Dear Recruiting Stereotyper, please stop

Your profile indicates you have been contracting recently, therefore you will only be interested in contract work then? 

Incorrect.

This post is aimed at those people who don't recognise that people go through lifestyle changes and there are sometimes times where the balance of priorities between the attractiveness of contracting Vs permanent shifts in response to family and personal needs.

I worked in a permanent job for 5 years until l was laid off. I worked in another permanent job for 3 years until the company hit financial difficulties. Then I worked in another permanent job for over 6 years until I was laid off. Permanent work was fine, although the career progression was limited due to lack of growth in the organisations I was working for and often going from one hiring freeze to another.

During the last job, when I was told my job was likely to be no longer required I was given more than 6 months notice of the redundancy and during this time was given support to look for new work outside the organisation. That was in 2006 and despite my work being extended I had still not found any local work after more than 7 months of looking. It actually took 12 months before I found any work lasting more than a few weeks.

Sadly, and to the significant detriment of family life, I had to travel 400 miles to find work and leave my family behind. This practice continued on and off for 6 years. The 6 years was incredibly hard work at a huge personal cost. I travelled across the UK from Newcastle, London, Norwich, and in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I had commutes which were regularly 6+ hours away from my home base and I had 6 years of living in hotels 4 nights a week. I did 12 hour days and a working week which started at 4am on a Monday to catch a flight and return at midnight on a Friday. Welcome to the lifestyle of contracting. Probably not ideal if you enjoy spending time with your family as I did.

I had started self-employment in 2001 on a part time basis. I enjoyed it. However as a lifestyle if you do not have a large local client base, it comes a quite a social price. Also perhaps in later life if your health is not great, maybe it's not necessarily the best choice either. 

There are lots of prejudices in recruitment. I got a lot of it in 2006 along the lines of  you have no experience in banking therefore you can't apply for a job in that sector which contributed to the problem. Don't mean to be harsh on the banking sector but was it the experienced people or the inexperienced people who got the banking sector into a mess?

I travelled to where the work was in order to get the experience and rather than trailing my family around Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and England it made sense for me to take contracts because permanent jobs would have been far too disruptive, expensive, stressful and unsettling for them. I put my family first and myself second. 

I'm happy to be in contracting. I'm also happy to be permanent if the right opportunity came my way. I would tend to be fussier about the permanent jobs though as I see that as a far long term commitment. I'm also rather disappointed in permanent salaries which certainly in Edinburgh appear to have stood still for 10 years whereas contract rates have moved with the market. People offering permanent jobs need to accept that people can choose whether to be permanent or contract and there are pros and cons to each approach. It isn't as simple as contracting for ever or permanent for ever. If contracting gets attacked by HMRC, people will move into permanent work. If permanent salaries become uncompetitive or the career opportunities aren't there or there is no local work, people will turn to contracting. This is not only why recruiters shouldn't be prejudiced but also why there should be a flexible and balanced workforce incorporating both sides rather than a dwindling number of contractors as a result of the government being contractor unfriendly. Contractors provide flexibility and specialist skills. In response to the increasingly rapid changes in the market, how can you scale a team quickly from scratch if you have to wait 3 months for permanent people to hand in their notices from their current jobs?

So dear recruiter, don't look at my CV and be prejudiced. The idea of my having been a contractor for the last few years doesn't automatically extend all the way to retirement. People change, lifestyles change and needs change. If I apply for a permanent job it's because the job is of interest to me. If it wasn't of interest, I wouldn't bother. So why are you asking me if it's right for me? I've already made that judgement thanks. I was a single father for a year and if you are applying stereotypes then think of the woman who has a high flying career as a contractor then has a family and wants stability and being based in one place. Would you be questioning her change of lifestyle or is it none of your business really? If a woman takes a career break for a family do you think she might do the same again for child #2 and exclude her based on past career lifestyle?

I actually want a career, stability, continuity, benefits and being in a place long enough to make a long standing difference and make friends over a period of years. I have been able to do this to some extent as a contractor as I've maintained contacts between contracts and I run into the same people regularly and they recommend me for work, but it's harder going. If I had the choice in 2006 with a young family then - I wouldn't have gone into contracting at all, I didn't have the choice - there were no permanent jobs after looking for a year.

