This is a guest post from Matt Charney, a former corporate recruiter turned social media manager.  He wants you to know that these opinions are his own, not his employer’s.  Find him on Twitter @mattcharney or connect with Matt www.linkedin.com/in/mattcharney.

There’s nothing like the NFL Draft, when the eyes of the nation tune in to watch an event which, at its core, consists of 255 verbal offer extensions. Kris Dunn recently wrote the NFL Draft represents a “test tube for the Talent Management game as a whole.” It’s the perfect search, really, one that’s almost unfair to employers watching the prime time spectacle unfold. Consider:

1) All candidates are all interested and available. Additionally, they must all formally register with the NFL and declare for the draft. Fortunately, no front office executive passes, saying, “How good can they be if they apply?”

2) There’s a fixed pool of incoming talent, all of whom can be easily located on what’s referred to as the “Big Board.” There are no sources of hire metrics or tracking for NFL players, so personnel offices don’t have to justify their existence by taking candidates from the “Big Board” and saying they discovered them, you know, on a social network or something.

3) The candidates arrive pre-slated, and diversity’s never an issue (unless you’re looking for a woman or a player from a non-BCS conference).

4) The search ends at a specified time and date. Period. Other than the team with the first pick, hiring decisions must be made within the matter of a few minutes. There’s no, “well, I’d like to see at least a couple more options before moving forward.

5) All offers are eventually accepted, and there’s no chance of a counteroffer or the player deciding to wait around for another few months in college because the timing’s just not right to make a move.

If only talent acquisition were really this easy. Of course, even in the “test tube” environment of the draft, there’s one critical lesson to be drawn: knowing if the hire’s going to work out is impossible.

The NFL has one of the most rigorous prescreening processes of any corporation, involving skills testing (the Scouting Combine, the Wonderlic, etc.), references (game footage, character interviews), succession planning (depth chart, roster). Each player probably receives more scrutiny in the weeks leading to the draft than most boards ever give to potential CEOs.

So why for every Tom Brady (fifth round pick) is there a Ryan Leaf (#2 overall selection)? Because quality of hire, in the NFL and in talent management, has proven nearly impossible to ascertain during the selection and hiring process, a long term metric to a short term process.

The most important skills in the draft, and in business, are the ones that aren’t on a resume, or even ones that can be easily defined. It boils down to organizational fit; historically, the most successful picks (and employees) have been those with shared values and vision. How does the NFL assess something so amorphous?

“It came down to a gut feeling that he was the right guy for us,” said Denver’s Josh McDaniels of his decision to stake his franchise’s future (and millions in guaranteed money) to Florida QB Tim Tebow, sounding like most hiring managers.

Maybe the NFL Draft isn’t that different from other hiring processes, after all. Only in this one, someone other than the recruiter gets to play the role of “Mr. Irrelevant.”

In a post last week, I wrote a Students Guide for College Career Fairs, and compiled a list of action items that would ensure students have a competitive advantage over their peers when it comes to career fairs.  Somewhere in that piece, I mentioned that most employers are god awful at college recruiting, and especially with career fairs.  As promised, here is my Employers Guide to College Career Fairs.

Obviously, the amount of planning, time and money spent, and number of universities to attend will vary based off of how big or small the company is and the industry that company fits into.  Once this is mapped out, a company needs to select a number of target schools to attract talent from.  Unfortunately for most organizations, just selecting a school, and attending their career fairs alone won’t bring the college kids running through your doors.

To have a successful college recruitment/college career fair program, a number of connections need to be built with each school.  Relationships need to be built with faculty, professors/teachers, and students.

Faculty

When I say faculty, I mean those folks working in the career services office, the people who schedule and set up the career fair, and basically anyone that has access to influential people at the college.

Why build a relationship with these people?

• Better booth locations for career fairs
• Access to information that employers generally don’t have
• They’ll spread the word about your company

Knowing why to build is one thing, but how do you go about building the relationship?

• Employers often times complete career fair registration online, with no interaction with the staff.  If possible, go into the office, or make a phone call in order to set up your registration for their events.
• Schedule a short in person meeting with career services faculty.  Show them the benefits of working for your company, and explain that they are a target school.  Schools always aim to develop strong relationships with employers
• Find out which employees are alumni of the school, and let faculty know that these employees are willing to come in to run work shops discussing the industry
• Send the career services office a small gift, thanking them for their help in your college recruiting efforts

Professors/Teachers

Why build these relationships?

• They’ll provide referrals, and access to top students
• Give you an opportunity to come in and speak to their class
• Most of them are looking for consulting jobs to make extra cash.  Never know when one of them could help out as a consultant

How to build a relationship?

