Tag: hiring

Koch Center for Family Business Associate Director Alex Haimann was recently published in the Harvard Business Review. His article, “How to Design a Better Hiring Process,” suggests a number of innovative alternatives to the standard “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” approach to evaluating prospective hires.

Better methods, he says, might be to “immerse job candidates in unconventional scenarios to gather the most useful insights about their critical-thinking abilities, tech savviness, and interpersonal skills,” for example, testing technical skills by observing the candidate’s real-time problem-solving process.

Haimann reports success since implementing this approach in his own business, seeing significant increases in retention and quality of new hires.

In addition to his work with the Koch Center, Alex is a partner and the head of business development at Less Annoying CRM, a simple CRM built from the ground up for small businesses. More than 10,000 small businesses worldwide use LACRM to manage contacts, track leads, and stay on top of follow-ups. LACRM continues to grow by engaging customers and finding new opportunities for mutually beneficial partnerships.

RESTON, Va., June 20, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Corporate hiring plans for 2017 point to robust employment opportunities for graduates of MBA and business master’s programs, according to a new employer survey report from the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Globally, 86 percent of companies plan to hire recent MBA graduates this year, up from 79 percent that hired them in 2016. Demand for these MBA graduates is strongest in the United States and Asia-Pacific, where 9 in 10 companies plan to hire these candidates.

Karen Heise

“It’s indeed good news the market continues to value MBA talent,” said Karen Heise, Director of Olin’s Weston Career Center. “The expectations and requirements for MBA students to achieve their career goals means a lot of hard work, persistence and resilience. Olin’s MBA students invest significantly in their career search and succeed across a wide range of industries (consulting, financial services, technology, CPG, manufacturing and healthcare being the front-runners) and job functions including finance, general management, consulting, and marketing. The entrepreneurial spirit of our students serves them well in capitalizing on opportunities where MBA talent is valued.”

“Despite the political uncertainty about the status of immigration and work visas in the United States and other parts of the world, companies are keen to hire graduates from this year’s MBA and business master’s programs, including international candidates,” said Sangeet Chowfla, GMAC president and CEO. “This signifies the value these programs create for students and the vital role their skill sets bring employers.”

At the time GMAC conducted the Corporate Recruiters Survey in early 2017, respondents in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the United States declared their companies are staying the course with plans to hire international graduate business candidates. Overall, 59 percent of the survey respondents plan to hire or are willing to hire MBA and business master’s graduates requiring legal documentation — a gain of seven percentage points from 2016.

Most U.S. companies (55 percent) either plan to hire (28 percent) or are open to hiring (27 percent) an international candidate in 2017 — up from 49 percent that had such plans last year. The technology industry in the U.S. is the most likely to hire international business graduates this year. Half of U.S. tech firms (50 percent) plan to hire such candidates in 2017 — up from 27 percent that planned to hire them last year.

GMAC conducted the 16th annual Corporate Recruiters Survey in February and March 2017 together with survey partners EFMD and MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance (MBA CSEA), in association with 97 participating graduate business schools. Survey findings are based on responses from 959 employers representing more than 628 companies in 51 countries worldwide. Two additional organizations, CEMS and RelishMBA, assisted with recruitment of survey participants.

Additional Key Findings
Hiring Demand Also Bright for Business Master’s Graduates
As the outlook for MBA hiring continues to look bright, so do projected hiring trends for 2017 business master’s graduates, especially those with Master in Management and Master of Accounting degrees.

•    The largest increase in hiring demand compared with 2016 is seen in the share of companies that plan to hire Master in Management graduates; globally, 59 percent plan to hire recent Master in Management graduates, up nine percentage points from last year.
•    Notably, 70 percent of manufacturing companies plan to hire Master in Management graduates in 2017, up from 50 percent of companies that hired them in 2016.
•    Data analytics expertise continues to be in high demand. Sixty-nine percent of employers plan to place recent graduate business school hires into data analytics roles in 2017, just trailing marketing, business development, and finance roles — each with 71 percent.

