722: How to Hire and Get Hired Masterfully with Lou Adler

Pete Mockaitis
Lou, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Lou Adler
Hey, happy to be here, Pete, and thank you for inviting me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get your wisdom on both sides of the hiring table, the hiring and the getting hired. And I have a feeling that in your work over the years, you’ve probably encountered some interesting stories. Anything particularly memorable or fun or touching or hilarious that leaps to mind as you reflect on your career here?

Lou Adler
Well, I don’t know if it would be fun or hilarious, but important is probably a dozen, but since you’ve only asked me that question 15 seconds ago, I have to scramble pretty quickly. But I do remember one and it was 30 years ago or maybe even longer. I was talking to a candidate, and I was a recruiter at the time, my background has been diverse, but certainly when I was a recruiter in the early days, I thought I was going to place this one candidate who’s a remarkable person as a plant manager.

And at the time I was a contingency recruiter, and I would get full fee, and the compensation today would’ve been 100,000. So, if you multiply 30% by that, that was the fee I would’ve gotten, so not insignificant fee. So I just listened to him, and say, “John, I was devastated literally.” You lose that money, I didn’t have it, but I lost it anyway because I already, in my mind, spent it.

I said, “Why are you taking the other offer?” and he listed his whole list of five or six, seven reasons why. And then, this is the important part, as I listened to it and I regained my composure, I said, “John, you’ve just made a long-term career decision using short-term information.” He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “John, everything you just said, the compensation, the title, the location, has to do with what you get on the start date. Not one thing did you say is what you’re going to be doing and becoming as a result of taking that job. We’re talking about a 15-minute drive each way, so we’re talking about a half hour.”

“You’re talking about a slightly better title, you’re talking about slightly more money but the big thing you’re missing is you’re working in a company that’s going downhill, that’s in an old state electronics versus new state-of-the-art making displays. So, what you do in the next two to three years will affect the rest of your life. And if you take that offer, admittedly it’s a little bit more money, slightly better title, VP manufacturing instead of plant manager, but you’re putting yourself on a career deathtrap.” I might not have used those specific terms.

Then I said, “John, did you already accept the offer?” And he said, “No, but I want to call you first because I told you I was going to do it and I feel badly that I’m not going to take the offer.” I said, “Well, why don’t you think about it before you call the other company up?” And I thought, at that time, that I might’ve convinced him to at least think about it, but I didn’t think I was going to get the offer so I was pretty devastated.

He calls me up the next morning, he says, “Lou, I’m going to take your offer.”

Pete Mockaitis
There you go.

Lou Adler
He said, “Everything you said is 100% true. Working in old line manufacturing means two to three years from now, I’ll never get any better than this.” He took the offer, and nine months later he called, and said, “Lou, I’ve just been promoted to VP operations for six plants both in the United States, and we’re now building in China,” which was when the big Chinese movement took place, “and everything was absolutely the right decision.” And I still remember those words today, this is nine months later when I said, “You’re making a long-term decision using short-term.”

And, to me, that’s an important lesson that I tell all candidates, it’s in all the books I write, is too many candidates hire for what they get on the start date, or accept jobs what they’re getting on the start date, not the work they’re going to be doing and what they could become if they’re successful. So, to me, that’s the epitome of everything I train, I advocate, and I listen for, and I actually ask candidates, “Why did you take job A and go to job B? Why did you go from job B to job C?” And they always say, “Well, they promised me this, they promised me that.”

I said, “No, they don’t promise you. You have to do the due diligence yourself to get that information. And if you don’t get it, you’re making a long-term decision using superficial information.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I love it and that’s very easy to overlook in terms of you see what’s right in front of you, and it feels pretty close, pretty visceral, pretty emotional, it’s like, “This is my livelihood, this is my experience of work, this is what’s going to happen when I get in the car on Monday morning. This is what I’m going to see on my business card. This is what I’m going to see in the cheques or direct deposits that appear in my bank.” So, yes, that makes a lot of sense that we can naturally fall into some short-term right-in-front-of-you myopic thinking and we need someone like Lou to point us into the long term. Very cool.

