Vivo

I broke code again today – for a good reason. I did it to help a friend.  I don’t like to give away secrets of our trade – the dastardly doings of recruiting professionals. What does a “you’ll be moving forward” really mean? When is a smile and nod really more of a “no way, no how?”, etc. But, I broke code today and let a friend in on the Secret of Geographic Undesirability.

It’s no secret that we don’t like those who are geographically undesirable.  Whether you are looking at a new house or dating, hiring an employee or considering a career move yourself, it’s not actually a secret that distance can create a serious emotional barrier, in addition to the obvious physical one. So, where was the big recruiting secret? How did I break code?

I explained to my friend, that his geographic limitations could cost me my client.

You see, I want to believe you, dear candidate, when you tell me you’re up for an hour-plus commute. I want to accept at face value that if the opportunity is awesome, you will drive. I mean, why would you lie? Let’s move forward, right? Well, here’s the problem. You are not likely to take this geographically undesirable opportunity – if offered – if you are able to secure a closer opportunity. In fact, in our experience, you are likely to turn down the faraway offer if you are merely interviewing for closer opportunities. The bird in hand argument does not have a chance when up against the murderous commute.

So, how this goes down for recruiting folks, is as follows:  We present our fabulous candidate (you). We convince our hiring manager that you are fine with the commute – her obvious first concern when she saw your address. When you ultimately turn down the offer – and trust me you are likely to do just that – you send a beautifully written note explaining that the commute was just too difficult. You see, you believe you are preserving a relationship. You know your path – and that of the  hiring manager – will likely cross again. So, you will blame the commute distance in your ultimate declination.

Unfortunately, our client will fire us. We are expected to vet this upfront. We knew where you lived, and where the employer is located. So, how is it only now, after rounds of interviewing that we learn this is a problem for you? We can’t tell the truth – that you assured us that the problem was nonexistent. We can’t imply that you lied or misled. Because again, why do they need a recruiter who would have missed such obvious signs.

It is easier not to pursue your candidacy from the start.

Lest I leave you mad at the lack of control on your part, if you are in the one per cent of folks who like a long commute, I will leave you with some steps you can take to remain in consideration in situations such as these:

1. Point to long stints with equally long commutes. “Please see the position at ABC on my resume. I commuted 60 miles each way for over 3 years and only left that position when the company shut down operations…”
2. Let me know if you have friends or relatives with whom you can stay two or three days per week.
3. Let me know if you would consider relocating to be closer to your job, if you like it.
4. Point to examples of you having moved closer to your jobs, in similar situations.

In other words, know and acknowledge the fear and then work to truthfully assuage all doubts. Otherwise, we’ll file you in the Geographically Undesirable category, and you may not know it.

The first judgment an interviewer makes is going to be based on how you look and what you are wearing so don’t get left in the dust…

Click here to check out our quick and easy guide.

Join the many who will be participating in this year’s Turkey Trot race 2011.

Our very own employee, Judy Tang just completed her first half marathon, the Big Sur in Monterey Bay.  However, if you are looking to start small, try out a Turkey Trot that has the option of a 10k or 5k run this Thanksgiving!

Some staff will be participating in Silicon Valley’s 2011 Turkey Trot in San Jose, but you can get involved yourself by signing up today at a local Turkey Trot near you by visiting www.active.com.  Search: Turkey Trot.

WE Magazine featured CEO Marilyn Weinstein’s article “7 Tips for Workshifting” http://wemagazineforwomen.com/7-tips-for-workshifting/ in which she shares her thoughts on the newly coined term as well as some suggestions for making it work.

 Maybe law school wasn’t such a great idea.

 Those who know me know I’m not the best when it comes to using common phrases. I either mix metaphors, or misuse a euphemism – usually to my horror and the delight of my audience.

 Last week I was consulting with a client who is striving to derive more value from its vendors.  A few minutes into the discussion, I asked, “how are you, as a business, defining ‘value’”?  This proved far trickier than everyone in the room had believed it would be. So, always the queen of appropriate, I mentioned how this reminded me of the Supreme Court’s definition of “pornography”.

 Now, all of my former law school classmates would nod emphatically here, but, it was odd how quickly the room was silenced by the thought of comparing anything to pornography.

