Vivo

I am in proud, sequined possession of two Lady Gaga concert tickets for her performance in San Jose this coming January 17. That being said, I am doing all things Gaga: wearing her T-shirts, streaming her music on Pandora, following her on Facebook. As I immerse myself in this diva’s world, it dawned on me that I could learn a thing or two about interviews from her since she is one of the most sought after interviewees in the world.

Keep in mind, I interview candidates for my clients every day. As I compare their sometimes good, sometimes obnoxious, sometimes relevant, sometimes rambling answers to Gaga’s, I’ve observed that this music and fashion icon knows a thing or two about preparation and fielding questions. These are the top nine things I learned from Lady Gaga about giving a good interview.

1. Research the company and interviewers in advance. Hopefully, you’re interviewing for a job that you want to do with a company you want to work for. But how will you know if you don’t look into both? Read up on the company itself by browsing its website, news releases, and what’s being said in the market about its products and its competitors. Use LinkedIn to get some background info on the people you’ll be meeting with to find out what you have in common so you can draw upon that in conversation. A world-famous singer doesn’t happen to give a good performance. She knows her craft, studies it, practices, and delivers!
2. Be on time. In Gaga’s case this means gracing the cover of a specific magazine. In yours, it means arriving for your appointment five to ten minutes prior to your interview. Give yourself that extra time to sign in, take a deep breath, and get comfortable in your surroundings.
3. Turn off your mobile phone. Ringers, dings, vibrations, texts, tweets, and flashing displays are all distracting. Don’t do yourself the disservice of getting off-track. Instead, leave your cellie in the car or turn it completely off. In a hit song Gaga says “Stop calling! Stop calling! I don’t want to talk any more!” Tell your friends and family you will be offline while you’re interviewing.
4. Be yourself, but behave according to your audience. For a conversation with Barbara Walters, Gaga wore a classic Chanel suit. When she performed at the MTV movie awards, she donned a black onesy and spurted fake blood on herself. Represent who you are, but keep it professional for this setting.
5. Give examples. Hiring managers are not looking for “yes” and “no” answers. Expand on your initial direct “yes” or “no” with an example, anecdote, or description. If you make the interviewer carry the entire conversation and force you to explain terse answers one by one they’ll become bored, frustrated, and find you less than personable. But….  Do not ramble! While it is ok for a loved celebrity to talk freely about her hometown, fashion preferences or causes, you need to keep your explanations tied to the question at hand and work-related. You’re there to earn a job, not a date. If you need more on this topic, see Vivo’s April 25 blog posting by Marilyn Weinstein.
6. Do not lie. Even though my girl says “I hate the truth so much that I’d rather have a giant dose of bulls**t anyday,” interviewers want the truth about your skill set and career history. And with everyone connected and everything online these days, they’ll find it whether you tell them or not.
7. Do ask questions. Ten out of ten times an interviewer will ask if you have any questions for them. Of course you do! You prepared them in advance of the interview while you were researching the company (see item 1). They should be on the tip of your tongue, relevant, and show that you do care about your career and where you spend your professional energies. There’s no way a rockstar is going to play a concert at the dog park across the street from my house. She’s going to book the HP Pavilion…. On January 17 (YAY!). So show your audience the gig and the venue matter to you.
8. Be confident. According to the woman herself, “When I wake up in the morning, I feel like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say, ‘Bitch, you’re Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.”
9. Send a thank you note or email. You’ve likely taken a good hour of your interviewer’s time, and if he/she is looking to hire it means too much work exists there already and not enough time during the day to do it. So show that you appreciate his/her sharing part of the workday with you. Even better, include a reference to something that was discussed during the interview to indicate you were paying attention and that you remain interested in pursuing the opportunity. Lady Gaga constantly tell her fans how much she loves her millions of “Little Monsters.” Surely you can take a few minutes to appreciate a few Hiring Managers.

There you have it. Your career is not going to happen to you. You must design it with thought and decision and take the job search seriously, every high-heeled dance step of the way.

Keep in mind, I come from a compliance background. I represent(ed) the organization hired, in part, to eliminate corruption and fraud in the contingent staffing world.  Many of my clients had heard of this rampant practice – or possibly suspected of its pervasiveness in their own organization – in considering a VMS program in the first place. So, suffice it to say, I have no firsthand experience with this practice.

“What practice?” you ask. Payola. Bribery. Under-the-table-payments.  Managers and directors at large enterprises who are in some way paid cash for each resource they bring on board. The contingent worker or his agency pays the manager some amount of money, per hour or per deal.