Please bear in mind that when I apply for a job it's because I find the job interesting and relevant for a variety of reasons and that it fits in with my career and lifestyle going forward. What I did in the past is just that, we can't change the past but we can change the future. 

So when you replied, as you did this morning "As it says on the advert Craig, they are permanent positions which I guess would not be of interest to you as your CV/profile looks very much like that of a contractor." I would like you to please respect my necessary lifestyle decisions in the past and my choices for the future rather than your prejudices.

Original article at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-recruiting-stereotyper-please-stop-craig-cockburn please also feel free to comment there

Dear Recruiter. If you're not mobile friendly, you lose applicants

I complained to an agency that advertising on the LinkedIn App and on other mobile friendly job boards but these leading to an agency or employer site which were mobile hostile was proving a frustrating experience. "Please upload your CV, this is a mandatory field", but the functionality to do so on a mobile didn't work, therefore the application couldn't be made. Have these people never heard of links? Here's mine: www.craigcockburn.com

Anyway, the agency response was

"'I've have been in discussion with our platform provider over this, and they have done extensive research which shows that very few people want to do this – and as a result, they have put their efforts into developing other parts of the process, for a better overall user experience"

I refer you to these stats on mobile job applications

http://www.recruitment-international.co.uk/news/uk-jobseekers-turning-to-mobile-devices-more-than-ever-24153.htm

62% of jobseekers using mobile. I suggest the agency sacks its platform provider.

Dear companies, this simply won't do

#1 the invalid security certificate (from a bank)

#2 the website which directs you to taleo. Liked by HR people, hated by applicants. It would be even better if the stylesheet loaded. They may have an accessibility statement, but I might struggle to read it.

#3 a website that you are supposed to be able to read, without a magnifying glass. Every little helps!

#4 No, I can't read this on a mobile.

#5 you actually expect me to complete this? Seriously. Oh it's that Taleo again. Jobseekers, give up here.

#6 I'm afraid Glassdoor isn't much better. Agile is a skill, not a company name.

#7 or CGI who are a "team of builders" but can't build a website.

#8 If you're using a mobile, you cannot apply. 62% of candidates abandon ship here. Yes I understand the technical constraints and complexities. I've worked on mobile friendly sites since 2009. What's your excuse?

There's clearly some way to go before 2/3 of jobseekers get a satisfactory experience.

I'm looking for an investor for my movejobs.com portal. It's not a job board but as you can see, I have a lot of relevant first hand experience on the job seeking process and how it is failing to meet the needs of candidates. Prospective investors, please contact me.

Craig

Original article at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-recruiter-youre-mobile-friendly-you-lose-craig-cockburn please also feel free to comment there

Digital by Default

I prefer Digital by Default, I prefer a quick video chat, IM or email to having to print a form or post a letter. I prefer attending meetings by video rather than wasting hours getting there and I prefer the convenience of doing things online.  I first worked for the "transformational government" agenda as it was called then in UK Central government in 2008 and then later for Direct Gov in 2010 and the Scottish Government in 2014. I believe strongly in Digital by default, going right back to 1992 when I wrote Britain's first guide to getting online.

Yet compared to 1992 some things still haven't changed. We talked then about remote working, teleworking and the benefits it would bring. I wrote a research paper on it in 1994 talking about how the web would be great and encourage collaboration. I invented an early browser in 1990, some of the benefits of that electronic way of working we are still waiting for.

Where are we really at in 2015? We sit in cars in traffic jams and crowd onto public transport to go to jobs, many of which can be done virtually. We get on trains and planes to go to meetings that could be done by teleconference. We spend lonely nights in hotel rooms wondering if that business trip was really necessary. You're reading this remotely. You don't know which continent I was in when I wrote it never mind whether I was in an office, at home or on the beach. It's about the output we deliver rather than where we sit when we deliver it. We realised that long ago with dress codes, I care nothing about what someone wears provide they do the job and I will probably count in single figures the number of times in the rest of my life when I will wear a tie. It's usually about what we do and the difference we make, not the fashion style we have sitting in a office spending most of the day on a phone. Life can be so much better than this - so can society.

