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Look For The Companies With The Smudged Glass Doors

Kevin W. Grossman — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:00:09 +0000

I’ll go out on a “social” limb here and say that companies with good career opportunities and good workplace culture are those that understand and embrace marketing and have smudged glass doors.

No need to scratch your heads, especially if you’re a job seeker. Let me explain.

First, take a look at their company career page. Wait, they don’t have one? Then move along unless there’s another professionally compelling reason for you to stay.

For the many that thankfully do, is there anything on the page beyond job listings that gives you an idea of company culture? Look at the people pictures on their website – do they look like real people who really work for the company and not pretty model stock photos? Are there any video testimonials from real people who really work for the company talking about what it’s like to really work there?

Really. Happy (passionate and hardworking) employees make for great employment branding, customer service and ultimately overall product/service brand marketing. That also means it should be a mobile and social-friendly site.

And have you reviewed the company LinkedIn profile so you can see who you may know in the company, even if it’s a 2^nd degree contact you might be able to get introduced to? You should make the time to do this because it’s still about whom you know.

In fact, you should research those organizations you’re interested in via all your professional networks of choice and find out who you’re connected to directly and even indirectly and what it is they’re saying about company (or not saying).

Find out as much as you can about who influences the applicant-selection decisions and then do your best to connect with them and share your interest in said job/s. Don’t overwhelm the contacts you know (or don’t know), but don’t underwhelm them either by simply applying on the corporate career page (with the pretty model stock photos).

Not everybody you find is going to be happy about where they work or worked. In fact, we live between two worlds of business today – one where passionate Zappos love-zapped culture-centric companies focus on the internal and external customer and strive to create an emotional connection between product/service and consumer.

And then you’ve got the other one. The one we’ve been working in for a long, long time – the business as usual, non-transparent, top-down bureaucracy, one where customer inside and out usually run a slow second to productivity and profits.

The one with the better alignment and balance is the one who understands and embraces marketing and that emotional connection.

Which brings me to the glass doors; use the site with this namesake for your company research – Glassdoor.com. Yes, we all want to see inside and understand what makes the companies we’re interested tick, and the quicker the better. Most job seekers don’t have a lot of time to do research and apply for the “good” companies, so the more transparent and real a company is, the easier the research and the targeting.

There’s no guarantee you’ll get the job and it’ll still come down to whom is the most qualified time and time again.

So one more thing that may help with your own marketing tipping point – the glass doors are two-way, so keep your online nose as clean as possible. You may have heard that hiring companies aren’t supposed to use the information they find about you in social media – but they do.

In fact, over 75% of recruiters and hiring managers always consider your social media presence in their hiring decisions, so it behooves you to keep your online noses clean.

Keep it real, but keep it clean, especially when you’re noses are pressed up against the glass.

Good luck.

Look For The Companies With The Smudged Glass Doors is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

Glassdoor Among Most Democratic Workplaces; Second Year In A Row

Glassdoor Team — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 01:48:52 +0000

In favor of a democratic workplace? Check out Glassdoor!

WorldBlu, a company specializing in democracy in the workplace, has just announced the winners of their annual list of Most Democratic Workplaces and among the list of international companies is Glassdoor.com. We’re pretty psyched about the honor!

The announcement came as part of the fourth annual Democracy in the Workplace Day as designated by WorldBlu. For-profit and non-profit organizations from across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the UK, India, the Netherlands, and Malaysia made the list from industries such as technology, healthcare, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, aerospace and retail, representing over $12 billion in combined annual sales.

According to WorldBlu Founder and CEO Traci Fenton, “these democratic companies model how giving power to their people, especially during challenging economic times, can increase innovation and engagement while boosting the bottom-line.”

To be considered for the WorldBlu award, company employees complete a survey evaluating their organization’s practice of 10 democratic principles, such as transparency, dialogue and listening, integrity, accountability and choice on a leadership, individual, and systems and processes level. WorldBlu developed the survey tool based on a decade of research into what makes a world-class democratic organization.

For example when we asked Glassdoor Community Manager AJ Guerrero why he thought the company won, he said, “At Glassdoor, we (the employees) have insight into all aspects of the company, openly contributing our skills/ideas – it’s a great feeling knowing that your voice and efforts are listened to and taken seriously as we work to continually develop Glassdoor.com and grow our community.”

But perhaps Glassdoor’s Co-founder Robert Hohman expressed it best, “This is awesome! It’s not only nice to be recognized by WorldBlu but it’s great to hear that our team is proud to speak out about how well they feel we operate culturally. How effective we are at operating democratically internally is core to the success we create externally. If employees feel empowered, then that positive sentiment can become contagious across the workplace, and through to our Board, business partners and our users.”

Thanks for the shout out WorldBlu!! We like what we’re doing here and it’s nice to be recognized for what we about on the inside.

To find out which other companies made the list of most democratic workplaces, visit WorldBlu.

