WorkPuzzle

Why Spend So Much Time Listening During an Interview?

I hope you’ve been enjoying the series that Dave Mashburn has been contributing over the last week.  I know he promised us all a “Part 3” to the discussion he started, but he just shared some bad news with me.  He had to take his computer in for repair over the weekend.  So, he asked me to jump in, mid-stream, and add to the topic.   

Maybe this was providential.  I ran across an article last week that seems to support the basis for this topic.  The article was written by Jason Lauritsen in a online publication called Recruiting Trends.   

In the article, Lauritsen makes the point that everyone is looking for “the top talent” to fill their most critical positions.  For a real estate company, the agent is the one who ultimately generates revenue for the company.  Finding individuals who have the potential to become high-producing agents in a hiring manager’s organization is the goal.   

But, Lauritsen asks an important question:  “Is there such a thing as top talent?” 

Here are his thoughts on this topic:  

“It has become commonplace to talk of 'talent' as if it is absolute.  We strategize about recruiting 'top talent' as if it is a group of people that is easily defined and targeted.  But talent isn’t that simple.  And, it’s definitely not absolute. 

When we step away from conceptual or academic discussions of talent, we need a more practical and realistic framework for understanding talent in business.  When you break down the way we actually practice talent, we realize that talent is relative and contextual.” 

Think about this last statement—“…talent is relative and contextual.”  Do you believe this is true? 

I would argue that unless you spend most of your interview time listening, you believe (maybe subconsciously) this to be a false statement.   

This false belief often results in the hiring manager trying to “sell” the candidate on the benefits of the organization.  By making the assumption the person is talented (ie. someone you’d want to join your organization), it is nearly impossible to avoid going into the sales mode and talking too much during the interview. 

Lauritsen gives us some insight on how to avoid this: 

“Talent is contextual.  Talent in one environment may not constitute talent in another.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because someone showed great ability in one situation, they will be as able in every situation.  

For example, an individual who has years of successful experience marketing within an established firm with a strong brand may not have any success marketing a startup firm.  The context and situation have huge implications on what constitutes talent.” 

There is only one way to get this information from a candidate—you have to listen and understand their story.   

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that someone is “talented” during the interview (even if they are one of your competitor’s top agents).  Instead, approach the conversation from the perspective of thoughtfully trying to understand the context of the individual’s experience, skills, and character.  And, attempt to make a legitimate connection between what you learn and what a person truly needs to be successful in your organization. 

By doing this, you’ll force yourself to ask meaningful questions and listen.   

Dave will be back next week, with the conclusion to his series.  If you’ve never read/heard much about attunement and attachment theory, you’re in for a treat.  It’s fascinating stuff…

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Do's and Don'ts of Interviewing and Hiring

I mentioned in the last edition that I would elaborate on why "being understood" is vital to recruiting and retention, and provide a way of thinking about it that will hopefully change your goal of the interview.  But, before I lay out the key ingredients to hiring and retention, I want all of us to agree on what doesn't work.

Recruiting the best new agents requires a thorough understanding of how the best recruits think and reach decisions.  It also requires an understanding of the natural conflict that occurs inside the minds of people further down the ladder of the recruiting pipeline...the people who are just beginning to ponder the possibility of becoming an agent.

Many managers have told me, point blank, that they have no time to waste on someone who has trouble deciding if real estate is right for them.  One manager said, "If I have to interview a person for more than 20 minutes, then the candidate isn't right for real estate."  Here's another one I hear a lot:  "If they don't have a license, then I'm not interested."

The managers who say this are immensely confident in their views.  For the first few years that I partnered with companies in this industry, I naturally had to respect their views because I hadn't seen enough to gauge the accuracy, or fallacy, of what they were so convinced of.

But now I've gathered ample evidence to suggest that the above philosophy of interviewing new agent candidates rarely uncovers the best candidates.  In many cases, this approach attracts the most desperate and insecure candidates, who fake cooperation and decisiveness just to get the approval of the impatient and narcissistic manager.  Much like dating, ineffectual people are attracted to abusive partners. 

Here's three statements that I believe have proven true:

1. “You cannot fully predict who will be successful.” 
2. “The smartest candidates must be treated with the upmost success from the first encounter.”
3. “The worst candidates are the most desperate, and are less likely to react aversely to rude and devaluing behavior by the manager.”

