Snakes & Ladders – How will you manage your staff against the plans you made for 2013?

The only thing you know for certain about the budget, said an old mentor of mine, is that it’s wrong.

One way or another, you’re going to have issues with the plans you made in November for the year ahead. Not surprising, given that you aimed to somehow foresee the next year’s market conditions, predict the performance of your customers and anticipate everything from super storms to the attrition of key personnel.  Then you reconciled this guess work with your shareholders’ aspirations – which are seldom modest or undemanding – to produce ‘the plan’.

Beyond the obvious problem – the fact that you have no idea if the reality will render the theory absurd – which you can’t waste your time worrying about, you have a major concern that you can and must address:

How will the ever present plan, and perceptions of success and failure, affect your staff’s actual performance?

Whatever you business, and engineering staffing is a perfectly good example, you have some ladders to take advantage of and a number of snakes to avoid in managing productivity.

Ladder 1

New Year Urgency

It’s simple. Your well rested staff return to work fired up, full of resolutions and raring to go. Success follows. Happy days.

Snake 1

New Year Attrition

Not everybody translates their ‘New year – new start’ positivity into hard work for you. January is the biggest month for hiring and job seeking. Right now one of your key staff is planning to make a fresh start of a different kind this year. You are never more vulnerable to turnover among strong performers than you are in January. Have some conversations and make sure you know how your top people are feeling.

Ladder 2

Motivation increases from strong start

So Q1 has gone great. By and large your staff over performed. The atmosphere is buzzing and there’s a great deal of confidence about the year ahead. You can harness this to drive greater productivity. Increase the optimism through the promise of additional rewards. Share some of the results of the over performance, you might see it again in Q2.

Snake 2

Complacency sets in as your staff hit the cruise control button

Some will use success to strive for more success, others will use success as a justification for slowing down. Again your answer is in adjusting rewards. You can’t use the stick for someone who’s overperformed, but you can switch the carrot out for something slightly larger and more juicy. Increase the performance rewards at the highest thresholds and motivate people to excel further.

Ladder 3

Fostering long term development

When you’re on target, you have the opportunity to invest time and energy in developing your staff. If you know they are going to hit targets, you can spare a little time for training, team building and all the other things that are, conversely, the first casualties when you begin to slip behind. When things are going well this year, give serious consideration to investing a little energy in longer term productivity. If you don’t take advantage of successful times to do this, you never will do it.

Snake 3

Entitlement increases from ‘high value / high maintenance’ mentality

Many a trajectory has begun with early success, followed by plateau and then freefall – induced by the early success itself. A proportion of the people who work with you will take pride in their success over the line and become entitled. I’m contributing all this, I should be getting more. I’m better than they are, I should be treated better. These people need me more than I need them. The worst thing about this reaction to success is that it can inflict collateral damage on other staff. Egotism is a virus and it spreads quickly. If you look to reward high performers early with extra benefits to reach for and investment in their skills, they will feel rewarded in both the short term and long term. Entitlement is never just the result of performance, it is the result of performance combined with a lack of perceived appreciation.

Ladder 4

A definition of minimum acceptable performance is understood and you can manage to it

The plan allows you to manage underperformance, because of clearly understood targets that are either met or not met. If they are not met, you have a very clear mandate to chase good performance, or to let people go accordingly. The threat of failure can be a great motivator and if you’ve got an agreed threshold, there is never any ambiguity. Make sure the staff understand the importance of accomplishing targets and then dig in to the work of helping them get there, even if it means reforecasting to meet external challenges.

Snake 4

Doom, gloom and dismal prospects will never inspire improved performance.

If your staff are chasing after a plan so unrealistic as to be entirely unachievable they will not be motivated by it and it might as well not be there. The double threat is that they will hold you responsible for signing off on the budget in the first place. Maybe you were trying to please shareholders; maybe you were just wholly unrealistic. It doesn’t matter – there’s a massive burden to carry everyday and you gave it to them. Sure, they accepted it, but what other choice did they have? If all your staff have to look forward to is one round of meetings after another where they are asked why they are so far behind the forecast, they will not stick around to endure it; they’ll just go somewhere where they can get an even break. And you know that regardless of the plan, they may just be performing better than you honestly expected.

There are many more ladders and many more snakes and I’d be fascinated to hear your own versions. The bottom line is that you’re going to play this game whatever happens; your budget will either contribute to success or to failure. Which way it goes is up to you.



Richard Spragg writes about a number of issues related to engineering jobs. Find out more about Talascend, about electrical engineering, about civil engineering and about mechanical engineering jobs from Our Website.  

The 5 most obvious mistakes made in job interviews

Last month we focused on resumes and the importance of building effective written introductions to your experience and skill set.

