Author: Lance Haun

Strategy for The Starr Conspiracy. Former HR pro. Portland guy (Go Blazers!) and WSU alum (Go Cougs!). I get to write about what I want here.

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Building portable equity

I reviewed Radical Careering here several weeks ago and while I thought the book was average, one point that stuck with me and has continued to do so is the building of portable equity. Portable equity is defined as skills, experience and education that you can take with you from job to job. These days, nobody would be attracted to a retirement plan that you lose if you get laid off. Employees want portability because they don’t see themselves as employees for life (and most employers, if they are honest, don’t either). The same is true with job skills that translate to the field you have chosen to work in. Building portable equity in your career takes work. As a recent graduate, you may be stuck with not-so-sexy job assignments and duties. Here are five ways you can beat the rap on those duties and become a superstar:

1.) You must do the job. The key to beating it straight out of the gate is to enthusiastically hit a home run with those not-so-sexy duties and every time you do, inform your boss that you are ready for your next challenge. No need to be annoying about it but no need to take it sitting down. It should be apparent from your actions that you can easily and competently take care of these minor job duties and you can start fitting in some projects with sex appeal.

2.) Be patient but don’t be a pushover. If you are on your second day, now is probably not the time to ask for more responsibilities and a raise. If a year has passed and you are doing the same thing you did your first month, you probably need to take control of your career. Don’t be a clock-puncher (a.k.a. the type of person that sits around years after his last promotion wondering why his promotion hasn’t come), go to work excited to do your job and present it as evidence to your boss that it is time to move up.

3.) Be prepared to take risks and experience failure. That doesn’t mean you falsify financial results until you get what you want. It is that you are prepared to risk falling flat on your face for both the possibility you might hit a home run or that you will learn something valuable once you dust yourself off. The best possible opportunities are the one’s that your boss thinks can’t be done. Taking on a project like this with enthusiasm is as near to “no risk” in business as you get. Figure out a way to make it work and knock your boss over.

4.) Build your resume now. Think about what you would want on your resume if you were forced to leave your job the next day. If you haven’t done it yet, do it. Stop putting it off and make it happen. The key to building portable equity is making sure you can use your experience and education to move (either within your company or to a different one). Try finding more projects that make your superstar status apparent.

5.) Be prepared to use that portable equity. While job hopping is not something I would ever promote, sometimes it is the only option in a dead end job. Before you go though, make sure you aren’t job hopping from a bad situation with no room for portable equity growth to another one with a nicer boss. You won’t be happy there either and then you’ll look like a job hopper. While you seek that next opportunity, spend time in your current job building whatever limited equity you can.

Maybe some other HR folks think I am throwing them under the bus here. I wish I had a room full of superstars but I won’t. The problem is that thinking in the above way is extraordinary. It is easy to find people who want to come in, punch a clock and get paid to do the basic requirements of the job. Finding people who are truly hungry for challenges is the difficult part.

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Your HR guy has caller ID

I know it comes to a shock to some of you but the HR guy has technology that has existed for the past 15 years known as caller ID. That means when you hit redial every 30 seconds for 20 minutes straight, I know about it. And guess what, it isn’t going to get me out of my meeting, lunch or interview sooner by calling me every minute. So here is what I suggest: leave me a message and send me an e-mail confirming the fact that you left me a message, a callback number and the best time to reach you. If you do this and do not annoy my co-workers, you will get the equivalent of a gold star next to your name on the board. If you do not follow my advice, I will furrow my brow and think mean things of you. Will it disqualify you from a job? Not entirely (unless of course when I do answer, you simply breathe heavily and then hang up). But remember, your HR guy is going to be working with you and more importantly, he is going to be working very closely with your direct supervisor who will rake the HR guy over the coals, throw him under the bus, etc… if he hires a stalker-lite person (again).

I am all for being forward in your job search but there is a fine line between being a good job candidate and being an obsessive job candidate. Find it, learn it, love it.

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SimplyHired and MySpace together at last

SimplyHired has pulled off quite the deal here.

There is going to be a lot of “old money” companies saying this isn’t significant. “Who cares? These kids on MySpace don’t have any skills we need. Plus the whole lot of them are probably child molesters anyway.” The good thing for these “kids” on MySpace is that they will have one of the most effective job searching tools out there easily accessible to them. Even the old money will be benefiting tremendously through this marriage of sorts (since SimplyHired aggregates millions of job listings including many of old money’s newspaper ads). MySpace has consistently ranked in the top 10 websites since the beginning of the year.