To continue the dating analogy... When you want to choose your (best) life partner, you assume that he/she will be understandably cautious and most likely not tolerate any sense of narcissism, correct? 

Fortunately, most managers I've met genuinely want to know how to interview well.  They are hungry to understand what's going on inside the minds of high-caliber people, but many have not discovered the secret sauce to attraction, and retention. 

When it comes to interviewing the best candidates, you have to change your entire mindset.  Interviewing well is counterintuitive to much of what many have been taught, such as selling features, selling the company, or selling yourself as a manager.  As I mentioned in the last article, the most talented candidates want to be understood before hearing any of this.  They don't want to listen to you drone on and on about yourself or your company. 

In addition, the best fruit will probably not be low hanging.  Any one of your competitors can find those folks--they're easy to find, but there is a finite number of them.  We have droves of apple orchards in Washington State.  If all the workers competed for the apples that had already dropped to the ground or that hung on the lowest branches, it might be easier work, but is it better?  The answer is no.  The best harvesters are those on ladders, working to get to the hardest to reach apples...the best apples. 

The better companies will be willing to spend time and energy to attract the candidates who are already good at what they do, but happen to work in different industries.  They will have the patience to court these people over several months of indecisiveness, licensing school, and occasional second thoughts?  To repeat -- The brightest and most motivated people will not say yes right away.  

Who, among you, is willing to turn over enough rocks and do the necessary work to dislodge those hard to find diamonds?  Doing this takes patience, consistent engagement, and finesse.

The finesse part is knowing how to talk to people who you suspect will become very good agents, but who might not be able to pull the trigger as fast as you'd like.  This is often the hard part.  How do you get them to arrive at "yes" without sounding like an impatient salesman?  The brightest candidates will resist that pressure.

In part three of this discussion I promise to detail the "secret sauce" to interviewing, hiring and retention...It's called "Attachment through Attunement."  

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Interviewing and The Art of Not Talking

The most counterintuitive principle of interviewing is the discipline and art of listening well.  It is the magic sauce, if you will, in the recipe of winning a person over to you and your company. 

Despite this fact, hiring managers never cease to talk endlessly about themselves and their company, to the detriment of their recruiting numbers. 

In my recent road trips to visit numerous clients and prospects, I was reminded of this erroneous misconception and our need to revisit this topic occasionally, addressing how to bring about change to the way managers approach the interview exchange. 

Where do we get the impression that people will be impressed by us and decide to change their lives because of what we say, or how much we know?  Know this: Only the most desperate candidates will be impressed by what you say...and the best candidates will probably be repelled. 

So, what do candidates need?  They need to be understood. 

Everyone likes to be understood, but it is never more important than when a person is considering a massive life change, like the decision to become a realtor, or to move from one office to another (or even buying a house for that matter).

In their moment of crucial contemplation, what makes us think that learning more about us will be the critical information that helps a candidate decide whether to radically alter their life?  It might be how you’ve been trained to interview, or in some cases it could be your ego.  How do we check our ego at the door when we have been presented with the sacred task of guiding a person through this big decision? 

You may begin to think that I am suggesting that we not “sell” our office or ourselves at all.  I’m not.  I am simply saying that you must first thoroughly understand the candidate's story before you deserve to speak into their lives.  In other words you must attract and not promote. 

So, I want you to experiment with this idea.  In your next interview, commit yourself to understanding the candidate completely.  You accomplish this by asking questions about their story...with relevant and numerous questions.  Get to know them and then ask them what they want to know about your company.  Let them take the lead, and discover what the art of not talking can accomplish.

In the next edition, I’ll elaborate on why being understood is vital to recruiting and retention. I will offer a way of thinking about all of this that will change your goal of the interview... 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

HIRING YOUNG AGENTS: THE REAL ESTATE AGENT GENE--Part 2

I decided to follow-up the last WorkPuzzle I wrote on the importance of entrepreneurism in the hiring of “new to real estate” agents... For young people, I believe this is a particularly healthy framework from which to approach a real estate career.

Why?  Because starting a business captures a unique balance between an individual’s hope for the future and the expectation that to pursue that hope, he/she will most likely need to follow a path that is long and difficult.

