Dear Hiring Managers: Stop hating on millenials

I have had more than 1 hiring manager who's recently put down millennials as employees. This highly irritates me, and they need to knock it off. I am not a millennial, so I personally have no dog directly in this fight. However, here are least two reasons why it needs to cease.

1. It's stereotyping

What if I said all people who are (insert race, gender, or ethic label here) have some alleged bad quality? First, it's very unlikely that this would be true. Second, we perceive such an over-generalization as unfair, as well we should.

2. They are the workforce of the future

Whether you love that or hate it, you need to suck it up and find ways to adapt. Yes, you have to adapt. Every generation leaves its stamp on the workforce. You can either bemoan what impact you think the millennials will have, or you can embrace it and use their skills to further grow and develop your workplace. The choice is up to you.

I have started call out our staff when they say derogatory things about millennials. You are either the problem or the solution. In this instance, which are you?

When a simile is both amazing accurate and completely frightening- Update

Last week our Executive Director called a same day meeting for all departments transitioning to the other company 1/1/17. HR was also invited. None one knew (or at least would admit) what the meeting was about. At the meeting the Executive Director announced that the transition is on hold until further notice due to some legal issues that must be resolved. Yes, two weeks before it was to take place, and after countless hours of work throughout both organizations, issues that should have been long ago foreseen and addressed have come to light. There is no timeline on when, or if, the transition will ever take place. Customers of our company, this was not our best use of your funds.

My feelings aren't hurt at all

All of the positions at my company have minimum qualifications. As the name implies, these are things that you must have to be considered. If you don't have them, we can't interview you, let alone hire you. Part of my job is to make sure candidates selected to interview do meet these requirements.

While I was off last week, a hiring manager gave her list of candidates to be interviewed to my coworker. When I got back, my coworker told me she thought one of them didn't possess the minimum qualifications, and thus she had held off on scheduling that person's interview. I reviewed the applicant's submission, and I concurred. To make sure I wasn't missing anything, I asked my boss for her thoughts. She agreed too. I e-mailed the hiring manager and told her that unfortunately we couldn't interview this person due to his lack of qualifications and I referenced the minimum requirements from the job description.

She responded and said she thought the person could be a good fit and that she really wanted to interview him. Right before I left work yesterday, my boss and I met with the HR director, aka my boss's boss. She affirmed our decision and asked me to e-mail the hiring manager again, and to restate why the person can't be interviewed.This morning I sent that e-mail. The hiring manager wrote back and said "(blogger) I disagree. All future discussions will be with (HR director)." Obviously this was rude, and it's also not proper to exclude me from the conversation since I am the recruiter working this job. But were my feelings hurt? Not a bit. In fact, I did a happy dance at my desk. I don't have to beat a dead horse anymore, and my HR director is handling it. Now, if I could only figure out how to reproduce this success with more people, my job would be all the more pleasant.

When a simile is both amazing accurate and completely frightening

My employer is undergoing some rather large structural changes. One of these is that our Customer Service & IT departments will become part of another company at the beginning of 2017. This is unprecedented for us, and obviously there has been a lot of concern among the impacted employees as to how this will look in the end. You'd hope that there had been lots of time put into planning for this transition before it was announced. You would, of course, be wrong. The head of HR for the other organization made the following comment Friday "It's like we're flying the plane while we're still building it." He is exactly correct. It was both amazing accurate and completely frightening. To further his comparison, I'd say we're in for a bumpy ride. My department will be undergoing the same transition some time next year. Perhaps by then it will be smoother, but I'm not placing any bets on it.

Proof that God loves us- both big ways and small

God loves each and every one of us. It's a fact. And while we "know" that, how often do we recognize the many, many ways he shows us? Yesterday I had two examples that reminded me of how God shows His love to us in ways both large and small.

First, the small way. I had a meeting cancelled. Any time a meeting is cancelled, I see it as proof that God loves me. First of all, because who likes meetings? Secondly, it is insanely busy in my job right now, and the cancellation freed up time for me to do other things that direly needed attention.

