Resumes: Is It Always Good to Get Noticed?

photo via huffington post

Every few months there is a resume that makes the rounds online that gets people talking.  Remember the video resume for the guy applying to UBS showing him bench pressing 400 pounds?  That didn’t turn out too well for him.

The Huffington Post recently posted Eric’s resume (seen above) and asked whether it was a ‘win or fail.’

Standing out and getting attention is a great thing (almost always).  Especially when someone is going to be weeding through hundreds of resumes – more than half of which are completely irrelevant for the job.

Eric’s resume is moderately amusing and it had the potential to be good.  But, it’s not.

Simply by focusing on one or two themes and twisting a few things around he could have gotten just about any entry-level job he wanted.

Rather than tying his attributes and experiences back to something even remotely relevant to working, he went beyond non-sensical and landed in the ‘don’t trust me not to run with scissors in my hands’ area.

At first glance he could have gone the route of saying he’s a quick learner with tremendous focus (e.g. mastered MarioKart in one 18-hour marathon session).

And ‘trust me’ isn’t a great response for explaining away a lack of past drive, focus and success.  There aren’t too many gigs that ask for people who are proficient at ‘daydreaming out window (sic).’

Moral of the story: don’t be afraid to be different.  Sometimes it’s the best way to get noticed.  But make sure your irreverence is intelligently irreverent.  Make the person reading your resume think ‘this person is pretty funny, I’d like to meet him/her,’ not ‘wow, I hope someone’s keeping an eye on this kid making sure he’s taking his meds.’

Resume Fail.

A Fear of Machines in the Hiring Process?

photo by racatumba

We recently created a poll on LinkedIn (requires login) asking people whether they’d be willing to take a 25-minute assessment when applying for a company if it helped identify how well they fit to the company’s culture.

After 118 responses only 11% have said they would not complete an assessment because either they felt like it wastes their time or because it could be used against them.

But the comments from some of these 11% are interesting.

“…it all seems to me to be a substitute for quality in the recruitment decision making process.”

“Why wouldn’t the Interveiwer [sic] be capable of determining these things and compiling a valid report of interveiw [sic]?”

Why is it that the use of analytics in the hiring process causes some to react negatively to the HR people behind them?  Operational line managers who use numbers to improve their decision-making ability are lauded for their objectivity and quantitative prowess.  And yet in a function that is rife with subjectivity a handful of folks find it reprehensible that a good hiring manager can’t figure what makes complex human beings tick strictly by using their gut instinct and some well worded questions.

Hiring without objectivity is ludicrous.

It is subject to too many biases to count.  Height, weight, attractiveness, firmness of handshake, attire, gender, race, eye-contact…and that’s just the beginning of the visual biases before the candidate opens her mouth.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (courtesy of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink) noticed this after holding auditions behind a black curtain for the first time.  Historically, the best musicians had always been men.  Lo and behold, once they held auditions behind a black curtain and the ‘interviewers’ were judging them solely on the sound of the music, it turned out that the best musicians were actually evenly split between men and women.

Quantifying the hiring process is only one piece of the puzzle.  It is not and nor should it ever be the ultimate arbiter.  After all it’s people and not the machines that have to work with the new hire.  But adding some objective rigor into a process long dominated by subjectivity can only help. Particularly given that collectively hiring managers are barely better than the flip of a coin.

Ultimately, it’s to the benefit of both parties.  It provides an inside look at what a company’s culture is actually like (not just what they post in the lobby) and can make expectations and behaviors known at the time of hiring.  Two things that people often struggle to put into words even when they are defined. It also helps people avoid landing in jobs where they stand little chance of succeeding.

Are people’s fears justified?  Perhaps, if objective measures are used as a short-cut.  But the real ire should be raised over how much we tolerate mediocrity and subjectivity in today’s existing hiring practices.  Just because we don’t have a machine saying that we weren’t hired because we had a limp handshake doesn’t mean that it’s not the case or that we shouldn’t be furious.  Even though we can’t see the bias, it is still there.  Don’t blame the machines for making one part of the process transparent…finally.

The Dependability Quotient (DQ)

Sometimes the best mentors are your peers.

