The Myth of "Fit"

I’m proud to say that I am a graduate of Bradley University which I attended in the late 60s. But I also want to point out that I am one of those who eventually made it to graduation without being a very good “fit” for the school. Enrolled in the college of Engineering, I was classified by the fraternity system as likely to be too busy with study to really spend the effort and energy required to become a good brother. Within the college of Engineering, I was unaware that much of the process of transforming me from incoming freshman into a college graduate engineer would involve my becoming familiar with the standards that would make me fit into extended employment with Caterpillar. The College of Engineering would later be renamed the Caterpillar College of Engineering in appreciation for corporate support and in recognition of corporate commitment to recruit and place program graduates. “Fit” as a Bradley engineering student was the equivalent of being prepared to work for Cat.

The relationship between an employer and a university, like that between Caterpillar and Bradley Engineering is what should be meant by “fit.” It was easily recognized. It was relevant to the skills and practices of the job. It was verifiable. It took account of years of the employer influencing outcomes of the program. It enabled Caterpillar HR personnel to make a fairly reliable educated guess that a job candidate with a Bradley degree would be able to quickly learn Cat’s way of doing things.

Holding this relationship as a model of “fit”, I suggest that “fit” has become far less about requisite adaptability and far more about a mystical property that enables HR personnel to hold onto their jobs by delaying hiring of the qualified. In a supplier’s market, which is what the jobs market undoubtedly is, a job is a rare enough commodity that each one made available attracts offers from large numbers of applicants. Each offer is relatively the same. The candidate offers his or her services and efforts in exchange for a salary and possibly some other benefits. The relative sameness of this offer enables an HR person to look for criteria outside the required measurements of qualifications and previous performance to try to select the ideal candidates. This is where HR goes to the hiring person and delays the selection of a candidate while claiming to be looking for “fit.” Whatever HR is looking for, it is a long way from the Bradley engineering degree that Cat believes will predict an employee’s long-term success in the job.

It falls short in being:

·        Not easily recognized

·        Not relevant to the skills and practices of the job

·        Not verifiable

·        Not related to anything the employer has established or done to lead candidates to previous mastery of policies and work habits

·        Not likely to guarantee employee adaptability to the employer’s way of doing things.

Bill Burnett, in “The Peak Interview”, suggests

So why are you so focused on talking about your features and benefits in the job interview.  The truth is, it’s not about you.  It is about the relationship you create with the hiring manager.  Telling them what they already know about you won’t distinguish you.

Why?

Because the research tells us that the hiring manager hires the person he or she likes the most.

(Burnett, Bill, 2012, retrieved from http://peakinterview.com/ThePeakInterview.html)

Burnett’s point is that rather than being concerned with whether a candidate actually fits in the sense that the Bradley engineer fits at Caterpillar, the HR recruiter for the job is actually looking for the hiring manager’s new best friend. The HR recruiter, concentrating on the “friend” characteristic, is looking for something I will call HRfit, which is not actually fit at all. Extending Burnett’s advice through the entire hiring process, the key to being hired is to be the best friend of everyone that a candidate meets within the hiring process.

If what Burnett proposes is actually true, it speaks worlds about the attempt of corporations to achieve excellence.  Concentration on HRfit is most viable as a method of perpetuating a top-down method of management within the corporation. It stands to reason that as the candidates for positions are similar enough in personal values to the existing management team, that those values will come to dominate the corporate environment. Of course, when there is a problem in a hierarchical system, having it filled with friends and great HRfits will just perpetuate the problems.  But this is not a concern to HR professionals who will, with an endless stream of “best friends” available, just keep locating new ones as they are required.

It is amazing to me that executive leadership allows itself to be played like this. The process presumes that top level managers are incapable of finding friends on their own without having to bring them through corporate recruitment. And it allows for positions to go unfilled for far longer than is needed while HR waits for the perfect HRfit candidate to show up. Not only does this leave qualified candidates without paid position for months at a time, it leaves the company short-handed as it works on long-range goals, and it produces overload of work being assigned to existing staff. These are hidden costs, and as long as the hiring manager eventually gets a new best friend, nobody wants to document it and raise flags about it for fear of being described as a wave-maker and one who is a poor HRfit.