The second was larger. I lost a soon-to-be-hired employee's paperwork. All of it- application, background screen release, interview notes, the whole shebang. Some of it I could ask the candidate to resubmit, but some of it was irreplaceable. Not good. Before going into full blown panic mode, I took a walk. While on the walk I prayed that I would find it. When I got back to the office, I asked one of my coworkers if I had mixed the documents in with the payroll data I had reviewed for her. Nope. Not long after that I grabbed the folder for another job I am working to fill. It was almost as if the pages in the file miraculously parted, displaying all the items I was seeking. What a relief!

I am so very thankful for the many ways God shows His love to me, including the above. May I continually remember to look and be thankful for them.

Super Shady Surveillance

Friday morning my boss asked me if the phone had rang in the conference room where I was conducting interviews the day before.  I said it hadn't. She said "It must have been (coworker)". When coworker arrived, my boss asked her. She said that it had. She answered, but no one was there. She also said that as soon as that happened, another member of the team who is director level unplugged the phone from the wall! My boss then explained the situation.

It seems that at that building, there is a feature you can enable on the phone. You then call from another room, say nothing making whoever answers hang up, and then the phone is on conference unknown to the occupants of the room. You hear everything that's being said. Yes, that's some super shady surveillance. Just think, you could listen into a round of interviews for which you are a candidate and know all the questions in advance. You could also secretly learn about confidential management and HR discussions.  I'm not sure how this was discovered, but the cat is out of the bag now. When the phone administrator was contacted, she said "that's not possible." She was told it has happened. So now part of my interview prep when I'm at the building is to unplug the phone before we begin. Imagine what would happen if people put as much energy and creativity into legitimate ways of getting ahead as they do things like this.

Sometimes things are part of a bigger plan

One of my friends recently got a jetski. That is fantastic news as I get enjoy the fun of riding without the cost of ownership. I will admit to being honked, though, that I had to buy my own life jacket (a must when jetskiing) and state park gate pass (the closest boat ramp). In my opinion, the former is the responsibility of the jetski owner, and for the latter, we could just meet before entering the park rather than each of us purchasing a pass. But I didn't gripe, because, oh yeah, I get to jetski for free.

Fast forward to last weekend when I realized there was a bigger reason I bought both of those, unbeknownst to me. My family spent last weekend at an area lake. We rented a cabin for 2 nights and went boating. The lake is part of another state park, and my park pass came in very handy. The life jacket also got extensive usage while we were tubing. The boat we rented had life jackets, but the style of mine was much more comfortable to wear while performing that activity. I told my mom that the purchase of these items was part of a bigger plan of which I was not aware at the time. So often life is like that. Things happen that we don't love at the time, but (sometimes much) later when we look back, we realized it was all part of a larger plan that we just couldn't see then.

Read this before you next job interview

As a recruiter I conduct a lot of interviews. Some are good, some leave me saying "there's x amount of my life I'll never get back." To enhance the chance of your next interview being more like the former than the later, read and put into practice these interview tips from the Evil HR Lady.

Squirrels, unicorns, and the world of recruiting

I've written before about purple squirrels. At my current job, I've determined that even this elusive creature will not satisfy some of our hiring managers. They are seeking rainbow unicorns. Let me explain.

We have been in drastic need of trade X at my employer since before I was hired. At the time I started working to staff these openings in January, Dept. A needed 4, Dept. B 3, and Dept. C 1. Since these are all the same positions, just in different areas, when we interview candidates at least one person from each department attends. If multiple departments want the same candidate, we prioritize based on need. As of last week, I have filled Dept. C's 1 spot and Dept. B's 3 spots plus 1 additional opening that was created. You'll notice I left out Dept. A. That's because they have not liked a single candidate. Meanwhile, I am getting feedback from departments B&C about how well their new hires, aka the people not good enough for Dept. A, are doing. After one interview in my frustration I told my boss "They aren't looking for purple squirrels. Squirrels are at least real. They are looking for purple unicorns." One of my coworkers laughed. I was talking about the situation with two members from Dept. B., aka the department that has hired 4 of trade x in 5 month, and one of them told me "they aren't looking for a purple unicorn, they're looking for a rainbow unicorn." Another person from the department contributed how you catch a rainbow unicorn- with a golden lasso!