 If you’re not part legal geek like I, it’s probably still hard to comprehend how this sounded remotely appropriate in a high level IT strategy session. See, the US Supreme Court defines pornography as, “I know it when I see it.”  In other words, they can’t exactly define it. They can’t agree in advance as to all the attributes a piece of work must have to be considered pornographic. However, the justices decided that when something rises to the level, they know it. The same seemed to be true for my client as it struggled to define “value”.

 We laughed, we erased inappropriate imagery from our heads, and we continued on a more appropriate path to define some workable standards for what was, and was not, “value”.  And I continue to search for more appropriate analogies for next time.

 Ultimately, we defined value in many ways for this particular client.  For offshore software development vendors, we factored pricing and technical capabilities into the mix. For US-based managed service vendors – Vivo included – we looked at price, quality and adherence to SLAs on the tangible side, and then ease of engagement on the more intangible side. Finally, accountability and a true sense of “partnership” went into the definition of “value” across all vendors.  Intangibles are, of course, harder to define. But again, we all agreed: we know value when we see it.

One of the easiest and most successful ways to increase professional opportunities is through networking.  Networking is making connections with people who can help you or whom you can help in the future.  Think of it as a means of building relationships.

While you are looking for a new career opportunity, that process becomes your full-time job until you have “landed”.  What I mean by this is every day make a plan to attend a networking event, sign up for a free forum or discussion board membership and email or call everyone you have ever worked with including peers, sub-ordinates and managers and schedule a lunch appointment or a coffee meeting.   Try to limit networking with other unemployed people because they are not likely to be in a position to help you.

Get your business cards ready and be sure to bring them with you to events. Create an email or forum signature to append to your online comments and be sure to include a link back to your website or other contact information.  Keep an eye on your local professional organizations for events in your area. For virtual networking, check Yahoo! Groups for one that falls within your interests, and look around for forums or bulletin boards where you can share information with other users. And of course, don’t forget online networking leader LinkedIn.

Networking is not easy for many of us. It feels even more difficult once you are unemployed, because you may begin to feel like you have less to offer to the persons with whom you are networking.  The only answer here is to stay relevant.  Stay connected to your profession by reading, writing, and commenting on industry blogs and forums, and by remembering to ask your connections to walk you through the business problems they are currently facing.  See yourself as a current leader and subject matter expert, and others will too – irrespective of the paycheck (or lack thereof).

Despite the increasing rise in outsourcing of many noncore business processes, there is one area in which the reverse is true: e-discovery.   As this  article notes, more and more companies are bringing e-discovery in-house.

Why In-house?

What we have found in our e-discovery practice, is that e-discovery “outsourcing” is not what is traditionally considered true outsourcing. Usually, when one thinks of outsourcing a process, it is to gain efficiencies, bring down costs, and/or to have an end-to-end solution – avoiding the need to build one from scratch.  In the e-discovery world, the vendors cannot deliver on at least two out of three of these common goals. First, there is no end-to-end solution. Presently, there are solutions that handle at least one major process, such as keyword search, deduplication, data culling, searching e-mail, IMs and unstructured file system data, but no one solution for all.  Then, there is the cost of administration.  Each vendor/solution provider has costly resources who can be deployed at a high hourly rate. However, the hourly rate, rate is often 2 times or more the rate of an in-house resource. As a result, many companies use these resources sparingly, and only when faced with a subpoena.

Finally, there’s the question of whether this can actually be fully outsourced. The information must stand up in court.  Some amount of in-house expertise is necessary, as the company’s data collection, retention, and destruction processes and procedure are often under fire as part of the legal proceedings.

Who Should be Concerned?

Many companies are hit with such high costs of e-discovery due to the “surprise” of litigation.  We have had clients actually tell us, “we do not litigate”, therefore they have not begun to think about e-discovery. We urge clients to consider the ramifications of a lawsuit – employment dispute, IP litigation, etc., as part of the holistic view of data storage.  For our clients, the upfront efforts, and the inclusion of “data  collection and production” in their business requirements, has made the process less costly and time-consuming down the road as if and when they are asked to produce hundreds of terabytes of data or face fines for failing to do so.

Having provided client-side resources for several similar projects, I read this analysis of Marin County’s decision to walk away from the $30 million it has dumped into its SAP implementation, with interest.

It is certainly not the first “failed” ERP implementation we have seen.  Just this week, our CEO delivered a presentation on controlling Fixed Price engagements, which explored this very topic.  But, as the author of this article suggests, it would appear that the decision to walk away from SAP seems more like a legal tactic than a business one.

