Firms have made their variable component higher and the criteria more rigorous, so nothing short of achieving them completely would ensure a good take home at the end of the stipulated period.

However, there are ways to make the goals look simpler and attainable for a smoother year ahead.

Do a fish bone analysis:
Once targets have been given, an executive should develop the flowchart of programmers to develop, training to receive or give, and parameters that will help him or her reach the desired goal.

Called the fish bone analysis, the employee will then have to talk to different departments which will support him. “Business metrics have to be defined and converted into quantifiable metrics and linked to the final goal.

It should be in cause-and-effect terms,” says Rajesh AR, head of employment services division of Manipal Education.

Draw up an action plan:
The boss should be consulted on stages that need to be reached to achieve the KRAs. “Chalk out a detailed performance action sheet,” says SM Gupta, HR head of Bangalore-based ITeS firm Aegis.

With each KRA there should be a ‘smart principle’ where goals are broken down. The manager must ensure the status is checked regularly, while the executive has to list daily, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly tasks.

Prioritize targets:
A list will help the executive chart out areas that require immediate attention, training, or assistance from other teams. There will also be the long-stretched goals, which the employee should deal with separately.

Start with clear goals:
To make goals more achievable, the supervisor has to give a set of tangible goals.

So if he wants sales to increase, then he has to hire employees, add distribution centres etc, and not follow a feel-good syndrome during performance review, says K A Sudarshan, co-founder of EMA Partners in India.

Bring HR to the table:
KRAs can be made more tangible if there is a discussion between the HR and business heads on the goals of the financial year and how they are important in improving organizational performance, says Srinivas Nanduri, partner board & leadership hiring, Maxima Global Executive Search.

Once these goals are clear, the individual can make KRAs fit into the overall milestones.

Article Courtesy – Economic Times

Scan social networks
Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or Orkut can be a happy hunting ground to find out about a candidate’s details. “Facebook and LinkedIn are two forums which give real feedback about a candidate, since the references they give will always hold them in good stead,” says HR firm Aspire Human Capital CEO Amit Bhatia.

Use your connections
Try and leverage your own business network and contacts to find out more about a candidate. “The network will always give rational feedback on a candidate. One can also tap business contacts in the same company where the prospective candidate is currently employed to get as much details,” says Ma Foi Randstad MD & CEO E Balaji.

Just run a search
Sometimes, an internet search about a candidate can throw up information that can help you form an opinion about a candidate. This is more so for middle and senior managers.

Check with affiliates
These days, several professionals are affiliated with professional organisations. “A call, email or visit to such affiliate organisations will provide details and help to verify qualifications and work experience,” says Reshmi Ghosh, an HR consultant.

Devote time
HR experts suggest spending as much time on undertaking a background check as on interviewing a candidate. Balaji suggests that for senior management hiring, it is always better to undertake a thorough check through a professional agency. “Otherwise, the risks are greater,” he says.

Article courtesy of Economic Times

“Today’s business environment doesn’t allow for satisfaction with the status quo. It requires constant growth and change,” writes Mark Samuel in his book Making Yourself Indispensable: The Power of Personal Accountability.

“Being indispensable means that you are adaptable, learning and growing with your organization as it changes and evolves…at the end of the day, you are either working to make yourself indispensable or working to make yourself obsolete.”

Here are the seven tips to help you become the most valuable person to your employers:

1. Never take the shortcut. Have you known many highly-successful people to be lazy? In order to be truly irreplaceable, you have to work hard. You can’t take shortcuts and still expect tremendous respect.

2. Be adaptable, not rigid. It’s been said that being rigid is the fastest way to losing your job. In an age where technology, workplace environment and strategy techniques are constantly changing, the most pernicious thing you can do for your career is to cling on to something from the past and refuse to change.

“The good news about rigidity is that it gives you a sense of control — it is predictable. You understand it, know it, can explain it, and can even teach it to others,” he says. “The bad news is that the sense of control is often a false one or temporary at best.”

“You can always tell when someone isn’t adaptable to change. They demonstrate their paralysis through resistance, advocating for the old way, talking about the “good old days,” or undermining current change efforts through their lack of cooperation and cynicism.”

3. Being a perfectionist will be your downfall. Most people think that being a perfectionist is what they need for success, but, in actuality, it prevents it.
“Perfectionism fosters inaction — waiting until we can guarantee success before we take action. And this negates accountability and prevents success. We wait for the perfect plan, the perfect decision, and the perfect action that won’t fail.”

4. Be of service to others without expecting anything in return. Most of us only do things for other people if we get something in return, but a truly irreplaceable employee is someone who makes decisions and solves problems for the good of their team and other departments in the organization.
The more you become “we-centered” rather than “me-centered” the more indispensable you become.

“Trust grows when our motives are straightforward and based on mutual benefits — in other words, when we genuinely care not only for ourselves, but also for the people we interact with, lead, or serve.”

5. Be purpose-driven, not goal-driven. At work, you will have goals to achieve, but these goals are often “established without a clear sense of purpose.” And since most people are often too busy to go above and beyond their daily tasks, they’re not making an effort to produce actual changes.
“Substantial evidence demonstrates that in addition to motivating constructive effort, goal setting can induce some unethical behavior.”
So don’t stresses out about finishing every single step you’ve written down on your checklist or it’ll become a never-ending cycle.

6. Be assertive. Life is a game, so play big or go home. Take charge, stand apart and don’t be afraid to speak up during meetings for fear of sounding unintelligent or being wrong.

7. Forgive others quickly. “The measure of accountability is based more on how you handle mistakes, mishaps, and breakdowns than on getting everything right all the time,” Samuel says. “It’s about how fast you can pick yourself up when you fall; how quickly you correct a mistake that you made; that little or no harm comes to your customer, family member, or friend.”

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 19, 2012
A new report from Kovasys IT Recruitment answers a question that many IT candidates are asking: “Why are the technology recruitersignoring my resume?” We have sat down with Alex Kovalenko, a technical recruiting manager at Kovasys Inc. with operations in Toronto, Montreal, New York and San Francisco, to discuss. “If a tech recruiter can not tell within ten seconds that you are worth a call then your resume will go straight into a recycle bin. Keep in mind that at our firm recruiters can review up to 50 resumes every day and can not spend hours reviewing resumes,” said Alex Kovalenko with Kovasys Inc.
Mr. Kovalenko says that there are seven reasons why IT recruiters could potentially reject yourresume and are as follows:
1. Firstly, when a recruiter looks over a resume – he or she wants to find experience in the field. If acandidate is a PHP Developer with no object oriented development experience and the job is for anobject oriented Java Developer – the recruiter is not going to call. Companies are paying recruiters to find an apple to fill an apple job. Companies are not paying recruiters to help candidates transfer their skills from one field to another. If a company is going to pay a recruiter a significant retainer fee, they expect a perfect match.
2. What is candidate’s level or title? If the recruiter is searching for a team lead developer and a candidate’s title is a senior developer, that candidate should not expect an interview with the recruiter. Again, the recruiter is hired to find a team lead developer, not to squeeze a senior developer into a team lead position. On the other hand, if the client wants a senior developer and a candidate is a team lead – that candidate is over-qualified and even if he or she thinks they can do a senior developer’s job the client will not. The first team lead job that comes along might interest that candidate more, causing the recruiter and the company to suspect that you are going to pursue the better opportunity; neither party is willing to risk that.
3. The next area the recruiter is going to look at is the most recent experience. If the client wants aLinux Systems Administrator for a hosting company and a candidate has the experience, but it was over five years ago, recruiter will reject the resume. Any good recruiter can find a candidate with that current familiarity. If candidate was a good Linux Administrator five years ago and have not worked in that area since, their skills might be nowhere near contemporary due to new technologies like virtualization, vmware, etc.
4. Location, location, location. If a client is in New York and a candidate is in Miami – that candidate will most likely not get an interview. Relocating candidates is just too problematic if there is a viable candidate in the client’s location. In addition, most companies are not interested in paying for relocation in a bad economy. Moreover, there is usually the additional challenge of a spouse who must also relocate and find a job.
5. The next aspect the recruiter will look at is whether the industry experience matches the client’s. Again this is not an economy that allows for deciding whether skills will transfer from one industry to another. If candidate is in medical software development and the job is in financial development – the recruiter will not be calling. Skills might transfer and candidate might become a financial software developer, but it is not up to the recruiter to do that.
6. Education is the next big thing to consider and this one can be an automatic killer. Most recruiters are looking for a Masters in Computer Science or Engineering because they are hired to find the best candidates. No company will be paying a recruiter for a non-degreed or Bachelor of Arts candidate.
7. If candidate does not hold any position for an extensive period of time, job seeker should not expect an interview with a recruiter. a If candidate had six jobs in the last four years there better be a very good reason for it.
And last but not least says Alex Kovalenko: “List your accomplishments and what technologies you have worked with the two – three companies you have worked for. Make sure your resume is two pages long (even if you have worked for over 10 years) and is in traditional and chronological format.”