This week the unthinkable happened- Dept. A interviewed a candidate and liked him enough to offer him a job. When I got back to the HR department I told my boss "we used our golden lasso and caught a rainbow unicorn." She did not need a translation. She was, however, as shocked as I was. And even better, the candidate accepted our offer. If I was a gambler, I would have bought a lottery ticket.

Interview tip: Don't touch the recruiter

A public service announcement for all job seekers: to improve the chances of your interview going well, don't touch the recruiter.

By now you're probably wondering what led to this tip. First, some backstory about me. I am not the touchy feely type at all (that breeze you just felt was all my friends and family nodding strongly in agreement). Not once but twice this week, candidates violated my personal space. Yesterday we were interviewing an external candidate,and he touched my arm while answering a question. It was quite on purpose, not an accident brush. I quickly but as unobtrusively slid myself and my stuff down the table so I was out of range. After the candidate left, I mentioned this. My teammate didn't notice, but the other interview team member saw the whole thing.

Today we were getting ready to begin the interview of an internal candidate. Once everyone was in the room, he tried to hug me! I immediately put up my arms and said "I'm not a hugger". I barely know this person. Who does that? And he hadn't tried to hug anyone else on the team. Just me.

In summary: a handshake at the beginning and end of the interview is fine. Other than that, hands off the recruiter, especially if she's me.

3, 2, 1,dine!

3- yesterday I made 3 meals from scratch

2 of these meals featured new recipes

Breakfast was french toast made from Chocolate Chip Panettone

Why, yes, it was delicious. Thanks for asking.


For lunch I prepared ginger shrimp. I served it with rice and mixed veggies.

1- it was 1 delicious day

Lunch inspired by Rachael Ray

When I saw this Thai Curry with Shrimp recipe in Rachael Ray's magazine, I immediately flagged it as "must try". My mom had prepared it recently and I loved it, plus it looked quite easy to make. Sunday I tried it. Here's the finished product:

It was fast and simple to prepare. The only changes I made were to delete the scallions and exchange the green curry paste for red. This is going in the repeat file for sure.

Why the hiring process moves at a glacial pace

Every wonder why the hiring process tends to take beyond forever? This article by the Evil HR Lady does a great job of explaining the factors behind that reality.

Two more reasons I'd like to add based on my own recruiting experience:

1. Managers who take forever to choose candidates for interviews

I have had managers take weeks to select which candidates they want to interview. To me, the length of time it takes you to complete this step is directly proportional to how badly you really need to fill the position.

2. Managers who take forever to select their chosen candidate from the interviews

Our normal process is at the conclusion of the last interview for a position, the interview team discusses all the interviewees and identifies up to the top 3 candidates. However, sometimes hiring managers take forever to make this decision. We have a position for which interviews occurred a month ago, and there has still not been a decision made. It is maddening, and to me a indication that the hiring manager really doesn't need to fill this spot.

There can be benefits of being sick

I recently got over what is probably the longest lasting illness I've ever had. Far from the most severe, it was still a far from pleasant experience. However, in the spirit of turning lemons into lemonade, I did notice a few good things that can come from being sick.

1. You don't spend any money (except for medicine & co-pays)

When a trip from the couch to the bathroom every few hours is at the absolute max of your physical abilities, your opportunities (and desire) for spending are severely reduced. I did break down and actually go to the doctor, but thanks to good insurance at this job and HSA money from 2 jobs ago, that was pretty financially painless.