This month, across our various channels, we’re going to be talking about the importance of interviews, the most regularly made mistakes and the potential that a well structured interview offers for both sides of the table.

During my years in recruiting, HR and marketing in the staffing industry, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people. I’ve always considered it to be the most important hour of the hiring process; while resumes can misrepresent things and offers can be accepted or declined – It is the first meeting, between the two people who could end up working together that will get to the heart of the real potential and pave the way for future employment.  

As a starting point for this month’s discussions, I’m offering the first of the five biggest mistakes made by interviewers and candidates, with advice from all three perspectives.

Mistake #1 - The First Impression Trap

The evidence suggests that human beings give far too much credence to the immediate emotional responses triggered in meeting someone. The legendary ‘first impression.’ We make a basic decision about whether we like someone or not almost immediately; while this reaction can be reversed, we often begin to act upon it in a way that makes a reversal less likely. If you want the science, read about the amygdala hijack and the role of the neo cortex. For our purposes it’s best to accept the brain's physical and chemical reactions and focus on what happens next.

For Interviewers:

Here’s the crux – studies suggest that if you like someone you ask them easier questions and their easier answers reinforce your positive perception. If you take an instant dislike to someone, you tend to ask tougher questions and use their relative difficulty in answering them to solidify your negative impression.

Awareness of the problem will help. You should make a conscious effort not to allow your emotional response to guide you, at least in question setting.  A consistent set of questions fixed in advance will help you stay on track. You should also keep a clear thought in your head throughout the process. ‘I owe this person the whole of the time I have allotted to create an impression on me.’ They might come back strong – you must give them the chance to do that if you want to get the most from the process. It’s your time, don’t waste it going through the motions after a rushed decision, when you could be constantly resetting your impression and allowing for something to surprise you and change the game.

For Candidates:

You should assume that the vast majority of interviewers will be oblivious to the dangers of their immediate conclusions. You should put every effort into making a strong first impression.

When I was a young recruiter in London, we used a system called magic wand – a set of instructions for candidates that we believed would statistically increase their chances of getting hired. This is nothing to do with dressing appropriately, or shaking hands with eye contact or anything else any applicant for any job should take for granted. These are slightly less obvious tips.

Don’t settle down in reception.

If you do your immediate first impression will be of someone trying to clamber out of a sofa and reach for your bag. If you’re on your feet, bag in hand, you look prepared and ready for action, you will meet your interviewer face to face.

Have small talk prepared.

A lot of key time can be spent between the elevator and the interview room. The days of secretaries doing all the work are long behind us. If you come to interview with me, it’s going to be me who meets you in reception; this is true of hiring managers and executives all over the US., particularly on engineering jobs, where an all hands on deck mentality prevails.

Compliment something

Positive remarks about the building / area or anything else are a good, simple way to make a first impression. Keep it realistic, if the building is shabby and in a terrible area, you’re unlikely to get away with – ‘Wow, this is such a nice building.’ But if you can, you should. Any kind of positive comment on their working environment will contribute to first impressions. “How’s that little Italian restaurant on the corner? It looks great.”

Say Yes.

Just say yes to things. If you’re offered water, say yes – even if you don’t want it. Saying yes to things creates a positive atmosphere. A glass of water also provides that vital extra three seconds of thinking time before you answer a question. You can’t just sit there staring into space for a moment while you gather your thoughts, but you can take a nice slow sip on a glass of water without anybody noticing the break.

There are more of these, but these are the ones that affect first impressions. The more of these things you do, the more likely you are to get that good start, and if you do, you could find the questions getting easier as your interviewer starts to work with you.

For Recruiters, who are sending candidates for Interviews, you would do well to acquaint yourself with these tools so you can pass them on. Preparing your candidate properly for their interview is a vital part of the agent’s role. A good agent gives both their customers the best chance of success. It’s in everyone’s interests that the interview be productive and that the right candidate doesn’t lose out on an opportunity they were a god match for because of poor interview technique.

When we talk about best fit talent, this is what we mean. The engineering recruiter’s job isn’t to find the world’s greatest professional, it’s to find the best person to fit the job that’s on offer. Part of this endeavour includes getting them through the physical process of hiring and helping them to shine. If you’re just sending your candidates to interviews with a date and time, you’re not doing enough for them or your client. You should focus most of your attention during the recruiting process on the interview.

Interviews are where jobs are won and lost, roles are filled or left unfilled and recruiter targets are hit or missed. Whatever your role in the process, you’re not alone. Everyone wants this interview to end in a successful hire, make sure you’re doing your part to make that happen. Don’t lose a perfectly good hire in the First Impression trap.

