A 17 year-old I know pretty well thought they might like working at a particular clothing retailer but wasn’t going to quit the current part-time job before checking it out by working both jobs for a little while. The manager of the store at the local mall asked her to complete the paper application and return it the next day because she had an opening and was very interested in hiring someone who had already held a part time job for more than a year. She also said she could arrange an interview right away rather than waiting on the process with an online application. The application was completed and returned the next day, delivered directly to the above mentioned manager.

You guessed it – two plus weeks have passed and no contact from the manager. Now for the candidate experience – the 17 year-old young lady says “I’m not sure I’d even want to interview now because I wouldn’t want to work for such a disorganized manager.”

I commented in an earlier post that candidates need to relax because “some things rightfully take time and organizations have a process for evaluating talent.” I still believe that, but if you drop the ball on simple communication during the hiring process you can expect talented candidates to lose interest in the specific opportunity and maybe more broadly lose interest in your organization.

Really, don’t do it – don’t hire friends! At least don’t hire them because they are your friends.

I know – they really are a great person, they have a strong work ethic, communicate well, get along with seemingly everyone. Shouldn’t they have the skills as well as the attributes you defined as being necessary for success in the role. You took the time to define the role, right? Don’t give in and skip this step. Grandmother Dierker used to say (I hated it when she said this) “if you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over!”

Twice in the past 30 days I’ve heard “You’re right, I need someone who is actually capable of doing this job. How do I fire someone who a) attends my church or b) has a child on my child’s team?” Sorry, no easy answer – but yes, you have to do it!

Your company of course, but perhaps not in the way you’re thinking. In every discipline our firm serves the proverbial “war for talent” is on. Most organizations will do their homework before beginning the search – 1) prepare the position profile and outline both skills and attributes requirements, and 2) define the parameters of salary and bonus. Armed with this information your talent acquisition partners (internal and external) have developed several excellent candidates for you to consider. Now all that is left is for you to interview and choose, wrong!

In this tight market for talent you need to SELL! Please don’t overthink this. Based on what we hear from candidates about interview experiences just doing the basics will put you ahead of much of the competition.

1) Be on time for the interview. 48% of respondents to a national survey about interviewer behavior said this negatively influenced their impression of the company.
2) Set your smartphone to Do Not Disturb.
3) Have the candidate’s resume’ and interview notes. Here’s an idea – read it in advance, highlight it and be prepared to ask specific and meaningful questions relevant to the opportunity. Appearing unprepared for the interview was cited as a negative influence by 47% of the respondents in the same study about interviewer behavior.
4) Review their LinkedIn profile – yes this has become basic!

OK, you’re expecting some praise for Duke basketball from a closet Dukie. Sorry, while I don’t hate Christian Laettner, I do not like Duke basketball.

J. B. Duke, the Duke who the university and Duke Energy is named for knew in the late 1800’s that the business success that would propel him to incredible wealth and subsequent philanthropy was all about the people. This quote from one of his biographies “Bold Entrepreneur” by Robert F. Durden summarizes it very well: “one of the most important keys, or secrets, to Duke’s remarkable career: he was an extremely keen judge of men and of their character and ability. Moreover, when he spotted someone whose talent he respected and whom he judged to be reliable and trustworthy, he treated them fairly, respectfully, and generously……J.B. Duke’s success in enterprises owed a great deal to highly talented people who worked with and for him, and who generally remained loyally with him throughout their careers.”

The winds of change are blowing at Microsoft, and rarely so clearly as in the company’s product lines for software developers.

Just about a year ago, Microsoft paid around $400 million for Xamarin, a startup that lets programmers write their code once and easily turn it into an app for PCs, Macs, Android, iPhone, and almost anything else. And Xamarin feeds right into that strategy, says de Icaza of MicroSoft. “It turns out that Xamarin developers have an affinity for [Microsoft] Azure [cloud] services,” he says. If you use Xamarin to build an app, you’re more likely to use Azure to power it on the backend, too. 

Pre-acquisition, Xamarin already had a sizable customer base. Now, even Microsoft’s big business customers are getting in on the action. Many of them already use Visual Studio to do their programming, so the addition of Xamarin greatly simplifies their process of making apps for multiple operating systems. 

“We are getting lots of requests from companies that want to build on Xamarin,” says Liuson (MicroSoft). In fact, she says, British Airways is using it to build all of their apps for multiple operating systems, letting them have one core programming team rather than one for each platform.