Lou Adler
As part of my most recent book, which is called Hire With Your Head, the theme of the book is called win-win hiring. And it’s the idea that hiring managers, recruiters, and candidates alike should think about success measured on the first-year anniversary date not the start date. Hiring success means, hey, the candidate on the anniversary date says, “Well, I’m glad I took this job and I’m still glad I have it.” And the hiring managers says, “I’m glad I hired that person.”

Achieving that win-win hiring outcome is hard to do but critical to do regardless of whether you’re a recruiter, a hiring manager, or the candidate accepting that offer or not. And very few people do it. But that’s the essence of what I’ve been advocating and what I’ve been teaching, that’s called win-win hiring, achieving those kinds of outcomes.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, that’s a great perspective, win-win hiring, one year. So, tell us, Lou, what are some of the core principles that make that the case, that one year later, folks say, “Yeah, I really am glad I hired that person and/or…”

Lou Adler
Now, I’ll give you another story. Now, my history is I didn’t start thinking I’m a recruiter but I became a recruiter before just about 99% of the people listening to your podcast were born. It was 1978.

And I remember my first search assignment was, again, a lot of the work I had done was in manufacturing. It was for a company in the automotive industry and I knew the president, and I knew that when I became a recruiter, this was going to be my first assignment, so I met him the second or third day as a recruiter. And Mike was the president of this company in southern California, and he said, “I’m looking for someone with ten years experience, has a degree in engineering, probably would be great if that person had an MBA, and results-oriented and good communicator,” and all the stuff that you always see on job descriptions.

And I looked at that job description, and I said, “Mike, this is not a job description. This is a person description. A job doesn’t have skills, experience, and competencies. A person has that. Let’s talk about the job before we’re about the person doing the job.” And I said, “Let’s put the job description or the person description in a parking lot. What do you want this person to do? What would this person need to do to be successful in the first year?” And he said, “Turn around the plant.” I said, “Fine. Let’s walk through the plant and figure out what that person needs to do.”

We spent an hour walking through the plant – labor performance issues, scrap issues, processing issues, layout issues, inventory, management. It was a crummy plant. I said, “We’ll find somebody who can turn this plant around.” I have never used a job description that defines skills, experience, and competencies. It always defines the work as a series of performance objectives – build a team to put together an international reporting process within six months; make quota; design a new circuit that can accomplish A, B, and C and would fit in this kind of parameters and meets these kinds of criteria. It’s always outcomes with the idea being if a person can accomplish that work, he or she is perfectly qualified.

What changes it is the mix of skills and experiences, and I tell my client, “They obviously have to do the work. That’s not compromising but give us some relief on the skills and experiences. Having the skills and experiences means the person can do the work or motivate to do it, but if you can find someone who’s competent and motivated to do that work, you’ve got the right person. You just opened a talent pool to everybody who can do the work. Black, white, old or young, green or yellow, physically-challenged or not, it doesn’t matter.” And I’ve talked to numbers of labor attorneys but the number one labor attorney in the world contends that’s the most accurate way to hire. That’s objective criteria.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, and I was thinking that if in the unfortunate world that it doesn’t work out a year later, that feels pretty bulletproof in a courtroom – I’m no lawyer – but in terms of, “Hey, this is what they were hired to do. It didn’t happen so we’re looking for someone else who can do it,” as opposed to, “If they were people…”

Lou Adler
Conversely, if you find that’s what you’re looking for, you just dig deep, and to, “Hey, Pete, we need someone who can turn around the plant. Tell me about the biggest turnaround operation you’ve ever been involved with,” and spend 20 minutes digging in and understanding that. Or, “Hey, we’re going to build a team of accountants to put an international reporting system,” “Hey, we’re going to develop a new interface that accomplishes A, B, C using this skill. Walk me through anything you’ve done that’s related to that.”

So, your question was, “How do you create a win-win opportunity?” Well, first, you got to define the work that person has to do over the course of the year that would result, at least from the hiring manager’s perspective, a win-win hire. Then you got to find candidates who are motivated and competent to do that work and find it the best career move up competing alternatives.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, I love it. Lou, you just break it down, the step-by-step. So, let’s hear about that next step in terms of how does one go about finding those folks once we’ve clearly defined what a win-win situation looks like?