The government wants us to do Digital by Default and I embrace this. There are certain jobs in which a physical presence is highly desirable or essential such as a nurse or a special needs teacher. For many others though it should be digital by default first, then physical presence second. There are two ways of working : remotely from a location I choose or  predominantly sitting with my colleagues in a shared environment (with video conferencing for other locations). Sitting in a traffic jam to go to an office just to spend the day on the phone to people in other offices should be confined to the past. We could work like that in the early days of the 20th century thanks to Alexander Graham Bell. In 2015 I would hope we could do much better.

The benefits to society of properly being digital by default are vast. It would eliminate most traffic jams, it would mean less time away from home and hence less childcare costs, it would create a happier workforce, it would cut company costs, it would transform society. We wouldn't be spending billions of pounds on high speed rail links just so people can arrive at a meeting 20 minutes earlier. People in remote locations could do well paid jobs rather than having to move house. People who lose their jobs could get another job without having to uproot their families and change their children's schools. I spent 4 years on the road getting up at 4am on a Monday and returning at 11pm on a Friday just to sit at a remote desk and for those 4 years missed out on my children growing up. Life can be so much better than this. 

I applied for a job with the UK government recently and the job was allegedly promoting a digital agenda and said "extensive travel required". I pointed out as part of my application that citizens can interact with government wherever they are. If citizens can interact with government remotely, perhaps we should be asking why government can't set the example first that it expects citizens to follow. They asked me for a supporting statement in no more than two pages of A4. I responded by asking how many words of an email that represented and why I should be expected to think in A4 terms rather than wordcounts in 2015. Sometimes we need to challenge people to think more creatively. I got a letter in the post today from the council (which has my email address) telling me my recycling options have changed, I think they missed the point. I went to my bank to find they no longer open on a Saturday but rather than correlating the branch's postcode with mine to find they are my nearest branch or telling me via online banking they instead put a note up in the branch's window. We clearly have some way to go to be digital by default and there are some easy quick wins out there. I get invited to Digital Leaders meetings that don't have an option to attend digitally. I do wonder if they get the irony.

How does "digital by default" align with filling up the environment with CO2 emissions to trail up and down the country going to meetings?  Why in 2015 are we contemplating having offices with printers rather than digital by default? We spoke about the paperless office decades ago. There's a simple way to make this happen, turn the printers off for an hour a week, then a day a week then two days a week then for good. The paperless office that we have fought for will become a reality and the trees will thank us for it. We don't need to ask at the bottom of an email "please don't print this" as there will be nothing left to print with. There's nothing like a hardware problem to get a business to update its processes quickly. I worked in a company of over 100,000 people where the directors complained about the paperwork. I said, you are a director - perhaps you can direct people to give you less paperwork? Is the paperwork running the company or are you? The comment, on the heavily moderated not very digitally enabled intranet didn't see the light of day. I will keep making it until I get a response. Sometimes you have to challenge ways of working.

There was an experiment done in the early days of e-commerce to see what people could order online and if they could get by in life ordering things via the computer. Perhaps we should start thinking about the workplace in the same way - I can write this, email, video chat, collaborate from home. My home environment uses modern technology rather than some offices still struggling with Windows XP. I have to ask, if we are Digital by Default can we all just do a little to be digital by default rather than just talking about it. As someone with a disability, I would welcome this too. I have difficulties that public transport can't fix. I have a reduced immunity so public transport presents a health risk. Yet, I am mobile enough to not qualify for a disabled sticker on my car. I don't want to get in a car and add to CO2 emissions and I also don't want to take a car looking at the car in front in a queue every day. I am here on the internet, being productive and digital by default as I am sure are many other disabled people. Who would like to join us in a social revolution?

Original article at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/digital-default-craig-cockburn please also feel free to comment there

Why Dr Travis Bradberry is wrong

On 28 Feb 2016, Dr Travis Bradberry published an article How Body Language Trumps IQ and within 24 hours it's had well over 300,000 views. I guess that's what happens when you're a successful author and an LinkedIn influencer. However page views does not make you correct.

Popularity is not a proof

A survey of people 500 years ago asking if the earth was the centre of the universe or that the earth was created in 7 days would produce the answer that both were true. A survey of people 200 years ago about evolution or whether women should get the vote would produce different answers to today. Similarly try asking people in the American South about civil rights 100 years ago or people in South Africa about equal rights in the 1980s. History is littered with examples of people propping up positions for cultural reasons and being unwilling to embrace a future where human beings are considered equals and truth prevails.