Recruiters, LinkedIn, and Playing Games

I have left this blog unattended for a while during which I was alternately employed and unemployed. After more than a year's service, one employer generously provided the outsourcing services of Right Management Corporation. Right Management is a Subdivision of Manpower, so what is happening at Right is generally current with what the rest of the Human Resources industry is doing. And there are a few things that, at the end of July 2012, every job-hunter ought to know. 

Right's counselors will provide some help in getting your employment materials lined up with LinkedIn. Linked-In operates something like a kiosk where people who have jobs let it be known what jobs they have. Job seekers create a visible profile that is usually based on what they want the employing world to know about them. LinkedIn is a a social media network for professionals and emphasizes the job placement process. But as social media, it also establishes groups within industries where ideas are exchanged to the benefit of group members. Groups determine relevant topics for themselves, and posting is voluntary.

So what a person gets from a service like Right is a lot of advice about two things: 

• networking
• making an impression on LinkedIn

As far as networking goes, there is a general truth that what leads people to jobs is usually something other than the display of their qualifications, and that the presence of many people who know you and think well of you is likely to lead to you and your next job connecting more quickly. Networking is a subject that should not be dismissed lightly, and, as this writing progresses, expect to see the subject arise again. But for this article, I would like to concentrate on   

Making an Impression on LinkedIn 

I hesitate to say this, but the key advice to be given here is to anticipate that the people looking at your profile will be so swamped with things to look at that they are unwilling to explore beyond the first line. They ate similarly unwilling to look at at profiles that are not 100% completed. The technical reason for this reluctance is that the programming of LinkedIn prioritizes and orders its databases with priority apportioned according to the completion percentage of the profile. Frankly, this simply creates a disadvantage for anyone using LinkedIn who honestly wants to acknowledge their existing status of unemployment. In other words, I'm accusing LinkedIn of discriminating against the unemployed. Here's why:

When a person is unemployed and honest, the first line of the profile editing within the system will show:

Current   + Add a current position.

And unless a current position is added, the percent of completion cannot rise above 90%. This feature is the equivalent of having the technology automatically shuffle the unemployed person’s profile to the bottom of the list. So, if you are going to avoid the automatic shuffling, you need to fill in something. In other words --- Lie! Or you might, as an alternative, fake something to fill the spaces that are keeping you from successfully completing the form. Here are the spaces that must be filled in:

·  Company Name:

·  Title:

As you fill these in, keep in mind that your profile will be broadcast to potential employers in the form of:

<Title> at <Company Name>

You cannot control the appearance of the word “at”. It will be there regardless of what you choose to place into the Company Name and Title blanks. For instance, you could fill in the blanks with

<unemployed> at <the moment> which would tell the world that you are

Unemployed at The Moment.

Think about this for a moment and you may come up with better things to say about yourself. For instance, you might say that you are

<Very proficient> at <making money for clients>.

OK! So you fake something that gets you past the need to bring your profile to 100% completion. At that point, you have your posted profile in place where it can be seen by potential employers and their recruiters. Now you become concerned with the issue of how the recruiters find you. This is where the content of your profile comes into play. You have listed your strengths and accomplishments in your profile. But how did you know what to list? Here’s how to use technology to get employers to notice you.

1.     Decide on an ideal (for yourself) next job.

2.     Use a service like indeed.com to find 5 positions for that next job that you think you would be qualified to hold

3.     Copy the descriptions of all five into a word document. Go through the list and delete words that are used to frame the description – words like “qualifications”, “work history”, “education”, etc.

4.     Take what is left of the document, go to tagcrowd.com, and paste the document into the part you want “visualized.” Choose to show frequencies. Then visualize the document.

5.     Look at the visualization and write down a list of the 10-15 physically largest words. These are words you will want to get into your profile.

6.     Write your profile so that it describes you and contains your top words. Each of your top 5 words should appear in your profile at least twice. Also make sure that each of the top 10 words becomes a keyword for your profile.