• While it is also an advantage for your company, offer to come in and speak to their class.  Teachers love a nice break from speaking (make sure to bring in quality SWAG for the teacher and students – no pens please)
• Talk to them about possible opportunities to consult with your company and make extra cash.  Unless independently wealthy, they will be listening
• Keep in contact with them.  Have a representative from the company speak in his/her class every semester, and when a consulting opportunity does come up, make sure to reach out when ideal

Students

This should be obvious, but this is why you’ll need to build relationships with students:

• Build up a pipeline of students who can work internships, co-ops, and permanent positions with your company
• Word of mouth advertising on campus
• Pre-selected list of students to talk to further at the career fair

How to build relationships with students:

• Utilize your connections with faculty and professors to reach the most talented students
• After speaking on campus or in a classroom, allow students some 1-on-1 face time with you or whoever spoke
• Have your company sponsor a wine and cheese event, or an information session on the company.  This should be done weeks, if not months before the career fair
• Take a small, select group of students out to dinner to talk about their career.  Have the company pay for this event
• Allow interested students a chance to come tour the company/office.  They’ll like feeling familiar with the area, office, and company
• Schedule 1-on-1 time with them for the career fair.  They will feel privileged, and will put your company on their short list

The Big Guys

What about the big time companies, like Google and other well branded places?  While the small companies suffer from low to zero traffic at career fairs, the large organizations suffer from too much traffic, and not enough time to converse with each student.

Even the big guys need to make connections with, and identify top talent before the career fair.  There is no way they will gain value from talking to all 500 interested students, but if they make lasting connections with 50-75 of the most talented students, then they will have themselves a successful college recruiting experience at the career fair, and beyond.

A Word on Marketing

When you do everything above, you don’t need to spend thousands on expensive SWAG, and the most ridiculous booth set ups.  With that said, students will definitely want to see a neat set up, so do spend some time and money on creating a nice atmosphere at the event.

Bring inexpensive handouts to give to students that aren’t on your list, and give your top students something special.  Something like a personalized mug, or even an i-pod shuffle (if your company can afford it) will win over their student hearts for good.

Final Remarks

If your company isn’t doing much of my above recommendations, realize that it does take time and effort to build up a relationship with a school.  Try starting with just one or two, and go from there.

Reach out to me if you have any questions on my suggestions above.  If your company is looking to upgrade their college recruiting program, feel free to contact me if a consulting opportunity is an option.

Quick Disclaimer – I’m an Italian American living on the east-coast, and while I do not find the term “Guido” offensive, I am offended that cast members on the show down play the word and its meaning.  Older Italian generations may still believe that “Guido” is is a slur, but many fight back saying it isn’t a derogatory word,  it’s a lifestyle of a sub-culture of Italians.  This post is my opinion on the effect this show might have on the careers of younger cast members, NOT the word and it’s meaning.

Photo Credit - www.sliderguide.com

They have big muscles, busty figures, a never ending application of make-up, cases of hair gel, and now MTV is showing what happens when you throw 8 of them into one beach house.  Striking gold yet again,  MTV’s latest train wreck is called “Jersey Shore”, and features 20 somethings living the “Guido” life style.

Most of my family members find the show and its cast-members offensive, but made sure to talk about “Jersey Shore”  for all three of our extended family dinners we’ve had over this holiday season.  My family certainly isn’t alone in their disgust.  Dominos recently pulled their sponsorship, and the president of the national Italian-American service organization has made sure to voice his anguish with the show.

The point is, whether you love or hate “Jersey Shore”, you’re talking about it and the shows orangey-tanned cast.  Cast members have made appearances basically everywhere, including  Jay Leno where he publicly embarrasses 3 of them.  The “Guido” lifestyle is gaining national recognition, and while the buzz is exactly what MTV wanted, is the possible infamy helping or hurting the careers of the shows cast?

Get your Jager Bombs ready, I’m in the zone…

What does being a “Guido” mean?

To fully understand how the cast-members guido-ness hurts or helps their careers, we must first take a quick look into what it means to live that life style.  Wikipedia describes Guido’s (guys) as humorously thuggish with an overtly macho attitude.  Wikipedia also says they often wear plain T-shirts, muscle shirts, leather jackets, unbuttoned dress shirts, and throw heavy quantities of gel on their head to get  right amount of spike in their hair, referred to as The Blowout.  Lastly, Guido’s are perceived as being extremely muscular.  More muscles, means more attention from Guidette’s.  Duh.

What about the Guidette’s?  I found a nice wikiHow manual on “How to Be a Guidette”.  The list says that a young lady must be confident, look glamorous, wear the tightest clothing possible, go clubbing often, shop at Juicy or AX Armani, grow hair out long, get weekly manicures and pedicures, and date a Guido as soon as possible to become a true Guidette.

What activities do both Guido’s and Guidette’s enjoy?  Easy.  Clubbing as much as possible, tanning, and working out.  These activities are staples in the Guido lifestyle.