Next Week - Part Two  – More Interview Mistakes

Look for live engineering jobs on Talascend.com 

Some questions for comments: What are the most common mistakes you’ve seen? How do you think people can make interviews easier on themselves and others?

Richard Spragg writes about engineering and construction jobs, and business advice in staffing and recruitment

Cracking the myth of effective multitasking

It was only fairly recently that I cracked the myth of multitasking, and found an attitude toward it that I am comfortable with. 

These days, I see it this way. A housewife (if you’ll forgive the 1950s stereotype that follows – but the idea of the multitasking superwoman is perfect for this purpose) needs to cook dinner, tidy up the lounge of toys and change a nappy. She leaves some sauce simmering on the stove, picks up a couple of soft toys and throws them in the toy chest, then takes care of the baby’s nappy. She returns child to crib, washes her hands, picks up the books that were on the floor and slides them back into the bookshelf. She returns to the stove, adds some basil, reduces the heat and goes to answer the doorbell. This is the classic stereotype of multitasking. That skill, much maligned by the stereotype useless male – unable to sit upright and breath in and out at the same time – that results in incredible productivity.

But this is not really multitasking.

At no stage was the housewife engaged in two tasks at once, nor should she have been. True multitasking would have involved changing the nappy, while using the baby’s legs to stir the sauce and kicking the toys and books one by one toward the place they were supposed to go. The result? Burned feet, nappies on the stove, books nowhere near the bookshelf and a lot of mess to clean up.

Thus stands the multitasking myth. Because what you’re really talking about is not the ability to complete multiple tasks at once, but the ability to switch between tasks effectively, without hindering the effectiveness of your contribution to any of them. This is what you should focus on improving if you want to be a multitasker. How can you flip between jobs productively? Your working routine is bound to require it; nobody's working day ever allows them to focus on one thing only, but they are seldom required to actually do two things at once.

So multitasking remains one of the biggest myths in the modern workplace, whether that work place is an office, a construction site or a household.

That’s not to say it doesn’t exist, or that it can’t be done. There are number of ways that you can multitask effectively, and putting some thought into structuring your day to allow for these real examples of multitasking is what will help to make you more efficient.

Here are a few things you can do that constitute real multitasking.

Schedule phone conversations when you’re driving (hands free please.)

My car has some clever green tooth or blue eye thing that means I receive calls from a button on my steering wheel. But a $10 earpiece has much the same effect.If you have an hour long commute involving traffic (and if you’re working on engineering jobs in Houston for example, I know you do) you can make it work for you. It doesn’t have to be business; it can be anything that will save you time earlier or later in the day. Sit on hold with whichever bank is currently abusing your custom. Call Mom. If it’s something you would have to find other time to do otherwise, it’s saving you time.  (Make sure you are complying with all legal responsibilities for safety reasons.)

Combine Audiobooks with basic physical tasks

Again, the car is good. But so is the bath, the kitchen while you’re cooking dinner (one of my responsibilities at our place – who’s 1950’s now?) or the treadmill at the gym. You don’t have to read, to get that book read. It was a big day for me when I realized that iPods weren’t just for music. Audiobooks (that you pay for) or podcasts (that you don’t) offer a vast range of opportunities to learn and develop during dead time, like when you’re on the stationary bike, or boiling the water for the pasta. 

Combine Conference Calls with almost anything

Be honest. A good number of conference calls require less than active participation. If I find myself on one of those calls, I look for the mute button and for something else to do. If I’m in my office at home, I’ll do a wash load or clean the kitchen. The combination of mindless physical task and passive mental task is a good one. You should be careful not to try anything too engaging. It’s difficult to build a PowerPoint presentation or write a detailed e-mail and stay on top of the subject matter of a conference call, even if you’re not talking very often. You need to pay attention, but a physical task that requires no thought should allow that.

Multitasking can only be effectively achieved with the right balance of mindless physical tasks and stationary mental ones. As soon as anything blurs the lines on that distinction, you’re in trouble. Beware overreaching. I suggest you take my word for the fact that stationary bikes and food preparation are not a good match. Weddings and audiobooks can also result in injuries of a different kind. Throughout this process, one must pay attention to what is potentially dangerous, or just plain inappropriate. It’s easy to offend people if they should get the impression they don’t have your full attention.

At the end of the day, which task you are neglecting, and which you are diligently carrying out is all a matter of perception. As my school chaplain once told me – “You can’t smoke while you pray. But you can pray, while you smoke.”

Multitasking suggestions and party fouls welcome in your comments…




Richard Spragg writes on various subjects including business practice,  global engineering jobs, global engineering staffing and marketing in the technical sector.

Richard Branson’s going to Mars. Can you manage when he’s gone?

