Gables Search Group

When I began my career as a recruiter 28+ years ago, tattoos were still discouraged in the white collar world. But things change rapidly. Now, when someone rolls up their sleeve or loosens their tie and a tattoo comes into view, no one really blinks. A University of Miami study a few years found that people who are tattooed are no more likely (and interestingly, sometimes even more likely) to land jobs than those who are not. I’m curious, if you hire within your role, if you have a point of view on this? To tattoo? Or not to tattoo? And if you already have a tattoo, is it best to hide it when interviewing and even showing up for work? Or is it perfectly acceptable these days to showcase your authentic body art?

Tune into the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics job report, and you could easily get anxious about the state of hiring. The job market remains strong, putting HR organizations in a position of competing against each other for the best talent. This means leveraging wages, benefits, perks, culture and more to attract candidates. As HR Brew puts it, “The jobs report shows that candidates have a lot of options,” so why would they choose you? Working with a recruiter like myself and those of us at Gables Search Group can give you the advantage in a competitive talent market. We champion our clients and get them in front of the best talent.

The biggest complaint people have about onboarding for a new job? No clear point of contact for questions. It’s natural when starting a new job to have LOTS of questions — everything from “Where should I park?” to “Who signs off on this or that?” Often, HR teams bombard new employees with so much information in the very beginning that even if you told them whom to call for what, chances are, they won’t remember and will feel quickly overwhelmed with their own questions. One of the best ways to support a new employee is to make it easy for them to ask questions, even designating a specific “buddy” who can make sure they get all their questions answered. Likewise, during the hiring process, people tend to have questions, but at this phase, your best bet is to have a recruiter as your go-between. As one such professional myself for the past 28+ years, I consider it my job to get any candidate’s questions answered quickly without causing a drain on the resources of the client HR teams I’m working with.

If you’re using the terms “orientation” and “onboarding” interchangeably, you’re doing it wrong. Orientation is the immediate process that happens when a new person shows up on their first day. It typically includes a lot of paperwork, signatures and basic IT business. Onboarding, on the other hand, is a longer process. It starts with orientation, but ultimately it’s a more comprehensive process of integrating people into company culture and helping them thrive in their roles with the right support. “So, Michael, which is more important?” Both. You have to be excellent at both! Think of orientation as the first step of onboarding. But onboarding lasts for weeks. Ideally, it’s sometimes — but not entirely — a formalized process. And it’s especially important, by the way, for remote employees.

Beware the love bombers. They’re the hiring managers who shower job candidates with adoration and attention during the hiring process, only to lowball you when they make an offer, or execute another sort of bait and switch. The love bomber glosses over the negative aspects of a role. They make the culture of the company sound like a perfect fit for you, even when it’s not. Or they act utterly enthusiast about your odds of landing it, then never call you again. A recent survey by Greenhouse found that more than half of job seekers feel they’ve been love bombed during the interview process. Often, they’ve then been ghosted. Working with a recruiter like myself and those of us at Gables Search Group is one way to ensure you will hear back after an interview. But I cannot promise how the interview itself will go. It’s always a good idea to be aware of how an interviewer might present differently than they actually are.

If you have your sights set on a remote job, beware the pitfalls of the hiring process for these roles. They include: A lack of good communication, which is unlikely to resolve itself once you’re actually hired. Good remote work means good communication right up front. Too much communication that borders on micromanagement — a phenomenon that should be obvious even during the hiring process A lack of remote onboarding: “You’re going to have to come here for orientation” — a signal that the remote stuff hasn’t really been worked out at this company Essentially, red flags in the remote hiring process typically lead to bad news in the remote job. To ensure you’re interviewing with a good, solid remote employer, best practice is to work with a recruiter that has experience in this arena. At Gables Search Group, we have the experience and the skills to help you navigate this tricky paradigm. Reach out today for help finding a new remote role.

As a job seeker, you probably dread having to update your resume. As a hiring manager, you no doubt hate resumes just as much. So why do we all persevere in this charade of making resumes a critical part of the hiring process? Honestly, they are a necessarily evil. In my role as a recruiter, I’ve spent 28+ years weeding through resumes of job seekers and getting the right ones in front of the right hiring managers. A resume is sort of like a calling card. It’s a piece of paper (or more likely, an electronic document) that stands in for who you are as a person until we can get you in front of the hiring manager. Yes, it’s important that your resume be perfect. There can be no typos or grammatical mistakes. Lots can go wrong. And yet, at the end of the day, the resume is just a symbol.

One innovative solution for combating workplace stress? The Chinese supermarket chain Pang Dong Lai offers workers up to ten days a year of “unhappy leave.” The company’s founder and chairperson says: “Everyone has times when they’re not happy, so if you’re not happy, do not come to work.” As someone who works with job seekers and bosses every day… … frankly, I love this attitude! It’s no secret that mental health concerns, stress and general malaise are more and more prevalent today. A BambooHR report recently claimed that “Employee happiness is plunging dramatically, with no signs of recovery.” Maybe you yourself have taken “mental health days” in the past, but they probably weren’t authorized as such by your employer. This more direct approach is intriguing. Of course, if your employees did not come to work every time they simply weren’t in the mood, that probably wouldn’t be too great. But finding a way to acknowledge employee mental health is the key here.