Recuit or Die: The Kids Think You’re as Old as Dirt Anyway
Recruit or Die. Okay, it’s not quite that dire, but the book by that name was an interesting read this week. The book was described this way:
RECRUIT OR DIE: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent — the first front-line look at the entry-level college recruiting game. In the book, the authors share dozens of recruiting anecdotes that demonstrate the way successful recruiters are working their magic, as well as showing how not-so-successful recruiters are blowing it.
The authors know what they’re talking about. Chris Resto heads up MIT’s largest professional development and internship program, the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program; Ian Ybarra is a recent MIT grad; and Ramit Sethi is a recent Stanford grad and Web 2.0 entrepreneur. They’ve seen them all come and go. And they have stories to tell.
Want to dazzle prestige recruits? Forget the pizza parties say the authors of Recruit or Die — you’d better show them your senior people, what they’ll be doing, and where they’ll be doing it. And you’d better be interested in working with the placement offices all year. The big three in prestige recruiting — McKinsey, Microsoft and Goldman Sachs — do it. They dazzle their candidates. And they get the best ones.
One big lesson from the book: The great companies not only go after the best people and get them, they are great places to be from. That’s how college recruits are thinking these days. Note to managers: Young people are not planning to spend their life at your shop. So make it good while they’re with you and a good place to be from. Then you’ll get the superstars.
Recruit or Die
by Chris Resto, Ian Ybarra, and Ramit Sethi
Published by Portfolio; August 2007
ISBN 978-1-59184-161-6
B&N, Amazon
One Foot Out the Door: Required Reading for HR Strategists
Short review: If you’re an HR strategist, buy One Foot Out the Door right away. Go ahead…I’ll wait.
Okay, You’re Back
You know how there are so many business books written that have a sorta-kinda clever phrase that they spend an entire book trying to pound into your head? Or when a good article gets stretched to make it book length? I hate wasting my time with that kind of stuff. So, when I read “Psychological Recession” on the cover of this book I was worried. Then I started reading. Worries allayed. Big time.
A Definition of Psychological Recession
Author Judith Bardwick outlines “Psychological Recession” this way:
Definition: A Psychological Recession is an emotional state in which people feel extremely vulnerable to economic hardship, leading to a dour view of the present and an even bleaker view of the future, which more often is not based on current reality. This gloomy mindset reinforces people’s perception of the world as a risky place in which they have little or no control. Anxiety, depression, and a sense of being powerless are a poisonous mix.
In an era when people are talking about employee engagement and commitment, Psychological Recession works to counter those ideas. Layoffs and the lack of job stability (we all know people who have been out of work) add up to a real problem.
Required Reading for HR Strategists
If you’re an HR strategist, you need to read this book. Dr. Bardwick, who was a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, did the workplace research for you and presents facts and figures from dozens of seminal employee motivation studies. You could pay a consulting firm a ton of money to compile this information, or you could just plop down 20 bucks and have it one convenient volume.
I don’t say this lightly, but if you’re in HR and don’t read this book you’re really missing out. (I’ve felt that way about Bob Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule and Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. They’re essential reading.)
Free Webinar on Oct. 24
AMA is offering a free webcast on Oct. 24, 2007 for One Foot Out the Door where Judith Bardwick will discuss her book. Click here to register.
One Foot Out the Door: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business
Publisher: AMACOM
Pub. Date: October 2007
ISBN-13: 9780814480588
Amazon. B&N.
Mass Career Customization
I studied mass communication in grad school, which was right around the time that mass communication was declared dead. Enter the internet, 500 television channels, satellite radio, and video mashups and what do you have? Mass customization.
That’s what’s going in in careers, too, according to the authors of Mass Career Customization. Cathy Benko and Anne Weisberg, both principals at Deloitte, lay out what they call an “MCC” strategy. In effect, MCC is a structured way to look at a spectrum of a career, which may have its ups and downs along the way depending on where an employee is along his or her career lifespan.
The authors spend a lot of time up front beating the business case drum for MCC, and by Chapter 4 define it:
MCC is centered on a view that, increasingly, the career journey of may employees in the knowledge-driven organization of the twenty-first century will look similar to a sine wave of sorts, with climbing and falling phases. …[SNIP] The customized, undulating path requires and ongoing collaboration between the organization as a whole, the manager, and the employee.
Basically, MCC recognizes and puts a framework around a career reality: Priorities change over time. As people mature and their personal situations change, their priorities change.
MCC as a concept is interesting, and it’s been tested in a few organizations, namely the authors’ own company, Deloitte, along with SAS, Ogilvy & Mather, and law firm Arnold & Porter. It’s a structured framework to discuss career paths in what Benko and Weisberg call a “lattice organization” as opposed to a “ladder organization.”
The drawing at the right is the framework for MCC. It includes career dimensions of Pace, Workload, Location/Schedule, and Role. You can try out an interactive exercise for your own career trajectory by clicking here.
Mass Career Customization is thought-provoking read and offers a structured way for people in talent acquisition to discuss the totality of careers with both employees and managers. MCC works when managers and employees both understand the “rules.” Applied right, MCC could become the Balanced Scorecard of talent management.
Ordering Info:
Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce
Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg
Harvard Business School Press 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-1033-1
Fire Them Up!
I heard from Carmine Gallo, a reknowned communication coach, a few weeks ago. He said that he had a new book coming out called Fire Them Up!. Carmine had interviewed 25 company leaders and distilled their communication lessons down to ‘7 Simple Secrets.’ I was intrigued.
So, I was delighted when a copy arrived in my mailbox this week. Fire Them Up! (Amazon, B&N) not only came as a red-covered book, but there was also a set of matches as a marketing reminder. Fire them up, indeed.
And Carmine delivers. Fire Them Up! has hot ideas about employee motivation. It’s a quick read with lots of examples and illustrations about what works in some of the best companies in America, including The Ritz Carlton, Cranium, Apple, Cold Stone Creamery, and Disney. Carmine has talked to them all, and has great stories that back up his 7 Simple Secrets to “inspire colleagues, customers and clients; sell yourself, your vision and your values; and communicate with charisma and confidence.”
I really enjoyed Fire Them Up! and got quite a few pointers. I love stories, and Carmine wrote those with the passion that he put into the entire book. Fire Them Up! is a must read for leaders who want to know about communicating with impact. And the book is one of those that can be sampled and read over along the lines of Thriving On Chaos, which is always a good book outline for me. Quick, easy, actionable stories work.
The 4-Hour Workweek
I’d like to work four hours a week. Heck, I’d like to work a 4-hour day on Sunday, the day when most people are supposed to be off.
It’s why The 4-Hour Workweek has intrigued me. The funny thing is that I haven’t’ even read it yet (it arrives in my bookstore on April 24) but I’ve been talking about it all week. I’d like a breather every once in a while…and I’d guess your employees would too.
When I think about why people work, it reminds me of that old consulting joke that goes like this: Read more
-
-
SUBSCRIBE
-
-
-