This seems to be the same conclusion drawn by Mark F. O’Connor, CEO and co-founder of Monadnock Research , whom the author quotes, as saying, “[t]he Marin Information Systems and Technology group appears to have concluded that fixing the Deloitte-installed SAP application will cost nearly 25 percent more over a ten-year period than buying, modifying, implementing, and migrating data over to a new system in a protracted multi-phase project, during which time they would continue to operate the SAP environment concurrently, until going live on the respective new system modules”. That conclusion seems implausible to me.

The Marin/Deloitte project seemed to have suffered from what we see over and over when we are brought in after a project has gone significantly off track – or when a client is dissatisfied with its outsourcing provider.  Too much has been outsourced.   It is not plug and play in any sense of the word, and it is essential that everyone align expectations accordingly.  Mr. O’Connor said it best in this article: “Responsibility without authority, … always yields outcomes similar to what we see here in complex systems projects. There are literally thousands of important decisions that need be made by client staff during an implementation—while they continue to do their day jobs.”

“I am out here for you.  You don’t know what it’s like to be ME out here for YOU.  It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?” -Jerry Maguire to Rod Tidwell, (Jerry Maguire, 1996)

So, it’s a bit dramatic; however, at some point, every seasoned Project Manager must find themselves muttering similar sentiments.

A memo to Project Sponsors, on behalf of your Sr. Project Manager…

Top performing Project Managers WANT to be responsible for driving your critical projects through to completion on time and within budget.  They’re a highly accountable lot.  It’s in their DNA.  Truth be told, it’s also in their job description.

Experienced Project Managers do their best to ensure a solid foundation for success.  They strive to understand business objectives and requirements.  They diligently weigh a scope-of-work against timelines, resources and budgets.  If everything is in order, they commit to you, “yes, we can make this happen”.

So what five scenarios can leave your Sr. Project Manager mumbling Maguire’s words, “I don’t believe this.  How’d I get myself into this”?

1. Support from the Project Sponsor wanes or the Project Sponsor departs altogether
2. The Project Sponsor ends-up having minimal ability to influence the organization
3. Scope-of-work changes but timelines, resources and budgets remains the same
4. Promised resources are unavailable when needed or reallocated mid-project
5. Budget was never fully approved or is redirected during the course of project delivery

As a Project Sponsor, please simply keep these five scenarios in mind if you want to keep your best Project Managers most effective.  On behalf of your Sr. Project Manager, “Help me…help you.  Help me, help you”.

Everyone wants feedback.  At Vivo, we will give candidates as much constructive feedback as we are given.  However, not all clients give us feedback to pass on.  So, we’ve compiled some of the more typical comments we hear for those times when the candidate swears she “aced it”. Each of the 3 are subtle – and rarely go noticed by the candidate.  Which are you guilty of?

(1) The candidate was not passionate about the industry/company. In almost every interview, the candidate is asked something about why she or he wants the position.  This seems to be the “break time” for many candidates. The filler. A chance to get a sip of water, while the interviewer queues up more interesting questions.  What the candidates seem to forget, is that companies want employees – and even consultants – who feel strongly about them, and the industry in general.  Before the interview, research the company and the industry trends and give an answer that suggests you have a vested interest in working there not just anywhere.

(2) Overrated. Literally.  If you rate yourself an “8 out of 10” in something, you’d better have written a book on it.  This is the most common trap interviewers seem to love. We recommend not using numerical ratings.

(3) Inconsistencies. Inconsistencies are more than just “he didn’t do everything he said on his resume”. That would be easy to cure.  It’s more than that – it’s answers that do not support previous statements. Example, the candidate is asked what she likes about project management, and says she “loves the fast pace”.  When the next interviewer comes in, he asks “why are you leaving XYZ company?” and she answers, “the pace is frenetic and I’m burning out.”  When the two interviewers talk later, they disqualify the candidate for “inconsistencies”.

Now, you’ll note that this candidate had a very good explanation.  By “frenetic” she meant disorganized – fast, but with no direction.  But, not noting the potential inconsistency, and happy that her interviewer had smiled and nodded at her, she let that statement stand alone.  By thinking through and even practicing answers to common questions (What do you enjoy about this kind of work? Why are you leaving your present position? Etc.), she may have heard the potential inconsistency.  Simply answering “after a year there, I realize that they are not likely to put any meaningful structure in place for their project management approach, and I’m watching everyone around me burn out as a result” would have negated the “inconsistent” label.