Courtesy by: Alex Kovalenko

The one place the picture looks different is the United States. There certainly are complaints here as well about the difficulty finding the right candidates, but the narrative is quite different. Here the story is about getting a “just-in-time” workforce, finding the precise workers we need just at the time we need them but letting them go when our needs change and then replacing them with new ones. It’s a “plug ‘n play” approach to the workforce, and it’s not working that well. (In full disclosure, I wrote about this phenomenon in a book called Talent on Demand, describing how companies in the US have adopted this approach to talent management in order to deal with highly uncertain and volatile environments).

The weak link in that approach is that with the focus on outside hiring to get skills, few employers are providing development opportunities. Why bother developing when we can get the skills on the outside? US large companies have been filling 66 percent of their vacancies from the outside, in contrast to a generation ago where 90 percent were filled from within. Because one company’s outside hire of an experienced candidate is another company’s retention problem, employers rightly look around and wonder whether investments in their employees will pay off. These patterns reinforce each other: less development leads to a greater need to hire skills from the outside, and doing so reduces the need to develop internally; it also creates spillover problems for other employers for whom turnover reduces the ability to finance training.

All that would be ok except that employers are finding it difficult to hire the skills they need. The supply of skills in specific areas is uncertain, so the quality and price jumps around a lot. Some jobs require skills or at least sets of skills that are unusual, and finding a good fit outside is very difficult. Skills that one learns through training become scarce because few employers train.

For the employees, it’s not working well because they find themselves stuck in their current jobs. No one wants to develop them, no one wants to let them grow into a job when the alternative is to find someone who can “hit the ground running” because they have done that job elsewhere. So development and advancement are hard to come by.

Especially in slack labor markets like the one we have now, employees are also petrified that they will not appear to have the skills that are required to fit changing jobs, especially as companies restructure, losing their jobs in the process to some outside hire. So they freeze up, afraid to do anything that might look like a mistake.

Is it time to bring back the Organization Man?

In that model, which drove the US economy for most of the last century, employers made longer-term commitments to employees, where they invested in development to fill jobs, and where employees responded with commitments of their own in terms of performance. Jobs were filled internally with people prepared to do them, skill shortages were unknown, and employees were engaged with the needs of their employer.

A critic would say that if employers did that, employees would simply take those investments and leave. The only reason they leave, though, is because they can get a better job elsewhere than their current employer will give them. To keep good people, employers need to take a bit of a risk on them by giving them jobs that they haven’t already done. The employer should be able to take that risk; first, because they should have inside knowledge about who is promising and, second, because if they are right, the bet pays off by filling jobs more cheaply than outside hiring. The end result is that companies would be able to retain talented employees who are more committed to the organization. And employees would win too, growing in jobs and companies that they are loyal to.