Branson’s at it again. Now he wants to colonize Mars. Not content with his spaceport or his fleet of space shuttles, Sir Richard is eyeing the red planet with the intention of creating a Noah’s Ark of earthlings, ready and willing to create a new population.

I don’t concern myself with the eccentricities of Mr. Branson’s twilight years in business. I care nothing for the fact that his life resembles the plot of Moonraker a little more every day. Richard Branson can colonize Mars to his heart’s content as far as I’m concerned. If he raises three generations of clone-a-like men and women with his outlook on life, then Mars will be a very successful colony indeed.

When it comes to this guy, I only want to talk about one thing – management. Not ‘leadership’, that wonderful concept that’s allowed two-a-penny executives like me to stay out of the annoying details of actual work and just tour the world patting people on the back and quoting Sun Tzu; not ‘entrepreneurialism’ which translates to convincing people to take sizable risks and then enjoying the benefits that your luck and their money deliver. No. The key for the success of the 99%, or the 47% or whatever % figure you want to use for ‘normal’ is management. Branson’s always been a great manager; that’s why the Virgin brand is such a powerhouse and it’s why he gets his own planet to play with.

Bad management is everywhere, even where you have great leaders at the top. It’s their job to make sure you all do the right things, not that you do things right.

High level strategic decisions can be blamed for the death of a lot of previously successful businesses. Borders decided to limit choice and reduce investment in local loyalty initiatives.  Blockbuster inexplicably failed to perceive the threat that the digitization of their core market was going to hold. 

Some business suicides are committed in the board room. But most are not; most failing and struggling businesses are doing the right things, they’re just not doing them right.

It was bad management that led to the 2008 financial crisis, as employees in financial institutions made decisions and took risks that should have been seen, understood and stopped by the people responsible for connecting individual behavior to the big picture.

Bad management can be blamed for everything from congested airports to long lines at the coffee shop to celebrity cash crises – because MC Hammer and Mike Tyson never had CEOs or boardrooms. But they both had managers.

From bad communication to lack of trust, disengagement, indecision, laziness and pride to poor delegation, unclear targets, weak organization and low accountability – you are never more than two rooms from a bad manager. It’s time to stop talking about leadership and strategy when it’s not appropriate. It’s time to talk about getting things done, helping other people get things done and keeping things organized, well-planned and clearly reported. It’s time to dismiss the inflated job titles and flat organizational structures that have left us all feeling buddy-buddy with the chairman and looking upward at our next shiny business card. It’s time to stop going to round tables and having lunch with consultants. It’s time to get everything out on the table, understand it and make it work better. I will no longer be ashamed to be, above anything else, a manager. A manager of people and of projects. I will manage my budget, manage my staff and manage our workload.

My name is Richard Spragg and I am a manager.

Over the next two weeks, we’re going to talk about what good management is, and between us, we’re going to make me and some of my readers better at it. 

For a fun starting point, I offer these management advice quotes from top names in business and beyond, including Sir Richard. We have a lot to learn from these people, before they all saunter off into outer space.

Post your thoughts, or your favorite pearl of management wisdom in the comments box and share it with the world.

Do you have what it takes? Talascend can provide you with access to more job opportunities than any other provider in the sector.  Search our database of available jobs and register with us so our consultants can find the right potential opportunities for you.

250 years later, seeking a permanent end to bad resumes.

As early as the eighteenth century, letters of introduction were a part of polite society. The practice spread to American shores from Europe.

David Wilkie's 'A letter of introduction' 1813

They have changed over time. Letters of recommendation became self written, they became more detailed – listing everything about a person’s accomplishments and background. But they remain a written introduction to a complete stranger, vouching for a person’s credentials. That has not changed. These days we call them resumes.

In 250 years we’ve invented electricity. We’ve invented cars, airplanes and computers. Twelve of us have walked on the moon. (Unless you’re one of the 20% of this population that don’t believe that ever happened.)

Yet if one of those astronauts wanted a job forty years later, pursuing whatever field of engineering he first emerged from, he would need to sit down and write a resume.

Overall, I’d say that the recruitment industry and everyone involved in jobs and hiring have been largely unreceptive to alternatives. The only movement we’ve seen is in the idea of profiles – completed for social media sites and job boards – but these ideas only form earlier stages in the process that inevitably lead to the attachment of a resume.

We have simply settled on a level of comfort that has become unshakeable. It’s resume to interview to hire. No account’s been taken of the many possibilities that the online world has delivered, particularly the combination of home shot videos and social media. If you had seen someone answer a number of questions in a self shot video interview, which could be accomplished easily with pretty much any laptop camera or Apple device, would you not be prepared to complete the interview in person? Maybe, but I bet you’d still expect them to bring a resume on the day.