“They” say it is rampant in Silicon Valley. “They” have told us that it’s why we can’t break in to certain companies (but – they’d be happy to find us a willing manager who will change all of that for us.)  They are part of the ecosystem, or have friends who are. A company that pays $150 and a worker who makes $50, with an agency’s mark up, and two to three managers, all sharing the delta. These purchasing agents are buying staffing services from their buddies at inflated prices and receiving a kickback for their trouble. So what’s the harm? The company pays more than it should, the worker makes less than he should, and I can’t get a foot in the door to do business where this fraud exists.

How long has this been going on in the Valley? It appears to have started a decade ago following the .com massacre. What may have started as a prospect accepting a dinner or gift basket from a sales rep is a far cry from the practice of secretly receiving a lucrative financial payout.  The former exists where compliance is required with company policies and actual laws. The latter is just plain Soprano-style bribery and it occurs as remuneration for the performance of an act – one that is inconsistent with what that manager (given some vendor-selection discretion) is supposed to be doing. This is the crooked stuff where a lot of money changes hands behind the scenes and nothing prevents it if you have two willing players. A lot of recruiters have been “enticed” by internal hiring managers who want a piece of the action. It starts out with some sly remark about “Wow, I have made you a lot of money this month. Seems you owe me a champagne dinner and some 49ers tickets (nudge, nudge).” From there, who knows? I can only guess at the various ways in which these payouts occur. But purposefully steering a contractor hire through one “friendly” agency and getting a cash payout for undermining the interests of one’s own employer is as shady as outright embezzlement.

Can we curtail this unethical behavior? Sure, there’s always termination of the hiring manager by his company and the filing of theft and fraud charges. It is for this reason that many companies and governmental agencies have come up with rules to guide employees in the treacherous terrain of accepting gifts and amenities. For those that prefer the payoff rather than adhere to the rules, how many get caught? What can I do about it? No one wants to name names.

If you’re a hiring manager, play fair. If you’re a company policy decision maker, document the rules and punish those who break them by making greedy deals that cost the company. If you’re a staffing agency soliciting bribes, I hope it catches up with you. You wouldn’t be the first to get slammed for it upon discovery, and you won’t be the last.

I bet you thought you owned your own resume, right?

We can review legalities, technical implications, and talk about limited licenses, rights to use, etc., but ultimately, I’m quite certain candidates believe it is actually they who own their resumes – not the agency with whom they interacted, or the company to whom they applied.

Well, guess again.

In the staffing world, corporate recruiters claim ownership of a resume that has entered it’s company’s Applicant Tracking System (“ATS”), cutting off all others’ rights to represent you. Similarly, the first contracted staffing vendor to submit your resume to a corporation generally wins ownership rights, irrespective of your actual desire to be represented by the company of your choice.

So what’s wrong with that?  Well, in theory, there’s nothing wrong with a company owning your resume. They process it, screen you, a hiring manager interviews you, and you get hired. But, what happens when the vendor submits you? Or – worse yet – the company-employee-friend-of-yours forwards your profile to their internal HR corporate staffing group in an attempt to garner the company referral bonus?  Well, now you learn firsthand the pitfalls of “ownership”. Here, the company can move forward. If HR tells its employee they have your resume in their system, no matter how it arrived there or how long ago, the employee will not earn her referral bonus. She’d be upset, as she knows perfectly well it was her referral that prompted any interviews. She knows this resume was sitting untouched in an un-mined ATS. You know you want this employee friend to “own” your resume – but the company says no. At this juncture, you really need not think more about this – as the process will halt without explanation and without recourse. No one will tell you why. The company will not be hiring you. For them, it is best to avoid the internal conflict, so best to avoid you.

The same scenario plays out with the agency who is presenting your resume to their client and your prospective employer. Though you have given this agency permission to be your advocate, and have little to no recollection of ever having submitted your profile to this company’s HR posse through other means, there is now a question of ownership. It’s best to avoid you altogether. Plus, you appear “overly shopped around”, and therefore less desirable.

So, what’s the solution? Heck if I know. I’m just here to turn your world upside down.

I love getting to know my clients!

In recent weeks I’ve spent time reviewing Vivo’s customer portfolio, understanding how these partnerships were created, and defining criteria and methodology by which to measure how well we are servicing each one. My favorite part of this discovery process – meeting our clients face to face.

Last week I joined our Managing Director for meetings and lunch with our client hiring managers at a Silicon Valley healthcare company. This group of senior IT professionals is particularly creative, driven, focused, and believe in the products their company develops. Now I do as well.

