The Ruse of the Unemployment Numbers

March 1, 2015 Leave a comment

US UnemploymentHungry? Imagine being served your multi-course dinner by a Ph. D. in Pharmacology, or getting your burrito delivered by an experienced human resources professional. Both of these scenarios are very real. Both of these individuals, one a friend, the other an acquaintance, lost jobs due to economic downturns at their respective organizations and both have taken jobs, simply to pay the bills, while they seek out new opportunities in their chosen professions.

Both of these individuals are examples of many that have succumbed to a massive, but hidden, problem called underemployment. Watching falling unemployment numbers now being reported below 6%, down from nearly 10% four years earlier is, in many ways, simply misleading.

I believe it was Mark Twain who quipped, “statistics are like an alienist; they can work for either side.” The ‘official’ unemployment rate (technically called U3) is a simple and broad measurement that divides the number of people who are not working, want to work, and have been actively applying for jobs by the sum of the people working and those loosely defined as unemployed. In doing so, today, you get a number that’s just below 6% as stated above. While many seem to accept this as THE measurement of employment health, this is merely one measurement though; The unemployment rate can be calculated using a variety of differently ‘useful’ parameters and the U3 rate leaves out many that should be included as they are in the U6 statistic (see below).

With the Fed preparing to raise interest rates as soon as they believe the labor market is strong enough, determining that strength is difficult. But one fact everyone should be able to reasonably agree on is that the ‘official’ unemployment rate does not even attempt, and can’t really, measure the actual strength or health of the labor market exemplified by the openly known fact that Fed Chair Janet Yellen looks at a “dashboard” of at least nine labor market indicators!

Thus, lots of people who are unemployed by many reasonable definitions may not count as such, depending on the metrics used, in the official government statistic. In fact, using the government’s own definition, workers who are discouraged or marginally attached to the labor market do not count in the official unemployment rate. There are different, broader, unemployment measures available, but they do not get the headlines.

In fact, of the over 90 million Americans 16 years old or older that are not working, hence not part of the equation, fall into several categories: retirees, stay-at-home parents, students, and those who would prefer working but have given up on finding a job. Policy makers have been reduced to making educated guesses about the relative size of each subgroup of those not working because the capture of the actual numbers is speculative at best, and then their potential to reenter the labor market as conditions improve remains in question too.

Despite the significant decrease in the official U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment rate, the ‘real’ unemployment rate is most likely over double that approaching near 13%. This number, which is a better portrait of the nation’s REAL economic health, reflects the government’s U-6 report, which accounts for the full unemployment picture, and this includes those that are marginally attached (describes individuals not currently in the labor force who wanted and were available for work)to the labor force, plus those “employed part time for economic reasons.” In July, this marginally attached group accounted for 2.2 million people. To put that in perspective, there are currently 16 states in the U.S. with populations smaller than 2.2 million. Another number, large in and of itself is the 741,000 discouraged workers – workers not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. These are included within the list of marginally attached people. Another 7.5 million were not considered unemployed because they were employed part-time for economic reasons. Those people are also called involuntary part-time workers – working part-time because their hours were cut back or because they were unable to secure a full-time job.

Unemployment is really a measure of labor market disequilibrium; it measures the mismatch between employers’ demand for labor of various types and workers’ willingness and ability to supply that labor. Unemployment that is “too high” or “too low” in aggregate, or in specific job categories, is really about these mismatches, not the overall health of the labor market.

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The “(E)ssault” of the Extrovert!

October 31, 2014 9 Comments

IntrovertVsExtrovert1I write this post on a slight tangent from my norm, combined with a new and refined empathy with a long-time friend of mine, Bob McIntosh, who writes a blog called “Things Career Related.” Frequently, his entries are prompts or opinion leading to healthy debates about the differences between ‘introverts’ and ‘extroverts’ as related to the Myers-Briggs continuum. Bob has long taken the stand of needing to define, defend and promote the world from the introverts’ side of the spectrum reasoning the argument being that the world is essentially created, defined and facilitated by extroverts.

Whether true or not, this post is not intent (here) in debating about which side of the fence has the ‘healthier’ attributes, or is more competent or capable in the world of work. This would be better left to pundits and experts that are far more experienced and studied than I. But that now being said, it IS written, as stated above, with a new-found empathy on my part in understanding what Bob has long been authoring about the introvert/extrovert debate as the other day I was, for lack of a better word (so I’m making up my own), experiencing an “essault!”