Personal websites have become very normal, but again they are not replacing resumes. Whatever a person’s online community activity, they can still expect it to end up on a piece of US Letter sized paper, printed out, stapled neatly in the corner and left on a desk somewhere.

I got a headhunt call last week. (These are still infrequent enough to merit some attention.) Their client had seen the blog and wanted to know if I was available to discuss their vacancy. “Could you send us your resume?” was their main thrust. And I’m thinking, I’ve produced 40 something blogs. Maybe 20,000 words of detailed views on the marketing of recruiting businesses and the engineering and construction industry. And you want to see a two page resume that says I went to Essex University and I like tennis? I might stay where I am thanks. 

In the final analysis, it may just be that the resume is a cockroach. A great survivor, neither popular nor pretty, but worthy of its place through pure evolution (unless you’re one of the 46% of the population who don’t believe that happened either.)

If we are to continue to use the resume to hire and be hired, surely we can come together to work out what a resume really should look like. There may be every reason to still be using resumes in 2012, but there can’t be any excuse for using bad resumes. And all of us involved in staffing see so many bad resumes on a daily basis.

I’m calling upon serious people in my own industry and others to come together on this. We need to help each other to deliver a better standard of resume, a template – once and for all – that makes life easier for everyone in the hiring chain, from candidates to line managers, to employers and agencies.

Let’s talk about it. What do we want to see in resumes? What do we not want to see? It’s had 250 years to reach the ideal format by itself, maybe it’s time we helped it along.  

You can find more information on how to avoid the pitfalls of bad resumes by downloading our free white paper with resume advice. 

Richard Spragg writes on various subjects including global engineering jobs, staffing and marketing in the technical sector.

A very tough question for the future of 'work'.

Picture the scene. It’s Monday morning, about 8.20am and I’m sitting having a latte in Starbucks.  iPad in hand, I’m surfing for news that might make a good blog topic. I’ve got LinkedIn open as usual, and I’m looking to see what messages I have back about last week’s blog;  I reply to a couple of people with suggestions.

An old friend contacts me with a LinkedIn e-mail to ask if I’ve got any work for him at the moment. I tell him maybe, and  I’ll keep in touch. We swap another message asking about wives, children and football season. I start thinking about how I might be able to use him – good guy and we’re very busy. I make a note to fire an e-mail to the COO later.

10.00pm at the hotel desk. Working? Relaxing? Who knows any more?

I answer an incoming Outlook invitation for a meeting tomorrow lunchtime, and I approve an expense claim for one of my staff.

Then I’m back to reading the news on Google. Opportunities for Automotive jobs in Michigan are on the rise; salaries are also rising. We have significant interests in the Detroit engineering jobs market, so I’m thinking we might see some growth out there soon. Could be a blog topic, but maybe a bit dry. Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) is calling people who work at home ‘skivers’, the British slang for slacking off. That’s interesting, but reading the whole article I’m amused to find that my friend Dave who runs a part time recruiting firm in London has beaten me to it. He’s quoted in the article. Good for him I think, and I open up Facebook to send him a message saying well done. While I’m there I look at some wall posts and like a picture of my friend at the Zoo.

That’s when I decide what this week’s blog topic will be. It’s 8.45am now and I usually head into the office about this time. I drain my coffee, exchange pleasantries for a couple of minutes with Chris behind the counter (he has a new daughter and looks exhausted), I tell him he should try coffee, and I head out the door.

My question to you is simply this… from 8.20am to 8.50am this morning… was I working?

The traditional view prevalent in everyone from the baby boomers to the upper end of Generation X would be absolutely not. I’m not in the office; I’m not focusing; I’ve chatted to two of my friends online and one more in person about wholly unrelated things. I’m in a coffee shop for heaven’s sake. I simply am not at my desk, at my computer ‘working’. No deadlines have been met. No money has been made.

Not so, cry Generation Y. Many of them would argue the opposite. An important part of my job is to coordinate our social media activities, to engage the tens of thousands of people who read our blogs and to have interesting things to say. I have that covered now.  It’s also my job to staff the department here and I’ve uncovered an opportunity to maybe bring someone on board who can help. I’ve networked with a friend in the industry – and that has certainly yielded a return on investment before. I’ve been immediately accessible to my colleagues in accepting the Outlook invitation and I’ve actioned the expense approval with no delays. How could you possibly describe this as anything other than working. When I was at the bar yesterday afternoon watching the ballgame with a cold beer and my phone off – then I wasn’t working. This morning I was working. Clear as day.

Was I working but allowing myself to be distracted? Maybe, but even the social distractions had professional aspects.