Approaching a real estate career from a traditional job perspective is a completely different proposition.  The job framework may cause people to expect quick payoffs and become discouraged when they do not materialize.

In relation to this topic, I recently came across an interview conducted by a writer from Nashville named Jeff Goins.  The interview is with Chris Guillebeau, author of a new book called The $100 Startup. 

This interview (and the book as well) peaked my interest because it documents the stories of hundreds of individuals who were willing to step out and start a business.  Here is part of the interview:

Jeff:  What’s the $100 Startup about, and why is it needed?

Chris:  Two things:  first, it’s the collective story of 1,500 “unexpected entrepreneurs” who all started businesses without a lot of money or special skills.  Second, it’s a blueprint for readers who want to create their own freedom by doing something they love.

It’s needed because people are dissatisfied.  They want more from life than a soul-sucking job that takes their energy without providing much in return.

People have always been dissatisfied, of course, but they haven’t always known which steps to take to create independence.  The book is an attempt at providing 300 pages of next steps.

Jeff:  In the book, you tell stories of businesses you’ve seen launched on a bootstrapped budget all around the world.  What was one of the most interesting ones?

Chris:  The book includes a wide range of stories, from six-figure blogging businesses to retail shops.  It’s hard to pick a favorite, but since you’re a writer, I’ll point you to Brett Kelly’s success.

Brett was a self-described geek who wrote the first eBook on Evernote, the free note-taking software.  This project earned more than $100,000 in its first year, and allowed Brett and his family to get out of debt.

It’s an incredible success, of course, but in researching the book and talking to people, I heard story after story like Brett’s.  It seems that success can indeed be replicated, if you take the right steps.

Jeff:  You live your life, traveling the world and supporting yourself online.  What is it about this lifestyle that attracts you, and what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Chris:  Personally I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.  I’ve been self-employed for nearly 15 years and extensively traveling for 10 years.  I love what I do and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is always focus on value.  Value is one of those words that is often used without much definition.  My definition is that value simply means “helping people.”

You aren’t likely to succeed as an entrepreneur, digital nomad, or whatever business goal you aspire to without helping people.  In other words, you can do what you love, but you must find a way to connect that with other people’s needs.

There are two lines that stand out to me in this interview.

1.  "It’s needed because people are dissatisfied.  They want more from life than a soul-sucking job that takes their energy without providing much in return."    

This is so true.  Many of the people that you will interview are languishing in their current jobs.  Tap into those feelings of dissatisfaction as you listen to their stories.  Attuning youself to their struggles will create attachment.  The first step to leaving an existing career is feeling some attachment to something new.

2.  "The book is an attempt at providing 300 pages of next steps."

This is where I believe your own creativity will be sparked.  When you are interviewing someone you believe will make a great agent, but who faces some obstacles (usually financial challenges), you need to offer a series of small steps that he/she can take towards becoming an agent.  Unfortunately, recruiting is not a transaction.  It's a process that takes time, focus, and effort to complete.

Here’s some homework for you—get this book and read it.  As you read it, jot down notes about some of the stories that would most closely apply to a real estate career.  And then, during your next interview, spend a small amount of time selling the idea of becoming an entrepreneur.  As we learned last week, those candidates who light up when presented with this idea, just may have the real estate gene. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Hiring Young Agents: The Real Estate Agent Gene?

I received lots of lively discussion from the last WorkPuzzle blog I wrote.  Some of it was very positive.  For example, the general manager of a large real estate company on the East Coast noted,

“[One of the managers you recently met with] hired seven new licensees in April.  Six of these new hires are under the age of 35.  It has changed the office dynamic in a couple of weeks.”

While others were less excited.  The owner of a prominent real estate company in the Midwest wrote,

“[What you’re saying] makes sense on paper, Ben, but we sure haven’t seen it.  In fact, we had four or five under thirty, quick in/quick out hiring failures in our flagship office, to the great discouragement of our manager there.

[Our executive team] has talked about a quality we call 'being settled' that an under thirty needs to have before they really take real estate as something more than an alternative to waiting tables.  Being settled often means being married or partnered up 'permanently,' and that spouses or partners have a solid, real, job.  Absent being settled, these young folk seem to be drifting and real estate is deadly for them.  They don’t have the discipline it takes.  I continue to be intrigued that you are bullish on this hiring sector.”

