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A Critical Attribute to Look For When Hiring

By: Alan Walsh, Owner, Huntington Consultancy

www.huntingtonconsultancy.com

info@huntingtonconsultancy.com

(714) 465-2749

I’ve hired a lot of people in my career. My success rate has improved substantially over time. There’s much to be said for learning and seasoning from experience.

Of course one must evaluate the candidate’s specific skill & talent sets, and background checks will sometimes (not always) reveal useful information, but then we get down to the qualitative factors – those elements of a candidate’s makeup that signal a likely winner.

Much has been written about this, and employers look for many different things. Interviewers ask a variety of questions to draw people out. Tests abound for the same purpose. But over the years, when taking into account all available input, I’ve found that one factor rises to the top as a strong signal of a candidate’s suitability.

For me, a candidate’s CURIOSITY has been a very telling personal attribute which has served me well in separating the “wheat from the stalks”.

I always look for people who are naturally curious. A wonderful set of traits usually comes along as a package deal.

Many humans aren’t very curious. They move through their lives in a rather mechanical manner, doing the things required to survive and not spending a great deal of time observing or assessing the world around them. Their work tends to reflect this posture.

Then, there are the curious. It seems to be built into their DNA. They’re forever looking around and questioning the world they observe. It seems to be so ingrained in them that they’re not even aware of their differentiation from the rest of humanity. It’s not that they’re cynical and forever challenging the world. On the contrary, they tend to be very positive and eager to learn.

• The curious are alert, attentive, and observant.
• They think for themselves, and accept little at face value.
• They’re self-confident and independent; which is not to say that they’re poor social fits. That has nothing to do with it.
• Because of their eagerness to learn, they’re usually brighter and more knowledgeable than their less curious peers.
• Their work reflects a tendency to select the paths and methodologies that make the most sense and produce the best results.
• They tend to communicate along clear, rational lines.
• They find weaknesses and fix them.
• They identify opportunities others can’t see.
• They usually require less motivation or direction than their peers.
• They want to expand their minds and grow.
• They tend to be fun and interesting to be around.

There are exceptions to any situation, and certainly not all curious people possess this entire kit-bag of personal attributes; but the trend has been so strong in my hiring experience that it stands out as my most reliable single qualitative measure.

Of course, I’m not referring to those who are forever annoyingly asking “Why”, like a two-year old. Those people just have maturity issues and should be avoided.

When I think of the quintessential curious person, I think of Michelangelo. He was raised in the home of a minor bureaucrat of no particular note, and he spent most of his life living on the financial & political edge at the fickle mercies of the Church, and yet his curiosity led him in directions that culminated in his being recognized along with Leonardo Da Vinci as a consummate Renaissance man; with accomplishments that span the ages.

We can’t all rise to the level of Michelangelo, but I’ve observed that the curious tend to have the same “fire in their bellies” that drove him. They tend to surprise pleasantly.

The curious don’t fit in everywhere. Many entrenched bureaucrats want “drones”, and consider the curious to be annoying or threatening. I’m not one of those managers. Of course, the curious find such bureaucracies choking, and usually don’t stay for very long.

If you’re a hiring manager who shares my vision of what constitutes a valuable employee, I highly recommend that you include a “curiosity assessment” in your portfolio of interviewing tools. You won’t be sorry.

Five College Majors that Will Get You a Job

Jul. 15 2011 – 3:26 pm | 6,468 views | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Posted by Libby Bierman, courtesy of Forbes.com

Co-authored by Sara Baker, Marketing Manager at Sageworks, Inc.

On graduation day, everyone looks the same in a cap and gown. But what differentiates each student? What separates those who find jobs immediately from those that struggle? Often, our degree is the biggest determinant.

In light of the rising unemployment rate, Sageworks identified the five undergraduate majors that are most likely to lead to jobs—their respective industries are experiencing significant growth. Looking solely at industry trends, the five best majors are education, the biological sciences, computer and information systems, communications, and the health industry (specifically nursing). Recent graduates with these majors who are now applying for employment enter a job market that has higher net profit margins—and higher likelihood to add employees—than other industries during these tough economic times.

Link to Full Article

 

Fed growing more worried about weak economy

Some considering additional stimulus; Bernanke on Hill Wednesday

msnbc.com news services

updated 7/12/2011 5:47:35 PM ET 2011-07-12T21:47:35

 

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials are growing increasingly concerned about the slow and jobless economic recovery and are considering further monetary stimulus, according to meeting minutes released Tuesday.

