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CEO:  “I want to make sure we have the right priorities.  I don’t think we have time to rewrite our job postings and I’m not sure that’s going to help attract people.” ME:  “We can’t afford NOT to rewrite these postings.  The descriptions now are all “HR” talk and doesn’t reflect what we need someone to do, your brand or your culture.  The time we put into rewriting them will pay off.  Trust me.”     Challenge accepted. I left the CEO’s office energized and focused to prove my point.  I selected the most difficult position the organization was looking to fill.  It was a leadership position that had been open for over six months.  That’s not a typo.  Six months.  Two different internal recruiters worked on the role.  Several search firms had the position in their queue and still no results.  Unacceptable. After just two hours, a new job ad […]

“Recruiting is our biggest bottleneck,” said the CEO. The conversation went downhill from there as he expressed his frustration with the process (or lack thereof), the quality of candidates they were seeing and a general lack of urgency.   “I need you to fix this if we are going to scale.” Ah.  My dream scenario. I show up on my first day to start the assessment process and while a full assessment takes several weeks to complete, the CEO wanted some feedback at the end of the very first day.  No pressure. The first order of business was to attend the weekly recruiting team meeting.  Awesome.  Nothing beats firsthand observation of the team and I’ll get insight into their process and hear about their challenges.  I sit at the end of the table, listening intently.  The roles they are discussing demonstrate their knowledge of the business (check), they have control of […]

I had the pleasure of appearing on a TV show called CEO Chat last week.  The show brings together CEOs of companies as well as those who solve problems for the C-Suite to talk about today’s biggest business challenges.  It was an interesting experience to get a behind the scenes look at how programs are produced and a lot of fun to talk shop.  The hosts quickly picked up on two things:  I am not an HR consultant. For those who know me well, you are all too familiar with my point of view on the differences between “HR” and “Talent Acquisition and Management” and the topic can sometimes be a hot button.  For those not familiar, I shared my point of view during an interview on HR Today this summer. I solve business challenges. I am the “how” to a CEOs “what.”  It’s about understanding the client’s industry, market position, […]

“Trust the process.”  That was music to my ears when the CEO said that on our interview prep call last week. It’s been months in the making, but this is one client who gets it. But, their initial story is one that is all too familiar. My client struggled for years to recruit and retain someone in a leadership role for a business unit that is the backbone of their entire operation. As a result of the turnover in this role, they had a poor reputation as an employer which was impacting hiring across the entire enterprise. Further, their interview process wasn’t well designed or managed, candidates often didn’t know where they stood in the process, urgency forced bad hiring decisions, and there was an overall lack of authenticity throughout which caused candidates to feel…..well……tricked (note: none of this was intentional, but when you don’t have the right resource to […]

I have a lot of unconventional ideas around how we all could be more effective at recruiting and retaining talent.  Several months ago, I shared an idea about disrupting the way we deliver employer benefits packages in this post.  I was hoping for some pushback from my tribe and others so we could start a conversation.  While that didn’t happen as I had hoped (womp, womp), it won’t stop me from thinking differently about the current state and exploring fresh thinking with you. To that end, retention is a key topic that receives a lot of airtime, but it often ends there.  There are plenty of resources out there that provide old, stale ideas, but if they worked, we wouldn’t still be having this conversation.  So instead of preaching the same old, same old, let’s look at retention from a completely different perspective. It starts with surrendering and accepting that […]

I have the flu. I haven’t been this sick in years and needless to say, it’s cramping my style. When a friend declared “that’s why I get the flu shot” it was like rubbing salt in a wound. However, it seems kind of silly that I’ve set myself up for an unnecessary struggle this week for no reason other than I’m a giant weenie about needles. And it got me thinking. Why do we avoid taking proactive measures that we know will help us eliminate or minimize future ailments? Is it because we don’t believe the short-term pain is worth the long-term gain? Do we say we are “too busy” and can’t afford to invest the time to evaluate our current state and implement a change or two that could strengthen our position? Is it that we just don’t know what we don’t know? For those of you who follow […]

I’m keeping it short this week by sharing a 4-minute video covering one of my favorite topics…stay interviews. The concept of stay interviews has been around for about 20 years, yet is not widely practiced and it’s unfortunate because when performed correctly, they can be a great retention tool.  In this video, you will hear more about what they are, why they matter and how to conduct them. Special thanks to my friends at the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs for inviting me to talk on this important topic!   Like what you watched? Get insights like this delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribe to the Talent Point Consulting blog now. [gravityform id=”2″ title=”false” description=”false”]

I was on stage speaking at an event last week and was asked what is the #1 challenge businesses face today.  It’s funny to me that people are always asking for “one thing.”  It’s never one thing, no matter what the topic. That said, the biggest threat to many companies today is that they lack a modern strategic plan. A modern strategic plan is like a 3-legged stool.  The first leg is your business strategy, the second is your culture strategy and the third is your talent strategy.  These “legs” must be aligned, for if one is deficient, fractured or nonexistent, your strategic vision will be impacted (just as the stool will no longer function effectively under the same conditions). Your business strategy addresses the what….your market position, product or service priorities and financial goals.  Your culture strategy articulates your why…your purpose, mission and values and how that’s used as […]

I had the opportunity to present at a conference earlier this week on the topic of the future of work. It was the perfect venue to highlight several talent disruptions facing businesses in the next 3-5 years (actually, some are facing them now) and discuss how we can prepare if we take the time to plan. We covered everything from Gen Z to the gig and shared economies to how technology will eliminate some jobs, reshape the ones we have, and create positions we can’t even fathom yet. I love this stuff! One of the comments I made seemed to resonate and it centered around the need for career paths to be less like a ladder and more like a jungle gym. Let me explain. For many of us, we grew up during a time when the workforce was governed by “old rules.” One of those “old rules” is that […]

“If you were a candy bar what kind would you be and why?” Years ago, someone told me they were asked that question in an interview.  I laughed and said that I would have told them I’m a plain Hershey bar.  What you see is what you get. But then I took a step back and thought about it a little more.  This might be the dumbest question I’ve ever heard!  What does that have to do with someone’s ability to do a job?  I no longer thought it was cute or clever. I forgot about this until just a few days ago. I’m currently in the middle of a big transformation project where I’m working with a client rebuild their entire leadership team.  We’ve spent weeks getting back to basics by developing success profiles, creating marketing collateral and campaigns, and designing a high touch recruiting process that is both […]