His article will get more page views than mine, that doesn't make it correct. At its core his and other similar articles I have commented on espouse the value of body language and that it is more important than intelligence. This may well back up his book sales but I disagree on a number of levels.

1. It takes us back to primate values. It subsumes the clearest communication of all - articulate speech and the thing which makes us most human - spoken language.  Primates show different parts of their anatomy to be attractive. Do you really want to be considering a person for a job based on primate values?

2. It assesses people on their ability to perform in an interview, not their ability to perform in a job. Too much focus on optimising the interview process and dealing with body language, handshakes, appearance, etc ends up optimising people who are good at stage presenting themselves for a 1 hour interview and not people who are good at actually doing the job. The interview process should optimise for the candidate and recruiter making a decision about getting the best candidate for the job rather than the best person who is good at interviews and dealing with a suboptimal recruitment process.

3. It disadvantages people unfairly. The pseudo crap about a strong handshake means a strong personality. Do you believe that? Really? Better not employ Dr Stephen Hawking then. A strong handshake implies a strong handshake - nothing more, nothing less. A 30 year old rugby player man interviews a 28 year man who plays rugby in his spare time and a 21 year old woman who likes painting as a hobby. Do you think the woman is probably at a disadvantage in the strong handshake stakes? If so, why do you do it? You might as well determine candidates via an arm wrestle, it makes as much sense. This is a good place to start learning about disability in the workplace:  https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/disability-confident-campaign. In the comments section a Senior trial and appeal Counsel  agreed that "I squirm and shift about as I am disabled, what does that do for your body language assessment? People use a variety of connections to assess for different characteristics. My clients find me approachable because I talk to them in their language". I agree with the legal expert.

4. Promoting a singular body language interpretation promotes one cultural value set and does not respect cultural, ethnic or religious variation. Different cultures have different values. Deal with it.

5. Body language such as the "lean forward" being interpreted as a positive thing. Try that in a wheelchair. Bit hard doing that and shaking someone's hand when they are standing and you are not and still giving them that oh so important eye contact at the same time. However, not all disabilities are so obvious. That weak handshake, maybe you have MS? Whether you cross your legs or not, maybe you're not putting up a barrier, perhaps you just have a tired foot. We have the depth and preciseness of language to draw on yet so many people fall back on the easily misconstrued, ambiguous and discriminatory primate tribe selection criteria. 

6. The science does not prove Dr Bradberry's assertion. Business is littered with successful people with unusual dress codes, body language and appearance. Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg. Howard Hughes, Angela Merkel, Sir Richard Branson, Larry Page, Steve Jobs. Instead, if you prefer people with confident voices and great body language, you'd instead give a job to Hitler, Josef Stalin, Osama Bin Laden, Mussolini or Jimmy Saville. Do you not agree that despite the oft-quoted facts that body language makes up most of communication that the content of our words is the most important part and that our primate past shouldn't form a part of the decision making process?  If you say it confidently enough you could end up with confident liars, take a look. What does assessing someone on their dress sense say? It says the interviewer has superficial values. 

7. The article contradicts itself at the most basic level. In an article about body language, the article uses none. In an article about posture, the article uses none other than a stock image. I would have personally preferred a picture of the high achieving lady the article is about as this could have helped to convey the point. Instead we got a Getty stock image of a lady in a blazer under "grab some success" Here it is: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/go-out-and-grab-some-success-royalty-free-image/504242015 ". Was Amy Cuddy's body language not good enough? Not even a video? You do know that her research has been questioned and mathematically debunked?http://datacolada.org/2015/05/08/37-power-posing-reassessing-the-evidence-behind-the-most-popular-ted-talk/ Being famous does not make you right, especially when the facts are scientifically scrutinised. 

8. When I'm "hiring" ie choosing to use, a doctor, dentist or other professional I look at their qualifications, experience, reputation and understanding of my needs. How they sit, the strength of their handshake, the way they cross their legs, other arbitrary body functions are of NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER and it makes me astonished that someone of Dr. Travis Bradberry's reputation promulgates the ideology that because this is how a number of people behave it is acceptable to continue in this fashion. It used to be acceptable to keep slaves, deny women the vote and have segregated areas for ethnic minorities and thank goodness those practices are now illegal and socially unacceptable. If you followed the "body language" hypothesis that most communication is non verbal, then noone would value Dr Hawking. Body language is riddled with opportunities for misinterpretation. An experienced communicator will put into clear and unambiguous speech what they want to say rather than rely on the ambiguities of non verbal communication. Crossed legs? Is that a barrier you're putting up there or maybe your foot is sore? Weak handshake? Is that a sign of a weak person or maybe you have a disability? Clear speech is what matters. The rest is noise.

