Employment

Google finds that in hiring practices, what’s old is new again.

Phillip Nones Business, Employment, Human Resources, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Google hiring practices
Google Gone Retro: Its hiring practices look more familiar than different today.

Has Google made an about-face when it comes to the way it hires staff?

Over the years, there have been numerous articles written about Google’s unorthodox and highly selective recruitment and interviewing process. 

The company seemed to take a certain delight in the degree to which it subjected job candidates to mind-bending suitability tests and humiliating proctology-like HR examinations.

So I was a bit surprised to read this June 19, 2013 article in the New York Times, in which staff business reporter Adam Bryant published excerpts from an interview he had with Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google.

A major objective of the interview was to determine to what degree so-called “Big Data” can be used to help find the right candidates fill leadership and managerial positions in companies.

Instead of giving us all sorts of ways in which Big Data is helping to do that, Mr. Bock focused instead on the limitations.  And in the process, he revealed that Google has made attempts to harness more experiential data to come up with more effective hiring practices.  Here’s what he said:

“We’ve done some interesting things to figure out how many job candidates we should be interviewing for each position, who are better interviewers than others, and what kind of attributes tend to predict success at Google.

On the leadership side, we’re looking at what makes people successful leaders and how we can we cultivate that.”

And what about some of the more infamous Google hiring practices, such as looking at college transcripts from a million years ago or asking people to solve impossible “challenge questions” or equations?  Bock revealed these learnings:

“We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time.  How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane?  How many gas stations in Manhattan?  A complete waste of time.  They don’t predict anything.  They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”

And about GPA stats, Bock revealed that after all of the data crunching, Google’s HR department came to this conclusion:

“GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless – no correlation at all, except for brand-new college grades where there’s a slight correlation … we found that they don’t predict anything.

After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different.  You’re also fundamentally a different person.  You learn and grow.  You think about things differently.”

So now Google has reverted to the tried-and-true formula of structured behavioral interviews, consistently applied across all applicants. 

This includes using standardized behavioral questions to listen to open-ended responses, which then makes it possible to see how candidates actually interacted in real-world situations, as well as what they consider to be “easy” or “difficult” situations in which they found themselves.

Regarding leadership qualifications, according to Bock, Google has found that these are ambiguous or amorphous characteristics:

“For leaders, it’s important that people know you are consistent and fair in how you think about making decisions, and that there’s an element of predictability.  If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience tremendous freedom because then they know that within certain parameters, they can do whatever they want.”

Where “big data” comes in to play here is in twice-a-year employee surveys that Google conducts on all of its managers, evaluating a variety of factors. 

Those factors are the fundamental ones — things like sharing information, treating all team employees fairly, and providing clear goals and performance standards.

But Bock cautions that leadership success is highly dependent on the context; what works at one company isn’t necessarily right for another firm.  “I don’t think you’ll ever replace human judgment and human inspiration and creativity,” he notes.

I was pleased to read these comments, because I always felt that attempting to develop a radically new paradigm for job hiring, while being an interesting and novel endeavor, was also somewhat presumptuous on the part of Google. 

At the end of the day, human nature is what it is:  fickle, unpredictable, fallible.  No amount of “re-engineering” is going to change that.

Ziggeo: The HR Manager’s Newest Friend

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Ziggeo logoWho hasn’t ever interviewed someone and known within the first minute or so that the meeting was going to be a complete waste of time?

[Then the fun part was having to make inconsequential small talk for the rest of the interview just to appear civil!]

Unfortunately, this scenario happens more often than we’d care to admit.  And considering the effort involved in planning and conducting phone or in-person interviews, it’s a major waste of time and resources.

But now a company has come along that harnesses the Internet and camera technology to offer a different approach that I find pretty intriguing.

It’s called Ziggeo.  Founded by entrepreneurs Susan Danziger and Oliver Friedmann, it’s an online service that enables HR managers and others to screen job candidates and other people using video technology.

It’s as simple as posing a few questions on the Ziggeo site … then providing a Ziggeo link to the interested parties for them to respond.

Job candidates simply click on the link to receive the questions.  They respond with short video recordings, which the HR manager can view at his or her convenience.  It’s an efficient and inexpensive way to prescreen job candidates in the very first stage of the interview process.