2. You lose weight

I went over 24 hours without eating. In my family if you go off your feed for any significant time, something is seriously wrong, For a long time after that, I had very minimal appetite. Thank goodness for Clif bars. I pretty much lived on those for a while.

3. You appreciate health

Last week I was leaving a meeting room to get a candidate to bring into the interview room. On the way out, I twirled. I told the rest of the interview team I did it because I could. Dizziness had been my worst symptom during my incapacitation, and I truly appreciated being to move around in any way I chose without fearing I would topple to the ground at any time.

It's probably time to work on that

I recently had a bit of downtime at work, so I thought I'd actually read some of our employee handbook. As an HR person I thought it might be a good idea to have an idea of some of the things it said.

I hadn't read very far when I found something that wasn't right. I asked one of our long term staff members about it. What she told me blew my mind. The last time our company completely revised its handbook was 1998. Yes, you read that right. It seems there was another complete redo ready to go in 2011, but that was shelved due to an organization wide audit that was in process. Since then, internal memos are circulated that have changed the procedures, but the handbook itself, aka what is on our internal website and what is provided to our employees, is woefully outdated. A revision is on the to do list, but pressing day to day work must be done first.

I have to say I've never seen anything quite like this. The HR manager for my former long term employer would be aghast. We had multiple changes to our handbook every year. The situation at my current employer is certainly not optimal. It's probably time to dedicate someone to work on this exclusively until its done. Nearly 20 years between revisions is far too long.

I think we all have this person at our work

I heard a great quote this week from one of our managers. He was talking about an employee who is on the chatty side. He described the person to me this way- "He has more stories than Mother Goose". I loved it. I think every workplace has at least one of these individuals in its employ.

You know it's bad when

I've written previously about how my boss is not very time oriented. Well, this week she was telling us how one of her kids has no sense of time. They went to the daughter's house for Christmas. Dinner was scheduled for 6 PM. They ended up eating at 8:45 PM. My boss said that is typical for this daughter.

You know it's bad when your non-time conscious parent talks about how horrible you are at being on time.

When people are the cause of their own hurt feelings

One of our managers was eating breakfast at his desk this morning when one of his direct reports came to him and said "my feelings were hurt because I didn't get an interview for X position." The manager said his jaw dropped. He told the employee he would check into the situation and get back with him. Upon checking, the reason his jaw dropped was confirmed. The person didn't get an interview because he didn't apply for the position. Funny how that works.

This was the 2nd interview for an opening with this title in the last month. The jobs are on different shifts and were posted separately.  Thus, applying for the first opening has nothing to do with the interview process for the second one. We did end up filling the 2nd position with someone who was also in the candidate pool for the first position, but the key is this person applied for both position. If you want the job, you need to make people are aware of that fact by turning in the required paperwork.

As my mom likes to say "Being a manager would be great if you managed robots."

Physician, heal thy self

One of the things I quickly noted at my new job is that we did a very poor job of staying on time for candidate interviews. We would start late and run over frequently. I immediately determined that once I was in charge of scheduling interviews myself that I would make a concerted effort to improve our punctuality. I had a couple of reasons for this. First, I am task/time oriented person. I hate it when things don't run on time. Second, and more importantly, not being on time presents a poor impression of the organization to our candidates. As I have often said, the candidates' time is more valuable than mine. I am getting paid to attend the interviews. They aren't. They've had to rearrange their days, often on the sly, to be there. I thus want to respect their time.

I am happy to report that our on time performance has markedly improved. However, would you like to guess which area is the worst at this? My mom got it in one- HR. Yes, physician heal thyself. It drives me crazy. You would think it would be the department I could most readily get to achieve timeliness, but counter intuitively it's not. I like my boss, but I have found she is not good at estimating how long tasks will take to complete. She tends to allow significantly less time than things actually require. Unfortunately I can't as readily call out her and her boss (the HR director) when they run over. I just have to tolerate it. Thankfully, our department is now fully staffed, so we hopefully won't have to do any more interviews for our area any time soon.