9. In an era when we should be promoting Digital working to help reduce congestion, help the environment, give people more flexible work options and help the disabled into work, why are we placing so much emphasis on handshakes and face to face contact and face to face meetings. Are they really necessary? I've had 5 offers in succession that have gone from phone interview straight to offer. I don't turn down face to face interviews, but at the end of the face to face interview I wonder why it was really necessary to travel 800 miles just to shake someone's hand and the rest could have been done with Skype. Placing too high an emphasis on physical contact is a tradition that is fading out. 

10. If such respectable hiring managers rigorously applied these great criteria to themselves, they should fire themselves straight away! The candidate is hiring you to supply a job, just as much as you are hiring the candidate to fulfil it. 

Thanks, Craig

I leave you with comments made by others, many successful in their chosen fields. Oh and the picture at the top? It serves to remind us that words are more important than how the person was standing, and all men (people) are indeed created equal.

Let's not forget that among the most convincing people out there are con artists and psychopaths. They have gotten all this "why you should trust me" stuff down to a fine art. As business manager or recruiter, you have to ask yourself what your hiring priorities are. If you only want someone who can look and sound the part, then the above advice is all you need.

This assertion is not supported by the research. I refer you once again to Hunter & Schmidt's 1998 meta-analysis of the factors behind workplace success. When organizations are persistently recruiting for this kind of fluff instead of what the literature actually shows, no wonder hiring is such a hit-and-miss affair!

"Working to improve your body language has a profound effect on your emotional intelligence." Really now! Look at Stephen Hawking, who by the way has a disability, and we all know he is very emotional in his talks, down to earth and very intelligent. Maybe you should listen to one of his lectures. What about Helen Keller? Ludwig van Beethoven? Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder? And on and on I could go. YOU CAN BET THEIR BODY LANGUAGE HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR INTELLIGENCE. "Studies show that people who use positive body language are more likable, competent, persuasive, and emotionally intelligent." I take this statement as one who does not use, nor have positive body language skills, are less than all others, how unfair. Think about all those who are disabled! "Learning to use positive body language will make people like you and trust you more." HOW CRUEL. Wow! Again I say think of all those who are disabled.

For the sake of balance, I'd like to point out that there was a (much larger and more powerful) failed replication of the power pose: http://datacolada.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/5110-Ranehill-Dreber-Johannesson-Leiberg-Sul-Weber-PS-2015-Assessing-the-robustness-of-power-posing-no-effect-on-hormones-and-risk-rolerance-in-a-large-sample-of-men-and-women.pdf There was also an analysis of the original study and they suggest that the first result was likely a false-positive (they found a result by chance, rather than because of their manipulation):http://datacolada.org/2015/05/08/37-power-posing-reassessing-the-evidence-behind-the-most-popular-ted-talk/ IQ is a very robust and well established concept whereas the evidence for power-posing is very weak. I'm therefore sceptical about the ability of body language to "trump" IQ. Also EQ is a contentious concept at best.

The movejobs.com project

Supposing I could transform job seeking in terms of the experience the candidate has. Who would find that useful? There's 500,000 paid members on the jobseeker premium group on LinkedIn where I posted a note with some screen shots I'd put together.

These screen shots demonstrate some agile project management tools I use in my day job and which I've adapted in order to help job seekers track applications more readily.

Job boards don't currently do this, they have no facility to track subsequent calls you've had with the agent, whether you are connected on LinkedIn, whether you have spoken to them or where your application really sits in the job processing sales funnel. Furthermore the tracking on job boards is per job board, whereas my tracker is universal - it tracks emails and it automatically makes a log of what mobile calls you have sent/received so that if you are called out of the house you can see who you spoke to and relate that back to the relevant jobs


I'm hoping to build a proper app to help job seekers with other aspects of the job seeking process and host this at www.movejobs.com

If you'd like to make a donation, $10, $20, $50 or even more then please click the link below, it's all really appreciated.

Any questions, please contact me on craig@siliconglen.com thanks