What won’t work is pursuing this model half way, giving some employees some development opportunities but then still filling more senior vacancies from the outside. Why would someone wait around if it looks as though opportunity will not come?

Clearly, the jobs issue is not going to go away unless US companies figure out how to hire, and train, the talent they need.

Right now, social is largely seen as a way to amplify messages (“Like” us on Facebook!) or to create conversations around customer service (“We’re so sorry you’re having a problem,” the persistent tweet from @ComcastCares). These two key functions — Marketing and Service — are regularly discussed as shaped by social era dynamics.

But the social era can — and will — be more than that. It will help us decide what we make, how much we make, and how we finance that production. While social media doesn’t shift Porter’s model, the social era surely does.

Big Isn’t Enough

This is the third part of a series on what it takes to win in the social era: being fast, fluid, and flexible.

Let’s think about the way that changes our modes of production. Size once gave organizations purchasing power. Being big used to enable high barriers-to-entry, keeping out potential competitors. Big had the dollars to buy the mass-market access to consumers back when mass media was the only way to reach an audience. But when the capital requirements to enter markets have declined, the marginal cost of reaching consumers is effectively zero, and one-off production is not hard to do… being big offers a much smaller advantage than it used to. Being big ain’t enough, anymore.

Most existing big organizations — the 800-pound gorillas — subscribe to Michael Porter’s value chain framework. As I mentioned in the first part of this series, this model optimizes for efficient delivery of a known thing. Organizationally it means Z follows Y, which follows X. It carries with it one fundamental assumption: that customers are tangential to the process.

There is no question that Porter’s work has helped shape (some would say, “invent”) modern-day strategy. I’ve used his ideas for over 20 years of running companies big and small, and I consider myself a fan of his thinking. But, to put it bluntly, Porter’s value chain is antiquated in the light of the social era. It was created at a time when being big and having scale was in itself a key aspect to competitive advantage and profitability.

Generic vs. Distinct

People buy two categories of things: The distinct, and the generic. The distinct items are the things that have a limited quantity, that are artisanal in nature, and that are worth paying a premium for. The generic items are, well, the things you might find on Amazon.
When companies like Best Buy or Target are simply aisles of what you can find online, then it’s easy enough to become a storefront for Amazon. Everything that is undifferentiated is going to be delivered in ever more efficient, low-cost ways. Porter’s value chain is well suited for this mass-market, cost-driven approach, where customers remain at the end of the value chain.

But for organizations wanting to thrive in the social era, being distinct is key to both profitability and winning. While there has always been a market for bespoke, differentiated items, until very recently that market served a tiny fraction of the uber-rich. But today, both macroeconomic forces, and technological advances mean that customized products aren’t just for the one percent. Instead, customized products and experiences can be for everybody, at least some of the time.

How will the smartest, nimblest companies move away from less-profitable generics and into more-profitable distinct goods and services? By using the rules of the social era.

Social Becomes Central to What We Build

During Fashion Week in September 2011, Burberry did a direct campaign with an everyday consumer (not just the editors and fashionistas) to showcase their new line in what they called a #tweetwalk, letting users tweet about what they liked (or didn’t). It created an immediate signal between the company and its broad users.

It was an interesting first step.

Every brand already has the ability to get direct feedback from consumers on what they like; the friction cost of doing this is effectively zero through a social media conversation. But Burberry stopped short of doing what makes the most sense to their bottom line. Imagine if they’d actually created a video of a runway walk that enabled click to order. They could produce only what was ordered, and thus reverse their supply chain to produce only what is already sold. They could even allow customers to request products in particular colors at premium prices. Social gives companies more control to operationally adjust their offers and create zealots by better collecting and amplifying even weak signals.