Since most people have video capabilities embedded in their digital devices these days, they can respond easily without being impeded by a lack of technical tools.  And if candidates balk at participating … chances are those people wouldn’t have ended up on the short-list of finalists anyway.

Job interview via videoZiggeo has also incorporated a simple “rating” functionality into its system to make it easy to grade the quality of video responses, which would come in handy for people who are evaluating a large number of candidates.

I think this is a great way to separate the “wheat from the chaff” when it comes to people selection.  Plus, we get to see how people are responding to our own specific questions … not having to rely just on resumes, covers letters and the like.

While job applicants are probably the biggest potential uses, there are numerous other applications of the Ziggeo approach.  I can see it being used to screen all manner of people:

  • Interns
  • Casting calls
  • Babysitters
  • Adult/senior caretaking
  • Roommates and apartment mates

Ziggeo can also serve as a quick, easy and affordable method to “vet” video testimonials and media interviews.

Like so many other web-based offerings, Ziggeo offers different usage plans based on the level of need.  There’s a free plan that allows for video clips up to 20 seconds in length, as well as a “personal” paid plan that allows clips up to two minutes long.

The Ziggeo Pro premium-level service levels goes a lot further than that, allowing  for hundreds of videos up to 15-minutes in length plus multiple screening rooms, which should prove most popular with hiring practitioners and human resources departments at large companies.

I don’t have personal experience with this tool myself, but it seems like its positive attributes as a “first sort” for personnel selection would far outweigh any negative aspects.

What experience have readers had with Ziggeo or similar video screening services?  Would you recommend using them, or are there drawbacks?  Please share your comments here.

Plain as Day: The Labor Market Recovery is Non-Existent

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The single most accurate indicator of labor-market health is the employment-to-population ratio.

Unfortunately for the United States, it’s not looking any good … and it hasn’t for over two years.

People say a picture is worth a thousand words.  In this case, a chart is worth many more.

[Actually, it would be nice if this chart got all of the politicians to stop blubbering away with their thousands of words, and instead take some time to truly ponder what the data is telling us!]

Employment-to-Population Ratio
Can politicians cut the B.S. and focus instead on what this chart is telling them? Don’t hold your breath.

Over-Hyping the “Made in China” Situation?

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Made in China ... as threatening as we think?“Made in China” aren’t the most welcome-sounding words to American workers these days. Many of us believe that the plethora of goods it manufactures means the People’s Republic of China is grabbing scads of U.S. jobs as well.

Recent reports about Apple’s scads of assembly facilities in China only add fuel to fiery debate … and at least one presidential candidate is making the loss of manufacturing jobs a key component of his campaign rhetoric.

So I was surprised to read the findings of an analysis performed by economists Galina Borisova Hale and Bart Hobijn which contends that goods and services from China accounted for only ~2.7% of personal consumption expenditures in the United States in 2010.

What’s more, less than half of that amount reflected the actual cost of Chinese imports. The remainder went to American businesses and employees transporting and selling the products carrying the “Made in China” mark.

The report, which draws on data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources, states that total U.S. imports in 2010 amounted to about 16% of total Gross Domestic Product.

More specifically, imports from China amounted to ~2.5% of GDP. Moreover, nearly 90% of consumer spending in the United States during 2010 was on American-generated products and services.

Of course, services – which comprise about two-thirds of total spending – are mainly produced locally. And when we consider items like automobiles and electronics, the picture is different: One-third of U.S. consumption on durables goes for goods that are made outside the country.

It’s not hard to guess which products are the ones most likely to be imported from China; they’re primarily electronics, furniture, clothing and shoes. Offshore sourcing is most pronounced in apparel and shoes, where more than 35% of U.S. purchases in these categories were of items labeled “Made in China.”

No wonder so many clothing mills in America have gone the way of the dodo bird.

Without dismissing the impact of overseas manufacturing on manufacturing jobs in the United States, the broader statistics suggest that any long-term drop in American manufacturing employment is due to more factors than merely Chinese labor competition. Undoubtedly, advanced manufacturing technology and productivity gains per worker have a lot to do with it as well.

It looks like the “Made in China” debate may be another example of how the issues and challenges we face in the world are rarely ones of “black and white” … but rather “shades of gray.”

