Interviewing Tips the Slow Recovery and Staffing

The Staffing View

On business, the workplace and employee relations

_September, 2010

Practice Your Interviewing Skills

With a national unemployment rate of 95 percent and more than 14 million people out of work, the competition for temporary and permanent jobs is obviously intense Those who get hired will be people whose skills and experience meet the needs of the employers But they’ll also be people who present themselves well during interviews Why is it then that so many people arrive unprepared?

Perhaps it’s because their idea of preparation is having an answer to the question: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” But of course there is far more to it than that Just as with most any other activity, interviewing well requires practice Corporate ladder climbers, who make job hopping part of their career strategy, interview for openings more frequently than most people and they do it well For others it’s an activity that takes place out of necessity – they’re unemployed and looking for work They are typically not people who’ve practiced in advance

If that’s your situation, imagine that you’re an athlete or an entertainer Though you won’t be “performing” in the traditional sense at your interview, if you’ve prepared as if you were you’ll be as sharp as a baseball player taking the field or an actor walking upon the stage So how should you prepare?

You need help A hitter needs a batting practice pitcher and you need someone experienced in interviewing and hiring That would be someone who has worked in human resources or is a career counselor If you can afford a private firm, that’s an option If not, many publicly financed career centers include interview preparation among their services

Practice answering questions You can’t hit if you don’t swing You don’t know what the exact questions will be in your interview, but you can get used to some tough pitches Use the responsibilities stated in the job description, the particulars included in the desired qualifications and research you’ll do on the company and design some questions that might be asked Make them challenging You know where you have holes in your experience and which skills are weaker than others Take them on

Make a video of yourself It’s simple and easy these days to set up an inexpensive camera, click it on and then watch the results on your computer People are often surprised at their own mannerisms, such as the 10 times they used the word “like” when answering a question With your interviewing coach, you can discuss your tone of voice, body language and the general impression you make when being interviewed

Watch others Professional athletes and entertainers are constantly studying their contemporaries and looking for tips Jump over to YouTube and search “interviewing tips” or something similar, and you’ll find several examples of how to handle an interview Some may prove more helpful than others

 

A Slow National Recovery, Yet Massachusetts Races Ahead

While the prospect of a “double-dip” recession continues to loom nationally, the Massachusetts economy has been growing at a rate that both temporary and permanent job seekers can cheer For three consecutive quarters business activity in the state has exceeded the national average

Federal stimulus programs have helped to spur the growth, as they have in other states But employers and employees in the Bay State have also benefited from the concentration of technology and business investment that exists Nationally, the expansion that preceded the recession that began in 2007 was generally led by consumer spending and hyper-growth in housing The bursting of that housing bubble has caused the worst foreclosure crisis in the US since the 1930s, according to federal data, restraining growth across the country Massachusetts, however, has benefited from strong global demand for technology products such as semiconductors



For the first six months of 2010, employment in Massachusetts has risen at an annual rate of about 4 percent, compared to about 1 percent nationally, according to state and federal statistics When the fourth quarter of 2009 is added, during which Massachusetts grew at an annual rate of 6 percent while the US figure was only 5 percent, the relative strength of the state’s recovery is more apparent

The increased economic activity has meant a spike in employment Since January the state added 60,000 jobs That’s nearly double the number reached in 2006, the best year for job growth during the recovery that followed the 2001 recession During the second quarter job growth in Massachusetts rose to a 45 percent, the fastest annual rate the state has seen in nearly 26 years and twice the pace of national employment gains

While some of the improvement in employment was due to temporary hiring for the US Census, many of those positions were cut in July Meanwhile private sector jobs were also up 4 percent on an annual basis, the most rapid rate for that category in two decades Sluggish sectors such as construction and manufacturing have both posted healthy gains

Though the Massachusetts results are encouraging, economists point out that the state’s unemployment rate was still 9 percent in July and the local economy will ultimately need the national economy to pick up its growth The presence of its technology sector, top rated universities and large venture capital community provide some distinctions from the US at large But the Massachusetts economy is still very much connected to the rest of the country

 

Employee of the Month and Other Bad Ideas

Perhaps as long as there have been employers and employees there have been management techniques designed to motivate workers, increase production, generate more sales and reward excellence They’re all noble ideas, but often they backfire

Aubrey C Daniels, PhD, who advises organizations on the science of human behavior in the workplace, believes the problem is that most business leaders are trained in “the math of balance sheets, not the science of human behavior” Consequently long-held management practices to improve the corporation such as layoffs and automatic pay raises can have the opposite effect

But nothing brings change like a good crisis The Great Recession and the slow economic recovery, has prompted many managers to look hard at how they operate, beyond ways to cut costs and save money How can human behavior be addressed to achieve greater success for the organization?

In the book Oops! 13 Management Practices That Waste Time and Money, Daniels says that managers need to understand the basic principles of behavioral science and apply them skillfully in order to realize the full potential of their employees and their organizations But that doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel Here are a few of those time tested management techniques and how Daniels would improve them

Performance Appraisals Daniels says the problem with performance appraisals is that any system that doesn't recognize performance as it's happening “misses the opportunity to get the most and best from employees” Instead, companies should make appraisal continuous by setting up an environment in which each employee knows how well they’ve done at the end of the work day

Frustrating Money Managers Very often managers who do more with their department without spending their entire budget are often unrewarded They learn that if they have money left in their budget, the amount they receive for the next budget period will be reduced by that amount So they spend it to insure they’ll receive the same level next year Rather, companies need to design a budget process in which that rewards those who do more with less Better still, extend the incentive beyond managers to all employees

Stretch Goals They’re well intentioned, but they often backfire After 30 years of advising organizations, Daniels says that stretch goals are typically set too high and people fail to reach them 90 percent of the time That’s discouraging and over time employees give up the effort Alternatively, Daniels suggests creating many mini-goals Collectively their achievement could amount to an eventual greater goal

Employee of the Month It is such a common management practice that Hollywood has made movies with “Employee of the Month” as their title But while the goal is to motivate all employees to win this cherished title each month, Daniels says because it can only go to one person other deserving performances can go unrecognized Instead, Daniels says managers should figure out what they want to achieve through an employee-of-the-month program and then create an alternative that can recognize all employees who perform well

Employee Ranking While this is another typical practice to motivate sales personnel in particular, it begs the question: who are you competing against? As sales personnel within the same organization climb over each other to get to the top, it undermines a preferred work environment of cooperation and teamwork Daniels says the competition should be outside the company, not in A better approach could be to evaluate individuals and units in terms of what they need to accomplish, rather than comparing their performances

 

Staffing On the Rebound

Wondering where the economic recovery is taking place? Look no further than the staffing industry, where there was a strong increase in the number of temporary workers employed in the second quarter of this year over the same period in 2009

According to the American Staffing Association, the trade group of the $61 billion US staffing industry, the nation’s staffing companies employed an average of 24 million temporary and contract workers per day from April through June That's an increase of 233 percent from the same quarter last year and an improvement of 18 percent compared to staffing employment reported for first quarter of 2010

"Even as the pace of economic growth slowed, staffing firms added 360,000 new jobs during the second quarter," says Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the ASA "This is an encouraging sign that there is still some juice left in this recovery and that businesses across a wide spectrum of sectors continue to experience a slow but sustained uptick in demand for their products and services"

Staffing sales in the second quarter of this year totaled $169 billion, according to ASA survey results That’s a jump of 328 percent from the same period last year It’s also the largest year-to-year percentage increase recorded since the ASA began tracking industry sales on a quarterly basis in 1992