One of the executives from the same company added,

“I certainly don’t know how to build it into a profile, but with both young and not-so-young, one of the largest determining factors is willingness to embrace the concept of commission-only and to invest money and time into the start-up [of a new] career.”

There is no doubt this is a challenging task.  Figuratively, I’ve only provided you a prospector’s map to the location of a site that has valuable gems.  Locating the site is the easy part.  Mining the gems is much more risky, difficult, and frustrating.

I know many of you have noticed patterns (ex. “being settled”) as you’ve done your own mining for hires.  So, please email me what you’ve learned and I’ll share some of these best practices in an upcoming WorkPuzzle discussion.

While experience is probably the best teacher, we can also look to research to help us be more effective hiring managers.  Daniel McGinn (a contributor to Inc. Magazine) recently highlighted research done by professors Edward Mungai and S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, on the characteristics of individuals who start businesses.

The starting point for the research was the existence of several studies that firmly established that children of entrepreneurs are two to three time more likely to launch out on their own than are the kids of traditional salary earners.

But digging further into the data provided some interesting insights:

“The researchers plumbed the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal data set run by the University of Michigan that has followed nearly 8,000 representative U.S. families.  First, they identified people who left traditional jobs to become self-employed.  Using the family income data, the researchers determined how the businesses fared in subsequent years.

They looked for signs of a start-up gone bad:  founders who were later unemployed, left the business after suffering losses, or reentered the traditional work force at a lower wage.  Next, they looked at the kids of these entrepreneurs and determined how old they were when their parents ran companies.  Researchers then examined whether the children ultimately became self-employed themselves.

The researchers found that kids who were young adults (18 to 21) when their parents ran companies seemed to be most influenced by Mom's or Dad's choice of career path.  The research also confirms that parents who fail in a business seem to act as 'negative role models,' making their kids significantly less likely to launch a company.  But this was mainly true for older kids who had seen a parent's business crumble.  Younger children were not as affected.”

Is this research the holy grail for hiring young agents?  I don’t think so.  But, it is one factor that may contribute to your success as a hiring manager.  Combined with other best practices, we may be able to piece together a “field manual” for bringing young people into real estate.

What have you noticed in hiring young agents?

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

A PROCRASTINATION OF PROSPECTING PARADIGM SHIFT

We are sometimes faced with uncomfortable situations or daunting tasks, both in our personal, and in our professional lives.  In real estate, or sales in general, prospecting seems to fall into this category.  Picking up the phone to cold call and deal with a potential negative interaction or rejection doesn’t resonate well with many people, so they do not execute, thus adversely impacting their overall success.

In past blogs I have discussed the notion of “re-framing” how we think about recruiting.  Specifically, I conveyed the benefit of shifting from our pre-conceived notion of the term recruiting, to the task of building relationships, which is something most real estate or sales managers do well naturally, and as a result enjoy.  It occurred to me that perhaps “re-framing” the task of prospecting could be beneficial as well, both in terms of recruiting, but also in your agents’ sales process.

I recently read a blog by Anthony Iannarino, Chief Sales Officer of a staffing firm and Director of a coaching consulting firm, that touched on the procrastination of prospecting paradigm.  Iannarino not only points out the importance and simplicity of prospecting in a successful sales business, but also touches on the ramifications of not picking up the phone.

“If you spent more time prospecting, more time cold calling and opening relationships, you would have more opportunities.  You’d even have a stronger pipeline.  But your resistance to prospecting keeps you from doing as well as you might.

Knowing all of this is true probably still isn’t enough for you to stop procrastinating.  You may not even be motivated by the fact that your fiercest competitors are prospecting, and they are calling your existing client and dream clients (just ask them).  There is a simple solution that makes prospecting easier.

Just start making calls.

If you run or do any aerobic exercise, you know how uncomfortable it is to get started.  My friends who run tell me that it takes them 3 or 4 miles to finally get their body to adjust.  That metaphor works for prospecting.  It’s just like that.

The most difficult call you make is the first call.  It has nothing to do with who you call or the outcome of that call.  It has everything to do with overcoming the internal resistance to starting.  Each call after the first gets easier.  You adjust.  You find your rhythm.  It gets easier.