A quick definition of introvert vs. extrovert will define the former as one who essentially likes to charge their batteries by retreating inward, into their head. A good book, some quiet time, walking, something not necessarily alone, but with the stimulus meter being dialed back a bit. The Myers-Briggs, the Holy Grail of personality definition and character trait, defines it as; “Introversion (I) – I like getting my energy from dealing with the ideas, pictures, memories, and reactions that are inside my head, in my inner world. I often prefer doing things alone or with one or two people I feel comfortable with. I take time to reflect so that I have a clear idea of what I’ll be doing when I decide to act. Ideas are almost solid things for me. Sometimes I like the idea of something better than the real thing.”

Whereas an extrovert, swinging the pendulum the other way, gets their recharge by talk, and I mean lots of it. Verbal engagement would be the key, and the need, to an extrovert’s indulgence.  Again, according to the Myers-Briggs; “Extraversion (E) – I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I’m excited when I’m around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.”

With definitions in place, recently I met, or rather was ‘essaulted’ by what can only be called, the poster-child of the extroverted side of the spectrum.

observe-more-than-you-knowSitting in a crowded cafe, I happened to have a table that still had some open real estate. With the available chair, a woman plonks down and says ‘hi.’ Staring into my laptop, writing, yet with a book available by my side, cover side-up, stating it’s intent with baited breath to be read. To many it might be obvious I’m in the middle of a task or two? I answer, saying ‘how are you?’ in return and go on with my writing.

That was a mistake; answering with an open-ended question as this was apparently taken to mean that I was wanting to know not just ‘fine’ or ‘not-so-fine,’ but everything.

Several weeks for the next hour, I was barraged, spoken at, ‘essaulted’ with such a flurry of words that I was dumbfounded! I had never seen such a thing nor experienced someone who simply just, to use a metaphor, ‘drops all their luggage in the hotel lobby!’ Every possible factoid of this person’s life that could be pried to fit within a one-hours’ time-frame! I heard all about her childhood. Her move to Massachusetts from Virginia and the Carolinas. The details of her divorce. The fact that her daughter is with her ex and ‘shouldn’t be.’ How the ex is such an a** and all of the facts, details and supporting evidence as to why. How her work has been so compromised and how, now carrying two jobs, as a PCA and a delivery person for Domino’s that she’s making ends meet while ‘on the way to her Ph. D. in something.’ Of course once she’s done with her associates’ degree! How her Jeep Liberty came about from her ex selling off the Honda Civic without her consent and getting a Dodge Ram pick-up. Not sure of the connection but she drives a Jeep Liberty.

Quickly, I could feel the pressure of the walls as the cafe seemed to be really closing in on me. My side of the table drew smaller and smaller. I was tempted in the earlier part of the completely unilateral ‘conversation’ to say something polite to properly euthanize what was to become an interminable event.  The internal dialogue begging, shouting actually, to say “Please SHUT the heck up! Can’t you see I’m doing something and not your sounding board?” But the external dialogue was, “that’s nice,” or “too bad,” etc. Surprisingly, I did nothing, as a sort of anthropological switch flipped and I became a bit curious to see, simply, how this would go if I were to let it play out to its organic end?

But on it went, and at one point within all the verbiage, a question from her court popped out. She asked “what am I doing?” As I started to answer, “I wear a few different hats and….” That was it.  She stomped on my response mid-sentence and interrupted saying she “has many hats too and that she wears them in support of her teams, etc.” Many of them are “actually in her Jeep Liberty so she can switch them up! Gotta support your team, you know!” With that, I tried to throw in that I meant ‘many hats’ in the metaphorical sense, but when I spoke it, like before, as my words were leaving my lips in an attempt to make it across the table, they were met with her verbal defense system being fully armed. Her arsenal of words carpet-bombing and obliterating my response like a thought bubble with a dart through it.  It never made it near the half-way point across the table and just crashed down looking like a collection of Scrabble letters.  I could as well have been talking to a house plant.  My words would have no audience with her.

So, there I sat, glassy eyed, bored, not really being able to intake or process any of the words being thrown my way. What most concerned me was that my dazed look, my glance bouncing off her forehead to other distant parts of the cafe, the fact that of the hour in total my inclusion in the ‘conversation’ could have been counted in syllables much less actual words, never seemed to register on her part in any way? Not one iota of content was needed from my side of the table and there was absolutely no measure on her part as to how her verbal mortaring was simply distributing shrapnel in my direction? When, after said hour, she FINALLY seemed to slow to catch her breath, I started to pack up and excused myself. I said “nice to meet you” and headed out on my way, quickly. I don’t think I’ve ever been so exhausted in my life compared to how I felt after fielding the time sitting across the table from this woman.