Even now, in describing it, I’m personally not sure. I don’t usually start work until about 9.00am, so I could argue that all of this was done while I technically wasn’t being paid. But I have the standard working hours of a senior level person in any business, i.e. comfortably over the 40 hour week I get paid for, with weekends and late sessions a weekly occurrence, but without the daily oversight that cares where I am hour to hour. 

I may not be working when I ‘like’ my friend’s holiday snaps. But I wasn’t ‘not working’ on Sunday when I left dinner, under icy glares from my wife, to reply to a colleague’s urgent e-mail.

The modern workplace has no edges. Technology, social conventions, international time zones and professional diligence have taken the idea of a quantifiable working week and thrown it out the window. Generation Y are highly aware of this. How will anybody manage expectation in this environment?

With no means to measure (or even really understand) ‘input’ any more (working hours, time in the office etc..) we have to shift to judging performance on the achievement of measurable goals.

What we deliver matters far more than the manner in which we choose to deliver it. That’s why entrepreneurs don’t have working hours. Nobody asks a spin doctor how many hours they put into their candidate’s campaign. Nobody asks the head coach of the Houston Texans how many hours he works every week. Did the candidate win? Did the team make the playoffs?

It’s time to finally usher in the output era. It will be tough for a lot of business leaders to let go of the old fashioned management devices. But let go they must. The world belongs increasingly to Generation Y. Those of us who are longer of tooth need to have the humility to realize what this will mean to the way we work and the wisdom to see what the benefits for us could be.


Views expressed are those of the individual and not Talascend LLC. 

Richard Spragg writes on various subjects including global engineering staffing and global engineering jobs.

The 5 worst pieces of advice given by resume ‘experts’.

Every week I’m reading more and more dubious advice from various sources about what you should and shouldn’t put in a resume. Most of it is well meaning, and there’s a point to be taken at the heart of it, but it’s still fundamentally bad advice. I’ve pulled out the five most common examples and explained exactly why I beg to differ.

1. Don’t exceed one page

Keep your resume concise and to the point. Never mind the length. If you need three well laid out pages to properly account for your achievements, take three pages. All each page has to do is make a prospective employer want to read the next page. Hiring companies, recruiters and HR people are usually very busy and often have a lot of resumes to read, but this doesn’t mean they will throw out a four page resume. They are perfectly capable of scanning it and putting it in the ‘interesting’ pile if they see what they’re looking for. The phrase ‘Two pages? I can’t read two pages’ has never been uttered by anybody responsible for recruiting. The phrase ‘Is that it?’ is used frequently.

2. Don’t include hobbies

This is terrible advice. Once again the baby goes out with the bathwater. Hobbies say something about you personally, they are excellent conversation starters and they give your interviewer an opportunity to immediately put you at ease and to make a basic connection. During that ten seconds of elevator silence (the death knoll for a good interview), how easy is it for the person you’re meeting to say ‘So I see you’re a horse rider?’ Give them that opportunity. Hobbies are also a way to say something without boasting. Imagine reading the phrase ‘Ran two marathons last year for the local children’s’ hospital.’ This is saying a lot about the person who wrote it (well they’re not going to be lazy and uncaring are they?) No, hobbies do not belong at the top of your front page. No, you should not go into detail. No, you should not put anything on there that isn’t making a clear, positive statement. Focus on the productive and impressive things you do in your spare time. If you don’t have anything like this to put on your resume – maybe you have bigger problems than finding a job.

3. Don’t include References

Really? Once again they are encouraging you to miss an opportunity here. Including the name and number of the person you worked for in your last three jobs makes a very clear statement: I am confident in the fact that the people I’ve worked for will give me a positive reference. You’re asking the reader to be the next person on this list, don’t you think it would be encouraging for them to see that their predecessors were happy with you? If you have to skip a bad boss, or name their more helpful colleague – that’s fine. You’re offering something up before it’s asked for. It’s a bold statement about transparency. At the end of the day, restrictive HR policies at work inside most companies mean that nobody is going to call the contacts you supply for references, and nobody is going to provide one if they do. Dates of work will be passed from one HR department to another. The days of ‘So, what was she like?’ are long gone.

4. Everybody lies on a resume; it’s fine.

No it isn’t.

If you get caught in a small lie, the assumption will be that nothing on your resume can be trusted, and it will become scrap paper. The only thing a dishonest resume will get you is a job you’re not qualified for. You weren’t the top sales person. You don’t speak French. Your golf handicap is 27, not 7. It doesn’t matter? Tell that to the CEO when he needs you to play golf with him and a prospective French client. Getting a job is not the end, it’s the beginning. Your sins can find you out at any time. You should always put a positive spin on things, go ahead and polish up your Kia Sorento so it looks good – but don’t call it a Ferrari. At the end of the day, a resume is designed to get you job interviews, but it doesn’t disappear once the job is yours.  