This is why it’s important to prospect early in the day.  That’s when you have the mental focus and the greatest capacity to overcome your resistance.  As the day goes on, you will find other work to take the place of prospecting, and the world will start making demands of you.”

This new paradigm can be applied both in your recruiting process as well as in the training, coaching, and professional development of new and experienced agents.  Helping them to understand this prospecting framework may help them develop successful habits and a newfound commitment to prospecting in their own business.   

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Editor's Note: Lee Gray is the Senior Account Manager at Tidemark Inc. Lee is a guest contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

You Can’t Handle the Truth

“You can’t handle the truth” are the famous words uttered by Jack Nicholson’s character in the 1992 classic movie, “A Few Good Men.”   

In business, as well as any relationship, truth is either withheld completely, allowed to trickle out disguised, or delivered with excessive amounts of criticism and hostility.  I'm not sure which is the worst, but fortunately we are given a much better alternative -- clear, objective truth delivered from personal observation or concrete data. 

One very successful businessman and friend goes so far as to say “Everyone deserves the truth.”  He says this with a near religious conviction.  Whether positive or negative news, he believes that it's compassionate to always describe truth.  Without it, we are potentially lost, confused, wandering, underachieving, and less than our best.  One of the pioneers of organizational psychology, Dr. Harry Levinson said, "Leaders must be able to face and deliver reality if they want to lead well." 

When we believe that people “can’t handle the truth” we are typically projecting our own pre-conceived (and unconscious) views of the world onto them.  We tend to get bogged down by our old fears and become frozen in our current situation.  When in reality, people can't grow, and the current situation will not improve, without truth.  

I want to be clear here.  I am not talking about brutal honesty that comes across as mean, uncaring, or overly critical.  I am talking about direct and loving discussion about what we observe, and what we interpret as a result. 

If you didn’t catch the key words there--- they are WE observe and WE interpret.  Notice that I didn’t say “YOU do this—YOU do that.”  When you make your observations personal, you leave the other person plenty of room to disagree and to offer their own observations.  Using "we" is less likely to put the other person on the defensive right out of the gate.  A verse from the Bible says:  “Speak the truth in a spirit of love.”  This is the key...How you convey your message will largely impact how it is received.

If you have been waiting to tell someone the truth, do it compassionately, following this formula: 

1. Share your observation of the data –- Behavior etc
2. Share your interpretations of this data -- Behavior
3. Clearly tell them your expectations.  Leave no room for error -- Ask them to repeat what is expected.  

While I know these conversations can be difficult, you owe it to yourself, your company, and your employees to be truthful, even when it hurts in the short run.  We can't grow without reality.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Measurement or Holes in the Head

My reading list turned up an interesting article about "trephination," an ancient practice of deliberately cutting holes in the skulls of humans.  Stone age people were especially fond of exercising this technique, for no apparent reason.  The practice appears to be a historical mystery.  "It was a delicate procedure, with stone tools used to carefully scrape away and remove the bone without damaging the tissue underneath."  The good news is that the survival rate for this operation was over 90%.  The bad news is that it was absolutely unnecessary. 

Usually these kinds of practices make their advance in medical history after someone experimented with a medically or mentally ill person, and the person miraculously recovered, at which point the procedure is seen as the cause of the healing.  The next thing you know, everyone is getting holes cut out of their heads.  In learning theory, psychologists call this "superstitious behavior," meaning that we tend to repeat behaviors that we believe have caused a specific outcome, regardless of their power to actually do so. 

Baseball players are famous for this.  They might go 4 for 4 in hitting one night and attribute their improved hitting to the fact that they tried a new bat size that evening.  That same player will tend to continue hitting that new bat size the remainder of the season, despite the fact that their batting average actually dropped subsequent to the change.  

So, what behaviors could be considered your organizations "trephination?" 

The only way you could possibly discover these is to examine behaviors and tasks, measure, and report them.  You've heard the old saying... "What you don't measure, you can't manage."  It could also be true that "What you don't measure, may be a hole in the head!"

