that it is a waste of time, we already have too many sweets around the house during the holidays that are a lot better. (I am willing to concede the second half of this argument but, REALLY, I did not know there was such a thing as too many sweets).

I've reluctantly conceded. Santa will be missed.

Tradition is a hard thing to break. Have you ever noticed how “traditions” are romanticized when you talk about personal traditions but professional traditions can be seen as pejorative; as in “mired in old traditions”? I don’t think it is that simple. As a boss when do you give up on doing things the way they've always been done? The question is not easy to answer.

Tradition reinforces culture, creates a foundation. I don’t know if the story attributed to Pablo Picasso is true, but it is rumored that he said you must first learn to paint like the masters before you can extend the boundaries of your own art.

As an HR entrepreneur I continuously challenge myself and my customers to extend the boundaries of their art. So maybe I shouldn't really complain that the “art” of great Christmas Chocolate has moved beyond stale milk chocolate Santas.

I am going to begin a tradition of dark chocolate peppermint bark.

Being an HR Entrepreneur is a Piece of Cake

If I had a dollar for every HR start-up, I wouldn't have to start up my own HR venture!

Have you noticed how many people seem to be starting HR companies lately? I talked to an Angel Fund manager a few weeks back and he said “We've already talked to 2 HR start-ups this week.” There was no room at that Inn.

I wonder if these people starting new ventures in HR feel like HR is a piece of cake. There are certain things in the world where people think they are experts without putting in the effort to gain expertise.  Parenting is one example, marketing seems to be that way too, but so is HR.

I find HR entrepreneurship very hard. I have helped many HR companies over the last 30 years discover and build new products for HR. After helping sell the last one, I decided to start a business on my own. I have (as I said above) 30 years of experience building HR products. But I have never been an HR practitioner. So the first thing I did was form an advisory group made up of some of the best HR people I know. They are my life blood and my muses. It took several ideas developed, proposed, adjusted and revised before we came to anything we thought made sense and would truly fill a hole in existing HR processes. (We didn't want to build the same thing everyone else is building). It wasn't a piece of cake.

The result of this effort is what we call Referral Link: http://innotrieve.com/referrallink/

We just released yesterday – but we still have miles to go. The product is good but it is not everything that it can be. HR is a crowded market, HR Directors and Managers are smart, savvy buyers, HR has extremely tight budgets and very demanding ROI requirements, and HR people know when a product really helps them and when it is just another version of something that already works well enough. 

And boy has this been anything but a piece of cake.