Would you hire a cast member?

Organizations go online to search out information on people before hiring them.  It happens.  What stops the company from doing some research into the show and making a decision based off of what their character was like on TV?  It’s a reality show, so obviously this is supposed to be how they are in real life off camera.

Your decision to hire someone can’t be off of their look alone, but would your organizations dress code be a problem to them?  Non-stop fist pump party action could prove to cause issues in the workplace, especially in the morning.

Look, obviously I had fun with this, but let’s be real.  The show is crude, ridiculous, and doesn’t help the image of the featured cast members.  They may love the image and attention they are receiving, but what personal brand are they building?  Again, simple.  They use a lot of hair gel, they party hard, and they tan hard.  Oh, and don’t forget the muscles.

So, if a cast member came in from the show to interview with you, would you hire them?

If you want more information on the cast, click on the link below and read quickly about each cast member.  The descriptions aren’t long…

http://www.mtv.com/shows/jersey_shore/cast.jhtml

Would I hire a cast member?

I’ll be honest.  I don’t know much about the career aspirations of each cast member.  However, I do know that one of them DJ’s 6 nights a week, and apparently one of them is an exotic male dancer.  These are two of the older cast members, so it looks as if they’ve found their ideal Guido careers.  Both involve music, dancing, and looking good.  Perfect.

As for the rest of them, I don’t know much.  For me to feel confident hiring any of the cast, I’d need to know they would be committed to work, and partying during the week would not affect their job.  If they could meet all job related requirements, then yes, I would green light hiring one of them.

How about that for an HR answer?

(Towards the bottom of this post you’ll find details for a contest, prizes included)

Winners Announced at the bottom!

Basic hygiene means taking showers daily, coating our underarms with deodorant, and spraying nice smelling cologne or perfume on our body (even if you are still using Cool Water).  Keeping oneself well groomed, with freshly brushed teeth and neat finger nails are other obvious learned duty’s.  Our entire lives we make it a habit to take care of basic hygiene, and I’d like to thank (most of) humanity for doing a pretty damn good job, however, through my career adventures I’ve been forced into conversations with those who needed a quick hygiene reminder.  Awkward?  Just call me Larry David.

“I’m going to have to ask you to take a shower”

I know I’m not alone, plenty of others in the recruiting industry have started off a conversation with similar words.  For me, these talks came mostly when I was working in a staffing agency, supplying out IT contractors to my clients.  Client managers would send messages like:

“Jim works hard, has strong technical knowledge, and works well with customers, but people here have complained about the way he smells.”

I’d also receive similar comments after certain candidates completed an interview.  ”You have the job, but you need to shower more often.”  There’s no way to beat around the bush when completing a “hygiene prep-talk”.  You need to nip it straight in the bud, and hope the other person accepts the truth.  Luckily, the last couple years I have been free of communicating any sort of hygiene reminder.

The point of this is just to serve as a reminder to everyone to watch your hygiene.  It’s just as important as the way you dress for an interview and can cost you the job.

Contest Time

Welcome to the first contest on CornOnTheJob!  Rules for participation:

• Send in a comment below regarding a work related hygiene issue.
• Don’t mention the name of your target.  No need to be specific.  Your target might even be YOU, if that’s the case just make up a name.
• The contest will run until Tuesday, October 26th at 12 PM.  At that time I will put all of the names in a hat and pick our winner!

Prizes:

• First Place – A brand new stick of Axe deodorant, and 2 CornOnTheJob magnets!!  Bling Bling!
• Runner-up – 2 CornOnTheJob magnets!

* Please note that I will pay for shipping.  This is serious people.  Very, very serious.

Winners

• Runner Up – Sabera
• 1st Place and Champion – Andrew

Thanks to everyone that participated.  Your comments were hilarious, disgusting, and brilliant.  Please keep an eye out for future contests, and your chance to win more incredible prizes!

This post is inspired by the brilliance of Matt Cheuvront. Matt runs a sweet and utterly awesome blog called Life Without Pants. Go lose yourself over there for a bit, you won’t be disappointed.

Matt recently posed the question, “Do you need to LOVE your job to be happy”, which sprung a debate between many Gen Y minds.   In three sentences I’ll try to summarize mattChevy’s thoughts, but before reading further it may be best you spend a couple minutes and read what he wrote.

Basically, Matt thinks the big “L” word may be a bit too strong when considering work.  He insists that maybe love should be saved for your spouse, kids, or even your dog.  When it comes down to it, Matt hopes you “Enjoy the journey” and “Let life be about the living.”