This puts the customer at the center of the company much more than any lip service about being “customer centric.” Today, we see brands asking consumers to “like” them on Facebook as a way of getting permission to push them information. The brand is still the central part of that communication. Imagine what that dynamic becomes when using the power of pull. Ask yourself, what would it look like to put customers at the center?

Many of you already know of Kickstarter as the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world. Several other platforms exist to allow community to fund expansion. When no one funds you, you know there’s no market for your idea. This changes more than the economic source. When a community invests in an idea, it also co-owns its success. In other words, it’s not just socially funded; it’s socially meaningful.

Now, let’s go back to that imagined home entertainment system. What if you — and everyone else shopping for a similar system — could signal your desired systems and have Best Buy choose one of hundreds each week to showcase (or perhaps choose the most popular per region). You would then have a reason to check out that configuration in a retail store — to see it and feel it — and then order it so they could come set it up at your place. See how that changes the retail experience from generic long aisles of commodity items to customized and community experiences? That is what social allows.

A Cycle of Profitability

When companies figure out how to shape their design, production, and manufacturing cycle from rigid planning and production systems to unique customer-driven experiences, they’ll design a way to respond in smaller bursts of more profitable cycles.

By allowing customers to directly fund an expansion, companies will know exactly what to build, and what is extraneous. By allowing signals to direct production, there’s an opportunity to learn immediately what the market responds to. Organizations can be in a constant conversation to learn what is working and what is not, and adapt on the fly. These nimble organizations consistently try new things, adapt to what works and thus improve the bottom line. What is interesting about this approach is that no company has to get it “right” the first time, as much as know how to learn and discover what works for growth.

The 800-pound gorilla dominated at a time when companies needed and used more capital, when the value chain could be profit maximized through vertical integration. To run this kind of organization, leaders had to be focus on being big enough to enable scale — because that’s where the profits once were. Once an organization got big, it took a lot to displace it. But the social era demands something more of our organizations. Something that is qualitatively different. The social era rewards the gazelles — the ones that are fast, fluid, and flexible.

Courtesy: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/why_porters_model_no_longer_wo.html?cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-strategy-_-strategy031512&referral=00210

It may result in wrath and the boss’s popularity may dip for a while, but to hold the team in steadfast discipline is a propelling factor. There are ways a boss can rein in errant team members without causing unnecessary damage, says ET.

Be the change
Many managers call their team for a meeting and turn up late, washing away the relevance of the issue that was to be discussed, says R Elango, HR head of MphasiS. The team tends to mimic the ways of the manager, and this shows in their attitude in meetings and the work coming out of it.

Leave out ambiguity
“When setting targets and key result areas, the boss will have to be very clear on what he expects from each one of them so there is no place for ambiguity, which results in indiscipline,” says Ronesh Puri, managing director of Delhi-based executive search firm, Executive Access.

Reward and Punish
A team head should know follow the reward and punish principle, says Elango. So if employees exceed the performance criteria but are indisciplined in their approach towards work and others during team tasks, then they should not be rewarded. Similarly, to ensure a balanced approach, an employee who may be disciplined but is not a performer should not be rewarded.

Say it Loud and Clear
An employee may not know he or she is not following the rules, and will continue if not checked. The first step, says Puri, is to talk to them and explain clearly that such behavior will not be tolerated.

The manager should find a reason behind such behavior and if it continues, send a warning letter stating the consequences could impact their appraisal. If the employee still takes it lightly, the boss should go ahead with giving him or her poor rating during review and mention why.

Set the Team Tasks
The manager should get employees to work in as many team tasks as possible. This brings in a sense of responsibility, and they will know their performance will impact others’ grading as well.

An indisciplined employee may not follow instructions to the team initially but will realize how his or her waywardness is leading to low scores, for which colleagues will hold them accountable. This often is a factor that pushes people to change their ways and work better.

Article courtesy of Economic Times

It’s not just the number of hours we’re working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time.