We have the advantage of peering into many organizations.  Some measure tasks and outcomes, and some do not.  Most of our clients like measuring tasks, and being able to predict outcomes on past measurements.  Others sort of wing it.  The ones that resist us asking measurement related questions are typically the ones who have become attached to certain ways of doing business, defensively holding on to them, despite little evidence to do so.  Then there are companies who do indeed measure, but blame their result differences on factors beyond their control.  Whether it's getting stuck, "only hiring experienced agents" or "interviewing the same way I always have," behaviors might exist that once worked with some people at some point in time, that no longer are effective with most people at this point in time. 

Psychologically, organizations that measure and are open to others' interpretation of the results, tend to invite questions, and sometimes even scrutiny, about how they do things and the results they produce.  In contrast, organizations that don't measure tend to become uncomfortable around questions pertaining to tasks and outcomes.  I imagine that managers of single offices vary in a similar way, even within the same organization. 

Clearly, if you want to extinguish practices that don't get results, and increase tasks that do, everyone has to get on the measurement bandwagon, and be open to acknowledging the holes you might be pointlessly boring into heads. 

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The 20-Million Candidates You’re Missing—Revisited.

Last spring, I wrote a WorkPuzzle blog on the dismal job prospects for new college grads.  In that discussion, I demonstrated how “underemployment” has become a reality for many college seniors looking to start their careers. 

If you do not remember reading this article (or you’re new to WorkPuzzle within the last year), it might be helpful to review it before you try to digest what we are going to discuss today. 

Last year, BusinessWeek and several other media venues were spouting optimism concerning a problem that seemed to be hanging on for much too long—adult children moving back home after college. 

Why the optimism?  Because there was a small increase in the number of adult children who were leaving their parents' homes and setting up their own households.   

Buried in the research was a shocking metric--over 20 million young Americans find themselves in this state.  Even under very optimistic conditions, researchers admitted that this huge backlog of stagnant labor could only diminish to about 11 million within the next five years. 

Well, so much for optimistic conditions.   

The Associated Press reported last week that for the graduating class of 2012, over 50% of the new college grads will either be jobless or underemployed.     

Here are some highlights from the article: 

“Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans… 

About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of new bachelor's degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years.  Out of this 1.5 million, there is an even split of those who are unemployed versus underemployed… 

According to government projections released last month, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings by 2020 will require a bachelor's degree or higher to fill the position — teachers, college professors and accountants.  

Most job openings are in professions such as retail sales, fast food and truck driving, jobs which aren't easily replaced by computers. 

College graduates who majored in zoology, anthropology, philosophy, art history and humanities were among the least likely to find jobs appropriate to their education level; those with nursing, teaching, accounting or computer science degrees were among the most likely…” 

So, what does this mean for the real estate industry?  As I mentioned last year in the second part of the WorkPuzzle discussion, some of these new college grads may be well-suited to start a career as a real estate agent.    

Rather than rehash the points I made in the previous discussion (all of which are still relevant today), I thought I’d share a quick story from a client I spent time with last week. 

This company is a large, independent, multi-generational real estate company on the West Coast.  They are leaders in their marketplace and have a long track record and heritage of success.   

Here’s the problem:  This company has an agent base where a large majority of their agents are above 55 years old.  This data didn’t impact me until I saw the demographic ranges they shared during our discussion.    

I don’t have the data in front of me, but I believe they had cataloged demographic age ranges as high as 55 to 65 years old, 65 to 75 years old, and over 75 years old....AND, a high percentage of their agents were in these categories.  The lowest age range category was “below 40.”  And for this company, less than 20% of the agents were demographically in this category. 

This company is not an anomaly in the real estate industry.  It is representative of the norm.  Most companies that we work with find themselves in this situation. 

So, here’s my challenge to you:  Step back and look at this problem from a 30,000 foot view.  Real estate companies are stuck with an aging workforce that will limit their growth and ability to change in the upcoming years.  Society is stuck with a large group of educated and aspiring young people who do not have adequate career opportunities.  There has to be a way to connect these dots.     

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

12 Mistakes You’re Making in Social Media

I’ve been spending a lot of time studying and experimenting with social media since the beginning of the year.  I know that some of you will certainly think I’m showing up really late to a party that started some time ago.  And, that may be true!  