It is all a matter of people eventually figuring out that MySpace has a job search. It will be used and it is really only a matter of time.

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Don’t Offer Copious BJs at Work

It’s not a joke, it’s one of the first problems I had to deal with as a manager. I was working as a manager in an administrative portion of a major university. I worked with a mixed group of classified employees and student staff. Since there were shifts between students and things always came up, we had a way of students requesting for people to take their shifts. We basically had them send out a request to the listserv to be distributed to all staff regarding when their shift was available and whatever reasons they were looking to get it filled. One day as I was about to leave at 5:30, I get an e-mail that says:

To: listserv
From: “Matt”
Subject: Shift available

Thursday 3/31
5:00pm — 9:00pm
Building C

Reason: I have a big lab I have to do. Copious BJ’s to the person who takes this shift.

I froze. I re-read. I froze again. I heard footsteps coming towards my office. A quicker pace than usual. In walks my boss, Director of the department. He says the four words I didn’t want to hear at 5:30: “Take care of it.” Guh. I call Matt and tell him to come to the office right now. I call my IT guy to have him come in. In between that time, I get e-mails from three people on my staff that can’t believe the e-mail. One of them is going to file a complaint with the Human Rights Department. The IT guy comes in first so I have him sit with me to fire Matt.

Whenever Matt comes in, he is completely unapologetic. Whenever I tell him he is going to get fired, he gets defiant and starts asking me to cite what policies he has broken. I told him we work for a university that has a zero tolerance policy on sexually harassing words. This isn’t one of those things I could overlook, it is something that we had to take care of right now.

After he leaves, I tell the IT guy to take care of his e-mail access. He says he will do it. He doesn’t. And guess what happens?

Matt sent an e-mail out about 45 minutes after our conversation. Whenever I received it, I was thinking that it was just sent to me. It wouldn’t be the first time, no doubt about it. Then I read the message and I noticed the “To:” field said it was sent to the listserv. I again was shocked to what I saw. A diatribe by Matt regarding how “the man” (not making this up) had brought him down and that our corporate culture was an enemy of human rights. It was laughable stuff, especially in sharp contrast to the note he had sent out not two hours earlier (not to mention the fact that we worked for a university). What floored me was that the e-mail was even accepted. I called the IT guy at home and did what I knew how to do best. I asked a question:

“So did you turn off Matt’s access?”

“Of course I did. Why?”

“Have you checked your e-mail?”

“No.” click click click “Oh crap!”

“Way to go, now will you turn it off?”

“Yes.”

So ended my optimism when it came to people leaving an organization. Thanks to Matt (and some new experiences) I now take much greater precautions and expect the worst of every single termination I am a part of. Most of them go well but I don’t bet on it any more.

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Work Tip: Don’t Offer Copious BJs Over E-mail to the Person Taking Your Shift


It’s not a joke, it’s one of the first HR problems I had to deal with as a manager.

I was working as a manager in a student-run computer lab of a major university. We worked closely with a mixed group of classified employees and student staff. Since there were shifts between students and things always came up, we had an automated way of students requesting for people to take their shifts.

We basically had them send out a request to the listserv to be distributed to all staff regarding when their shift was available and whatever reasons they were looking to get it filled. One day as I was about to leave at 5:30, I get an e-mail that says:

To: listserv
From: “Matt”
Subject: Shift available

Thursday 3/31
5:00pm — 9:00pm
Building C

Reason: I have a big lab I have to do. Copious BJs to the person who takes this shift.

I froze. I re-read. I froze again.

Guh.

I call Matt and tell him to come to the office right now. I call my IT guy and the other managers to have them come in. In between that time, I get e-mails from three people on my staff that can’t believe what they read. One of them is going to file a complaint with the Human Rights Department.

Thank God I don’t work for a university anymore.

Whenever Matt comes in, he is completely unapologetic. Whenever I tell him he is going to get fired, he gets defiant and starts asking me to cite what policies he has broken. I told him we work for a university that has a zero tolerance policy on sexually harassing words. This isn’t one of those things I could overlook, it’s something that we had to take care of right now.

After he leaves, I tell our IT lead to kill his account but he was going to go home first and do it later that night. That’s when I realized the advantages of having all the ducks in a row and pulling the cord before it goes down.

