Thoughts on people, teams, organizations, communities, effectiveness and success
With the job scene mostly a seller’s market, a recent lunch with one of my favorite search from one of the blue chips reconfirmed my sense that psychological testing continues to be a hit and miss element in getting hired.
Employers continue to hire psychologists – many with little commercial experience – to poke, pry, question and generally get under the hood of would-be executive placements.… Read the rest
In case you missed it, yesterday – April 15th – the US major league baseball teams honored Jackie Robinson , who in 1947 on that date became the first player of color to play in US major league baseball. All players yesterday wore the same number – Robinson’s #42 – as a way of honoring his memory and accomplishments. More on Robinson at this ESPN video clip here .… Read the rest
Neither Roche Chairman Franz Humer nor CEO Severin Schwan have called me up to ask how I’d handle the talent side of their Genentech acquisition. Perhaps they will, but they’ve also been pretty mum on their plans moving forward for the talent at 1 DNA Way .
As someone who has made their livelihood in the talent assessment business as a coach to managers and teams for over 25 years – and to save Franz and Severin a long distance phone call charge – here are some things I’d be thinking about if I were on point with the talent side of the Genentech project.… Read the rest
Business and organizational observers in San Francisco and its environs will get a first hand view of how smart – or not-so-smart – the buyers of Genentech and Barclays Global Investor’s iShares unit are in getting real value for their acquisitions. [Update: See Kathleen Pender’s good overview column Net Worth from the April 12th San Francisco Chronicle here ]
While the buyers are different, the name of the game is the same: get value equal or greater to your purchase price.… Read the rest
Fortune Magazine’s April 13, 2009 edition has an article on Jamie Varon, who built a website called TwitterShouldHireMe.com as part of her job hunt campaign to get – guess who – to hire her. She also writes a blog called “intersected ." Her Twitter job campaign site apparently has spawned a host of imitators (googleshouldhireme.com, Facebookshoulehireme.com, etc.). [Update: Varon has also just launched a new blog site called "Shatterbox – The Way of Standing Out and Changing the World."… Read the rest
This week’s April 13, 2009 Fortune Magazine (on newsstands now, online in around 10 days) identifies tactics that they believe work in the current job market. Many will sound familiar from readers of the nine-part “Choose Me” Hire Me! series from the Life Back West blog.
Here are some of the job hunting actions Fortune identified that work:
All of these ideas are really helpful and I think complement the type of know yourself, know your message, and build your network approached advocated by experts such as Richard Nelson Bolles .… Read the rest