Compensatory Damages? Comparing Public and Private Sector Employee Compensation

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Public sector worker protests against benefits cutsFor years, it was a truism so well understood it could be etched in stone: A government job was one where the pay wasn’t all that great … but the benefits were wonderful and there was good job security.

The accepted tradeoff was between receiving lower salary compensation in the public sector in exchange for job security and good benefits. Lower reward, perhaps … but also lower risk.

Over the past decade, however, there’s a growing perception that this balance has shifted almost entirely in the direction of public sector workers. And now we have the data to prove it.

A recently released analysis by the Congressional Budget Office reports that federal government employees receive significantly higher total compensation than private sector workers with the same level of education and/or experience.

The CBO analysis found that the average salary for federal workers runs approximately 2% higher than similar jobs in the private sector. So the private sector salary premium seen historically no longer exists.

Benefits are another key factor. And in fact, the value of federal employee benefits now exceeds private sector programs by a whopping 48%. Taken together, total compensation for federal workers exceeds their like counterparts in the private sector by 16%.

That isn’t chump change. With federal employee compensation running $200 billion per year, a 16% premium in compensation represents a beaucoup bucks, actually.

But even with these stark statistics, we continue to hear complaints about the plight of public sector employees. To see how off-tone this sounds, compare the new CBO report with the continuing claims of the federal Office of Personnel Management that federal workers are underpaid by 26% compared to private sector positions.

That contention goes all the way back to the early 1990s, but it’s still quoted as if it’s Gospel truth some 20+ years later.

Really? Which one of these two studies do you believe more?

With the beating that companies in the private sector have had to take in order to remain competitive in a down economy – indeed, even to survive – the notion that federal workers’ average total compensation is lower than comparable private sector jobs doesn’t pass the snicker test.

And what about state and local public sector jobs? The studies may not be as comprehensive, but the evidence looks very much the same. Anecdotally, I know that every time salaries and benefit packages earned by public officials in my state and/or local jurisdictions are published, I hear howls of protest from people who feel that the compensation is way out of line with the rest of the market.

Public employee unions like to talk a lot about fairness. And at the end of the day, it is about fairness: In an economy where business has been battered, unemployment and underemployment continues to be rampant, and many employees who have managed to hold on to their jobs have had to endure big sacrifices in salary cuts, benefit cuts and increased co-pays … for public sector employees to expect the world to stand still for them and them alone seems anything but fair.

Consider the fact that a significant number of local governments – and even some states – are facing huge looming pension payouts and other financial obligations that threaten to bankrupt them. In such an environment, it’s unrealistic for public sector advocacy groups to think they can hold jurisdictions to 25-year-old commitments that were based on actuarial and tax revenue assumptions that are no longer valid.

A couple of maxims are in order: Times change. You can’t get blood out of a turnip. And yes, we can get ourselves out of this situation. But people are going to have to be flexible in their thinking for the effort to succeed.

The employment cunundrum: “Workers, workers everywhere … and ‘nary one to hire.”

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Labor shortage in the midst of high unemploymentThese days, conservative estimates are that ~13 million Americans are seeking employment. And yet, more U.S. companies are reporting that they can’t find qualified workers to fill their open positions.

In fact, more than half of American employers surveyed by Manpower Group, a leading staffing group, report that they’re having trouble hiring qualified workers. That’s nearly 40% higher than what was reported in the company’s 2010 survey.

The most obvious reason for the incongruity is the disconnect between the background and capabilities of available workers and the skill sets companies are seeking.

But there may be a few other factors at work as well. Spokespersons for Manpower Group suspect the following:

 The 2009 recession made it very easy for companies to find qualified candidates … but those days are now over.

 Employers are less willing to invest the time or dollar resources to train new employees for specialized or unique work.

 Employers may be less willing to hire candidates from outside their area so as to avoid incurring relocation expenses … even as job candidates may also be less willing to consider moving because of the soft housing market.

Melanie Holmes, a Manpower vice president, puts it this way: “Employers are getting pickier and pickier. We want the perfect person to walk through the door.” She and other specialists contend that companies need to get more realistic about the situation and react accordingly.

The Manpower survey results were part of a large global research study of ~40,000 employers worldwide. The trends it sees of greater difficulties in hiring were clearly evident in several other countries, besides just the U.S. (India, U.K. and Germany), whereas in China the trend was just the opposite.

More results from the 2011 Manpower Group survey can be found here.

