SPORTS
I love the Yankees. I have since my dad came home on my seventh birthday with tickets to opening day at The Stadium. I got to see Ron Guidry pitch 8 innings, and when my childhood hero Don Mattingly hit the winning home run, my father caught the ball.
My Father is a Yankee Fan, and his Father is a Yankee fan. He's been one since he crossed Ellis Island. And even though Grandpa usually calls me my uncle's name and forgets that I have a wife and kids, he can always tell you who the Yanks will be playing that day. We can always talk about the Yankees.
TECHNOLOGY
I love technology. I'm not a code geek. I'm not that kind of technology lover. In fact, here is the last piece of code I wrote:
10 Print "All the 7th grade girls love Noah"
20 Goto 10
Run
I hope I got that right. It has been a few decades.
Though the folks at Conduit, usually considered me even money odds to identify a bug, er, I mean unknown feature before the next release. And there was the one time at USP, that I told Chung how to make the 'save' button in our CRM cue up the next record.
No, I'm the kind of technology lover who is amazed by how communication has changed since I had my first dial-up email account on Chinet which used 'Pine' to control a text only UI, and can't imagine a world in which you do business without LinkedIn, Hoovers, ZoomInfo, and Facebook.
I also love Jigsaw, but I'm a paying member, and I've never "ratted out" any of my contacts.
I'm the kind of technology lover who consults for start-ups during the "free time" when his wife wishes he'd come to bed. My wife wants me to go to Technology Anonymous. I told her that I'm not addicted- I can quit anytime, but I just don't want to. Fine. I'm Hooked.
And as I sit here watching the Yankees massively under-perform their potential on one screen, analyzing traffic data for a company outperforming its potential on the other, I realized that sports and technology are opposite ends of the management spectrum.
MANAGEMENT
You see the Manager or Coach of a sports team doesn't get to execute anymore(The last was Pete Rose as a player/coach). In fact, he doesn't even get to interview the players who will. Most teams have General Manager for that. He doesn't negotiate salaries, and he has no control over the team's funds available under the salary cap.
The Manager is the VP of Strategy. He assesses available assets, identifies industry (league) trends, and potentially advises the Head of Corporate Development (GM) on acquisitions which would improve the team's position in the long or short run.
But after all of the pieces are in play, and the players he's chosen (from those available) are on the field, he cannot execute. He can only do what he believes will give them the best odds of executing.
In technology, the CEO, particularly in a start-up, often must be the player/coach. He may be a developer. He often is a business development or marketing executive. He must be the chief evangelist. And he usually makes the personnel decisions which will drive the company's success or failure. Thus the old Venture Capital philosophy of "betting on the jockey and not the horse."
To illustrate the point, have a look at Munjal Shah, Serial Entrepreneur and Internet CEO, had to say about the commando/infantryman/policeman start-up staffing model.
In most of the positions where my candidates are placed, the truth lies in between these extremes. Though in large and mid-cap companies the trend is closer to the sports analogy. The CEO pulls the trigger on strategic advice from his group and function heads as well as strategy, but execution resides among the foot soldiers.
I think that's why most consulting professionals want highly visible positions with a defined path to an impactful line role. They are aware of both the importance of the strategy function in giving the line roles the tools they need, and of having the best possible talent executing the strategy.
The hiring managers know it too, and that's why they turn to Hawkes Peers & Co., to identify the best possible talent with the elite pedigree for their organizations.
SUCCESS
Everyone loves rooting for a new start-up. A few new millionaires is the American dream, and it's happening today with more regularity than any other time in history.
But as the millions turn to billions companies like Microsoft find themselves transitioning from darlings to devils, mired in anti-trust suits, and considered by the market to be the benchmark of "evil."
Many people watching trends, see Google heading in that direction, as they expand into competition with more and more of their vendors.
It's no wonder that after 26 world championships the Yankees have been referred to as "The Evil Empire."
Me? I route for excellence- in Business and in Sports.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Sunday, June 17, 2007
The Google Recruiting Analogy
This story is the big buzz this weekend in the Blogosphere.