You are doing this because it is a high-tech tool that recruiters use. The recruiter is asked by the company to find talent. They are given a job description. It is often the same description that was used the last time the company hired for that position. They will be doing keyword searches on words from that job description. Your profile will pop up if it matches enough keywords. Only after this search has been conducted will the recruiters take the additional step of reading your profile.

This may seem like a game. It is one. But it is one that you will need to play in order to have the profile that pulls the recruiters too look at you.

Negative Equity - the underwater mortgage

If you purchased a house between 2004 and 2008, chances are that you have negative equity. If you remember the simple formula for equity

equity = what a house is worth - what you owe on it,

Between these years, the cost of houses was rising rapidly in a market that was composed of unrealistic purchasers. Big lending organizations found ways to make money by lending money to home purchasers with few or poor qualifications. This put more buyers into the market and drove the prices of homes to higher levels than a normal market would have allowed them to reach. In short, if you bought a home during this time, you paid too much for it because of irresponsible banks. As this became known, people became less willing or able to purchase homes. "What a house is worth" began to drop about halfway through 2008. The result for homeowners was negative equity.

If you made a purchase at this time and now have negative equity, you are stuck with a huge payment that you can no longer pay. If you no longer have an income stream, a large regular monthly payment will suck up your saved money reserve pretty quickly.

Question: Have you told your loan servicer that you are having financial problems and cannot make the payments anymore? The reason I ask you this is that your inability to pay mortgage payments while living in the house isn't as big a problem for a lender as an empty property. The bank has an interest in keeping you there, even for free. Here's why:

Empty houses spread poverty in neighborhoods that banks own. 

Imagine that a bank is managing twenty properties on your block when you tell them that you can't pay. Their interests are served best by maintaining the value of the other nineteen. An empty house with boarded windows that you moved out of depresses the surrounding property values and lowers the bank's wealth. So they will deal with you. For instance, Bank of America has a homeowner relief program that can reduce (even to zero - but temporarily) your mortgage payment. (http://homeloans.bankofamerica.com/en/service-and-support/homeowner-relief/find-a-solution.html) You may not trust banks, but would it hurt to ask?

If you want to get out of your loan and are prepared to move away from the house, remember that your lender gambled on your ability to pay them back. You could hand them the deed and say "that's the collateral on the loan that I promised." This is called a "deed-in-lieu" of continuing payments. It isn't done very often because it's very inconvenient, and where are you going to put the stuff that had been occupying your 25000 cubic foot vessel.You won't get credit again for a while, but if you don't want credit anymore, but if you have a place to put your stuff, a deed-in-lieu may be your best bet.

There is always allowing your house to go to foreclosure. Banks don't like for you to do this because it costs them too much to take control of your former residence. And the legal proceedings can take up to 2 years to be completed. They would rather have you promise future payments and carry you over for a short term unemployed spell than have to foreclose on you. It's better for both you and them. Negotiate if you can.

Mortgages and Rents

If you are like most people, you have an address that identifies your space on earth, and you pay somebody for the privilege of associating that address with yourself. In each case, you claim the right to uniquely use a vessel of some number of cubic feet for your own private purposes. In my case, I claim to possess a vessel that contains around 25000 cubic feet of space within its walls for me to fill as I deem most appropriate for my needs. Others would say that I own a small 1 1/2 story bungalow with a basement. You either own or rent something that you call home.
Ownership arrangements and rental arrangements are very different from each other. In an ownership arrangement, you will have agreed with someone who has lent you a large block of money to acquire complete ownership over a period of around 30 years by making a series of payments over that long stretch of time. In a rental arrangement, there is no thought of owning the space, you just pay someone else to stay in it. Renters do not acquire equity while owners do. Equity, for those who don't know, is determined by a simple mathematical formula of

Equity = amount it's worth - amount you owe

For a renter, equity = 0. For a homeowner, equity is a positive or negative number of dollars. If it is a positive number of dollars, it can be used as a temporary source of income. If it is zero or negative, it can't. Equity defines your relationship with your housing into three major categories: 

1. much positive equity
2. little or no equity
3. much negative equity

Which of these categories you fall into sets up the choice you make about what your best approach is to your rent or mortgage payment. In category 1, you have options for refinance in a way that can greatly reduce monthly outflow. In category 2, your monthly cash outflow is determined by a previous agreement. In category 3, you feel trapped by your housing. The next couple of posts will focus on strategies and options in each of these categories. I expect to address them in backwards order because 3, 2, 1 is the order of how big your emergency is.

