Text posted Tuesday, May 14, 2013
In the workplace of the past, among the keys to selection was seeking to identify good prospects for long-term employment: Will this person join the corporate family, hitch her/his wagon to your star, pay his/her dues and climb the ladder? Applicants would be expected to send in a cover letter with a resume and wait to hear from you. If the resume demonstrated a sufficient background of education and experience, you might have called to schedule the applicant for an initial interview. If the applicant passed muster, you might have called him/her back for an extensive set of interviews with some key decision-makers. Perhaps you would ask for a letter of reference from a previous employer.

In the workplace of the future, you are not looking for people to join the family and climb the ladder. Rather, you need people who bring specific skills to the table, are able to get up to speed quickly, and begin making valuable contributions right away. Cover-letters and resumes don’t tell you much about a person. Interviews are not as reliable as they used to be because so many people are practicing to learn how to give the “right” answers in job interviews–the kind of answers “interviewers want to hear.”  And you can’t trust letters of reference because everybody is afraid of getting sued.

THE KEY:
Develop a selection process that is all about skill and performance criteria. Collect as much proof as you can that potential hires have the skills they need to get up to speed quickly and start contributing right away.

THE PROCESS:
(-) Before engaging in the selection process, create a skill and performance based profile for the people you need to do the work that needs to be done.
(-) Ask applicants to submit detailed proposals outlining exactly how the applicant intends to get that work done — or what role he/she could play in getting that work done.
(-) Focus interviews on skill and performance criteria; and whenever possible, first get a “sample” of each applicant’s work product.
(-) Design work try-outs to give applicants a realistic picture of exactly what the experience of doing the work will be like and to give yourself a realistic picture of how that person might play the role.

Stay strong!
Bruce

Text posted Thursday, May 9, 2013
Recruiting is just like sales. The first step is developing a “sales” message compelling enough to attract a large applicant pool. The problem is that many employers are still offering the same long-term career opportunities they’ve been offering for decades and so their recruiting sales message is all about the traditional rewards of the old-fashioned career path. But steps up the organization’s hierarchy, six-month reviews, annual raises, and other standard benefits are not enough to attract the best talent today. Traditional rewards are merely the threshold test—the cost of getting potential employees to consider you as a potential employer. But if all you have to sell are rewards that don’t vest until several years into the future, then your recruiting sales message will not be compelling. People in today’s workforce want to know what you have to offer them today, tomorrow, next week, and next month in return for their added value.

Create a compelling recruiting message by answering the fundamental question people want answered: What’s the deal? Or: “Exactly what do you want me to do today, tomorrow, next week, and this month; and exactly what do you have to offer me in the form of financial and non-financial rewards today, tomorrow, next week, and this month?”

(-) Differentiate among your traditional rewards by identifying the ones that vest in the near term.
(-) Brainstorm all of the incentives you have to offer, particularly those you have to offer in the near term.
(-) Make sure you are clear on exactly what you want from the person you are hiring.
(-) Develop a “What’s the deal?” message for each position you are selling.

In building your recruiting message, emphasize those rewards that vest sooner, rather than later. The sooner the reward vests, the more compelling it will be as part of your recruiting message. The later a reward vests, the less compelling it will be. Rewards that vest longer than 60 months from the hiring date should not be emphasized.

Stay strong!
Bruce

May 6, 2013

New Haven, CT - RainmakerThinking, Inc., the leading experts on young people in the workplace, announced today that Chris Glowacki has joined the firm as Chief Operating Officer and as General Manger of its TalkAboutTheWork.com subsidiary.

A 20 year veteran of the media industry, Glowacki joins RainmakerThinking from Discovery Communications where, as a member of the global corporate development team, he was responsible for several recent acquisitions and divestitures.

Prior to Discovery, Glowacki was the CEO of Plum TV, the lifestyle cable television network he cofounded in 2003. Glowacki developed the business plan for Plum and drove its expansion on basic cable into luxury resort markets across the country. Under Glowacki’s leadership Plum earned seven Emmy Awards and attracted such blue chip advertisers as American Express, Bank of America, Porsche, Land Rover, and Exxon Mobile.

Bruce Tulgan, Founder and Chairman of RainmakerThinking said, ”Chris Glowacki is a major league talent. He and his team will dramatically upgrade our ability to deliver to our clients the management insights, tools, and techniques from our ongoing workplace research.”

Earlier in his career Glowacki spent over 10 years in a variety of roles at NBC. As Senior Vice President of Business Development for NBC’s Interactive Media Division he led investments and partnerships with some of the biggest Internet success stories such as Cnet and iVillage, and was named to Broadcasting and Cable’s “30 under 30″. He also served as Chief Strategist for CNBC and CNBC.com and was a board member of Archipelago, the nation’s first electronic stock market that later merged with the NYSE.

Glowacki said, ”I have followed Bruce Tulgan and RainmakerThinking for a long time and I have had the opportunity to put their wisdom to work in both corporate and start-up settings. For a media strategist, valuable, unique, and actionable content is the Holy Grail. With companies looking for efficient digital training solutions there is a terrific opportunity to make a big impact with these important insights.”

Glowacki holds a BA from Amherst College, and an MBA from The University of Michigan.

RainmakerThinking, Inc.’s in-depth workplace research, ongoing since 1993, has been cited in thousands of news stories; the basis of hundreds of articles in publications including the Harvard Business Review, BusinessWeek, HR Magazine, Training Magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today; and the source of eighteen books including the classic MANAGING GENERATION X, as well as the recent best-sellers IT’S OKAY TO BE THE BOSS and NOT EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY. The firm’s clients include hundreds of organizations ranging from Aetna to Wal-Mart; from the Army (U.S.) to the YMCA.

TalkabouttheWork.com, RainmakerThinking’s web based learning system, allows companies to form secure learning groups to receive short video-lessons automatically on a schedule by email notification. The key difference from other social-network style systems is that the employer —as opposed to individual users— determines who is in the group, what content the group will receive, and the schedule of lessons. As a result, the learning process is secure and private, but also subject to the scrutiny and participation of the employer. Currently the system offers nine programs written and delivered by Bruce Tulgan, the best-selling management author. The system also allows users to create their own programs for delivery on the system.