As an MBA and former Internet entrepreneur, I find this to be a fascinating case study. I struggle to find many industries where the vendor has as much power as Google.
Google's user base allows it to transcend the traditional vendor role, since web advertisers cannot attract the same user base for the same cost. In a market where ROI is king, Google becomes truly symbiotic with its advertisers. Google's user base is useless without advertisers to monetise it. Advertisers can't afford the decrease in traffic, or the increase in cost to attain it.
Which is what makes Google's continued expansion into co-opetition with its vendors so surprising, and eBay's defensive move so bold.
In the recruiting world, talent is king, the equivalent of the Google user in the analogy. Recruiters maintain a network of candidates that they can access quickly and efficiently. Companies know that they don't have the resources to identify, attract, engage, assess, & close talent as efficiently as recruiters, and the difference in turnover, cost of acquisition, and bad hires, far outweigh the cost of engaging recruiters. The symbiosis is obvious.
Which puts Google's continued advancement into non-search web businesses even more shocking. For a company that asserts its desire to "not be evil," an obvious knock on Microsoft, continuing to challenge the balance in this co-existence while continuing to squeeze the margins of the businesses that patronize it, is especially surprising in light of the many cases in which it is beginning to compete with them directly.
It is not entirely surprising that web companies are starting to fight back.
Ironically, prominent web-trend bloggers are calling this focus the reason for an eventual Google demise.
Can you think of any other analogous industries?
As the "Google" in the recruiting analogy (I've always wanted to say that), we are committed to bringing value to our clients in the form of the candidates who drive our business.
As an MBA and former Internet entrepreneur, I find this to be a fascinating case study. I struggle to find many industries where the vendor has as much power as Google.
Google's user base allows it to transcend the traditional vendor role, since web advertisers cannot attract the same user base for the same cost. In a market where ROI is king, Google becomes truly symbiotic with its advertisers. Google's user base is useless without advertisers to monetise it. Advertisers can't afford the decrease in traffic, or the increase in cost to attain it.
Which is what makes Google's continued expansion into co-opetition with its vendors so surprising, and eBay's defensive move so bold.
In the recruiting world, talent is king, the equivalent of the Google user in the analogy. Recruiters maintain a network of candidates that they can access quickly and efficiently. Companies know that they don't have the resources to identify, attract, engage, assess, & close talent as efficiently as recruiters, and the difference in turnover, cost of acquisition, and bad hires, far outweigh the cost of engaging recruiters. The symbiosis is obvious.
Which puts Google's continued advancement into non-search web businesses even more shocking. For a company that asserts its desire to "not be evil," an obvious knock on Microsoft, continuing to challenge the balance in this co-existence while continuing to squeeze the margins of the businesses that patronize it, is especially surprising in light of the many cases in which it is beginning to compete with them directly.
It is not entirely surprising that web companies are starting to fight back.
Ironically, prominent web-trend bloggers are calling this focus the reason for an eventual Google demise.
Can you think of any other analogous industries?
As the "Google" in the recruiting analogy (I've always wanted to say that), we are committed to bringing value to our clients in the form of the candidates who drive our business.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Professional Wisdom of Children
My son Gavi, the two-year-old, always wants to play with my laptop. I guess he just wants to be like his father. So we got him a "speak & spell" shaped like his very own laptop, and every time I duck into my home office to send one more email, he follows me in, takes out his "laptop" and learns his letters and numbers. He learns and we spend some time together. I call that a win-win.
Wednesday morning, as I chugged my third coffee, and put all of my work files into my laptop bag, he walked over to me with his laptop, and said. "Bye-Bye, I'm going to work." Then he gave me a kiss and carried his laptop in to the kitchen.
He came back 5 minutes later and said, "Here, I have money."
It was really cute the first time. It was really cute the 7th time. Around the 11th time I gave him a big hug, and told him I don't want him to go to work, because I miss him when he's gone. (I figured we were reversing roles, and he never wants to let me go to work...)
