Job Hacking

What's it like to work for you?

Let's say you're a hiring manager. Do you know what it's like to work for you? Do you know what it's like to work for your overall group, or your company?

Most hiring managers will say, "Yeah, of course I do. I have weekly 1:1s w/my staff, and we shoot the shit. I have a solid grasp on my team."

O.K., Mr./Ms. Smartypants, here's a test. Write down what you think your people would say to the following questions:

• Why did you decide to come to work for this group?
• Why did you decide to come to work for this company?
• Why do you continue to work on this team v. going to another group?
• Why do you continue to work at this company v. going to another one?
• What makes you come in each day to this job - what's the driving force for your working here?
• What's the best part about this job?
• What's the best part about this company?
• What's the worst part about this job?
• Which 3 areas can your team improve the most?
• Which 3 areas can your boss improve the most?
• Which 3 areas can the company improve the most?

Then, go have someone besides you go through an interview w/your staff and see what their answers are. Anonymous will be best, of course. (This might be a good time to engage your HR Generalist as they might be able to help A LOT with this, although one can also make the case for some other trusted source as well.)

How do they synch up? Were you spot-on across the board?

Now, the hard part.

Take all this and use it the next time you need to go find someone new for your team. Use the words your staff uses to describe the best parts, and avoid using the words that describe the worst parts, and you're well on your way to having the beginnings of a very attractive job ad.

Would you know a great job ad if it bit you in your a$$?

All you hiring managers out there, here's a test.

Q: What makes for a great job ad?
A: Copy that attracts the best possible candidate for the role.

Now, let's see how good you are at assessing job ads. Go to www.craigslist.com. Go to the software/qa/db jobs section (or your relevant section if you're not a Software Team Leader). Review the first 25 ads.

Now, did any of them do anything for you emotionally? Was there any one ad that caught your eye and made you think, "Hmm, back in the day, that might have been good for me."

There's a very good chance that you did not actually see one ad that met this criteria.

My question to you: Why would you post up any ad other than one that is attractive to your audience?

Do you know what would be attractive to your audience?

You and your brand

Sometimes I think I write too often about posts that Seth Godin writes. But, I can't help myself - they are too good, and too relevant to the world we work in.

His post on Sept 20 was particularly pointed regarding MSFT's recent ad campaign with Jerry & Bill.

And, it points up something that many don't quite understand until it's far too late: Affiliation and your brand.

Yup, you've got a brand. It is made up of the thoughts and perceptions others have about you. Some of it is made up of your work, part is from your achievements, and other bits are from the places you've been associated with in the past. You know, Carnegie-Mellon, IIT, Standford, Cal-Tech, Enron, Coca-Cola, Nike, Apple, Defense Language Institute, Microsoft, IEEE, etc., etc.

Seth is absolutely 100% correct when he says that, "For more than twenty years, Microsoft has relentlessly commodified itself and the software it makes. It has worked to become a monopoly, a semi-faceless organization that cranks out very good (or pretty good) software that gets a job done for the middle of the market. It's been a profitable strategy."

For all of you that work at Microsoft, for better or worse, this is the way the world sees you. When you go looking for a job, this is one key aspect that hiring managers tune in on. Some like to see this, others less so. But be clear, this is an attribute you own, and use it to your best advantage.

Kinda makes you think hard about where you want to go work next, doesn't it? Or, how to attract people into your organization that are a good fit w/your brand.

Risk Candy: Essay by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Ooh, I just dumbed into an essay by the author of The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

While I've written about this author before, and I highly recommend his two books, trying to describe them in a compelling way via elevator pitch is tough. Discussing risk and randomness in an off-hand manner is not to be taken lightly!

So, when I found this article, I just had to share it. Give yourself some time, close the door, put on your thinking cap, and then read through this article. Very, very timely, and useful to boot.

Respecting your art - Respecting yourself

My wife is a storyteller. She's been an actor, a play-write, and she's soon to be an author.

Recently, she has re-connected with a number of her thespian classmates (Facebook is amazing!), and they've been sharing the stories of their lives. There have also been some interesting revelations.

One is that discipline & diligence pays off. More important than raw talent.

Another is that those who continue no matter what achieve the dream of using their talents. Having thick skin, and the ability to properly assess and utilize highly critical, negative feedback is important.