My CEO says that she and our clients have a lot in common: they think they’re interesting and she thinks they’re interesting. If you’ve met Vivo, you know this to be absolutely true. We are genuinely intrigued by the individuals and companies we do business with.

Sitting with our client stakeholders last week while openly discussing their business goals, strategies, culture, product, and candidate’s wish list, made me value the understanding of resource needs and how to deliver strategic solutions.  In addition, this company’s meaningful contribution to cancer research and treatment makes me personally invested in their success. Knowing why their interview cycle is so thorough, how they define good communication, where they set their expectations in regard to technical ability, and how individuals should behave in their environment tells me who I am looking for in the candidate pool. I can now translate job requirements to recruiters and candidates in a meaningful, dynamic way. Today, I feel a personal obligation to ensure any candidate I put before them or project deliverables I agree to, will absolutely meet their expectations. I want to help them succeed on their terms.

Now, I realize that we’re not always so fortunate, and that many companies’ VMS provider or their HR, or Procurement departments sit between us and the “client”. When that is the case, those individuals must be considered our clients in every way no matter who the ultimate client may be. The key today is that there can be several individuals representing different departments within a company who have hiring authority or are stakeholders in the staffing process. It makes the process of getting to know our customers a little more challenging. But, a great VMS program manager/ recruiter/ procurement department often knows his or her clients as well as we do. So, we broaden our network and enjoy more relationships with a variety of workforce management personalities. Here again, our common interest – we like their client, and they like their client – helps us build relationships with each member of the hiring chain.

This past month, I crossed over to the dark side. I went from being the fox to the hen – from the “hall monitor” to the unruly 3^rd grader. Yes, I’ve gone from Vendor Management to Vendor.

Please check back as I reveal what I learn.  I’m excited about this new partnership and helping to expand Vivo’s relationships with our Vendor Managers and Vendor Management Systems. Our CEO, Marilyn Weinstein, says I spend all my time apologizing for their (former!) going-around-the-system ways. In truth, I think I spend my time building bridges and helping us and “them” work toward common goals that benefit client-VMS-agencies in a comprehensive fashion. There IS a circle of life in this process. I believe that if we can value the role one another plays as a symbiotic relationship, then everyone’s business flourishes.

Level the Playing Field.

When I traded in my Vendor Management uniform for a staffing team jersey, I made a switch from umpire to batter-up. I am no longer responsible for enforcing game rules or calling out strikes and fouls on my staffing vendors. From my new vantage point on the field, competing with other experienced agencies, I’m content on positioning myself well at the home plate, making a good play, and hitting a home run candidate hire! I enjoy the competition and I love the game…. Though as a hitter, while rounding the bases, what I find challenging is that we’re not on an even playing field.

This is where I see the issue: whilst IT hiring managers report to their own internal businesses and simply need their project/product staff augmentation needs met; Vivo can diligently provide those resources. The same client, though, has a procurement and/or HR organization that has put a VMS program in place that is designed to meet the client’s over-arching business goals. While it appears easy enough to align individual hiring manager needs with the company-wide workforce management objectives, it rarely is. We all know that within a mid to large corporation there can be an “us versus them” attitude between departments or business, and IT has a reputation for fostering that mindset. It can feel as though we’re a supplier trying to touch all the bases for the hiring manager depending on us without a VMS yelling “you’re out!” mid-way through our sprint.

My CEO is happy to play by all the VMS rules and hired me, in part, to ensure we’re able to do that. The frustration occurs when we become the only supplier working through the VMS while our competitors happily avoid the defined process and see success as a result. What occurs is this: Vivo accepts the system-generated requisition, submits candidates, and communicates with the VMS on-site. Competitors are aware of the reqs and go directly to the hiring managers for a direct fill. At this point the hiring manager pressures the VMS into accepting the pre-identified competitor candidate and awards the rogue vendor a contract and placement. In this scenario, Vivo plays by the rules not knowing the umpire is facilitating a whole other ballgame at the same time. Again, the manager only wants the job filled for his/her IT organization. The VMS reports to procurement or HR and has to capture the req, spend, and headcount. Vivo may follow the VMS rules, but the ultimate hire decision comes from Ms. Manager who may get the req in the VMS system at some point, but enjoys the trusted relationship s/he has with an agency. This leaves me in an odd position. Shall I stick with the VMS and hope that they and their procurement/HR sponsors can force all req’s to be competitively bid through their system? Or should I make sure I foster my own manager relationships with the client knowing those few direct placements are better than none, even if it means annoying the VMS? Where the VMS and client end users have differing agendas, how can we level the playing field and promote true competition for placements?

Tune in to find the answers to these questions in my next blog.