Matt sent an e-mail out about 45 minutes after our conversation. Whenever I received it, I was thinking that it was just sent to me. It wouldn’t be the first time, no doubt about it.

Then I read the message and I noticed the “To:” field said it was sent to the listserv. I again was shocked to what I saw. A diatribe by Matt regarding how “the man” (not making this up) had brought him down and that our corporate culture was an enemy of human rights.

It was laughable stuff, especially in sharp contrast to the note he had sent out not two hours earlier (not to mention the fact that we worked for a university). What floored me was that the e-mail was even sent. I called the IT guy at home and did what I knew how to do best. I asked a question:

“So did you turn off Matt’s access?”

“Of course I did. Why?”

“Have you checked your e-mail?”

“No.” click click click “Oh crap!”

“Way to go, now will you turn it off?”

“Yes.”

So ended my optimism when it came to people leaving an organization.

Thanks to Matt (and some new experiences) I now take much greater precautions and expect the worst of every single termination I am a part of. Most of them go well but I don’t bet on it any more.

Originally published at lancehaun.com on June 12, 2006.

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Mis-management part 476

I don’t like picking on one particular group of people and it feels like I have been picking strictly on employees and candidates. That is unfair because, as everyone knows, management is to be blamed as the root cause of most problems. When I say “most,” I mean closer to 75–85% of the problems in the workplace could be fixed by better management. The great management thinkers of the 20th century agree with me and thinkers in the 21st century are on the bandwagon too.

So what’s the problem with management? It is usually a question of numbers. Either there are too many or too few. I worked for a company that had a ratio of one manager for every one and a half reports. That is silly and luckily, that company was forced to restructure their business and stop the insanity. In many startups, I see the complete opposite problem where you have one manager for every 20 reports. Any cost savings met by having that few managers is lost significantly through productivity losses.

The point being: supervising one person is about as stupid as supervising 20 and both of those situations will sink your business. So what is your optimal number you should be aiming for?

Studies show managers should have three to eight employees directly reporting to them. The more complicated their tasks, the less amount of employees that should be reporting directly. So if you are managing managers, you should be closer to three than eight and if you are managing entry level sales associates or retail clerks, that number should be closer to eight than three. This formula allows for the efficiency of being able to manage multiple people but the ability to micro-manage when necessary.

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Getting out of the Stack


So what is the stack? Let me define:

The stack is simply the place where every resume goes that is not exceptional, that does not catch interest, and does not deserve special attention. It doesn’t have to be a physical stack — in fact, they reside mostly in the archives of ancient applicant tracking systems). It is where EVERY resume goes unless you take time (or have the connections needed) to make it stand out from other applicants.

Simply put, the stack is exactly your least adventageous place to be as a person applying for a job. It makes you ordinary and boring. You’re competing with a lot of candidates there. How do you get out of the stack? First of all, how not to get into the stack:

  • Fancy paper (nobody cares and now everything is online)
  • TYPING IN ALL CAPS OR USING BOLD EVERY OTHER WORD
  • Telling me how much of a mistake it would be not to hire you in your cover letter
  • Horrendous, completely avoidable spelling and grammar disasters
  • Filling your resume and cover letter with fluff and convoluted terms
  • Long cover letters that’s basically your resume in narrative form
  • Long resumes that go into detail from the first time you babysat a kid in 3rd grade (Thanks)
  • Super large or small fonts sizes, strange, hard to read fonts

Those don’t work. This works though:

  • A one to two paragraph cover letter written specifically for the position telling the hiring manager precisely what from your background makes you the best candidate for the position
  • A one to two page resume (or the equivalent) written with the intent of conveying the most relevant positions you’ve had in the past
  • A cleanly organized, neatly formatted resume that allows me to scan your experience in less than 20 seconds so that I can make a determination that I should read the rest
  • The rest is neatly written in a fashion that allows me to get your major job duties after a minute or two of reading through it
  • Font size between 10 and 12 point, name no larger than 16 point and a standard font

Of course, the easiest way to get out of the stack is to know someone. Then you could write it in crayon and scan a picture of your face and probably get an interview.

It isn’t easy but making yourself stand out in a good way gives you way more opportunties than being stuck in the stack with the other newbies and daft resumes. Take the extra effort and do it right.

