How to get hired?

A reader sent me an e-mail and a link to Jason Calacanis' article: How to Hire--and Get Hired in a Recession.

Calacanis advises the candidate to make it clear that you are a super hard worker. You keep up with the industry trends. You give your all to your company. He gives 8 questions he likes to ask.

1. Do you live to work or work to live?
2. Do you consider yourself a workaholic? Do you think there is anything wrong with being a workaholic?
3. Are you able to turn it off at 6 p.m. and on Friday for the weekend? You don't get obsessed by work, do you? (Trick question!)
4. Do you consider yourself a balanced person?
5. How would you feel if we all needed to come in on the weekend to make a deadline?
6. How would you feel if this happened two weekends in a row?
7. It's a tough time right now, and we're super short-staffed—how would you feel if I
asked you to cover for [insert job lower than candidate's experience] when they're on vacation?
8. Speaking of vacation, do you bring your BlackBerry and laptop with you to check in? Or do you like to unplug completely?

He gives examples of ideal answers to questions: ("Finally, I've made a philosophy of not leaving the office until my boss does…. I think that's the honorable thing to do.")

Readers, are, predictably, in totally disagreement. He's described as pompous and out of touch.

My reader, however, agrees with this position and asks me: "Am I crazy for appreciating the sense Jason makes in his article, or is he draconian as the readers make him out to be?"

My answer is yes. Jason makes sense and he is draconian. (And yippee for the chance to use the word "draconian" in a post. Twice. Although technically one is in a quote.)

Now, first of all, I want to work with hard working people. I don't want any slackers on the same team I am working on. I've had slackers and they are not appreciated. However, getting in before everyone else and leaving after everyone else does not make one a non-slacker.

Jason is confusing "hard work" for "long hours." He places a lot of emphasis on face time.

I think face time is important to your career. I also think results are more important. Yes, there is a correlation between lots of hours and high performance. But it's just a correlation, not necessarily a causation. We all know people who put in a ton of hours, but are slow in their actual work. They take too long on the wrong things.

I had a coworker once who would spend numerous hours writing detailed criticisms on the formatting of reports. (Change this to font sized 12. Increase the thickness of the line at column G. Widen column H by 2 points. Highlight row 4, except for column B. And so on and so forth. A one page Excel report could have 25 items she wanted changed. None of them substantive.) She worked long hours. But, writing up these criticisms (which changed every month, so you could never use last month's criticism as a guide for this month's report) took longer than making the changes herself ever could.

She was about as inefficient as the day was long. Yet, she could have answered the questions to this man's questions "correctly" and received a job offer. And she would have been the first in and the last to leave and gotten no more than half the work done that an efficient employee who worked an 8 hour day did.

My point in all of this is that Calacanis is right, and Calacanis is wrong. Hard work is important. Smart work is important. Philosophies of work are important. I DON'T want employees who feel like they are tethered to their blackberries/laptops on vacation. I DO want ones that take a break. But, I also do want to be assured that if a crunch comes, everyone will be willing to come in on a weekend.

That's a culture thing. But, if crunches keep coming, well then, that's bad management. So, no I wouldn't be willing to come in every weekend.

One more note: In his example he mentions the person applying for a VP position. In my experience, smart work and long hours are both required to rise to that type of position. So, yeah, sacrifice of other things are necessary for success at that level. I don't want to be a VP of anything, so there is my bias.

I bet the readers who objected so strongly don't want to be VPs either. At least, they aren't willing to pay the price.

Fortunately, companies function best when not everyone wants to be the boss.

Fraternization Policy

Do you have anything on the above, or work rules regarding supervisors and people that report to them having a friendship outside of work. It is becoming disruptive to the workplace.

I think anti-fraternization policies are really difficult to write and police. How do you get people to stop being friends? And if you don't want supervisers to be friends with their underlings, then you can't promote from within, or you have to say, "If we promote you, you won't be able to socialize with the people you used to socialize with." Except you'd say it with better grammar.

What you are in need of is some supervisors with a clearer understanding of what is expected of them. You need to manage the results. You need to talk to the supervisors about how favoritism (presumably that's the problem here) is affecting the entire team. You need to train your supervisors how to manage.

Very few companies actually do that. Heaven knows my management training was weak. (New boss: "Hey, here are some people to supervise!" Me (outloud): "Great. I truly believe I have a lot to share and I am looking forward to taking this next step in my career." Me (silently): "Crud. I've never even had a formal performance review. Now what?")

I wouldn't focus on the friendship part. I would focus on the measurable results part. Make sure that your supervisors have good managers who have set quantitative goals for them. Make sure they understand that they need to change whatever behavior is causing the problem.

If they can't do it, they should be removed from their supervisor positions, either through demotions or firing. The latter is probably perferable, because if you've got anxiety in the ranks now, putting a disgruntled supervisor back in with his former underlings will not be pleasant.

Part of the job of managing people is realizing that you get paid more because it is harder than it looks. This sometimes means changing your relationships with others. Focus on the results and the relationship problems will be solved.

A Really Bad Idea in Firing

If you'll recall, I'm not a lawyer. Still, my HR legal senses perked right up upon reading about a proposed new show on Fox: Someone's Gotta Go.