Cutting Expenses

The money you have has to last until several weeks after you start your next job before a money stream is restored. Frugal living is your friend, but that may mean reviewing and denying some of the things you have done habitually. Almost any aspect of life is available in many categories of expense. Here are some things I used to do before the sucker punch and how they were handled during unemployment.

• Go to movies - if continuing, go only to matinee performances. If the habit is dropped, parts can be replaced with a DVD. Redbox Rentals are OK here. When you were employed you bought a large screen TV and promised yourself that this was cheaper than movies. It is. Use it! Popcorn is far less expensive when prepared at home. If you need pop, off-brand pop costs around $.25 per can. This compares very favorably with the concession stand price of $3 for a small. 
• Sports - A professional sporting event costs a lot. College sporting events are far less expensive. If there are athletic facilities at the local community college, that's a better price again. Women's professional sports are far less expensive then men's. Public park pickup games cost nothing to watch. Participants play with a lot of heart.
• Coffee - Give up fancy drinks prepared by fancy people who give themselves titles. The $5 spent at the BigBucks or the bookstore will buy a 12 ounce bag of coffee. Find your old Mister Coffee machine and brew your own. By the way, before there was such a thing as Mr. Coffee, the size of a cup was standardized at 8 oz. The Mr. Coffee carafe is labeled 12 cups and holds 60 oz. That means that Mr. Coffee changed the size of the cup from 8 to 5 ounces. But they didn't tell you to use less coffee. 1 tablespoon per cup means 5 tablespoons per 8 of the little cups that they mark on the side of the carafe. Use less coffee!
• Food - You cannot stop eating. But since your time isn't money anymore, don't trade back money to get more time. Convenience is expensive. Use it wisely. For instance, a large box of oatmeal (the off-brand is OK) costs about the same as 12 pre-measured foil packages, but holds about the same amount as 30 of the packs. Take the time to do your own measuring. You have enough time.

I may get back to this frugality later and will probably look at rents and mortgage payments in another post. Please feel free to comment with frugality ideas of your own.

Network Network Network

There are plenty of employers who say they have jobs but don't. There are some jobs that exist that employers don't tell the world that they have available. And many of the publicly available listed jobs have already selected their candidates but are just filling a company policy requirement that all jobs be posted. Of people placed into jobs, some ---- but only a few ---, are placed through a want ad and search process. Don't cut yourself off from the listings by any means. But the less you have to rely on listings, the better you are likely to do.
Networks are the way to go.
And the biggest and best network is Linked In.  http://www.linkedin.com/
If you are searching for a job, you owe it to yourself to create a profile. There are groups you can join that are about your specific area of expertise. A greater percentage than usual of the jobs that are listed are real searches.
Are you part of a professional organization - even one that you joined as a grad student? Reconnect as soon as possible, particularly if there is no cost to doing so. National organizations in your area of expertise often maintain online job boards. As a general rule, there is no cost for group members to search these. As a general rule, searchers pay for their listings or alternatively, use up a limited number of free listings. This keeps the number of listings down to those that are genuine.
If you have other suggestions, please post them in comments.

Certify your job search

A condition of your receiving unemployment is certification. Every two weeks, you are assigned a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday date on which you re-certify. This means that you tell the employment security office that you have been looking for work. Because most of your job searching will be by email, it is a good idea to save all emails related to your job searches. You may, at some point, need to furnish evidence of applications having been sent, but in the first five re-certifications, I did not encounter this demand.
Again, you MUST use Internet Explorer and then browse to http://ides.illinois.gov/individual/online-services.asp to fill in the form. This process is relatively painless and doesn't take too much time. Do it first thing on your bi-weekly certification day.