Lou Adler
Well, that’s a great question. You must read the book. No, seriously, the next step in, first, define the job, a series of key performance objectives. Then find candidates, or I call them semifinalists. You don’t need a lot of people to hire a great person. You just need the right people. So, our high-touch process is spend more time with fewer people as long as they’re prequalified.

And I was with a hiring manager last week, and he was looking for a software developer to do some backend stuff. It was pretty complicated. And I just said, “What do you want this person to do, Harry? What do you want accomplished?” And he told me, “Well, a couple of tasks that were big.” So, I said to him, “If I can find someone who’s done comparable work, it won’t compromise on that ability to be performance qualified,” that’s one step, “and the candidate has been recognized for doing that work and in that top half or top quartile or top third of a peer group, or top 10%, would you at least talk to the person on the phone?” He said, “Absolutely.”

So, part of sourcing is you look for, “Who would a hiring manager want to talk with if they could do that work and they were recognized for being exceptional at it?” I said, “Even if the person had a different mix of skills and experience.” Hiring manager said, “I don’t care. If they could only do the work and motivated to do it, I’d want to see him.” Then I said, “But, now, we’ve got the other side, is we’re going to look for a discriminating candidate who would see that job as a career move.”

So, then we look for, as we find candidates, we look for candidates who see that job as a move, maybe going from a big company to a small company, working at better projects, someone whose growth has slowed down, go to a place where the growth is accelerating. So, there’s a lot of things you can do and there’s a lot of technology to get you to find candidates but you have to be kind of clever at it, but we look for performance qualifying, meaning they can do the work, some super skills; achiever terms, meaning they’re in the top half, top third, top quartile in a peer group; and, from the candidate-facing-decision, hey, the job is a clear career move.

Then you engage in a conversation, “Hey, Pete, would you be open to talk about a situation superior to what you’re doing today?” I tell recruiters, “Don’t sell the job. Sell the conversation. But if you’re dealing with the right person, they’ll engage in the conversation. You take the time pressure off and you discuss this is a career move so the candidates get the…” And I tell candidates, “We’re going to have a conversation to see if we can achieve a win-win hiring outcome. It’s going to take a little more time but let’s just engage in a conversation.” And most candidates are, “Of course. It makes logical sense.”

But you have to know the job to have credibility with the candidate. So, that’s where, taking the intake meeting, and I say, “Here’s the job, Pete. We’re looking for someone who can do A, B, and C and here’s the situation. Here’s the resource.” You really know what you’re talking about. So, recruiters who don’t know the job and just source active candidates who they find either through a job posting or an email, it’s just pure transactional and pure blind luck if they hire a good person. And in pure blind luck, if the person is going to be there a year from now.

Pete Mockaitis
So, I get what you’re saying with regard to, “Hey, find those semifinalists. It is going to take a little bit of more work up front, but the good news is we don’t need to look at hundreds of resumes. We can look at a handful.” Are we thinking five, ten? Is that what we’re talking about here roughly?

Lou Adler
Absolutely. Maybe 12 to 15 but you got to be persistent to talk to everybody because most candidates don’t think you’re different so you got to kind of prove that through the process of pestering, engaging.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. That feels a lot better as a candidate in terms of, “Oh, cool. So, at worse, I’ve got 14 contenders clamoring for this opportunity as opposed to hundreds. Okay. Well, yeah, Lou, that’s worth 10 minutes for me to just see what you’re thinking but maybe a lot more.”

Lou Adler
Sure, maybe just 10 minutes.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, okay. And so then, can we hear about how do you, on the recruiting side, go about finding these people and confirming that they’ve got the performance qualification, that they can do it, and that they’re in the top half, third, or fourth?

Lou Adler
Well, first off, there’s a lot of ways to do it. A lot of my books and interviewing, we train hiring managers on the whole process – defining the work, finding candidates, interviewing candidates, and closing the deal, and even the onboarding process. But from an interviewing standpoint, so if I was going to call you up, and say, “Hey, Pete, let’s just have a conversation.”

And I said, “Pete, part of this assessment is to make sure this job represents a career move. And to be a career move, it has to give you at least a 30% increase.” “Thirty percent, did you say?” “Well, yeah, but it’s not money. Thirty percent is a combination of job stretch, meaning a bigger job; faster growth, a job with more impact; and more satisfying work. And that’s a complicated decision to make but that’s what I want to go through. So, let me just review your background in general, see if there’s a fit, and if so, we can get serious.”