In this fun new reality show, real employees at real companies get to vote one (or more?) of their co-workers into unemployment land. Oh sure, it sounds like all sorts of fun. As the linked article points out, not all employment rights are waivable in advance, so who knows how this is going to work out.

Perhaps the "package" given to the terminated employees is so fantastic that the other employees will be fighting to be laid off. But, that would not make it a good reality show. It would just turn into "who can be the most obnoxious" and then it would be like Big Brother or something.

Gah. Do these television producers ever, ever, ever consult their lawyers? And legal aspects aside, being laid off (note, not fired for cause) can be extremely painful. Putting that on television is just down right rude.

I know, some people will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame. I bet Fox is counting on the fact that we'd all love to watch such procedures.

I bet they are wrong.

Have you ever noticed when watching an action movie in a theatre that the patrons silently munch on overpriced popcorn (with extra butter-ish!) while heads are exploding and limbs are being chopped off by airplane propellers, but see someone get their fingers slammed in a car door and everyone cringes. Why? Because we have no experience with our own heads exploding. (If we did, we wouldn't be watching the movie as there would be nowhere to put the popcorn.) But, we've all slammed our fingers and we KNOW that hurts.

Likewise, the things that take place on Survivor or the Amazing Race-or even the Apprentice-are so far from our reality that we can watch them without cringing. But, getting laid off is something that hits too close to home. Too many of us have experienced it ourselves. The rest of us know someone who has been through it. Most of us fear that it could happen to us at some point. Those that don't fear are in an advanced state of denial.

I predict viewers will find it too painful to watch, lawyers will find it too tempting for law suits and that Fox will bag the whole thing.

(Via Overlawyered.)

Happy Tax Day!

To all you accountants out there, I hope you take a few days off.

FMLA Goof

I’ll try and make this quick and to the point…….I screwed up! I had completed the Employer Response to Employee presumptuously and this employee has not worked for us for a year. Technically, he is not eligible for FMLA. However, he has seen the approved form (don’t think he has a copy of it). My question is……am I able to shorten the length of the FMLA time to maybe 6 weeks instead of 12, since he really isn’t eligible at all for this? I know……VERY STICKY situation since I’ve already approved. HELP!!!

I'm happy you've admitted to your own screw up and not blamed anyone else. So sorry that you will never be in senior management.

Anyway, here are my usual disclaimers. I am not a lawyer. I am not an FMLA expert. I'm not even employed.

But, I think this is a case where you say, "Bob, when I filled out the paperwork previously, I forgot that you hadn't been with us one year yet. To be eligible for FMLA, you have to have worked here for at least a year. Therefore we can't grant you FMLA."

Over and done.

Now, not all leaves have to fall under FMLA. Surely you have a leave policy for non FMLA leaves? (Tell me you have a policy. It would warm my little evil heart.) Grant him whatever leave he would be eligible under that policy.

If you have no policy, you can do whatever you want, as long as you are consistent and fair. You can grant 6 weeks, or 12, or 26 or whatever. Just make it clear that this is a leave of absence that is not subject to the rules of FMLA. If you continue to carry his insurance during the leave, it's doubtful he'll care about the difference.

A Laundry Question

What is the best way to launder money I make under the table while I am on unemployment?

I imagine all that under the table money has gum on it, or perhaps other slimy substances. But, let's start with the gum. While I hear peanut butter is good, I've never had any success with it. (Not that I've tried to get gum off money, but money is made out of cotton fibres and I have had gum on clothes.) I suggest putting it in the freezer and then trying.

Now, if it's not gum, but just general stickiness, there are other solutions. (Heaven knows if you have small children who can't seem to use a napkin, but are sick of their parents yelling at them for using their clothes, the will resort to wiping their hands on the underside of the table, which is where you have been working. Working at what, I don't know. Cleaning tables, I suppose. Or perhaps, table maintanance.) I like Tide with Bleach Alternative. Several of my siblings use the Kirkland brand, which you get at Costco. Depending on how much money you have to launder, the latter might not be a good buy.

If you were going to hand wash, you can always try woolite, but I find that unnecessary. The money that has gone through my washing machine, (usually it starts out in a pocket) has come through just fine, even on a hot wash.

Or, have I misunderstood your question? Were you asking me how to do something illegal? I'm sure you wouldn't do that, because you must be relatively intelligent if you've chosen to read my blog. And you would know that those of us who pay taxes really despise those of you who cheat on theirs, so you wouldn't be asking me that, would you? No, it must be about cleaning.

I hope you don't bonk your head on the table when you try to get up.

I'm Back

So, it's been nearly a whole month since I signed off and I still don't have a computer. But, we arrived in beautiful Switzerland Wednesday afternoon and we are in love with the place.

More precisely, we're in love with the holidays. My husband (who had been here for a month, but came to the states for meetings and to fly with us, so I didn't have to do an international flight with two small children), had to go into the office for a meeting that afternoon. He arrived home shortly after 5:00 with unexpected news: Sunday is Easter.

Now, you all know that. I know that. What we didn't know was that meant that Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday are all holidays. Time off work that doesn't count against his 6 weeks of vacation.

Ahh, so happy to be in Switzerland.