What we’ve lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive. It’s like an itch we can’t resist scratching, even though scratching invariably makes it worse.

Tell the truth: Do you answer email during conference calls (and sometimes even during calls with one other person)? Do you bring your laptop to meetings and then pretend you’re taking notes while you surf the net? Do you eat lunch at your desk? Do you make calls while you’re driving, and even send the occasional text, even though you know you shouldn’t?

The biggest cost — assuming you don’t crash — is to your productivity. In part, that’s a simple consequence of splitting your attention, so that you’re partially engaged in multiple activities but rarely fully engaged in any one. In part, it’s because when you switch away from a primary task to do something else, you’re increasing the time it takes to finish that task by an average of 25 per cent.

But most insidiously, it’s because if you’re always doing something, you’re relentlessly burning down your available reservoir of energy over the course of every day, so you have less available with every passing hour.

I know this from my own experience. I get two to three times as much writing accomplished when I focus without interruption for a designated period of time and then take a real break, away from my desk. The best way for an organization to fuel higher productivity and more innovative thinking is to strongly encourage finite periods of absorbed focus, as well as shorter periods of real renewal.

If you’re a manager, here are three policies worth promoting:

1. Maintain meeting discipline. Schedule meetings for 45 minutes, rather than an hour or longer, so participants can stay focused, take time afterward to reflect on what’s been discussed, and recover before the next obligation. Start all meetings at a precise time, end at a precise time, and insist that all digital devices be turned off throughout the meeting.

2. Stop demanding or expecting instant responsiveness at every moment of the day. It forces your people into reactive mode, fractures their attention, and makes it difficult for them to sustain attention on their priorities. Let them turn off their email at certain times. If it’s urgent, you can call them — but that won’t happen very often.

3. Encourage renewal. Create at least one time during the day when you encourage your people to stop working and take a break. Offer a midafternoon class in yoga, or meditation, organize a group walk or workout, or consider creating a renewal room where people can relax, or take a nap.

It’s also up to individuals to set their own boundaries. Consider these three behaviors for yourself:

1. Do the most important thing first in the morning, preferably without interruption, for 60 to 90 minutes, with a clear start and stop time. If possible, work in a private space during this period, or with sound-reducing earphones. Finally, resist every impulse to distraction, knowing that you have a designated stopping point. The more absorbed you can get, the more productive you’ll be. When you’re done, take at least a few minutes to renew.

2. Establish regular, scheduled times to think more long term, creatively, or strategically. If you don’t, you’ll constantly succumb to the tyranny of the urgent. Also, find a different environment in which to do this activity — preferably one that’s relaxed and conducive to open-ended thinking.

3. Take real and regular vacations. Real means that when you’re off, you’re truly disconnecting from work. Regular means several times a year if possible, even if some are only two or three days added to a weekend. The research strongly suggests that you’ll be far healthier if you take all of your vacation time, and more productive overall.

A single principle lies at the heart of all these suggestions. When you’re engaged at work, fully engage, for defined periods of time. When you’re renewing, truly renew. Make waves. Stop living your life in the gray zone.

Courtesy By: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/03/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-a.html

We’d be able to find out why it was that we didn’t get the call back, didn’t get the interview, didn’t get that sweet job we thought we were just perfect for. There must be a reason, right?

One of the biggest frustrations of the modern job hunt is “the black hole” — that super-gravitational mass that sucks in resumes and applications and emits no feedback, no light, no rhyme or reason.

So this week and next week, I’m going to let the boss “talk.” I’ll be doing an interview with a hypothetical hiring manager, and sharing with you all the “reasons why” the boss didn’t hire you. And then two weeks from now, I’ll follow up with practical advice as to what you can do about it.

This week we’ll focus our “interview” on those things you can control: your resume, your interview, and your application. And then next week, we’ll look at those things that are out of your control, and what that means for you …

So taking those things you can control as to why that boss didn’t hire you, let’s get started with our interview with a hypothetical hiring manager — we’ll call her Betty Boss …

Me: Betty, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

Betty Boss: You’re quite welcome.