So, during that process, I dig deep into the candidate’s accomplishments to see if they’re comparable and see if the 30% opportunity exists, and I say, “Pete, this looks like it could be there with bigger team, faster growth. This is the kind of work you like to do. Let me get the hiring manager engaged in this process and we’ll move forward.” But I also say this from a closing standpoint, I say, “Pete, if you’re really the candidate, and you’re going to get an offer two or three weeks from now, it’s high probability you’ll get one, 20%-30% possible, I’m going to ask you a question.”

“I’m going to say forget the money. Forget all the day-one stuff. Do you really want this job? And if you do, tell me why. And if you can’t describe that 30% in your own words, because that’s the information you have to get over the interviewing process, I’m going to suggest you don’t take the offer even if it pays the most because that will not drive your satisfaction growth and lead to a win-win hiring outcome.” So, it’s incumbent upon you, the candidate, to get that information, and is incumbent upon the hiring manager and the hiring company, to give you that information. And if there’s a clash there, fine. Don’t move forward. That kind of has the whole pieces tied together.

Pete Mockaitis
As we have this conversation, Lou, it’s just I keep myself in the candidate shoes, and thinking, “Yes, I like that. Okay, that’s distinctive.” And 30%, that just feels right in the gut in terms of, “Hey, if it’s an 8% bump, is it really worth all the time and effort and hassle and change and disruption to your life and routines to go chasing after it? I don’t know. But 30% is like, well, yeah, that is…”

Lou Adler
But, again, it’s not in monetary. Money won’t be on top of that. But the idea is that if you really get 30% of the compensation will increase at the same rate year after year. So, if you look at, “Hey, what’s your compensation a year or two from now?” it’s going to blow if you really get the non-monetary increase. Your compensation will be there a year or two from now just like this fellow John. He called me up and said his compensation was far greater, title was far greater because we put him on a better career path.

Pete Mockaitis
And then how do you go about confirming whether, in fact, a candidate is in that top half, third, or fourth?

Lou Adler
Well, there’s a lot of ways to do it, basically. And I’m doing a training session so I had to do some recording, doing some recording on some online training on a Friday, no, excuse me, Thursday. So, I said one thing that I look for is a dozen techniques. One of them is, “What kind of recognition did you get for that project?” Well, one thing from a technical standpoint, which is pretty interesting, I call it the Sherlock Holmes deductive technique, is good candidates are always assigned stretch projects early in their career, “Hey, Pete, when you took on that job, what kind of projects did you get assigned?”

Now, if you were assigned, after three months, menial work or average work, consistent with your peer group, then you’re probably an okay person. But if you’re probably starting to get stretch assignments, assigned to more important teams, those teams started recognizing you and asked you to be on other teams, there’s a lot of evidence that you can use to determine if someone is a high achiever. The point is too many interviewers, or hiring managers in particular, judge a person and that person’s raw technical insight, and using a lot of subjective material, “A smart person should do this.” But that’s not…

I’m not technically competent in any of the jobs but I’m a great technical interviewer because I look at what other people thought of that candidate. If you’re a good person, if you’re a sales rep, you get assigned tougher clients. If you’re an accountant at a big accounting firm, the partners in your job don’t give you menial accounts. They give you important accounts and they expose you to important people. If you’re a marketing person, you get assigned bigger projects.

And as a result of being successful, you get assigned even bigger projects, more important product lines that are involved in the company. So, you look for those kinds of things that, “What would likely happen if this person was really good doing that work in that company?” And you start picking up the evidence. They got a president’s award, they got a nice letter, they got a bonus, they got a promotion more rapidly.

So, it’s those kinds of obvious things when you think about it, say, “Of course, that’s what would happen.” You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do that. You just got to think logically of, Pete, you make a personal judgment. Other people have made a judgment about that person, and that person has made a judgment about him or herself. So, look for that kind of evidence that would be indicative of what a high achiever does.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Lou, I’m just going to put you on the spot and make it a little challenging. I think that it’s funny that what you say that sounds like, “But, of course, we should all do that,” and yet we don’t. And what’s common sense is often not common practice. I’m curious about if you’re hiring someone from an organization whose kind of processes and meritocracy is just kind of broken, and these deductive clues we’d like to lean on as Sherlock Holmes are not giving us the indicators we’d like, what are some other sources you’d use?