Bob, you’ve long argued, to paraphrase, ‘that it is the extrovert that runs the world while the introvert quietly maintains things behind the scenes.’  Bob, as a fellow introvert, I sympathize with you.  I empathize with you even. But, I disagree with you.  In my observations, the world is run by the introvert.  It may be ‘advertised’ and ‘marketed’ by the extrovert, but it is the introvert doing the planning, thinking, calculating, creating, reflecting and executing of how it is to move forth. The extrovert necessarily carries the bullhorn!

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What’s Missing in the College Experience? Part 4 of 4

April 16, 2014 Leave a comment

Choosing a major can be stressful!

Choosing a major can be stressful!

Part 4 of “What’s Missing in the College Experience” – Where is your major leading you?

“Many people end up doing work completely unrelated to their major in college, but it still helps to know for what careers that major might matter when selecting a major or concentration. Students who really know the possible career paths with an undergraduate degree are few and far between at the time of major selection. Many students choose their majors in their sophomore year before they have much work experience at all. There would be many benefits to students if there was a consultant at the school keeping track of where their major may lead, career-wise, and what those careers meant in terms of average activities. Not only would students be making a more informed decision, but it would jump start the process of searching oneself to figure out what they really want to do before the big crunch at the end of senior year.” (Eli Lisseck ’13)

While I was at Mount Holyoke College as the Director of Recruiting and Employer Relations, I had the opportunity or working with many great partner recruiting organizations and some really wonderful students looking to make their mark in the world. One woman, in particular, that really ‘got it’ was a student that was interviewed and hired by, I believe, Paine Webber.

She was a history or psychology major, I can’t remember for sure, but the point being she was hired on by a pre-eminent financial institution after graduation in the liberal arts. Upon being installed on a team, one of her also recently graduated co-workers, had come out of a more formal business program as opposed to her degree in the liberal arts. Upon hearing of her ‘history’ or ‘psych’ major, he turned to her in a meeting and brazenly said, “what are you doing here?” Without missing a beat, she responded by saying, “to do the things you cannot!” A brilliant retort and was coming from someone that could articulate her liberal arts experience and how it would be a good translation to that financial working environment.

But for many, that transition and translation is not so easy.  College is a major expense in one’s lifetime but students who don’t follow their hearts by delving into subjects they’re most passionate about will ultimately hurt their chances of a successful—and satisfying—career in the long term, many college officials say.

For college students, declaring a major can be a stressful moment in one’s academic career. What do I major in? What should I choose? Now I have to live with this? These are some of the questions that plague thousands of newly minted college students each year, looking ahead, producing beads of sweat and who have nightmares of doing the ‘diploma walk’ only to head off the stage after graduation directly into an unemployment line.

For many, they view it as though they essentially are to say, ‘this is now what I am to do for life…’ While true to some degree, no pun intended, a major is really nothing more than saying I am specializing in an area of interest and taking the classes to support such. For someone who already has a career destination in mind; say they want to build bridges as an engineer or be a surgeon, they are lucky in that they are on a defined path and their declaration of major is more of a natural means to an end. The more difficult task is when one doesn’t necessarily have a set outcome in mind; no set path or destination, and choosing or declaring a major can be a pretty stressful addition as one feels they are essentially locking in by having to ‘choose their future.’

The good news is that, as stated above, a major is a focus and what, for many, is missing in their college experience, is a real, comprehensive understanding as to how that major is, or can be, translated to the working world and charting off on a career in the future. This is especially true when majoring in the liberal arts or humanities where the outcome can be a much more abstract path as is not necessarily a linear translation to a job or career.

Much of what happens in the classroom, and its success, is in how one, upon graduation, understands the subtlety, nuance and range of skills that are now to be articulated in a way that explains its relevance to a potential employer.

Most majors are elastic in that employers rarely ‘need’ a specific degree majored in, but instead a set of skills (both hard & soft), experiences and the ability to put them into motion. It is rare that a new hire is showing up at the door with a stand-alone skill. Employers look for a mosaic of such and future college graduates have such, but many do not know they have such and it is in this applied learning, this translation that can be the ‘make or break The college experience is too often limited in making that translation for students and many times the only discussion of such is schlepped over to the off-in-the-corner, stand-alone career services to make those connections evident.

This is a huge missed opportunity in that while these dedicated offices of careers and career transition do what they can, without the full ‘eco-system’ buy-in of the campus at large, the talk of transition from academics to career is usually too limited or late in coming and is missing a great opportunity to be as effective as it could be.