A third is that your comrades are excited and supportive about your achievements.

Fourth, expand your horizon. We tend to think about the future in much shorter chunks of time than a lifetime. Even in the short period of time these people have been out of college, relatively to a lifetime, they have done a broad number of things. And, they've become better artists as a result.

These are key lessons for anyone, and they are easily adopted by both leaders, those who need people to help them achieve their objectives, and those who are looking to join those teams.

For leaders, have a clear vision, and be disciplined in your work. Provide your team members the expectation that discipline is expected from them as well. Accept feedback from your customers, and utilize it all in a methodical way. You may decide to ignore it, but make the decision consciously. Be gracious.

For job hunters, you are in charge of your career, so keep checking your position v. your long-term goal. Each role you take should help you get there, even if it's just a day job. Once you've accomplished that which you want in a given role, time to start thinking about the next move. Don't stop learning, don't stop sharpening your edge, and most of all, don't take to heart the comments from those who don't have a clear view of the path you're on.

For everyone, it's vitally important to have a great, supportive network. Pay attention to the people you were with during those formative experiences - there's nothing that seems to bond people together better than having covered the same difficult, challenging ground at the same time.

Thinking Bigger: The Hiring Manager

Seth, as usual, has a great post today regarding thinking bigger. Great piece, focused very much on marketing.

Ever think about how recruiting is like marketing?

We really do live in some interesting times right now. The national economy is going into the tank, people are losing their jobs left & right, and we're still fighting not one, but two wars. You might be thinking to yourself, "Hey, I get a pass for the next 12 months from all my employees. Nobody in their right mind is going to leave now. I just need to worry about adding one or two more to the team..."

Not thinking bigger.

A different tack might be to create a contest that solves a problem you're working on in which you ask Developers outside the company to help you solve it. Send a small hard-copy letter to all the Web Developers you'd like to see apply for your team and challenge them to solve the problem.

Or maybe, you set up an 'outsourced' team in a depressed city in the U.S. to do a bunch of coding for your team. Maybe part of the deal is that you help them get trained up on some new Dev technology, they work for you for a reduced rate until their skills are up to par w/your current team, and at the end, you now have a completely new outsourced dev team to sell.

There are more. You're creative. Come up with some. Then go make it happen!

The FAQs of Lehman & AIG

The NYT (free sign-up) has a great read today on the how & why of the Lehman Bros & AIG bail-outs. It's a quick read, interesting, and enlightening.

For those of you heavily invested in your political brand, these events have to be shaking everyone to their core. Government intervention into the markets? By a Republican Administration? I think that we need to re-frame our understanding of the two main parties in different ways than the past.

There probably isn't enough time in this election cycle to sort these re-frames out, but it's pretty much guaranteed that in the coming 4 years the new seeds will start to germinate.

Prediction: Obama & Biden win the Presidential election in November (absent massive vote fraud). And, the Democrats take control of both houses, and with 60+ seats in the Senate. The #1 issue in this election just became pocket-book economics.

In need of Career Advice?

Career Hub has a nice post regarding Career Advice from Richard Branson. It's a good list, very inspiring.

I'd add one thing: Keep your vision in front of you always.

August Unemployment - WA State

The U.S. economy may be in the tank, and parts of Washington are certainly in the tank, but you'd not really know it by the IT sector in Seattle.

Washington State's Unemployment data came out yesterday, and here are the key bits:

• Overall statewide unemployment: 6.0%, up from an adjusted 5.6% for July.
• Seattle-Bellevue-Everett: 4.8%, up from 4.3% in July
• WA State Software publishers employ 52,100 people, up from 51,400 in August, and also up from 47,900 in August '07.
• Industries losing the most workers are Construction, Retail Trade and Manufacturing.

Overall, these figures definitely point to a worsening economy. In the good news department, Software Development continues to grow. That's good news unless you're looking for Software Developers - they're continuing to be a bit scarce. Email me if that's your problem... I can help.

Do you dig on conspiracy theories?

Dunno about you, but I love a good conspiracy theory. 2000 Florida voting irregularities - oh yeah, baby. Microsoft writing operating systems that screw up 3rd-party software products - let's go track that down, too. X-Files - check.

Today, my buddy Mark Anderson has a GREAT POST on oil price manipulation. Timely, given Senator Cantwell's hearings this week.