Lou Adler
Well, it depends. Maybe the candidate is not any good.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s one possibility. I guess I was just looking for what are some extra indicators or clever approaches that we can get that validation, that check mark.

Lou Adler
Yeah, I don’t know that there’s a clever approach. I think I’m pretty deductive. And I don’t want to say deductive in any kind of intellectual sense. I just look for evidence. If I don’t find the evidence, I pass. I can’t afford the risk.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Fair enough.

Lou Adler
When I ask a person, “Why do you change jobs?” and if they always change jobs for short-term reasons, that, to me, is the indicator the person is not really focused on career-oriented, a career-oriented focused person. So, there are things you can look at that would get you some insight and validate that the person is really an okay person but not a high achiever. High achievers want to progress. They self-develop. They work hard and they do get assigned projects. And even if once or twice, it was a screwup, so be it. That’s fine. So, there is evidence that you can look for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Sure thing. Well, so let’s say we got our semifinalists, and then here we are in the interview phase, can you help us think through on both sides, what are some do’s and don’ts?

Lou Adler
Well, the thing to me, over the years I developed what I call the hiring formula for success. And the hiring formula for success says, so it’s how you actually evaluate candidates. It’s ability to do the work in relationship to fit, drives motivation, and because motivation is so important, it’s squared. So, the do’s and don’t are, “Hey, if you want to achieve a win-win hiring outcome and hire someone in the top half, they better be motivated to do the work you want in the context of your job, the fit factors.”

Of that formula, ability to do the work, which is a combination of hard skills and soft skills, but most people only measure the technical skills, they ignore the soft skills – organization, planning, team collaboration, understanding. They just focus on the hard skills. But if you get at the hard and soft skills, the next one is the fit factors. Fit with the job. Does the candidate really want to do that work? Fit with the hiring manager style. In my mind, I was pretty independent and I had a hiring manager, the group president whom I worked for, was a micromanager, I said, “Fire me if I don’t do the work. Just leave me alone.”

There are other people who want a manager and subordinate who align better on what they need. So, one fit factor is the managerial fit. Another fit factor is the culture of the company. Another one is the pace of the organization. Another one is the sophistication of the organization. But those context issues are critical. There are a lot of confident people but if they don’t fit the fit factors and they’re not motivated to do the work, they’ll underperform.

So, that’s getting pretty complicated but the way we do that, we break the interview down in different pieces, we dig into the candidate’s accomplishments, and then we group around a formula around that hiring formula to make sure that we have all the components measured accurately. So, that’s the secret sauce of how you find candidates who are going to excel in that circumstance. Ignoring the fit factors, it’s, again, problematic if you want to achieve a win-win hiring outcome.

Pete Mockaitis
And you said motivation was squared?

Lou Adler
Yeah, ability to do the work in relation to fit times motivation squared. If you just kind of go through the basics of it, you’ll get some done. But if you’re motivated to do the work, you’ll get a lot more done.

Pete Mockaitis
And in the course of the interview, how do we assess whether one is, in fact, motivated, or, on the flipside, as a candidate, to reveal that you are motivated?

Lou Adler
Motivation to do the work, not get to work, and that’s a critical step here in this process.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, how do I assess whether, one, a candidate has motivation, or convey that I am a motivated as a candidate? You know, it’s funny, I remember I had a friend who was really into a consulting opportunity, and then he got some feedback from his interviewer, he’s like, “You know, you just didn’t really seem into it.” He’s like, “I’m very into it. This is my number one company that I really want to work for.” But, somehow, it didn’t get conveyed. So, how do we convey it? And how do we check for it?

Lou Adler
Well, see, that’s the issue. The fact that someone is quiet and low key has nothing to do with motivation to do the work. Unfortunately, candidates, or hiring managers and interviewers judge you by how motivated you are there during the interview and how extroverted you are. Totally inappropriate. The way I do it is I dig deep in the candidate’s accomplishments and ask many questions, “Hey, what did you do in this accomplishment? Where did you take the initiative? Where did you go the extra mile?”