I see what's going on

A couple weeks ago we were doing interviews for one of my company's openings. One of the candidates had a well done resume that reflected the experience and skills we were seeking. I was hopeful he would be a strong candidate based on this. When we started speaking with him, it became apparent this would not be the case. The job history he gave us did not match what his resume said, a huge red flag and something the rest of the interview team noted after the interview was over. In addition, he didn't discuss the skills he had listed on his resume. He did, however, bring a list of questions that were very good. Based on my own job history, I figured out what was going on, and I shared my theory with the interview team after the candidate left.

One of the things all candidates provide at the interview is a form listing how they heard of the job. His said the local career center. I worked for my state's career center for 2 years, and therefore I was able to put the pieces together. He had worked with someone at the career center, and that person had prepared his resume and given him the questions to ask. You could just tell he didn't do those himself. It's fine (and highly desirable) to have a qualified person help you with your resume. But, it needs to be written by you and really reflect your experience and skills. It is painfully obvious when it doesn't.

My hunch was confirmed last week when I got a call from a staff member of the career center asking how this candidate did. I told her the fact that his stated job experience did not match his resume was a huge flag for us. I did compliment the questions that he asked. I also shared that I had been a career coach in a previous occupational life and that her services are definitely needed by job seekers in our area.

You never know when skills from a previous job will pay off in another job, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Tales HR people tell

As in any profession, HR people like to trade stories of the crazy things they've seen. This week I heard one that's immediately gone to my top 10 list.

An employee turned in a request to add his newborn son to his insurance at work. Shortly thereafter, the benefits administrator received another request to add the child, but the birth date was slightly different. She requested documentation to see which date was correct. It turned out both were. The man had sons born to two different women less than a month apart, and both kids were given the same name.

HR is seldom a boring gig, and it certainly has its entertaining moments.

Differences in Leadership

Snow was expected in our region last Wednesday. The day before the head of my company sent an e-mail to remind all employees that due to the nature of our business, our company doesn't close. He advised employees they needed to make plans to arrive on time, for example, leaving our homes earlier than usual. He also informed employees if they didn't come in they would need to use vacation time.

We ended up getting some snow, but it's wasn't too bad. Roads were decent as long as you drove slowly enough. However, the CEO of a family member's company, who lives 2 miles from work, never made it to work all day. He is employed by a healthcare business, which is also a 24/7 operation that doesn't close. There's a slight difference in leadership mentality between my CEO and my relative's.

Do you see the irony here?

During time between interviews Tuesday, the members of the interview team were chatting among ourselves. We were discussing dealing with difficult people, and I mentioned my oft-expressed observation that some people have never learned that you get better results by being nice to people than by being rude. When the hiring manager of the position for which we were interviewing strongly agreed with me, it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. She is extremely difficult, and there is no love lost between my team and hers. One of the reasons she has 3 openings on her team right now according to my boss is "people are trying to get away from her." Yes, there's definitely some irony there. As my parents told us "we don't always see ourselves as others see us."

2015- the year in review

The beginning of a new year often leads to reflection on the preceding one, and that occurred with me the past few days. Here's how I would summarize 2015:

It was the year of job change

I started two new jobs in less than 3 months. Each was a huge improvement over the job before it, and I have no regrets about the path I took. I'm finally in a position that I feel will challenge me and allow me to learn for the long term. Making significantly more money doesn't hurt either.

It was the year of renewed friendships

I reconnected with several friends this year. That has been really nice.

It was a good year for travel

I was able to take 5 trips this year, and they were all great. I got to see two new places, D.C. and Mackinac Island, and revisit 3 others that I've enjoyed before. Travel is a huge passion of mine, so this was very rewarding.

As with every year, 2015 did bring some bad moments. Overall, though, it was a good one.

Best wishes for a happy, safe, prosperous 2016 to everyone.