“The recent deterioration in labor market conditions was a particular concern … because the prospects for job growth were seen as an important source of uncertainty in the economic outlook,” accroding to the notes from the midyear meeting held June 21 and 22.

Although the minutes showed officials were concerned that continued weak growth could undercut the two-year-old recovery, not all policy makers were convinced renewed stimulus is needed. A few held the opposite view, saying that if recent increases in inflation do not moderate, the Fed should consider tightening policy sooner than expected.

The minutes come just ahead of two days of Capitol Hill testimoney by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who will be delivering the central bank’s latest economic outlook.

Fed policymakers met shortly after the government released its May employment report. Last week the government offered an even gloomier report for June.

The economy added just 18,000 jobs last month, the fewest in nine months. And the May data were revised downward to show just 25,000 jobs added — fewer than half of what was initially reported. The unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent, the highest rate this year.

Word that some Fed officials want to consider a third round of monetary stimulus briefly boosted the stock market late Tuesday, but stock prices turned downward again when Ireland’s government bonds were downgraded to junk status by Moody’s reflecting a worsening of the European debt situation.

Major market indexes fell about 0.5 percent.

Companies have pulled back sharply on hiring after adding an average of 215,000 jobs per month from February through April. The economy typically needs to add 125,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. And at least twice that many jobs are needed to bring down the unemployment rate.

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Fed Data Cruncher Finds No New Normal Unemployment With Nationwide Figures

By Vivien Lou Chen -Jul 10, 2011 4:01 PM PT

Courtesy, Bloomberg

Mary Daly holds up two charts containing 33 bars that all point down. They show eight industries getting hit equally hard after the 18-month recession ended in June 2009, suggesting that much of the past two years’ high unemployment is broad-based and should dissipate as the economy improves.

Daly is among researchers throughout the Federal Reserve system — from San Francisco to Philadelphia and the board in Washington — who are scouring data, examining models and gleaning anecdotes to determine why the jobless rate has remained stuck around 9 percent or more since April 2009. Most are reaching the conclusion that any long-term, structural shifts in the labor market aren’t significant enough to keep the U.S. from returning to a pre-crisis unemployment level of 5 percent to 6 percent by about 2016.

“If we were mis-measuring the natural rate of unemployment, I would expect to see rapid wage growth in some sectors offset by wage declines in others,” said Daly, 48, who heads the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s applied microeconomic research department. “I don’t see that. I see pretty uniform patterns across all sectors.”

This means Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues should be able to bring down unemployment by continuing to keep interest rates near zero, eventually stimulating demand and encouraging businesses to start hiring again, said Sung Won Sohn, former chief economist at Wells Fargo & Co. and now an economics professor at California State University-Channel Islands. The risk is they will leave record stimulus in place too long, sparking a rising price spiral.

‘Flood of Liquidity’

“The research going on in the Federal Reserve is very important and critical in charting the future course of monetary policy, given the historically high jobless rate,” Sohn said. If the cause is primarily structural, then the Fed “will have simply created more future inflation because of a flood of liquidity it has created.”

The U.S. has recovered only 1.8 million of the more than 8.7 million jobs lost since January 2008, according to Labor Department figures, as companies such as Campbell Soup Co. (CPB) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) still shed workers. A report Friday showed the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent in June, the highest this year, from 9.1 percent in May.

When asked during a June 22 press conference if there’s a “structural issue” with unemployment, Bernanke said Fed officials “expect to see healthier job-creation numbers” and “payroll numbers improving relatively soon.” The U.S. is “still some years away from full employment in the sense of 5.5 percent, say,” he added.

Link to Full Article

Cisco Said to Be Cutting as Many as 10,000 Jobs

By Ashlee Vance, Olga Kharif and Zachary Tracer -Jul 11, 2011 9:01 PM PT

Courtesy of Bloomberg

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), the largest networking-equipment company, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of its workforce, to revive profit growth, according to two people familiar with the plans.

The cuts include as many as 7,000 jobs that would be eliminated by the end of August, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t final. Cisco is also providing early-retirement packages to about 3,000 workers who accepted buyouts, the people said.

Cisco Chief Executive Officer John Chambers is slashing jobs and exiting less-profitable businesses as competitors such as Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) take market share in Cisco’s main businesses with lower-priced, simpler products. Sales of Cisco’s switches and routers, which made up more than half of revenue last year, will continue to slip, said Brian Marshall, an analyst at Gleacher & Co.

Eliminating jobs will help Cisco wring $1 billion in savings in fiscal 2012, the company said in May. Cisco expects costs of $500 million to $1.1 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter as a result of the voluntary early retirement program, it said in a quarterly filing.