And I ask that constantly as part of different accomplishments so I start seeing a pattern on the types of work that naturally motivates the person to excel. That’s how I get at it. And I see the pattern of, “Hey, this person always goes out of his or her way to build the team, always takes these architectural design issues, always does this without prompting.” Very few people do everything without prompting all the time. But I start seeing this pattern of activity.

Now, how does a candidate do that? And I don’t want candidates, and I tell candidates, me as a recruiter, unfortunately, my technique is not universal, I tell candidates, “I don’t care if you’re a good interview. I care if you’re a good performer. I’ll try to clean you up to make you the best interview possible. But I’m going to represent you if I think you’re good.” Then we have a course, and you can look on WinWinHiring.com. It’s how to prep for an interview where I tell candidates how to do the best job they can of presenting themselves for a specific job.

And the way to do that is if you feel you’re being superficially assessed, I say to candidates, time out very quickly, and say, “Would you mind telling me some of the major accomplishments related to this job because I’d like to give you examples of work that I’ve done that are most comparable?”

Pete Mockaitis
“Let me do your job for you, interviewer.” That’s funny and I’m laughing because it’s kind of sad but sometimes necessary. Like, as candidates, it’s like, “Let me do your job for you, interviewer. I think what you want to know is the following.”

Lou Adler
Yeah, but most of the time it is. But at least the fact that you just asked that question, indicates that you’re proactive, even if you ask in a low-key way, “Oh, that’s a pretty good question. What are the resources for that job? What’s the timeframe for that job?” And you start asking these questions that say, “Wow, this person…” Even the quality of your questions and proactively asking them, brand you as, “Hey, this person is pretty aggressive.” Your answers the other part, “No, I did some work that’s comparable. And what did you say the biggest problem was in that? You said that design issue to build the tool to do A, B, and C? Let me give you some examples of work that I’ve done related to that.”

So, the idea is, find out what the work is and proactively ask about it. Even if you ask in a low-key manner, it’ll, “Wow, this person is really competent. He really knows what he or she is talking about.” So, I think those are the issues. If you just wait, assume that you’re going to be assessed accurately, the chance of that is five-to-one against you’ll be judged on personality traits and your depth of hard skills.

Pete Mockaitis
And I like that question for getting after motivation. It’s like, “Where have you gone the extra mile here? Where have you gone the extra mile there?” because you’ll surface, I imagine, some patterns. And, hopefully, the answer is not, “Oh, uh, no, I don’t know.” And that can really get you thinking. As I reflect, as I’ve asked myself that question in different endeavors, it’s like, “Where have I gone the extra mile?” it really does reveal, “Oh, yeah, that’s where I was motivated.” And where have I not gone the extra mile is like, “Oh, that’s where I didn’t care and I did the minimum I had to do to comply with the law,” or whatever needs compliance rather than my proactive vigor.

Lou Adler
Right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us, Lou, any other top tips you would suggest? I think let’s give the candidates a little bit more love in terms of if we want to stand out to become found, to dazzle our prospective employers, what are your top tips on that side?

Lou Adler
Well, first off, my big tip is do not, do not, do not apply for a job directly. Chances are 3% you’ll get interviewed; 1% you’ll get hired, so it’s just a waste of time. On the other hand, if you see a job that you like, I would find out, “Hey, is there any way I can get a referral into that specific job?” That would be great. And it could be a second- or third-degree connection, but you try to see if you can do it, “Okay, what’s this company doing? Do I know anybody? Do I know anybody in my school?” You start looking on LinkedIn.

And the beauty of LinkedIn, it’s a network of 700 million people, not a database of 700 million people. And I don’t think recruiters or candidates take advantage of that. So, now, let’s assume that’s probably going to happen that you’ll know somebody for that job 10%-20%. It’s not going to be high, but you never know. If you get a professional background with an accounting firm, or bigger company, you might be able to get some connection.