5. Don’t do anything too original. Keep it simple.

People hate originality right? Boring is good. When you’re reading 100 resumes a day, heavens forbid anyone should put something in the inbox that stands out.

It’s 2012. There are fantastic tools out there; there is no shame in showing that you understand how to use a couple of them. No, you don’t want your resume looking like the menu from a suburban TexMex restaurant, but as with so many of these pieces of advice, there is a great deal of distance between the advice you’re being given and the mistake it’s trying to steer you away from. In this case, there’s a lot of room between an over designed, unprofessional mess and a dull black and white resume. Strike a balance; show some kind of creativity. Research has shown that recruiters spend more time on resumes that are more than flat text.

So if you’re looking for work, pull out your resume and run it through a few quick checks. This is your chance to stand out, so don’t blow it based on antiquated advice that’s been rumbling around since the dark ages. You are a fully rounded, three dimensional human being. If one page of flat text 12pt Times New Roman, with no personal elements and no creativity can communicate the real you, it might be more than career advice you need, and you’ll have to go somewhere else for that, I’m just a recruiter.




Richard Spragg writes on various subjects including global engineering staffing and global engineering jobs.

5 ways to make the Recruiters you work with more effective

Whether it’s an agency you’re dealing with or your own in-house Recruiters, you’ll get what you need faster if you can deliver these five simple things:

1. Decent Feedback

When it comes to refining a search and delivering you a better candidate, knowing why you’re passing on the ones you’ve already been given is invaluable. A trial and error approach is no good for anyone. In a world where job descriptions are often mass produced from a template and access to the real decision maker can be limited, some simple, direct feedback is vital. Ultimately it’s going to save you time and get you what you need faster.

2. Some Exclusivity

If you’re working with thirty agencies on your vacancies, you’re not going to get the best service from any of them. If they know their work is unlikely to bear fruit simply based on the fact that they have a one in thirty chance of getting their resumes properly reviewed, they’re not going to send their best people. The cream of candidates, those who are not available from job boards and agencies en masse will always go to the customers who take the recruiter most seriously, retain a few close relationships with reputable agencies and don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the more resumes they get, the more people they will hire.

3. Access

The more a Recruiter can understand about your projects and your culture, the faster they can get you the people you need. Don’t be afraid to invite your two or three best recruiters to see what you’re working on, to get a feel for your business and your team. This will help them to understand your real needs and provide you a better service. I always council clients to be suspicious of vendors who want to take them out for expensive dinners, or drop off fancy gifts. They’re only paying for it in the short term. In the long term, they’re going to want something in return that they haven’t earned. It’s the recruiters who want to meet you and your team in your office who are probably the ones worth taking seriously. They’re prepared to let the work do the talking.   Let them come; most of them are house trained and the benefits will come back to you.

4. A Little Respect

Recruiters have it tough. Whether they’re corporate or commercial, you can bet they’ve got more jobs to fill than they reasonably can, more competition than they’ve ever had before and a great deal of pressure coming from the people they’re accountable to. Like agents in any field, there is a long held misperception that they are reckless cowboys who will do anything for a fast buck. For the vast majority, who are working long hours for modest base salaries, this is hugely inaccurate. During my time working with a lot of different Recruiters and recruiting teams, the biggest frustration expressed by strong, professional recruiters has been that their motives are constantly doubted, even by the customers with whom they had developed good relationships. When something bad happens: when someone pulls out at the last minute, or drastically increases their salary demands, remember that it is highly unlikely to be your recruiter who’s yanking your chain. They just lost their lunch.

5. Realism

Recruiters work the vast majority of their hours for free. The no win, no fee payment structure removes client accountability for the time recruiters put in. The trouble with this is that when a company thinks they might need twenty five people, they often get their recruiters attention by forgetting to mention the ‘might’.  I’ve seen so many urgent jobs that turned out to actually be bids. The thing is, I would have been delighted to help on the bid – heck we could have helped make the bid better if we’d known that’s what we were doing. Give your recruiters your best assessment of the real opportunity. If there are ten openings but you think you’ll fill five of them internally, let them know.

All in all, Recruiters live at the behest of their customers, and that’s how it should be. A decent Recruiter should be working on delivering a better service with each opportunity they get. They should want to earn your business every day. If you think you’ve found an agency who is genuinely doing those things, then meet them half way. It’s good for you, it’s good for them and ultimately, you’ll get a better, faster service.




Richard Spragg writes on various subjects including global engineering staffing and global engineering jobs.