He looked me square in the eye and said, "But if I don't go to work, we can't live in this house or buy food or clothes..."
Aside from being darn cute, he put my professional life in perspective. He gets it. He knows why I go to work, and he understands that he is lucky we could decide that Mommy would stay home with him until he starts school. And suddenly I understood that if I'm going to spend as much time at work as with my family (if not more), I'd better love what I do.
As I wrote about here, that means role, that means environment, people, work/life balance, and everything in between.
Ten minutes later, Gavi taught me another important lesson. he walked into the kitchen while I was making another cappuccino, and when I had my back turned he decided to make some for himself. The scream said it all... his idea of making coffee was to pour the steamed milk all over himself.
There was the ER visit, and a few nights sleeping on a hospital foldaway bed, but he's expected to make a full recovery, and hopefully be released from the hospital by Tuesday. My wife has been the rock through all of this, and I've earned some extra 1 on 1 time with my daughter. But when I dropped everything suddenly and fell out of contact last week, I realised how important a supportive work environment can be.
Wednesday morning, as I chugged my third coffee, and put all of my work files into my laptop bag, he walked over to me with his laptop, and said. "Bye-Bye, I'm going to work." Then he gave me a kiss and carried his laptop in to the kitchen.
He came back 5 minutes later and said, "Here, I have money."
It was really cute the first time. It was really cute the 7th time. Around the 11th time I gave him a big hug, and told him I don't want him to go to work, because I miss him when he's gone. (I figured we were reversing roles, and he never wants to let me go to work...)
He looked me square in the eye and said, "But if I don't go to work, we can't live in this house or buy food or clothes..."
Aside from being darn cute, he put my professional life in perspective. He gets it. He knows why I go to work, and he understands that he is lucky we could decide that Mommy would stay home with him until he starts school. And suddenly I understood that if I'm going to spend as much time at work as with my family (if not more), I'd better love what I do.
As I wrote about here, that means role, that means environment, people, work/life balance, and everything in between.
Ten minutes later, Gavi taught me another important lesson. he walked into the kitchen while I was making another cappuccino, and when I had my back turned he decided to make some for himself. The scream said it all... his idea of making coffee was to pour the steamed milk all over himself.
There was the ER visit, and a few nights sleeping on a hospital foldaway bed, but he's expected to make a full recovery, and hopefully be released from the hospital by Tuesday. My wife has been the rock through all of this, and I've earned some extra 1 on 1 time with my daughter. But when I dropped everything suddenly and fell out of contact last week, I realised how important a supportive work environment can be.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
What do you think?
I know I promised you a Candidates bill of rights, but every time I edit a draft I have 3 new ideas and the post is never quite ready. I'll try to have it for next week.
Instead, driven by the epiphany of my last post, I'm trying to find recruiting strategies that would work for me, and see how my candidates feel about the same ideas.
Here's a strategy employed by a recruiter respected in the marketplace. The recruiter in his own words:
Instead, driven by the epiphany of my last post, I'm trying to find recruiting strategies that would work for me, and see how my candidates feel about the same ideas.
Here's a strategy employed by a recruiter respected in the marketplace. The recruiter in his own words:
"At the beginning of a search, I assure my candidates that I will do every-ethical-thing in my power to help them get the job.
HOWEVER: In good faith, they agree that if they get knocked out of the search, they will make themselves available by phone to discuss my client's interview process with all surviving candidates.
For example, imagine that I submit six highly-qualified candidates for the same VP of Marketing job. Usually, four will get knocked out before the two survivors get called in for final interviews. My method allows the final two candidates to have confidential, in-depth calls with the four "dead" candidates before going in for their final interviews. From what I hear, a ton of outstanding intel is traded among these executives.
What's in it for the "dead" candidates? A great networking opportunity to help a colleague who's about to get a plum VP-level job at a company they respect.
What's in it for the "live" candidates? Valuable intelligence."
I was wondering what the candidates I work with would think about that offer. Thoughts?
I also practice transparency with my clients. How do you feel about this practice?
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