On the other hand, 50%-70% of the time, you’ll be able to find out who the vice president is for that department, or director for that department, even if it’s not over that specific job. And I remember talking to this fellow, this has to be five or six years ago now, or maybe ten years, but he was Italian, he had his MBA from some school in Milan, he wanted to work for a telecommunications company in Europe, and he named the top three or four, “I want to work a job here. How would I get it?”

And I said, “Well, it’s easy enough to find a VP of marketing in any of those jobs. Why don’t you do a little MBA-like case study, putting each of their telecommunication systems, if that’s the area you want, and some kind of little competitive matrix, company A, company B, company C, company D, and some of the key features by product line?” So, this person wants to be a product marketing person.

I said, “Then just do a little summary with one or two pages, and then send that off to the VP, and say, ‘I’d like to work in product marketing, and this is what I’ve done. And I’ve found some key weaknesses in some of your products. I’d like to have a chance to chat with you about them.’” He said, “That’s a good idea.” And he called me up once or twice over the next two weeks, and said, “I’m just starting to send out emails, and I think I’ve got one interview already.” I hadn’t heard from him again for like six months, said, “Lou, I got that job with that one company.”

So, there are ways you can find the names of people, do a mini-consulting project, and just arrange to have a conversation, and say, “Hey, I’d like to do this.” And on LinkedIn. There’s an article I call 15 Ways to Hack a Job. So, if you look up Lou Adler, Hack a Job on LinkedIn, you’ll see an article, and it talks about using the backdoor to get the interview, to get to the top of the resume heap. And if you want to apply, unless you’re a world-class person with exactly the skills, it’s a low probability event. I would rather spend more time with fewer postings rather than applying to hundreds of postings.

Same thing with candidates. Don’t spend a lot of times with hundreds of candidates. Get to the right candidates and spend more time with them per candidate. Spend time on jobs you want. And if you put some effort into it, you will get a conversation.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you think that most people spend too much time fine tuning their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and they can spend that time better elsewhere? Or, what’s your take there?

Lou Adler
That’s a good question. I would say the thing is, and I do look at resumes, so I guess here would be the advice. And this was like 30 years ago, I had a training for candidates. I don’t know how I did it, I figured I just wanted to train candidates on how to get a job, so this was pre-internet, pre-job boards too, so it had to be 1990-ish.

And I said, “Take your resume,” I had everyone bring a resume, and I said, “Give it somebody whom you don’t know.” And I said, “Turn it over and give it somebody whom you don’t know.” Then I said, “I’m going to give everybody 30 seconds to look at that resume.” Maybe it was 15 or 20 seconds. I said, “When I turn the clock on, I want to say turn the resume over and just circle the things that stand out,” maybe it was 10 or 15 seconds. “And then turn it back over and give it back to the person you got it from.”

So, I then said, look at the candidates, and said, “Now, look at what’s circled. Is that enough to get someone to read your resume because you only got five or 10 seconds or 15 seconds where somebody sees your resume and decides to read it?” So, now, I take that same advice, and a lot of people had their name in big bold letters, their address in big bold letters, the title of summary in big bold letters. I said, “Is that going to get someone to read your resume?”

So, now, you take that same advice, so, “Hey, you’ve got 10 or 15 seconds,” recruiters only get 10 or 15 seconds per name, maybe five or six, they got a whole list. Some machine is going to score it in priority order, but assume you get to the top of the list. Well, what’s going to stand out? It’s that first line, which is usually that description. So, if that description turns out, so that’s what I do. I don’t even look at the person’s name.

I just look at the title they give themselves, “Expert in a job of developing something or other.” If it’s kind of cool and interesting, “Oh, that’s kind of interesting, pretty clever.” I highlight something. “Coaching thousands of people on how to do A, B, and C.” “Oh, that’s pretty cool. I got to look at that.” So, I would say that’s probably the most important thing is the first line below your name on LinkedIn. I don’t exactly know how it turns out to look at but I just don’t remember how it does.

But I guess I don’t know if anybody can just look at LinkedIn and look what it looks like, but, to me, that would be the thing. And then I highlight one or two major accomplishments and probably the academics or the track record that somehow show the promotions very quickly, say, “Hey, this is an achiever.” So, some of those achiever terms quickly and some of the projects the person has worked on.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, how about a favorite quote?