But, the more I study the topic, the more I’m becoming convinced that being an early adopter with such a powerful emerging technology, like social media, is bound to lead to a number of mistakes and missteps.  For recruiting applications, some of these mistakes have been both profound (ie. disqualifying) and expensive.  

However, I’ve started to observe, in the last six to twelve months, social networking recruiting ideas that will likely be viable for the long term.  Makers of the new applications have gained insight from earlier mistakes, and the use of social media for recruiting purposes is really gaining momentum.

One thing that helps this process of improvement is that social media mistakes that companies make seem to be increasingly documented.  I’ve read many articles on this topic and thought I'd share one I recently found helpful.  

This article is based on a light study recently conducted on LinkedIn, where a group of participants were asked to document the mistakes they most commonly observe.  The original write-up included the top 16 mistakes, but I’ve cut it down to the top twelve I thought were most relevant.  

The list is arranged so that the mistakes are numbered and listed in bold.  Under each mistake is a relevant comment from a user in the study.  It may seem a little disjointed at first, but these eclectic comments do paint an interesting picture.  If you want more detail, take a look at the original article.

1.  Thinking it's a sprint instead of a marathon.

"I find most expect social media to be a sprint not a marathon.  They get really into it and then let it fall by the wayside by not posting regularly and not engaging with others.  As my partner says, ‘It's a marathon, not a sprint.’  You must give it time, you are building relationships."

2.  Not having a plan or strategy.

"I think the biggest mistake is not having a clear strategy around why they are using it that aligns with a strategy of what they want out of it.  This is closely followed by not measuring if they are on track.”

3.  Talking too much and not listening enough.

"They need to talk less and listen more.  Social media is all about making connections and, just like in the real (rather than virtual) world, people will be more drawn to you if you actually listen to what they're saying, than if you try to force your message upon them."

4  Airing bad feelings.

"I think the biggest mistake is airing bad feelings / arguments over sites like Twitter.  I watched a CEO debate rather childishly with a PR guy - going so far as to use derogatory and inappropriate language."

5.  Too much time spent on self-promotion.

"One big mistake small business leaders make in social media is to spend a lot of time trying to promote themselves.  They also forget to keep an eye on how their brand is being perceived.”

6. Not making it relevant to me.

"I don't want to get ten tweets a day hearing about YOU.  I want to hear things that are valuable for me and my life... and they need to be fast.  And not too frequent:  I don't want to incessantly hear about your business.  It won't make me think of you more, it'll just make me annoyed with you.  So:  short, sweet, pertinent, and valuable to me."

7.  Blurring the lines between personal and professional.

"They blur the line between personal and professional.  If you are using Facebook, use it only for personal or business, not both.  Same applies to Twitter.  I think LinkedIn is ideal in that it is all business/professional."

8.  Creating a business profile first and a personable profile later.

"They make their profiles appear as their company portals, trimmed with lots of company/brand information.  It results in viewers bouncing out of the profile quickly—ie. professional visits the profile, but flips to another profile without scrolling down the entire profile.  You should create an interesting profile first, engage people, and then propagate your message."

9.  A serious underestimation of the amount of resources it takes to administer a social media effort.

"The number one mistake I've seen is a serious underestimation of the amount of resources required to engage and maintain a social program."

10.  Expecting social media to do all the work.

"You can't just blast the world with your ideas, products, and services, then sit back and expect everyone to think you're so wonderful.  That is unrealistic."

11.  Getting on social media just because everyone else is doing it.

"I see many businesses getting on social media because 'everyone else is' or 'we just have to' but without clear purpose or a plan.  One wouldn't open a new store, address a new market, or open a new sales region without extensive planning, goals, organization and thought.  And yet, many small businesses (especially sole proprietors) just up and register for Twitter, etc. one night and wade right in."

12.  Not understanding that it's all about relationship building.

"What I see so often is that a business decides to jump into social media because they're afraid they might be left behind, but then they fail to put a well thought out strategy in place.  They end up throwing a bunch of profiles on the internet, trying to market and sell to everyone, and basically failing."

Do an inventory or your organization’s social media efforts.  Are you making any of these mistakes?  If so, put a plan in place to make corrections.  I do believe your effort will pay off.  Social media is here to stay, but you’ll need to apply effort and focus to make it work for you.

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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.