Glassdoor Among Most Democratic Workplaces; Second Year In A Row is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

How To Evaluate A Job & Career Recruiter

Jeff Hunter — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:54:39 +0000

Liz Ryan brought up a good point last week – corporate recruiting doesn’t often work the way it should. Reactions to corporate recruiting tend to range from “amazingly bad” to a “soul-sucking, dehumanizing experience from hell.” Everyone agrees that things could be done a lot better. But you can make it better.

We have been talking about ways for you to take control of your career, to make sure that you are in the driver’s seat when the email or call comes from a recruiter. But what happens when that first contact actually happens? How can you make sure that this call is actually worth your time? Do you really want to be behind the velvet rope at this particular event?

Every recruiter approaches that first contact differently. Of course we are all looking for relevant qualifications. But experienced recruiters know that experience and education aren’t usually all they are cracked up to be. As we have discussed, the world of work is changing fast. Talking about what you learned 20 years ago at college isn’t quite the hook that it used to be.

Good recruiters avoid the “tell me about yourself” knee-jerk exploratory party-starter questions. They know that time (yours and theirs) is their most limited resource. They want to figure out quickly whether you are worth their time. But don’t forget: you are in control. Your time is even more valuable than theirs. Hanging out on a phone call with a bad recruiter who is wasting your time is like going to the dentist without the fun. You need to be able to evaluate the recruiter, just like they are evaluating you.

Here are four areas a good recruiter will try to explore in the initial conversation. Turn-about is fair play.

Business Focus: The recruiter needs to quickly determine whether you get ‘how to’ add value to a business, regardless of the type of job. Recruiters are decreasingly interested in a narrowly-focused specialist as it is easier to outsource and automate those kinds of jobs. A good recruiter will be able to tell you how the job they are pitching relates to the success of their business. A good candidate can talk about what kinds of businesses excite them and how they have added value in the past.
Problem Solving: Hiring managers are starting to figure out that no matter how well they plan, s*&t happens. Positions that don’t require good problem solving skills are most likely going to lower cost locations (see a pattern here?). A good recruiter knows how to tell you what kinds of problems this job will likely face and why solving those kinds of problems is important to the business. A good candidate can talk about specific problems they have solved in the past and what those examples demonstrate about the value and importance of their capabilities.
Agility: If there is one thing that is going to be important in any job that stays local, it is going to be agility. Some call this flexibility or adaptability. It all comes down to the same thing: ability to shift gears rapidly, to respond to change gracefully and actually take advantage of the new situation. If a recruiter tells you that this job is stable, challenge them. A stable job can be easily outsourced. If the recruiter is pitching security they probably don’t know what they are talking about (and are therefore wasting your time). Be prepared to talk about how you react to change and have used it to your advantage in the past.
Purpose: We have discussed this at length. Be prepared to answer the lotto question: “If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you do?” As we have discussed, a good recruiter knows that the specifics of a job can change from day-to-day but that the long-term objectives of the business are likely to stay the same. They need to be able to tell you about what is really important to the business and the management (the “business purpose”). Similarly, you need to apply the lessons we have talked about previously and be able to determine whether the job being discussed is something that is part of your purpose, and not just another way to turn you into a zombie.

Final advice: get to the point, and demand the recruiter do the same. You really don’t want to be getting phone calls, emails and offers from a company that runs a business you are not interested in, can’t tell you what problems you would be expected to solve, isn’t honest about the importance of change, and doesn’t align to your core purpose. You certainly get enough spam already. Put yourself in the driver’s seat, be ready to answer these questions, and be ready to show the recruiter why they should be working for you.

How To Evaluate A Job & Career Recruiter is a post from: Glassdoor Blog

How to Tell the ‘Story of You’ in A Job Interview: Part 1

Rusty Rueff — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:43:02 +0000

So, you have gotten the interview that you desired and you know that you are going to be asked once, twice, maybe five or six times, some question that is like, “so, tell me about you”. You then have five to seven minutes to tell your story. When I interview people I usually give them a chance to tell me about themselves and tell me their story. Of the thousands of interviews I have conducted in my career, I can tell you that few of those stories stand out. And why don’t they? It’s because they are not told as stories. Instead, what I receive is a regurgitation of their resume and a data dump that lasts too long and is far from being interesting. As my mind wanders off to something else, I want so desperately to hear a story of intrigue. Storytelling and narrative is our oldest form of communication. An expert on the impact of storytelling, Andy Goodman, says “storytelling is how we mark our history, establish our identity, and how we remember.” He also says that each of us are the product of a storytelling equation:

Stories you want to tell – Stories nobody wants to hear = Stories you tell…that end up being you

But, if more of us knew how to tell a good story, then we wouldn’t just respond to an interviewer’s opportunity for us to tell our story with just data and facts. Instead, we would take those five to seven minutes and tell a story about ourselves that is unique and unforgettable. There is a structure and art to storytelling that in the context of a job interview we will explore over the next few weeks and by the time we end this series of posts, I hope that each of you will have scripted the powerful and compelling story that is you.

Next week…the six plots that make up your personal career story.

How to Tell the ‘Story of You’ in A Job Interview: Part 1 is a post from: Glassdoor Blog