Much of what should or could be done during the college experience is a synthesizing of one’s academic studies at every corner of the respective campus, in a way that fully cross-pollinates, so that students have four years of not only academic intake, but four-years of transitional understanding of their academic history, both looking back and looking ahead? The college experience should, and can, be an artful balance of synthesizing interests, skills, personality strengths and acquired knowledge while at the same time acquiring tangible experience outside of the classroom.

In a perfect world, in the first four semesters, when wrapping up the sophomore year, if possible, this synergistic learning would make for a much better understanding of one’s choosing a major and how it ultimately can be a better blueprint for the transition to career and life after college.

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What’s Missing in the College Experience? Part 2 of 4

April 9, 2014 Leave a comment

Writing well is work.

Writing well is a process learned and re-learned.

Part 2 of “What’s Missing in the College Experience” – Writing competently and of quality is not scrutinized

“Outside of academia, you aren’t guaranteed an audience.  Writing is a crucial communication skill whether you are drafting a book or simply sending emails to anyone in a professional setting. College writing has a tendency to trick students into complacency when writing, because it is someone’s job to read their writing. A salaried college professor is tasked with reading your essay on common pool resources, but would your writing attract any attention without the financial incentive? I have found that writing for college and writing for work are two very different ideas because your writing is not guaranteed an audience in the real world, and piquing the interest of others with your passion for a subject is a skill that requires extensive practice.”  (Eli Lisseck ’13)

In my experience, this is an area where many of the institutions of higher-ed are falling short, but in saying so, many – if not all, will disagree. Much of this disagreement is based on the philosophy or expectation that when students arrive out of high school, their writing skills and basic understanding of grammar are to be in place and of a second nature AND at this stage, it is no longer the job of the curriculum to be teaching the basics.  With that being the case, when entering college, the foundation is, or should be, in place and the expectations that the students can engage and embrace the more advanced, esoteric and abstract requirements of the college-level academics.

While it sounds good in theory, in practice, this is not the reality. Many students coming into college are relatively unprepared for the expectations and demands of what college level output requires of them, or at least used to.  Sadly, the solution seems to be, instead of monitoring, policing and fulfilling the expectations of higher-ed, is to simply lower them. Writing, especially in the abstract, tends to be of less than quality and with that, basic rules of grammar, spelling and structure, all get lost in the process as there is no system in place that reinforces or critiques in a consistent and/or permeating way.

Having worked with many, many students over the years, I have seen the writing skills in decline and there are many factors to this I imagine. But there are two that stand out to me in significance over the years as I have been witness to this decline. The first being the most obvious; technology and its contribution to linguistic regression, as we now speak in fractured spits and spurts as opposed to complete sentences attached to complete thoughts behind such. The second, which has crept in at a slower pace but over a longer period of time is that the schools seem to not want to hold people accountable for the lack of quality or proper writing. I have heard many college faculty and administrators lament the writing skills of their very students, yet said students seem to fly through the ranks ultimately receiving their diploma for their ‘exemplary academic four-year toil…’

I’ve called out people on many occasions for the lack of quality in their writing.  The usual response(s) seem to be something akin to, “well it doesn’t really matter,” or “no one really looks for that.” I’ve even spoken with and questioned faculty about such, and while many have agreed that the writing is less than stellar, they will then go on to say, “I am grading for the message and content, not their grammar.” More than one has said, “It’s not my job to correct their grammar at this stage.” I get what they’re saying but I disagree with it. The common theme is that anyone who IS the audience for such output should be critiquing, as if it is not done so, is ultimately a disservice to the student and will only end up being magnified later in time.

Case in point being a student that I had the pleasure of working with during her undergraduate years and she was, in her mind, a competent and aspiring writer/communicator. Everything she had produced in college had been given praise and her writing was celebrated in her grades by faculty. However, upon graduation, her cover letters, the writings I saw, the very documents that were supposed to ‘brand’ her in the job market, that were supposed to tell her story and convey a positive impression on prospective employers, were woefully inadequate, both in foundation and style. Her writing, while ‘fine’ for the classroom, failed to make an impression on the audience she was hoping for outside of college. Actually, let me restate that; her writing DID make an impression on that audience. It happened to be a poor one in that her ‘new’ readers were indeed scrutinizing her materials and critiquing for grammatical mistakes and structure. They were looking at content and context with the evaluative eye of the red-pen and her materials were being lambasted for their poor quality, such that could never represent an organization she were to be interested in working for.