“We will provide additional detail on the cost reductions, including layoffs, on our next earnings call,” Karen Tillman, a spokeswoman for San Jose, California-based Cisco, said in reference to an earnings call scheduled for early August. She declined to discuss job-cut figures.

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Why Job Growth Isn’t Happening

By Peter Morici

Published July 08, 2011 | FOXBusiness

Reuters

The economy added only 18,000 jobs in June, after posting a lackluster 25,000 gain in May.  Jobs creation remains moribund and inadequate to appreciably dent unemployment, because the economic recovery is simply not gaining steam.

These weak jobs data indicate the economic recovery remains in low gear, and policies other than big deficits and printing money are needed to get Americans back to work.

Health care, retail, and manufacturing posted modest gains.

Construction, especially hurt by the weak housing market and tight state and local budgets, lost 9,000 jobs.

Temporary employment is falling, indicating growing business pessimism.

Government employment fell by 39,000, and private sector jobs growth was 57,000.

Unemployment rose to 9.2 percent, as jobs creation continues to lag labor force growth. Moreover, unemployment would be higher but for the fact that many adults have become discouraged and quit looking for work altogether. 

Factoring in those discouraged workers, and others working part time but would prefer full time employment, the unemployment rate is 16 percent.  Adding college graduates in low skill positions, like counterwork at Starbucks, and the unemployment rate is closer to 20 percent.

Link to Full Article

Major grocer getting rid of self-checkout lanes

By Anika Anand

msnbc.com contributor msnbc.com contributor

updated 7/8/2011 3:50:13 PM ET

 

One of the nation’s major grocery store chains is eliminating self-checkout lanes in an effort to encourage more human contact with its customers.

Albertsons LLC, which operates 217 stores in seven Western and Southern states, will eliminate all self-checkout lanes in the 100 stores that have them and will replace them with standard or express lanes, a spokeswoman said.

“We just want the opportunity to talk to customers more,” Albertsons spokeswoman Christine Wilcox said. “That’s the driving motivation.”

Wilcox said the replacement of automated checkout lanes with human-operated lanes likely would mean more hours available for employees to work.

The move marks a surprising step back from a trend that began about a decade ago, when supermarkets began installing self-checkout lanes, touting them as a solution to long lines. Now some grocery chains are questioning whether they are really good for business.

Link to Full Article

 

Note from Al Walsh:

 This is another piece of evidence indicating a trend back toward customer service that I’ve observed.

On the Job Hunt: If You Need a Job, Go to San Diego

By Adam Housley

Published July 08, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Known locally as “America’s finest city,” it might surprise you that San Diego is the eighth largest in the country. Even more interesting, the thriving border metropolis has about 8,000 high-paying jobs sitting wide open and waiting to be filled. 

According to Rory Moore CEO of CommNexus, a San Diego based non-profit technology industry association, says companies are offering big incentives to attract candidates. 

“Local companies are offering rewards even bounties to their employees for finding engineers to come on board,” says Moore.

The latest estimates in the area show about 2,000 job openings in mechanical and electrical engineering and at least another 6,000 in information-technology jobs. 

Some listings are from local San Diego area businesses. But others come from larger American firms, and lately larger multinational companies intent on making inroads into the U.S. market have joined the job hunt, too.

Reuben Barrales from the San Diego Chamber says, “A lot of people think of San Diego as a beach town, a border town, but what we really are is an innovation center. Really the innovative industries of the future are right here in San Diego..right now.”

Industry experts say that San Diego also has an emerging green job sector to go along with the well known bio-tech companies that have set up their bases just north of the city. But for all the need to hiring and openings, why can’t San Diego find the people to fill the need?

Link to Full Article

Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job

12:07 PM, Jul 3, 2011 • By JEFFREY H. ANDERSON

When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that President Obama’s economic “stimulus” did very little, if anything, to stimulate the economy, and a whole lot to stimulate the debt.

The report was written by the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, a group of three economists who were all handpicked by Obama, and it chronicles the alleged success of the “stimulus” in adding or saving jobs. The council reports that, using “mainstream estimates of economic multipliers for the effects of fiscal stimulus” (which it describes as a “natural way to estimate the effects of” the legislation), the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.   

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead. 

Furthermore, the council reports that, as of two quarters ago, the “stimulus” had added or saved just under 2.7 million jobs — or 288,000 more than it has now.  In other words, over the past six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the “stimulus” than it has with it. In comparison to how things would otherwise have been, the “stimulus” has been working in reverse over the past six months, causing the economy to shed jobs.

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