When reading his thoughts, my HR mind immediately thought of two things — Work/Life Balance and Employee Engagement. The level of employee engagement can many times be from the result of work/life balance.  My opinion is that most people won’t say they love their job, but that in itself doesn’t mean they can’t be happy overall.  This is where a strong work/life balance program comes into play.  When a company enforces a top notch WLB program, employees can enjoy flexible schedules, higher than average paid vacation, and maybe most important know that their employer actually does CARE ABOUT EMPLOYEES. Knowing, as well as feeling that your employer does care how decisions affect you is powerful.

Most HR pro’s will point out two levels of employee engagement — being engaged and disengaged.  My theory of employee engagement actually contains three levels.

Level 1 – Extreme Employee Disengagement - In this level, job satisfaction is terribly low.  Job stress imposes on outside personal relationships many times.  A strong work/life balance program won’t help the employee in some cases.  An employee in Level 1 absolutely hates their job, and is most likely a current job seeker.  They need out, and their employer probably is looking for ways to push them out as well.

Level 2 – Engagement – In this level, employees are satisfied with their position, although they may not LOVE their job or have the most passion for the work they do.  They have no problem working hard on a daily basis to complete tasks and are generally content with their job.   A strong work/life balance program helps to retain employees in this category.   Level 2 employees have their ups and downs in regards to job satisfaction, but overall feel pretty good. Most people are in Level 2.

Level 3 – Extreme Employee Engagement – In this level, employees are extremely passionate  and committed to work. These employees may be surrounded by work even when outside of work.  Hard work = success and happiness.  Work may get in the way of personal relationships for some, which can create stressful situations outside of their job.

I understand that not every working individual can be categorized as a Level 1, 2, or 3 employee, but it’s my theory!  My thoughts are that most successful people fall into Level 2 and Level 3.

So, does knowing what you love = an opportunity for happiness?

What I mean by this is if you KNOW your enjoyment in life comes from a hobby or activity that is not related to work, than maybe you should look for employers who value providing a balance of work and life.  Maybe you enjoy spending ample time with family, long-weekend fishing trips, committing to a 6 day per-week meat head gym routine, or even watching Oprah every single day.  Or, maybe what you love is work.    Once you know where your enjoyment comes from and what makes you happy, you can decide just how important work/life balance programs are for you.

My last point is hopefully obvious.  Life isn’t all fun and games.  Level 2 employes need to realize when outside activities should be cut back.  We all go through times when extra work is needed for our job. Besides, money is critical for many of our favorite activities.  Level 3 individuals that strive on constant work should know when to take a step back and relax.  Work will around for a long time, but there will come a day when it doesn’t.  Who and/or what will be there for you when work isn’t?

But neither Matt nor I are going to tell you what to do.  It’s your life, love what you do and ______ the rest.  (which movie is that line from?)

What level of engagement are you currently in, and how does your (if they have one) employers work/life balance program play into things?  Let me hear from you!

Photo Credit – Johnny Colino

Thanks to those for voting in this weeks poll!  Here are the results:

• First Place:  42% Flexible Work Schedules/Company Culture
• Second Place: 25%  Competitive Benefit Package
• Third Place: 17% Competitive Salary
• Tie for Fourth Place: 8% Short Commute and Financially Stable Company

Todays worker wants more than just a nice salary, and organizations are rapidly catching on to that fact.  Google is quite arguably the most desirable and most popular technical company to work for.  While it’s global, house hold name certainly keeps their recruiters happy, Googles innovative offices and company culture create one of the strongest word of mouth recruiting campaigns.  Did you know that some Google offices have an indoor bike lane for employers?  For some pictures of “everyday life at Google” CLICK HERE. Ok, so maybe this sort of office environment is not for every company or industry, but they back it up by providing a very competitive benefit package.  Their benefit packages include everything you’d expect from a giant like Google, but once you get through the basics, take a look at the “beyond the basics” and “way beyond the basics” benefits categories.   CLICK HERE to view the glorious benefits of working at Google.  If you didn’t click on the link, I strongly suggest you do right away.  It’s an eye opener, and maybe depressing depending on the status of the benefits your receiving.

Now just a quick comment on our two last place categories to wrap this up.  Job seekers will happily accept positions that have more than average commute times if the offering company is one with a culture/environment that meets their needs, as well as offers a competitive salary and benefits package.  With this in mind, it’s easy to see why “Short Commute” only scored an 8% in the poll.  However, I was surprised to see “Financially Stable Company” drop down to 8%, considering the state of our current economy.  Maybe once you’ve been burned, you’ll change your mind.

Thanks again to those for voting.  Have a nice week corn heads.

When making your final exit, try to stay calm.  This will be the last time many of your co-workers see you, so try to smile and not ‘flip out’.  Maybe freaking the hell out works for someone like Jerry Maguire.  In the end he gains a few fish friends, helps bring his client the contract he deserves, and gets the girl.  Freaking out like he did usually just means you’ll have security called and everyone will have an office joke for years to come.  View the video clip below and enjoy your weekend!