I periodically reveal one of the Top 10 Stupid Interview Questions employers ask. You know, the questions that make your palms sweat because you've studied many clever answers for each one, but you have no idea which answer the interviewer you’re currently meeting with likes best.
- Where do you see yourself in five years?
- If you could be any animal, what animal would you be?
- What's your greatest weakness?
The flip side of these questions are the B.S. answers delivered by job candidates. You already know the formula many job applicants use when you ask them tough questions: Answers = Jargon.
Help may not be far. Adobe Systems (CMO.com’s parent company) has revealed a B.S. meter for use in meetings with sales people who deliver jargon to promote products and services that, well, they don't really understand or that don't really work. I'm hoping Adobe announces a version that we can use in job interviews.
Even if that hydra-head B.S. detector is just a joke, what Adobe has revealed publicly is real: Adobe ran a marketing campaign and has published data about its effectiveness, for all the world to see. The secrets of marketing revealed.
Now, if only we could get HR executives to publish some data about the effectiveness of their automated job-board recruiting campaigns--and about the outcome of their hiring methods.
Do those campaigns and methods work? The big-picture answer is revealed in the complaints we hear from HR professionals virtually every day:
- There’s a talent shortage!
- There’s a skills shortage!
- Schools aren’t teaching useful skills that we need in our business!
- Job applicants just aren’t worth hiring!
- We can’t find the workers we need!
Duh. HR is using recruiting and hiring tools that don’t work—then it’s blaming job applicants. (See Job Boards: Still Sucking Wind.)
So here’s my challenge: Go ask your HR department to disclose the same kind of data about its recruiting campaigns that Adobe has just disclosed about its marketing campaign. (Data that every CMO should consider releasing about his or her own marketing campaigns.) Then, ask yourself, “How do I get one of those skull caps for the job applicants I interview … and another one for my HR department?”
A B.S. meter for job applicants would be great. But one of those caps for HR—that’s what I really want for Christmas. What’s on your list? Come tell us in the Discussion Forum.