The 24/7 Work Week

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The 24/7 work weekIf you’re thinking that work demands are increasingly encroaching on your life at home … you’re not alone.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics in survey results released earlier this summer, more Americans are using their weekends to get more done on the job. The results came from a survey that involved interviews with ~13,200 people over the age of 15.

Non-self-employed persons in office or administrative positions are less likely to be working on weekends. Only 20% of those folks report doing weekend work, compared to ~82% of them working on weekdays either full- or part-time.

But on a typical working day, nearly one in four employed Americans reported that they do at least some of their work at home. Not surprisingly, self-employed people are likely to do so, but those working in business management are more likely to do so as well.

The BLS reports that employed men spend, on average, 8 hours and 9 minutes per day on work or work-related activities. That’s a bit more time than employed women spend on work-related activities (their daily average was 7 hours and 26 minutes).

However, the trajectory appears to be upward for women and downward for men … so it may not be long before any difference between the genders completely disappears.

And for those people who work more than one job … that’s where weekends have lost most of their meaning as a time for R&R, because fully half of the people with multiple jobs find themselves working weekends.

As things evolve, it’s becoming pretty clear that the “Protestant Work Ethic” for which our society is so well known remains pretty robust, 200+ years on.

It reminds me of how a teacher of Russian History explained things to us students in class at Vanderbilt University back in my college years. Speaking of Southern Europe, this professor claimed, “People work to live” … whereas in Northern Europe, “They live to work.”

For some folks, as their working years grind on, they might be thinking that the whole enterprise has become a little sucky. But hopefully, most of us are performing tasks we like or love, so that it doesn’t seem quite so much like “work” … or apply whatever other coping mechanism does the trick!

Adult Children Today: Dependency Redefined

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Adult kids financially dependent on their parentsThose of us with children who are recent college graduates might wonder if we’re the only ones continuing to support them financially in a big way.

It turns out, we’re far from alone. In fact, a recent consumer survey by Vibrant Nation, an online community focusing on Baby Boomer women, finds that parents are supporting their adult kids (defined as up to age 30) in all sorts of ways:

 Paying for cellphone service: ~60% of parents are supporting
 Paying for insurance: ~53%
 Paying for rent: ~39%
 Paying for non-school related trips and travel: ~38%
 Paying for clothing: ~36%
 Paying for cars and computers: ~33%

Looking down this list, it’s no wonder so many “empty nesters” feel like their child-raising years are far from over!

[But thank goodness for small favors: At least it’s only a minority of parents who are buying their adult kids automobiles and computers.]

Thinking back ~35 years ago when I finished my college studies, there wasn’t one thing on the list above that my parents covered for me (although they were helpful when it came to loaning me money for the down payment on my first home purchase — barely three years out of school).

So at first blush, it’s quite startling to see these numbers. Then again, considering the ugly employment situation for today’s recent college graduates, perhaps it’s not so surprising after all.

And there’s another interesting twist to the “new dependency” as well. In the past, once adult children left home – financially as well as physically – it was much easier for them to break the ties of parental influence and control. I don’t recall asking my folks for their opinion about much of anything in those years following school.

Today, with kids so financially dependent on their parents for pretty much anything of consequence, it’s much easier for parents to exert that influence.

Let’s just say, our opinions carry a lot more weight.

How about you? In what ways are you continuing to support your adult kids? And is there a downside?

The Fortunes of the Fortune 500

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Global Business: 28% of the 500 largest multinational companies are U.S.-based.Time was when the United States accounted for the largest contingent of the Fortune 500 global companies. Not so anymore. According to stats reported recently by international business expert Ted Fishman in USA Today, only about one-fourth of the 500 largest global enterprises are based in the U.S.

And those that remain on the list aren’t behaving particularly “American,” either. This group of ~140 companies has eliminated nearly 3 American million jobs since 2000.

Is that a consequence of the recent global recession? Hardly … the same companies added ~2.4 million jobs overseas during the same period.

The particulars behind each company’s employment choices are varied, of course. But certain factors seem to come up often in the analysis, including:

 Gaining closer geographic proximity to the world’s fastest-growing economies such as India, China and other Far Eastern countries.

 The availability of workforces that are “cheaper” to hire and require fewer employee benefits.