Our office of Career Services would get frequent calls from alumnae stating, “What is going on? The applicant’s writing is horrible? What can we do about it?” Frankly, at that point, the horse is already out of the barn, as it were. Being more an issue of image management and needing a reaction, we implemented a plan that every resume and cover letter forth that came through our office for recruiting opportunities was to be pre-screened and then ‘approved’ by our staff before being submitted to prospective employers. While this was done mainly as a service to appease the employer’s want of not being ‘embarrassed’ by the applicants of their own Alma Mater.  With the intent of heading off poorly written or ill-conceived letters and resumes, this became a pretty effective, for the most part, method in elevating applicant’s presentations. The fact that for many students, this, to use an over-used term, ‘teachable moment,’ the heightened lens of scrutiny, even labeled “harsh” by many students, was really met in our office for the first time on-campus, is part & parcel to one of the issues void in the academic mission – a willing, permeating, consistent and strong scrutiny for the students at every stage of their academic career.

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Being a New College Graduate Means You are…

April 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Pew Economic Report for New Graduates

Pew Economic Report for Young College Graduates

Facing an unprecedented amount of debt – According to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Project on Student Debt two-thirds of the graduating class have debt waiting for them at door after graduation with the average borrower graduating approximately $26,600 in the red. In total, student loan debt is amounting to over $1 trillion. $1.2 trillion to be more specific. Think of that number for our new graduates entering the workforce and the economy as a whole. Of this $1.2 trillion in student debt, about $1 trillion is in federal student loans. This figure does not tell the full story, however, as the $1.2 trillion does not include funds students must divert away from retirement savings, parent borrowing, or credit card debt. While a tie for federal student loan interest rates to the market is of some help, lowering the current rates for undergraduate students from 6.8 to 3.8%. But if and as the market climb, these rates will also climb until they reach a cap of 8.25%.  By TICAS calculation, this may cost families $715 million more over the next 10 years.

What does the lower number of 3.8% interest actually translate to for students? If we go back to that average figure of $26,600, compounding for interest year over year using the 10-year-payback plan that is the standard, the total cost of your $26,600 loan is now closer to $40,000.  Break that down by monthly payments and you are looking at about $320 per month going toward student loan payments.  In the end, the opportunity cost of the education itself is almost $40,000 in addition to what’s already been out of pocket for tuition, room, board, books, food, etc.  Every dollar now owed is a dollar delayed in terms of the down payment on a house. Money put aside for retirement or investments.  Dollars sacrificed for the next generation’s needs.

Facing an improved economy but – for every position offered by an employer, not only are the new grads in competition with each other, but facing increasing numbers from laid-off, displaced and/or career changing job-seekers that, in addition to a college degree, offer a tangible employment history and applied experience. With that new competition, increasing numbers of recent college graduates are ending up in relatively low-skilled jobs that, historically, have gone to those with lower levels of educational attainment. This is having a push-down effect where those with only a high-school degree are now being displaced by college graduates.

In fact, the proportion of ‘over-educated’ workers in occupations appears to have grown substantially; for example in 1970, fewer than one percent of taxi drivers and two percent of firefighters had college degrees, while now more than 15 percent do in both jobs; The figures are based on an analysis of the 2011 Current Population Survey data by Northeastern University researchers. They rely on Labor Department assessments of the level of education required to do the job in 900-plus U.S. occupations, which were used to calculate the shares of young adults with bachelor’s degrees who were “underemployed.”

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in well over a decade.  In 2000, the share was at a low of 41 percent, and this was when the dot-com bust erased job gains for college graduates in the telecommunications and IT fields.  The result is that if you look at employment broken down by occupation, young college graduates were heavily represented in jobs that merely require a high school diploma or even less.  The barista serving you coffee with the Ph.D is no longer an urban myth.

Faced with ‘new’ employer skepticism – As more and more news reports and pundits attempt to explain the plight of current prospects for new graduates, another, new-ish court is being heard from more and more; the employers.  They say that college students, in general, are entering the workforce, or trying to, with a double whammy working against them; coming in the door without the skills needed to hold down or perform a job AND, in addition, unrealistic expectations about the job itself and the requirements the employer is needing. This means that in a soft job market like we’re now experiencing, recent graduates are facing not only stiff and varied competition from experienced workers re-entering the workforce but also new, budding skepticism from the employers with the (limited) jobs on offer.

According to Inside Higher Ed, more students have struggled to make their mark in a depressed job market and this has raised the obligatory questions about the intrinsic employment value of a college degree?  In the same correlative breath has the concern that new graduates are not equipped to function in the work place and are not meeting employers’ expectations and needs.  A new survey reaffirms that quandary.  In the report, “Bridge That Gap: Analyzing the Student Skill Index,” only half of college students said they felt very or completely prepared for a job related to their field of study. In contrast, and perhaps even more telling, even fewer employers – 39 percent of those surveyed – said the same about the recent graduates they’d interviewed in the past two years.  The fact of the matter is that the latter percentage, whether real or perceived, is the benchmark as they, the employers, are the ones hiring.

