“It’s a living…language”
May 28, 2009
The language of work has its own syntax and overflows to the world in general… a couple of centuries ago, the workers who wanted to protest their working conditions, through their wooden shoes (french: “sabot”) into the machinery – which ground everything to a halt – hence the word “sabotage” came into common parlance.
I noted that at a recent conference of vendors to a noted large company, a new “work word” has come into usage… it is a word that you have no doubt heard in civilian usage often enough, but has a slightly new meaning with the internet age: ”socialize”. The context was that the presenter, in acknowledging a reported problem in the process, said that she had “socialized this with her team” i.e. discussed it. There was a clear division in the audience, not by age but by “social network” savvy – the faces with giant question marks on them were not plugged in to the crowd-sourcing, tweet producing group who “got” the meaning of the presenters sentence immediately.
Although anecdotal, the buzz at the refreshment table during break, told me that the term used in that one sentence stymied about 30% of the room enough for them to be “socializing” it over the coffee cake. If I had had enough time, I might have polled the 30% to see how many knew the terms “google”, “tweet”, and “crowd sourcing”… but alas, the meeting resumed.
It brought to mind that however pervasive technology seems to be… there is a section of the population who are at the fringes of it… perhaps getting some benefit, but mostly just wondering what is going on as it passes them by. For those trying to stay employed in an age of evolving job duties and ever-pressing needs for more tech savvy even in the most traditionally non-tech areas, this means plugging in to the latest vocabulary. And how does one find out what the newest terminlogy is? Use your connection capital and “socialize” it with your network(s)!
Keeping Up With Technology
December 12, 2008
I don’t know about you, but those folks who were belly-aching about “where are the flying cars”? in re: the future and technology must be living in a cave somewhere… technology is speeding along very nicely, thank you very much! And if you are like me – you have been straining to keep up with it. I rely on a variety of sources to try to stay on top of trends and new products I might be interested in, or will see potential in… my favorite these days is www.Techcrunch.com which allows you to subscribe and get the “Short Attention Span Theater” version of what’s Hot and what’s NOT. Check it out.
Neither one nor the other
July 25, 2008
I work in recruiting for high tech positions. I am not a recruiter, though I play that role on occasion, when it is needed. I like to wear a lot of hats. The thing about wearing the recruiter hat, is that when I don it, I realize for the umpteenth time that people (and by people I mean candidates) have a very skewed view of what a recruiter does and who the recruiter works for and so I feel compelled to write a few thoughts on this subject.
First, the recruiting job is a combination of sales and marketing. As a recruiter we are trying to entice you to “buy” the opportunity being presented. Then we shift gears and begin the process of determining the best marketing plan to present the candidate (who has become a commodity at the point of expressing interest) to the client. Recruiters try to see a candidate as a person, yet in the small windows of opportunity to get in front of a client with a good-to-great candidate, there is a tendency to view the candidate as chattel.
Second, because there is coordination involved, making the recruiter the quintessential “middle-man”, and challenging that recruiter to be as persuasive as possible, it is very difficult to pin down information. What candidates don’t understand, in general, is that there is no direct control in these situations. Recruiters do not have the luxury of time and many do not have the structure of process either. It greatly depends on the firm they work with, the relationships they have already forged, and the position of the planets during solar storms. Okay, maybe not that last bit – but then again, who’s to say what influences Clients to do some of the crazy things they do.
Not all recruiters are created equal, nor are they trained equally. They do not, in general, have time to learn the nuances of every role in a company or access to that info even f they wanted it. They do not work for the candidate except in the rarest of times when they are actually retained by the candidate – in which case the candidate is actually the client.
That bears repeating: The recruiter does not work for the candidate. I am not saying that won’t change down the road, because I believe the recruiting industry is due for a big shift….but as of today… this is how it works.
This is something that candidates often misunderstand. And it causes much disappointment and sometimes hard feelings. The recruiter is motivated to find a good match for the client.
A good match that is accepted by the client results in a fee. The fee is usually a percentage of the salary that the candidate accepts when the offer is made. The fee can be as high as 35% but is usually around 20%. This is the point where the candidate can rally the efforts of the recruiter… get the recruiter to help in the negotiations for the salary – they have access to what the actual range is, usually. And they are motivated to help the candidate get the highest offer possible, because they will also get a higher fee.
Before that point, you have to be a marketable commodity. This includes making sure that the recruiter knows about the great experience that is not on your resume, and asking if you should rework your resume for the particular position. If you don’t offer, they may not be skilled or experienced enough to ask you, or they may take it upon themselves to do it themselves.
If you are working with other recruiters, tell them. This is an open relationship – some competition is healthy, and if they don’t like that you are taking care of your options, then you or the recruiter can choose not to work with each other. It is a free country, and there are plenty of recruiters and staffing firms out there. Don’t work with people that make you uncomfortable, or who demand that you only work with them.
Tell them if you have been submitted to the client they are discussing with you… it will save time and anguish.
Communication versus COMMUNICATION
February 19, 2008
Every once in awhile I get sideswiped by a communication stream gone awry. Perhaps because I am sincerely trying to be forthcoming with facts and options, it can get lost in the interpersonal translation – I forget sometimes that the other person is not necessarily thinking the way I think or interpreting the way I interpret and without meaning to – I have given them an incomplete picture of intent and that leads to assumptions flying all over.
I am hoping I am not the only person who feels suddenly neanderthal-like when someone with whom we think we are communicating well , suddenly melts down and tells us we are obviously not on the same page. I really do analyze and rethink most of these experiences to see where I went wrong, because I don’t enjoy the emotional explosion of frustration when someone finally says they are lost or not happy or not getting what I have been saying. Usually they are a result of emails going back and forth… and I admit that in an email conversation where I may be answering questions I may focus on the question and forget the pleasantries.
For those of you out there that may do this, trust me when I say – it always goes wrong. I do not pretend to understand the mechanics of this in its entirety – I only know that if I answer questions without a cushion of the kind of conversation I might have in person, the reader/recipient will always interpret things with an emotional overtone that catches me by surprise. I know this, and yet it still happens – though thankfully not as often as in my younger years.
The less comfortable someone is with technology in general, the more reliant they are on conversation-like markers in the communication. “Hope things are going well for you” isn’t exactly what they need, but something more like – “This is just a suggestion or an option -” and “I am telling you this because: fill in the blank” . Also, too much information is – well – too much information.
Again, I know this, but I forget it. If the information is too complex, it becomes a target for emotional interpretation rather than logical interpretation. Bullet points are good, but talking is better. Too complex for email should always turn into a phone call. This is especially true because not everyone processes reading the same way they process talking.
While it is good to have a reminder, it isn’t always pleasant. Take it from me. We are all “works in progress” and I guess I need some remedial practice.