BP's concerns come as no surprise

By Andrew Rowlands

I was unsurprised to read that BP is struggling to find home-grown engineers to redevelop two oilfields in the North Sea (Sunday Telegraph, August 15). Sadly, the problem is not restricted to BP or the oil and gas industry. It is set to get worse because the output from British engineering-related degrees is static at best and the current workforce is aging rapidly.

I was also not surprised to learn that BP's Trevor Garlick linked the shortage to a 'brain drain'. We will need more new engineers than we think to simply tread water because engineering is the ultimate 'have skills will travel' profession. Research among the 300,000 engineers on our global database shows that three quarters of 21 to 30 year old British engineers want to work overseas, where their skills are increasingly in demand.

On the current trajectory, with a declining pool of recruits and overseas competition for talent affecting the supply side, we will surely be in crisis if the Government's plans to rebalance the economy towards industry comes to fruition. That is why the intervention by Sir John Parker, the new President at the Royal Academy of Engineering who called recently for a 50% increase in university qualified engineers per year, is to be welcomed.

If the Government fails in its goals and Sir John succeeds we should not let the thought of legions of unemployed engineers put us off from pursuing his ambitious targets. There will be plenty to keep our engineers occupied overseas even if their departure signifies a successful export industry we would rather not have.

Projected Decrease in U.S. Telecom Industry Employment May Present Hiring Opportunities for Telecom Firms

by Mike Moriarty

With the entire industry buzzing about upgrades from 3G to 4G and fiber optic installations, it’s hard to believe that a downturn in telecommunications employment is on the way.  However, the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2010-2011 industry report projects a 9% decrease in telecom industry employment for the period 2008 to 2018.

 

What does this mean to your company?  It certainly doesn’t mean that the industry is dead. Instead, it is in a state of flux. In fact, a recent article suggests industry spending on new technology will be up through 2012. ₍₂₎ Simply put, it means opportunity for hiring managers to connect with top industry talent as the changes play out.

Background 

The current BLS report suggests an 11% reduction in the number of those employed in the wired sector and a 1% decrease in the wireless sector of the industry. Demonstrated productivity increases as new, more robust technologies are deployed, as well as the consolidation of providers and industry support companies, are largely credited with these decreases.  The wireless sector is constantly upgrading networks as new technologies emerge, however, upgrades are far less labor intensive than new construction.  In the wired sector, competition with wireless providers and the reliability of fiber optic networks over copper are reducing the need for repair and installation technicians. The report suggests that the need customer service reps will actually increase as a result of increased consumer demand for services and support.

The Challenge for Hiring Professionals 

As the demand for workers decreases, the number of skilled, reliable candidates available increases. It’s great for your business with the exception that connecting with the talent you need, when you need it, is a real challenge.  The best candidates for your next big upgrade or detailed site study may be in the middle of Oregon and you may be in Texas. Your job requirements may match some, but not all of their skill set.  They may have forgotten to check the “willing to relocate” box on their job board. The whole time, they have all-star credentials, are ready to move at a moment’s notice and are perfect for your job.  Yet, you don’t connect.

The Opportunity

Resourcing firms specializing in technology and engineering solutions have already done the legwork.  Their job is to pre-qualify candidates for specialized positions and immediate mobilization. If they’re doing it right, they also get the whole story behind your hiring needs.  

Sergio Aguirre, an Account Executive at global technology resources company Talascend in Troy, MI says, “It’s very important that your resourcing partner asks the right questions. They should be asking questions like, ‘You gave me the job description and requirements but, who are you really looking to hire?  What’s not on the job description that you really want?’ Look for a firm that digs a little deeper and you’re more likely to get better results.”

VP of Sales at Talascend, Debra Timmerman, concurs, “Customers should expect their resourcing partner to pre-qualify proven, talented candidates before they are presented. There is a lot of diversity in the telecom marketplace.  While one engineer may specialize in fiber, another may be a cellular expert, or both. You might even find a line technician that is working toward a P.E. designation.  Those are the types of things that can get missed on a resume. Pre-qualification’s end result is that your positions are filled more quickly, with the best fit possible, even in highly-specialized areas of employment.”    

Are Resourced Technical Solutions Right for Your Telecom Enterprise?

Only you can make that decision. Technical resource firms often offer a range of contracts from temporary, project-by-project staffing to permanent, direct-hire services. With large teams of recruiters specializing in various technical fields, they often make your search and hiring processes exponentially faster. They offer services on an competitive or RPO basis.  Look for a firm with worldwide reach to increase your chances of finding the most qualified candidates. Also look for a resourcing partner that is a member of professional staffing organizations.  

In this day and age of marketplace uncertainty, it pays to have a partner ready to step-in and perform when you need it most. A technical resourcing firm may be the answer to helping you meet the challenge.