The most ‘educated’ but the least well prepared – As the more scrutinizing lens of a poor economy starts to look for answers, many have argued that colleges and universities aren’t doing enough to prepare their students for the work force.  This is true; sort of…  I would have to agree with that assessment and I don’t mean in a way that condemns the educational institutions’ intentions.  The problem is that the ‘system’ is not built where the idea of higher education and its synthesis of development and ’employ-ability’ are best intertwined.  In most cases, for example, representative career service offices tend to be an isolated campus entity.  Either an overbooked office that doesn’t have the resources and staff time to effectively work with students navigating their career path OR an office that can go underutilized or flat-out ignored by the campus community.  I’ve seen and experienced both and both are a disservice to the very client’s they try to serve.  In the past couple weeks I have spoken with several soon-to-be graduates and the common question asked is “have you been to your campus career center?” Invariably, the answer seems to be either ‘no’ or ‘yes, but only one or two times.’

What’s missing is that colleges need to be systemically embedding career development into the fabric of the undergraduate education.  This is a difficult task as many a faculty department will fight the ‘vocation’ label and/or expectation tooth & nail.  This is changing as new members replace the incumbents understanding the new economy and its demands but it is a slow evolution at best.  If this were to come to fruition, an organic and institutional embedding of course and career, not only would this better prepare students for life after college, it would help to justify the value of a liberal arts degree, or any degree for that matter especially as outcomes are becoming the new quantitative rage.  

To qualify, this post is not meant to simply and merely highlight the negatives facing our soon-to-be-freed graduating class, but instead to shed some light on the realities being faced, not just by the current generation, but all generations as there is a systemic, ripple-effect that reaches out and affects us all.

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When Does the Interview Actually ‘Begin?’ Part 2

March 26, 2014 Leave a comment

The "interview" is every interaction you have!

The “interview” is every interaction you have!

Last week I asked the question ‘when does the interview actually begin‘ and now here’s another example of when interviewing, as part of your job search, it’s best to be on your game – all the time!

When I was the Director of Recruiting & Employer Relations for Mount Holyoke College’s Career Development Center, we had what was, at the time, a very good and disproportionately large amount of activity in our career center both on the student and employer front.

Annually, in the fall, ‘banking season’ hit like clockwork as all the heavy-hitters from Wall Street and beyond came up to the (Pioneer) Valley to recruit for internships and full-time employment, each trying to get a jump on their competitors in the process.  What helped was that we shared recruiting opportunities with other institutions in the area so this was added benefit to the employers coming to the area; they got access to 5 colleges for the price of one in only one or two days of their staff time!

New and aspiring analysts and interns were needed and the likes of JPMorganChase, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Barclays (sadly, some of these are now casualties to the 2008 financial hiccup) and many others, would arrive on campus for their catered information sessions so that the team could present the value of their respective organization over a nice meal and some mingling and networking time.  This would typically happen the evening before their a day-long roster of pre-selected analyst want-to-be’s interviewing skills being put to the test.

One of my favorites was a woman who came up each year to host the festivities.  She was an alumna of Mount Holyoke so there was a bit of an allegiance on her part but she also wanted to make sure that the process was done and done well, meeting the candidates herself. Not that she had any distrust in her team or was a micro-manager.  She didn’t and she wasn’t.  But she DID view her visit as a way to tell the prospects “this is important and I’m making the trip to say so.” As she was up in the ranks too, as a Managing Director on Wall Street, she was a player for real and the students knew this and were thankful she was to make the trip.

The day-long interviews would take place and at the end of such, the team would gather and chat about who they think should get the ‘Holy Grail’ of an invitation for a second round back at the corporate headquarters in Manhattan.  For those that got this invitation, they were on their way! Large attrition happened in the first round but of the few selected for the second, they had a good chance of receiving an offer.

The day of the second round interviews in NYC was where you’d meet a good cross-pollination of members of the organization and get a better picture of what each of them did.  This Managing Director was interested in watching how the candidates would navigate the day in the city and their introductions around the office.  In particular, though, and unbeknownst to the candidates, one of the most important interactions and moments of their day was navigating through reception.

She never told them this or qualified it in any way, but for her it was one of, if not the, most important part of the day’s screening.  She’d watch each and every candidate and their interactions with the person or people at reception and carefully register how the candidates treated those individuals behind the desk.  If there was any sense of less than stellar treatment that potential candidate, their potential just went away in the moment. they’d still go through the machinations of the day’s plans, but an offer would never then come.

