Tim Sackett, SHRM-SCP, SPHR is the President of HRU Technical Resources a leading IT and Engineering Staffing firm headquartered in Lansing, MI. Tim has 20 years of combined Executive HR and Talent Acquisition experience, working for Fortune 500 companies in healthcare, retail, dining and technology. Tim is a highly sought after national speaker on leadership, talent acquisition and HR execution. He also is a prolific writer in the HR and Talent space, writing for Fistful of Talent and his blog The Tim Sackett Project. Tim is married to a hall of fame wife and has three sons and one dog. In 2015, he was named one of the Top 50 Recruiting, and HR Thought Leaders to follow on Twitter by Glassdoor, which gives him mad street cred with his teenage sons. He is a lifelong workplace advocate for Diet Mt. Dew fountain machines and hugs.
As part of the SHRM Influencer team, we were asked to kind of do a debrief of our SHRM Annual experience this year. For so many people this was their first live event in over two years. I spoke to so many HR professionals who could not have been more excited to be back in person!
I’m out at the SHRM Annual Conference and Expo this week and excited to see all my HR Peers and Friends! It’s a big event since SHRM didn’t have an in-person 2020 conference and by far the largest in-person conference I’ve gone two in a very long time!
Leaders don’t fear failure. Failure is part of the job description when you accept any position in leadership. You are put in a position of making decisions and to date, no leader is one hundred percent on making good decisions! So, no, leaders don’t fear failure.
I have yet to see an organization come out with a brand that says,
“Hey, we’re Super Average, but come work here anyway!”
For the most part, every organization spouts off about being the best place to work. Statistically, that just can’t be true. Everyone can’t be the best, right?
If you’re out looking for a job it usually feels like you’re being judged on every little thing you do, have done, or potentially will do in the future. Interestingly enough, a Harvard professor discovered you’re actually only judged on two things: “People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating?
During 2020, I’ve spoken to a lot of leaders who are concerned with their diversity recruiting. Every single one of them will say something like, “Tim, we just can’t find the ‘qualified’ diverse talent we need!” Sound familiar? Feel familiar?
In 2001 I got my SPHR certification for the first time. I started my first real HR Manager job and the CHRO wanted to make sure every single HR person on our team had either a PHR or SPHR. I did an eight-week group study course with fellow HR pros studying for the test and I was lucky that my company had also purchased a SHRM study kit.
I found some cool data that probably got overlooked a while back from CB Insights [1]. Now, this data is from 2016, but it’s super relevant!
CB Insights did some testing with their own email newsletter that went out to 175K+. A very big sample and the reality is they have the exact same goal as we all do, Get Candidates to Open Our Email!
Employers discriminate in hiring. This is a fact. It’s been a fact for generations. It’s the main reason anti-discrimination statements show up on job postings. That and it’s the law for Public employers and Government contractors who are required to have these statements. Many private employers use these as well to show they don’t discriminate in hiring.
A lot of folks are currently out of job and looking for work. Not many jobs open. Too many candidates lead to a lot of rejections, black holes, no feedback, and very few “interviews”.
Right now, with high unemployment and seemingly endless competition for jobs, nailing your interview is critical! Almost every failed interview can be traced back to the first three minutes. Experts will tell you the first ten seconds, but these are the same experts who have never interviewed or haven’t interviewed in the past twenty years. The reality is a little longer, but not much.
I know a ton of HR Pros right now who have been charged by their organizations to go out and “Diversify” their workforce.
One of the biggest biases we have as leaders is ageism. If you’re 35 years old and running a department and you are looking to fill a position on your team that will be your righthand person, the last thing you’re looking for is a 55-year-old to fill that spot! That’s just me being real for a second.
You and I both know that a 35-year-old hiring manager is looking for a 25 – 28 year old to fill that spot.
I use to think the title ‘HR Partner’ was played out and it probably was for a time. There was a point a few years ago when every HR Pro had to change their title from HR Manager, HR Director, etc., to HR Partner. It always made me feel like we were all apart of a bad cowboy movie, ‘Giddy up, Partner!’
“Never! Work smarter not harder!”
Shut it. I wasn’t talking to you idiot.
You may be sitting at home right now, asking yourself this very question! I wonder what my CEO prefers I do in my role. It’s a valid question, and one I find that great HR leaders already know the answer to, because they ask the question, often!
We are constantly talking about how to get more women and minorities (but not those Asian or Indian minorities) into STEM careers. If we only catch them sooner, that will be the key. If we only give them more math, that will be the key. If we only pay teachers more, that will be the key. It’s all false.
If you haven’t watched the series, Cheer, on Netflix yet, you must! It’s great.
I’m only talking to leaders today.
We tend to fall into this rut. I have a position on my team. A person leaves. We need to fill that position.
Before you fill your next position, as yourself this one question:
How will this hire bring us closer to reaching our business objective?
We all kind of know this fact. Once you get more than 30 minutes away from your job, no matter how you actually come into work, it starts to feel like a chore. You begin to hate the commute. Doesn’t matter if you drive, take a train, walk, etc. 30 minutes, one-way, is our max!
It’s called Marchetti’s Constant:
