Engaged employees are committed to their careers, but are they loyal to their organizations?

The idea that highly engaged workers will continue to work tirelessly for organizations despite diminishing resources often isn't true, according to a recently published article in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

“When the economy is experiencing a general downturn, it may be unlikely that engaged employees low in organizational commitment can find another position," said Thomas Britt, a professor in industrial-organizational psychology at Clemson University and author of the study. "But if they do have the opportunity to change jobs, they will. Managers who fail to position employees to be effective in their roles and provide organizational support may lose their most talented and energetic people."

These are critical times for managers, Britt added, citing the economy and organizations’ efforts to trim costs. Managers need to balance the pressure from their bosses to do more with less against motivating and keeping their employees engaged in their work and in the organization. This becomes more important when work forces are reduced and employees are asked to increase their work output, especially work that reaches beyond the scope of their jobs and their capabilities. (Read the full article on ScienceDaily.com.)

My question is, do employers' value engagement enough in the current economic climate to go the extra mile to retain their high performers? Countless employees toiling in the Great Recession have been given the message, explicitly or implicitly, that they're lucky to have a job and now's not the time to expect adequate resources, fair raises or even meaningful work. That message doesn't do a lot for employee motivation or engagement, but it's prevalent.

I surrender ...

I've basically given up my search for the elusive next great job, instead deciding my next great career adventure may be with myself.

I've chronicled a few of my job search experiences here, and will add more, but while I continued to interview with companies that often didn't seem to know what they wanted, work kept coming my way. It started with some freelance work last fall that continued through January. More contractual work - with a thriving Chicago-area dot-com came next; it continues and is on the brink of growing substantially. A contractual affiliation with a Chicago marketing communications company finally prompted me to ask, "Exactly why am I still investing a considerable amount of time interviewing - with no returns - when I could be my own boss?"

So, Tipitina Communications, Inc. was born, duly incorporated in the state of Illinois. I'm learning the ropes of small business ownership (earnestly working on becoming a QuickBooks expert).

Business is surprisingly good for a start-up and I'm thrilled to have control over my own schedule ... and my own destiny.

In what may seem ironic, making this decision will actually free me to do a better job with this blog: I can write honestly about experiences - mine and those of others - without fear of ticking off a company with which I have or am intervewing.

So, stay tuned ... I still plan to document the frustrations of seeking that next job, along with companies that are treating their prospective employees right and trends that could either make it easier - or God forbid, more difficult - to reach career Nirvana.

"What's your natural hair color?" and other inappropriate interview questions

Development Dimensions International, a global human resources consulting firm, and Monster.com just released the results of their third study since 1999 of hiring and recruiting practices. While much of their study (read the executive summary by clicking here and the news release by clicking here) talked about ways employers can hire and retain the best talent, the study also focused on job seekers' interview experiences. Two-thirds of job seekers surveyed reported that the interviewer influences their decision to accept a position.

Among the findings I found most interesting (at least for the purposes of this blog) is that interviewers annoy job seekers by:

1. 
   
   Treating the interview as unimportant (acting like there’s no time for it, showing up late, appearing unprepared).
   
   
   
2. 
   
   Taking an insensitive approach (grilling the candidate, holding back job information).
   
   
   
3. 
   
   Asking inappropriate questions (unrelated to the job, personal questions).
   
   
   

Among those "inappropriate questions" were:

• 
  
  “What is the cost of the ring you are wearing?”
  
  
  
• 
  
  “If you were a dog, what kind would you be?”
  
  
  
• 
  
  “What is your natural hair color?”
  
  
  

While the study validated what many a job seeker has experienced, the survey also confirmed what I consider an empowering development, and one of the only ways job seekers can fight back when treated badly. "Interviewers are risking not only the loss of potentially valuable employees, but also their organization’s reputation," the study concluded. Said one job seeker, “'If I had a very poor interviewing experience, I would want no association with that company at all as a customer. I might even become an advocate against them.'” This mirrors my own experience (and the impetus for this blog) as well as the 2002 findings of Chicago headhunter Wendy Tarzian, which I mentioned in a post last year.

More insult to my long-ago Harpo interview nightmare

A horrible interview experience with Harpo Productions, Inc., the media fiefdom of Oprah Winfrey, became the impetus of this blog and was featured prominently in a Wall Street Journal column by Management News Editor Joann Lublin, which I wrote about last October.


Last week, I visited a former colleague, a corporate communications executive for a major entertainment company in NYC. The executive had been my original conduit to Lisa Halliday, Harpo's top flack, and the soulless sociopath who treated me so badly after essentially promising me a job during an interview many years ago. The former colleague I visited in Manhattan had given Halliday her first job in PR, and they had stayed in touch over the years.


I originally came to Halliday's attention after she called my former colleague and asked for Chicago-area candidates she could interview for an opening. My former colleague (and Halliday's former boss) recommended me.

Minutes after getting that initial call from Harpo, I shot my resume over to Halliday, and we met within a few days, during which time she told me the job was mine and we'd take care of the details after she took a previously planned vacation. (You can read the rest of my fairy-tale-turned-nightmare story by clicking here.)


Fast-forward five years, to my interview with The Wall Street Journal's Lublin, who subsequently recounted my Harpo interview experience in the pages of the newspaper (without, however, naming Harpo or Halliday). Seems when Lublin called Halliday for comment about why she had treated me so badly, Halliday became very, very worried about how said column would reflect upon Harpo and her. She called her old boss/my former colleague to enlist his help in refreshing her memory about our interview. As he recounted the conversation to me, it seems she had ABSOLUTELY NO MEMORY WHATSOEVER of my interview with her and all of the marvelous things she said to me about my imminent employment with Harpo! Nothing, nada.


Exactly how little emotional intelligence are people required to have to be hiring managers? Or put more simply, "Who raised these people?"

How many times can something like this happen?

One of the country's largest PR/marketing agencies contacted me a few weeks ago regarding a SVP-level position they had open.


Not having agency experience generally seems to be the kiss of death at most agencies, so I approached this opportunity fairly casually. However, I had a long-ago tie to the hiring manager (through an alumni event connection) and when we reconnected, we hit it off.


A couple of weeks later, I had interviewed with about more than a half-dozen agency employees, including both of the SVPs who would be my peers, my entire four-person team, the hiring manager two more times and his boss, taken the agency's psychological/aptitude test, discussed salary expectations with the HR manager and supplied references.


I was left with the distinct impression that the agency was on the brink drafting an offer letter ... and then nothing. I was left to sweat - and wonder - for almost a week. Had a reference bad-mouthed me, jettisoning my chance at big-time agency life? Had some horrible crime turned up in my background check, committed not by me but by some evil-doer who had hijacked my identity? WHAT WAS GOING ON?


In the end, at least the agency had the common decency to close the loop with me. The hiring manager called to tell me that - at the absolute 11th hour - an internal candidate decided that maybe she'd like the position. Two weeks of internal deliberations later, she's in and I'm out.


On on hand, I couldn't be that upset because I very much support the idea of organizations promoting from within. However, how many of these near-misses am I supposed to endure?

When they steal your ideas ... but don't hire you

The Wall Street Journal's Joann Lublin tackled another slight often aimed at prospective job seekers: the would-be employer who asks for sometimes extensive "homework assignments" and then either never acknowledges the job seeker's time and effort, or worse, steals his or her ideas without acknowledgement or compensation.


Click here to read Lublin's column. FYI, I'm the "Chicago PR woman" quoted in the article and the healthcare concern is the Chicago-headquartered Alzheimer's Association. There's been significant change in the association's ranks since my bad experience with them (both the HR manager mentioned in Lublin's article and the hiring manager, who was then VP of Communications, have moved on), so let's hope this kind of thing isn't continuing to happen to the organization's job candidates.


After this experience with the Alzheimer's Association and one that wasn't quite as insulting last year with Google.com (which requires at least some of its non-technical job candidates to complete extensive writing exercises), I recently withdrew from a job search that was also requiring candidates to complete an extensive original communications campaign before being interviewed. After submitting that campaign and undergoing several interviews, I would then have been expected to complete another written exercise related to the campaign, and then would have been queried by a panel about my campaign and follow-up exercise.


I sat down the Saturday morning before my Tuesday interview to complete the voluminous exercise, and I just didn't have the stomach or heart to spend my entire weekend working on such an assignment, knowing it was entirely possible there would be little or no constructive feedback about my work. And, I has some other work to do for which I was actually being paid.


Do I think employers have the right to thoroughly assess a candidates' skills? Definitely. Do I think they have a right to ask for original work? Balance is the key there. When I evaluate candidates for open positions I'm seeking to fill, I've drawn the line at expecting the following:

• That they do some research on the company and have some educated opinions about the communications challenges facing it.
• That they review the job description and give some thought to past problems they've faced and solutions they've implemented that have relevance or applicability to my position.
• For certain lower-level jobs, that the candidate would agree to complete a basic writing/editing test (during the interview) that would give me insight into their baseline skills.

So, to ask the question again: should prospective employers ask job candidates to complete extensive and original materials as part of their interview process? They can - and will - ask anything they want. HOWEVER, in determining whether they should fulfill such a request, job seekers should assess how much they want the job and how much they trust the prospective employer.

WSJ takes on "companies behaving badly" in the interview process

Even The Wall Street Journal's Joann Lublin is talking about "companies behaving badly." After a recent column in which she discussed interviewees behaving badly, Lublin received 120 emails from people, including me, letting her know that hiring managers are often more discourteous and rude than the candidates they interview.


Among Lublin's choice observations in today's "Managing Your Career" column:

• Job hunting is a two-way street. How well you handle candidates may affect your own career.
• ... Polite behavior might help companies attract top staffers.
• "Walk in a job seeker's jittery shoes. Hiring managers must realize 'they have people's hopes and dreams in their hands, often at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives,'" Lublin quoted me as saying.
• "Bad manners have long-term consequences," warns Peter Dowling, a Stamford, Conn., sales manager at a finance and accounting consulting firm. Wooed by a recruiting software concern this past summer, he was stood up three times for a telephone interview with a vice president. Now, whenever someone mentions that company's name, he says, "I speak of the discourtesy."

Also, check out an article I penned in 2001 for the Christian Science Monitor, "Why more job hunters cry foul."
Chicago headhunter Wendy Tarzian details a survey she conducted of job seekers and also explores the link between a company's hiring process and the health of its brand in a 2002 article for Strategic HR Review.

"Standard" vs. "Authentic" interview responses

Another funny YouTube short, showing a variety of interviewees giving the standard (or expected) responses in an interview, followed by the authentic (or answers that will ensure you'll NEVER get another job).

I pity the fool

Parody job interview from YouTube ... enjoy ...

Doing It "My Way"

I continue to build Tipitina Communications, named in homage to the beloved New Orleans music hall where I spent so many happy evenings in my 20s and early 30s. I even hired family friend and Chicago attorney Michael Wasserman to incorporate Tipitina, creating an Illinois S Corp." I've since undertaking teaching myself the basics of Quicken for Small Business, which has been, well honestly, a bit of a nightmare. That freakin' program could drive the happiest, most-patient entrepreneur to distraction ... and definitely has driven one who took the college class nicknamed "Math Without Fear."