Any sign of dissent, disrespect or condescension to the reception staff was a death knell for a candidate and she would wield this without any elasticity no matter how well the candidate ‘nailed’ their second round day!  To her it was an interpolated measurement of how that candidate, if hired, might be in interactions with clients, customers or staff alike, and for this Managing Director, if one treated anyone with any sort of that demeanor, home they went.

Her reasoning was that everyone is on their “best behavior” when meeting with the people they think are important in the moment.  She wanted to see, in sort of an organic way, that there was no variation in their treatment of individuals they were to come in contact with, no matter how low or high in the pecking order, real or perceived.  This was her baseline measurement; no matter how good the rest of the day to be, this was the foundation in her measuring the emotional IQ, social graces and moral fiber of each and every candidate and while it was never the final decision to hire a candidate, it was ALWAYS evidence for the decision not to….

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Optimism in the Job Search – A Short (True) Story

March 25, 2014 Leave a comment

A new take on keeping positive!

A new take on staying positive!

The job search is a funny thing and in these recent economic times it has been made all the more difficult even for the most seasoned. There is no question that in conducting an effective and comprehensive job search, it is of the up-most importance to keep oneself in good spirits and of a good frame of mind as this has a ripple effect through every interaction during one’s search.  

Probably one of the most ‘extreme’ examples of this, and I put extreme in quotes because in this case it is, but in a good way, as you’ll see by the end of this writing.  I was having lunch with a friend the other day and to give a little background, he’s spent his working life in customer service/relations on the corporate side of the fence.  He first spent many years in banking, starting as a teller and working his way into customer relations and eventually into client account management.  After a series of mergers and acquisitions hostile take-overs, his bank folded and many of the staff were let go, re-positioned or re-located.

He was transferred to a branch bank in an urban area that he wasn’t particularly pleased about, but he still had a job.  For about two-weeks things went along as regular; customers coming and going, bank operations happening as normal, really the only differences being a new commute and the building was much smaller from what he was accustomed to having come from the main location.  

After about two-weeks of that regular, mundane sort of banking operations & existence, his career path was changed a bit when two men came in with masks, pistols and an agenda.  Everyone was ordered to the floor and, as expected in these sorts of situations, was ordered to stay quiet, money was then demanded and with that, the exchange could be done with, hopefully.

However, this case was a bit different once the money was handed over, which was given with no question as everyone’s safety is obviously paramount.  These guys decided, after they had secured their ‘withdrawal,’ one of them reaching over the teller counter, and like any good Chekhov story, ‘if there’s a gun involved it better go bang!’  So, without looking, he squeezed the trigger and fired a couple shots into the floor not realizing who and where people were positioned on the other side.

Luckily, after the guy ventilated the floor a bit, and having left, everyone, employees and customers alike having survived the melee relatively unscathed, got up, relieved as the alarms started going off.  Needless to say, and not realizing in it in the moment, my friend’s banking career ended as one of those random shots hit the floor no more than 6 inches from his side. Other than going to testify against the two men (they were caught a short time after the excitement) he never went back having decided that being shot at was really best being avoided in his future and FOR his future.  

Fast forward 19 years later, after having spent said time, again, in customer service/relations but this time in a much safer, hidden-from-the-public, cubicle environment of a major toy manufacturer, where he was recently laid off, among many others, after some restructuring of its corporate bottom line.  Back to our lunch where we were chatting about the times, the economy and kind of commiserating about such as it’s been about a year’s time now since he received his pink-slip, I asked him

“how’s your job search going?”  

“Miserable,” he said.  

I asked, “are you getting any call-backs or interviews so far…?”  

He said, “no, I’m lucky in that as other’s go through all the trouble of applying, getting interviews and then told ‘no,’ I simply get rejected right from the get-go!”  He then went on to say, “this gives me more time to do things I really enjoy instead of all that job-search rigmarole for nothing…”  

In saying this, we both broke out in laughter, reminding me of a time years ago when we were mountain biking and he let fly another great quip…  

As we were riding, looking back as I realized he had crashed.  I yelled, “are you ok?”

He said, “oh yeah, I’m fine.  Luckily the ground was there to stop my fall!”

He said both in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, and I realized this, but also at the same time, with a legitimate, real sense of keeping his chin up in the whole process and recognizing with his situation the cliche, ‘if you’re given lemons, make lemonade!’  I found this refreshing and with an optimism that, as an employer, who wouldn’t want it in their ranks?  