Me: OK, Betty, you say you didn’t hire this candidate “for a reason.” If that candidate was sitting here today, what would you tell him or her that reason was?

Betty: Well, the most important thing is, I never saw your resume.

If your resume never made it past the HR admin that screens resumes, or never gets selected by the computer technology to be shown to me, I obviously can’t hire you.

What candidates in 2012 have to realize is that they need to write their resume for four audiences: the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that most corporations, including ours, use to manage their recruiting process, the HR admin that sorts through the piles of resumes and selects a couple dozen, the recruiter or HR person that reviews and presents the resumes to me, and, then, of course, me.

Writing one resume that meets these four needs is a challenge, but it can be learned, or you can hire a professional to do it for you.

But if for any reason at any point in that four-stage process, your resume is not selected or reviewed, I obviously will not be hiring you.

Me: Thanks Betty, what’s another reason you might not have hired a candidate?

Betty: I think this should also be obvious to people, but it’s not: I didn’t understand why you were applying for my job.

It’s rather easy in the internet era to hit “apply” and submit your credentials, but far too often, I have no idea why you think you’d be a good fit. If the job lists “CPA a must” and you don’t have a CPA, or the job description makes it clear that it’s a sales manager role, and you’ve only been an individual contributor, why are you wasting my time and yours?

Those are the obvious ones, but let’s take it a bit further, shall we? The past few years of turbulence have caused great people to come onto the market. It’s also caused them to think about “expanding their horizons” and switching to a different field or industry.

If it is not crystal clear to me as to why you want to fill the role for which I’m hiring, I’m not going to select your resume; I’ll select one of the outstanding people currently available who fit the bill exactly.

I’d be open to hiring someone who doesn’t have the exact experience or background I’d envisioned for the role, but I need to see some evidence that they’ve thought through the transition and have already taken steps to become the person who deserves the job — they’ve taken classes, attended conferences, added additional responsibilities in their present position, etc.

If you’re asking me to take a flyer on you, I’ll do that sometimes, but you have to earn that right and show that you’re worthy of it.

Me: Thanks, Betty, I don’t think a lot of people think of it that way. What’s another reason?

Betty: Your resume didn’t grab me.

Most of my jobs these days get dozens, or even hundreds, of applications. One of the reasons I post my jobs on TheLadders is that I don’t see a lot of the nonsense applicants that I’d get if I posted it elsewhere. On average, a job posted with TheLadders gets 14 applications.

That’s still over a dozen candidates, and I’m only hiring one person for the job.

The typical hiring manager wants to interview six candidates to make a hire, and I’m no different. So your resume needs to stand out to grab my attention.

Resumes shouldn’t state things in a wishy-washy manner such as “Hired to be Vice President, Western Region” or “Responsible for a $17 mm budget.” Of course, you were hired for the job, and of course you managed a budget! That’s what a job is, by definition.

I don’t want to know that you have a pulse and you collected a paycheck for a pretty title. What I want to know is this: what did you do in that role and what did you accomplish? And how did you manage that budget more wisely, more cleverly, or more thriftily than anybody else I am considering for my job?

So if your resume doesn’t tell me those things and grab my attention, I’m not going to be able to guess and frankly, I’m just not going to be that interested.

Me: But Betty, not too many people are accomplished writers, and it sounds like you’re judging them based on the packaging rather than what’s inside.

Betty: Business isn’t about being fair. It’s about getting the best results possible given the time and resource constraints that we all face. And it’s no surprise that in a modern economy, how you package, present, and sell any product — whether it’s ice cream, enterprise software, or yourself — makes a big difference in how well that product is received by its target audience, whether that’s the consumer, a corporate purchaser, or a hiring manager like me.

Now my time is running out here and I’ve got a meeting in five minutes with the CEO, so can we please move things along?