Lou Adler
Stephen Covey who wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is my favorite author of all time. He came up, and this was 30 years ago, seven habits that a team, like exceptional people, all have. One of them was “Begin with the end in mind,” “Think win-win.” And “Seek first to understand before you’re understood.” So, I’d say those three are critical, “Think win-win,” “Seek first to understand to be understood,” and then “Begin with the end in mind.”

But if you think about the comment I made, Pete, about, “How do you control the interview if you’re a candidate?” it’s to start asking questions, “Begin with the end in mind,” “Hey, Pete, what do you want done in this job? What will success look like? And I’d like to give you some examples of work that I’ve done.” That is proactive enough to force the interviewer to tell you, and they’ll be impressed by the fact you asked that kind of question. You have to give a decent answer, too, but, nonetheless, you’re in the game if you ask the question.

So, you’re beginning with the end. Why answer questions that aren’t relevant? Why not answer questions that are related to the real job. So, force the person to do it. But I use those quotes a lot and refer to Stephen Covey a lot, so maybe that is my favorite quote.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a study or experiment or bit of research?

Lou Adler
I went to a number of companies that process resumes, they’re called applicant-tracking systems, and I validated the number. And one company had all their users there, and they said, “Over the last five years, since we’ve been in business, we’ve processed 75 million resumes. And of that, 750,000 people got jobs.” And everybody clapped.

And I said to myself, “That’s 1%.” So, they’re spending 99% of all the people applied did not get a job. I then ultimately asked, and that’s what I got. The likelihood of applying is random chance. And then I validated that with two other applicant-tracking system companies. They weren’t as big as that one. But in 30 or 40 resumes, it was about 1% of people who applied get a job. Three to four percent get interviewed.

Then you say, “Where do these other 96% of the jobs get filled?” And most of it is referrals, or internal promotions, or through a trusted recruiter, or from a second-degree connection. So, then that’s a lot of that stuff evolves on, you just look at the statistics, it says, “Hey, the way to get a job is to do your own due diligence. Don’t assume that a posting on Indeed or a posting on ZipRecruiter is going to get it, get you that great opportunity, and applying to hundreds and hundreds of jobs a week. That’s not work. That’s a waste of time.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Lou Adler
Oh, that would be Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Lou Adler
For me, a tool is LinkedIn. When I was a recruiter, I could find anybody on LinkedIn in 24 hours. It was easy. No, it’s another tool that I would actually say. I don’t know if you know this. It’s called a phone. You have to talk to people. And I think too many people try to make it impersonal, whether you’re on the company side or the candidate side.

Hiring is a serious personal business. It’s an important decision. And if you try to make it a technical role, you’re going to be unsuccessful. You try and make it a personal relationship; you’ll be very successful. That’s why I say spend, combine high tech with high touch. Don’t just rely exclusively on high tech to make important hiring decisions.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a particular nugget that you share that people quote back to you often, or that you’re known for?

Lou Adler
Define the job. Or, “It’s what people do with what they have, not what they have that makes them successful.” It’s what people with what they have, not what they have that makes them successful. So, during the course of the interview, I understand, “What do you have in terms of skills and experiences and opportunities, and what have you accomplished with those?” And I’m looking for people who have accomplished more with less.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Lou Adler
And that really reveals a lot about that person’s capability.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Lou Adler
I would go to WinWinHiring.com. WinWinHiring.com is a training course, an online training course. But I’d also go to Amazon and search “Hire With Your Head.” The book just came out, fourth edition from Wiley. Whether you’re a candidate or a hiring manager or a recruiter, you’ll find it invaluable in terms of planning your life and your career.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Lou Adler
Well, to be awesome, yeah, I say don’t make excuses. Get it done. It doesn’t matter if you’re committed to do it. Don’t blame others. Just do it. And I see that all the time. And one thing I hate is people who make excuses. I like people who get the job done. And getting it done on time, even if it’s not perfect, is more important than saying or making excuses on why you didn’t make it perfect. Get it done in some level so people can use it. Meet your deadlines. Don’t make excuses. Get it done. That would be my motto for being awesome at your job.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Lou, this has been a treat. I wish you lots of luck and fun in all the ways you’re getting it done.

Lou Adler
Great. Thank you, Pete. Nice chatting with you.