He’ll find that next venture, some-way, some-time, and when he does, they’ll be the luckier to have him!

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When Does the Interview Actually ‘Begin?’ Part 1

March 19, 2014 Leave a comment

Watch what & when you speak!

Watch what & when you speak!

As we approach nearer the end of the spring semester, graduation looms for the nation’s college seniors.  This leaves many new potential entrants of the job market starting to examine and prepare for this annual transition and individual rite of passage.

The impending interviews will be out there waiting for many that have started to plant some seeds in their job search.  With that, the talk about when and where the interview actually begins becomes a topic for many career professionals and pundits.  Many say it is when you arrive the obligatory 10 or 15 minutes early before your slated time-slot.  Some say it’s once the handshake has taken place and a welcome into the office has been given. Many theories and opinions are bandied about.

Frankly, while all can be ‘true’ for the interview proper; the actual sit-down, face-to-face with your interviewer, the ‘rules’ for such, can be a bit misleading.  Anything that transpires within the actual framework of the interview, no matter how good, can be undone in a heartbeat after such when the employer starts to put in a little time to research your candidacy, with intent or not, and what you need to understand is that as a new job seeker, and for the future, your interview definitely does not start when you show up for a meeting! What many people fail to realize is that interviews begin even before the moment of contact is made with an organization as evidenced by the anecdote to follow.

When I was Director of Recruiting and Employer Relations for Mount Holyoke College’ Career Development Center there were many instances, but one in particular, when this really came to light.  We had a great recruiting program and many organizational and corporate ‘heavy-hitters.’ On this given day, one of the recruiters, who was from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was up from NYC for a day of interviewing on-campus.  He had a full-day’s roster and was ready to vet some aspiring students.

In hearing he was to be on-campus for the day, his sister who was in the area and also happened to be an alumna of Mount Holyoke, had agreed to grab lunch together during his interviewing schedule break.  On a full-day 12 to 13 interviews could be conducted by a recruiter and our campus’ recruiting program was also open to other colleges in the area as we shared opportunities collaboratively.

On this day, like many other days, an aspiring senior from one of the neighboring institutions was on the interview roster and he just happened to be scheduled for the 11:30 slot just before the lunch break.  He did all the proper things for his interview. Was appropriately dressed, researched and well-prepared.  Was even about 20 minutes early before his interview and was planning to sit quietly and wind-down, which he did.

At 11:30, he met the interviewer, went in and ‘hit it out of the park!’  Great interview!  Great candidate!  Seemed really interested and knowledgeable and in addition, one who really wanted and was willing to learn.  Perfect, right?  The interview ends, he thanks his interviewer and off he goes as is practice.

In the interim, as the interview was being conducted, the PWC rep’s sister had also come a little early to meet her brother for lunch. While sitting there, she saw the candidate come out of the office and she hasked her brother, “did you just meet with him?”

He said, “yes, great, great candidate. Really nailed it.” “Why?”

Then she told him….

What no one realized at the time was that while he, the candidate, was walking across campus to get to the career center for his interview, on-time yet, he was chatting with his friend the whole way.  During this ‘chat,’ he had nothing good to say about this particular organization or the field in general and was just complaining the whole way about having to ‘work the machine.’
As she was scheduled to meet her brother for lunch and, also heading over early, she happened to be right behind this candidate AND his friend listening to the whole conversation along the way! She didn’t realize the context or the connection in the moment and he was unaware that forces in the world are indeed around him.

So, when she saw him come out of the interview, she connected the dots and put it all together; guess what she told said recruiter?  Yep, you guessed it!  She relayed all the negativity coming out of him that she heard on the way over to the interview.  Sadly, as great a candidate as he was, his chances of joining with that organization ended in that very moment!

Needless to say, he never did get that role or join PriceWaterhouseCoopers back then.  Sadly, also, was that he never knew the reason why an offer nor a continuation of consideration was not extended as many employers, even more so now, are reluctant to say anything in terms of feedback or criticism.

I thought this was a ‘teaching moment’ (I really dislike that term/buzz phrase) so I did later follow up with him to try to offer some clarity on the issue and the circumstances in particular which he was both oblivious to and very thankful for.  If nothing else, I am confident that he realized that the process can be much larger than it seems and the ‘six-degrees’ of separation are out there, watching you, working either with you or against you.  It’s up to you to decide how much help or hindrance they are to be though as every action, motion and on-line post is being watched and part of the over-all evaluation!

To all the aspiring new graduates, recent graduates and Millennials in general, keep the path traveled well-groomed and clean behind you as it will clear what’s in front of you too!

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