 A relatively unattractive U.S. corporate tax rate compared to other countries – hard to believe, but America’s 35% top corporate rate is eclipsed only by Japan’s (39.5%).Going forward, it would be nice if America’s largest corporate entities could be more sensitive to the need for additional investment here at home. Then again, it would be equally gratifying if government adopted policies of lower tax rates and easing regulations to make business growth and job creation in America easier.

The truth is, both parties will continue to pursue their own self-motivated interests, which is only natural.

The problem is, it’s a lopsided game. With a big wide world out there, the multinationals have a host of options at their disposal … and thus hold the winning cards. Tax laws and new regulations can be put on the books time and again, but the multinational crowd continues to float above it all, seemingly unaffected by anything – at least not to any great extent.

Meanwhile, U.S. small business gets hammered.

It’s Official: Older Cities Take a Beating in the Latest U.S. Census

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Abandoned housing stock in Flint, MI
2009 street scene in Flint, Michigan.

While there’s been evidence of significant shifts in U.S. population growth over the past decade, the decennial census performed earlier this year gives us an opportunity to learn precisely what’s been happening and end some of the “speculation.”

And now, with the U.S. Census Bureau releasing its preliminary population reports, we’re seeing how this has played out in cities across the country. While it’s true that the American population has grown pretty steadily at about 2.5 million people per year, some areas have grown much faster than others as a result of being better positioned through the education of their workforce and/or their business- and technology-friendly environments.

Alas, other areas haven’t merely stagnated, but actually lost residents because of failing industries and unattractive business climates, sparking net out-migration of their residents.

Interestingly, many of the cities in the “industrial heartland” of America have managed to stay on the positive side of population growth – even if just barely. But some cities have experienced such hardship that their populations have dropped dramatically in the past decade.

New Orleans tops the list … and who’s surprised about that? After all, Hurricane Katrina effectively robbed the city of one-third of its residents – with most of them electing not to return after establishing new livelihoods in Houston, Shreveport, and other localities further yon.

But New Orleans surely represents a “special case” if ever there was one. Other cities have suffered greatly due to their dependence on industries that took a beating over the past decade. And really, any city with a major focus on traditional manufacturing saw thousands of jobs disappear.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Census report on the nation’s largest cities — ones with 100,000+ population — the seven experiencing the biggest percentage declines in population over the past decade are:

1. New Orleans, LA – Dropped by ~129,000 to ~355,000 (-27%)
2. Flint, MI – Declined by ~13,000 to ~112,000 (-11%)
3. Cleveland, OH – Fell by ~45,000 to ~431,000 (-10%)
4. Buffalo, NY – Dropped by ~22,000 to ~270,000 (-8%)
5. Dayton, OH – Declined by ~12,000 to ~154,000 (-7%)
6. Pittsburgh, PA – Dropped by ~22,000 to ~312,000 (-7%)
7. Rochester, NY – Declined by ~12,000 to ~207,000 (-6%)

[I was a bit surprised to see Detroit missing from this list. After all, it’s the poster child for urban decay and depopulation. But Detroit’s population percentage decline was actually smaller than the cities above, and it remains the nation’s 11th largest city. However, the 2010 census will likely show that its population has fallen below 800,000 for the first time in nearly a century – and the figure is even more startling when you realize the city’s population was nearly 2 million as late as the 1950 census.]

Unfortunately, the negative implication of population declines in these proud American cities go far beyond the loss of social prestige and political clout.

Once decline sets in, it can go on for years. The loss of residents contributes to a drop in tax receipts and the subsequent curtailing of social services ranging from police and sanitation to schools and recreation. Home vacancy rates say volumes about the precarious position in which the cities above find themselves – they’re above 15% in every single case (and sometimes dramatically higher).

Confronted with such a reality, too often the result is more people fleeing the urban core, creating a continuing downward spiral that seemingly has no bottom. Representative examples of where this sorry state of affairs can end up can be found in two smaller but particularly grim urban communities: Camden, NJ and Chester, PA.

From the outside looking in, it’s difficult to accept these population reports … and it seems like people should step in and do something – anything – to arrest the decline.

And in the abstract, it’s only natural to feel that this is what should happen. But in the “real world,” who are going to be the ones to step up to the plate and expose themselves (and their families) to the harsh reality of urban pioneering?

Would I do it? Would you?

For most of us, the answer to that question falls into the “life’s too short” category.