Me: You’re a tough cookie, Betty, but sure, sure. Can you tell me why you didn’t hire this other candidate because of their interview?

Betty: Well, I do have to admit it was an agreeable interview, the candidate was rather pleasant and professional, and we had a nice chat. But that’s the problem: the interview was a nice chat.

We covered the fact that we both moved here from someplace else, the candidates’ interest in camping and hiking, we discussed the amazing phenomenon that is Jeremy Lin, and we talked about the challenges we both face in raising teenagers. So we had a really enjoyable time together.

But the candidate never got around to making the case as to why I should hire them to fill this position.

You know, I’m obviously busy, and I obviously have a need for somebody to do this work for me, and I obviously have a lot of other candidates with whom I’m speaking. So why didn’t this applicant persuade me in our face-to-face interview as to their ability to make a unique contribution, or produce a more effective end-result, for me and for this business in the role?

It was a wasted opportunity to convince me of his ability to make me look smart for hiring him.

Me: That’s interesting, which …

Betty: Which leads me to my next pet peeve with candidates, if I may be perfectly candid with you. Even if we’ve had a nice interview, you never said you wanted this job.

I understand that you’re at a stage in your career where you’re looking to branch out from the narrow box which you’ve been in before. And you shared with me the wide variety of opportunities you’re reviewing. Some of them involve changing your industry, changing your function, or even moving across country.

I didn’t hire you for my job because I couldn’t tell why you were interviewing for it — was it for fun, out of a curious interest, or because you actually really wanted this job? I’m glad you’re considering starting a consulting practice with some former colleagues, and it is certainly intriguing that you’re considering joining that hot new startup that made the cover of BusinessWeek last week, but it didn’t really convince me that you were interested in, and excited about, this job.

And I know how much hard work is ahead in this role. It’s going to be a real grind for the next couple years, and I need somebody who is going to be enthralled with, appreciate, and make a big success out of this role. So compared to other applicants for whom this is a perfect job, your motivation and your ambition didn’t set you apart.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll need to be going off to my meeting, so …

Me: Aww, Betty, how about just one more?

Betty: No, really, I’m afraid …

Me: Betty, c’mon, these are the top professionals in the United States you’re speaking with, how about just one more?

Betty: Well … [scowling] … OK, just one more.

I didn’t hire you because I heard back from somebody else first.

Your audience should know that getting headcount approved these past few years has been a nightmare. And because budgets have been squeezed all through the recession, fighting for a particular role to be opened is a real battle, and by the time you win, it’s already two months past what you had in the budget. So once I get a job open, I need people fast. So your resume and application were fine, and the interview went quite well, actually, and I was interested in proceeding.

But then we got to the part where we were interested in discussing an offer and you slowed to a snail’s pace in your responsiveness, while another candidate didn’t.

He networked his way in, had two of my colleagues call me, and followed up with a gracious, but deadly effective, thank-you note. He also returned my HR person’s calls the same day so we were able to move much more quickly with him.

I heard from you that you had a couple other interesting opportunities that you were certain were going to come through, and that’s why you slowed things down here. It’s entirely understandable.

But you have to understand that I have a business to run, and the gentleman who seemed more enthusiastic and did more legwork while you were hoping to land your dream job is the gentleman who is now employed here.

So while I know it’s disappointing for you that this opportunity has passed you by, and now you’re calling hoping to get momentum going again, I’m afraid it’s too late for you for this job.

And speaking of too late, I find myself in similar circumstances. I’ll really need to get going, so thank you very much.

Me: Well, thank you very much, Betty, for sharing your insights.

Well, folks, that’s a composite look at why hiring managers “didn’t hire you for a reason.” Next week, we’ll look at the things that are out of your control, and then two weeks from now, I’ll tell you what to do about it! Until then..

Courtesy: http://www.businessinsider.com/i-didnt-hire-you-for-a-reason-2012-3