While cutting my teeth at my first ‘real job,’ I had a friend who constantly dwelled upon his Dependability Quotient (DQ).  His take was that he was only as good an employee as his word.  He was a freelance consultant so the need for a high DQ was more obvious than for all of us securely employed at Big Co., USA.

But, the need for a high DQ is the same regardless.

Work is all about trust.

Every interaction, even those with people with whom you are (supposedly) on the same team, is about trust.

In his case, the more people trusted him the more work he would get, the more money he would make and the more often he’d be recommended to others.

Even so, it holds true for all of us corporate monkeys as well.  The more often we successfully follow through on our word the more access to big opportunities we get.  The more we can be leaned upon to help senior executives.  And the more we are entrusted to do what’s right for the organization and we don’t waste as much time being mired in office ‘politics.’

While my friend and I never explicitly talked about how to quantify DQ, I’d guess his mental equation went something like this:

DQ = 0.75*(# of completed commitments) – 1,000*(# of failed commitments)

While that’s likely overstating it, you’ve heard the old pearls of wisdom that say it takes 10 happy customers to make up for one pissed off one.  Or ten positive remarks to cover the sting on one negative.  DQ would follow an amplified form of those.

We work interdependently these days.  There are very few things that one person accomplishes solo.  So in order for you to look good you need your manager, peers or subordinates to follow through on the items they committed to do for you.  And vice versa.

To get ahead, take the long view.  Worry less about the petty politics and work on establishing your DQ.  Only one of those will follow you for your entire career.

Think about who you’d love to work with again.  My guess is that they were the ones you trusted implicitly after hundreds of repeated actions where they followed through and made you look good.

Thanks for reading.  I’m off to tackle something I’ve promised to do for our team.  Chalk another 3/4 of a point up to my DQ.

Arranged Marriages and Hiring

On the night-stand this week is Sheena Iyengar’s recent book called The Art of Choosing. Like many books in the pop-science vein, there are plenty of studies that are interestingly counter-intuitive.

One study in particular jumped out.  Drs. Gupta and Singh of the University of Rajasthan studied the consequences of arranged marriages and marriages by choice.  The results?

Couples who had been together for less than one year and had ‘married for love’ (i.e. chosen their partners) scored a 70 of 91 on the Rubin Love Scale.  After ten years, they totaled 40 of 91.

The arranged marriages, as you can imagine, didn’t start so hot and heavy.  First year couples tallied 58 points, but that grew to 68 after ten years.

The conclusion Iyengar (and the study’s authors) draws is that, “In an arranged marriage, two people are brought together based on shared values and goals, with the assumption that they will grow to like each other over time, much in the same way that a bond develops between roommates, business partners or close friends.”

The marriage metaphor is often used to describe hiring or accepting a job in the professional ranks.  Both sides spend a little time doing a mating dance, putting their best foot forward and trying to hide their craziness and then make a decision that will – they hope – last a long time.

The process itself is a bit of a hybrid between choice and being arranged, particularly if an outside recruiter is used (though their incentives for a happy match aren’t anywhere near  as strong as two parents’).  But far too often we are making hiring decisions “for love” (i.e. we fall in love with the resume and the skills and accomplishments the candidate brings).  Ultimately, we are so overwhelmed by their stunning ‘good looks’ on paper that we overlook the fact that our values and goals are not well aligned.  As is typical the relationship starts well.  But over time, their differences are exposed which is why nearly half of all hires ‘fail’ within the first 18-months.

While everyone tries to get to the heart of a candidate’s values and personality, it ultimately devolves into a like-ability screen.  Can you imagine eating lunch or going for drinks after work with the candidate?  If so that’s great, but it makes for a good friend, not necessarily a great employee.

At RoundPegg, we encourage you to look beyond that attractive resume.  Just as the parents who select their children’s mate won’t pick someone repulsively unattractive, you’re not going to hire an idiot.  Odds are good that the person who has adequate skills but embodies the best of your culture will ultimately prove to be the far more successful partner.  Sometimes it just takes a little objectivity to see that.

How To Develop Great Cultures

RoundPegg has created the third webinar in a series on organizational fit. In this edition Dr. Natalie runs through the benefits of aligning a company culture as well as providing some solid how-tos in order to identify and align your own culture. While it’s not easy, it’s worth the energy expenditure.

Please enjoy and, as always, contact us at info@roundpegg.com if you’d like to learn more.