Originally published at lancehaun.com on June 2, 2006.

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How to get Hired


There seems to be this philosophy in certain groups of candidates: “Let’s make sure I annoy the living shit out of the guy doing the hiring.”

I have heard job coaches give advice that generally annoys anyone involved in the hiring process like it’s some sort of golden, untapped method that nobody has thought of. The only thing it accomplishes is pissing off and annoying the person doing the hiring.

And guess what? That’s the last thing you want to do. Crazy as it seems, it’s true.

There are decent, straight-forward ways of getting yourself noticed. Here are a few methods to help yourself get noticed for the right reasons:

  • Ask for the interview: You should first consider that the recruiting process is really a sales process. If you must know one principle about sales, you have to make the ask. For example, a good way to ask for an interview over the phone or e-mail would be to ask the hiring manager, “I am available all of this week and early next week to tell you more about my experience. Is one week better than the other?” If that is too forward for your personality, ask for a time when you could go into more detail about your experience. Be prepared for it to be right then.
  • Don’t call more than once a week: Period. End of story. Unless you’re called, don’t do it.
  • Don’t e-mail more than once a week: Same rule as above. E-mail is a black hole so you might be tempted to try your luck. Don’t.
  • Don’t show up to ask about it: Significantly worse than interupting my day with a phone call or e-mail is getting out of my chair, going to the front office, and chatting with you. What I’m going to tell you is, “I will be getting in touch with qualified candidates by telephone or e-mail.” Don’t come by my office unless you are dropping off a resume or coming in for a requested interview.
  • Be on your best behavior: Be professional. Don’t throw a fit or give me a facial expression suggests you’re less than pleased with the answer. Everyone is busy.

If you do the above, you will have a decent shot at getting interviewed. If you break rules, you probably won’t get hired. Unless they are desperate.

Originally published at lancehaun.com on May 31, 2006.

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How to get fired gracefully

Chances are, at one point of your working life or another, you’re going to get canned. I feel bad to be breaking the news to you but in the world of higher turnover and rapidly changing demand, the American employee is more expendable than ever (as long as “ever” means before 1940). Expendability aside, we should all be preparing for the worst. A downturn in business, a relocation, outsourcing, a bad personal decision…the list goes on. You should be ready to seek a job tomorrow. But that is a post for another day…

One way to not get fired gracefully is to make a big scene. It is really easy to lose it at that moment. You are thinking about everything that is going to change and hopefully you have an HR guy who prepares you and emphatically explains how to go about picking up your final check, belongings, filing for COBRA and maybe even giving you resources for with the unemployment office. I’ve had people getting fired (either being laid off or being fired for performance or misconduct issues) punch a supervisor in the face, flip off the entire office, throw a chair, scream, cry and not say anything at all.

To say it lightly, we’ve seen it all. And frankly, HR guys are unimpressed with this sort of bullshit. You might be pissed but your HR guy is likely going to be pissed for you. It is true. Even getting fired for all but the worst misconduct can be smoothed over by an understanding and apologetic employee. In those situations, I am much more likely to pass your future employer asking for a professional reference to a co-worker who liked you as opposed to the supervisor who now hates you because of his black eye. An employee who throws a fit is likely to get no sympathy and as soon as I get the reference release from your future employer, don’t think that I am not going to let them know every factual detail.

In short, don’t be stupid when fired. Take it calmly, be apologetic, ask all the questions you need and pack your stuff. Your future employability depends on it.

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Interview Tip: Show up, Bring Booze


Nothing delights me more than people showing up to an interview with alcohol on their breath.

It makes my job as an HR guy more interesting and gives me good stories to tell. Considering this has happened multiple times, I’ll tell you what pretty much goes through my mind:

This is awesome.

I am going to interview them until I can identify what kind of booze they were drinking.

That’s definitely not wine.

Ask a long question and lean in closer.

“Tell me more about your career history?”

It’s not beer either.

Oh, it is definitely whiskey . Oh man, how cool is that?!

This is a morning interview, right? Yep, 9:30AM. Well, let me wrap this up.

If you need something to ease your nerves, there are very effective prescriptions to help I’m told. Booze will not help though. Most people who do interviews know what booze breath smells like.

The audacity of also doing absolutely nothing to cover it up means you must have drank a lot. Or you are just an idiot. Or both. Probably both.

Originally published at lancehaun.com on May 25, 2006.