More Start-Up Companies Plan to Hire B-School Grads This Year
For the first time, this year’s survey report breaks out the responses specifically among start-up companies, revealing a promising 2017 hiring outlook for business school graduates. Three in 4 start-ups plan to hire recent MBA graduates in 2017, up from the 52 percent that hired them in 2016. More start-ups also plan to make 2017 hires from graduates of Master in Management (37 percent), Master of Accounting (23 percent), and Master of Finance (25 percent) programs.

Compensation: MBA Salaries Will Reflect 83 Percent Premium Over Recent Bachelor’s Salaries
Globally, more than half of survey respondents (52 percent) report that MBA base salaries will increase at (34 percent) or above (18 percent) the rate of inflation in 2017. Latin America (74 percent of respondents) and Asia-Pacific (59 percent) have the greatest share of companies that plan to increase MBA salaries either at or above the rate of inflation this year.

A majority of European and U.S. companies (57 percent and 51 percent, respectively) will maintain 2016 salary rates for new MBA hires in 2017. The projected median base starting salary for recent MBA graduates in the U.S. in 2017 is US$110,000, up from a median of US$105,000 in 2016. This represents an 83 percent premium over recent bachelor’s-degree holders in the U.S., who can expect to receive a median starting salary of US$60,000 in 2017.

“Once again, this year’s report brings to light the continued value of the MBA degree to the marketplace,” said Megan Hendricks, executive director of MBA CSEA. “The increased interest in specialty master’s talent provides further indication of the relevance of these programs at our member schools.”

Link to download the full report.

About GMAC: The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) is a global, nonprofit association of 220 leading graduate business schools. Founded in 1953, we are actively committed to advancing the art and science of admissions by convening and representing the industry and offering best-in-class products and services for schools and students. GMAC owns and administers the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®) exam, used by more than 6,500 graduate programs worldwide, and the NMAT by GMAC™ exam, for entrance into graduate management programs in India.

Source: GMAC news release

The below post was republished with permission from PluggedIN, an automated talent recruitment and matchmaking platform specifically focused on startup companies. PluggedIN was founded by Colleen Liebig, who serves as an Industry Career Specialist & Advisor at Olin, with specialization in entrepreneurship.

“Being thoughtful about hiring is the best way to scale an organization. If you get the right people around the table, it makes all the difference in the world.”
– Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder, WordPress

As famed basketball coach, Red Auerbach said, “You can’t teach height.”

When hiring new employees and building teams, many startup founders look for the “athlete” candidates. Startup companies are a constant work in progress. Roles and responsibilities tend to change on the regular. Founders consider not just where that person is today, but how they adapt as the company changes.

There are intrinsic qualities employers look for that are tough to teach. We recently tuned into a podcast interview with Matt Mullenweg, co-founder at WordPress and founder & CEO at Automattic.

Here are 4 intrinsic qualities he highlights as being most important when it comes to hiring startup talent:

1) Work ethic
2) Taste
3) Integrity
4) Curiosity

If someone has these four traits, there’s a higher likelihood they will be able to rise to whatever the job requires of them.

In addition to these traits, startup matchmaking platform PluggedIN considers these 3 factors when evaluating a candidate:

1) Attitude
2) Aptitude
3) Experience

If you have the right attitude, you’ll gain the ability to do the job and then get the experience you need to grow professionally.

“How Olin Maintains A 97% Placement Rate” is the headline on an extensive interview with Mark Brostoff, associate dean and director of Olin’s Weston Career Center on the website, Poets & Quants. The article by Jeff Schmitt posted November 23, 2015, shares some of the secrets – but not all – to the outstanding job placement track record at Olin. Link to the full article.

I am a fairly new second-level supervisor at a small office (20-30 people). The supervisor of the largest branch I oversee just left. The sigh of relief was palpable. She hid it well from me, but I’m now discovering (and employees are finally telling me) about bullying tactics, moodiness and generally poor leadership. How do I stay engaged and ensure that her replacement treats employees well while not micromanaging or breathing down her neck?–Anonymous

Knowing whether a new hire is going to fit your requirements for the position and the organization’s culture is not easy. The situation surely becomes more difficult when the prior leader had more weaknesses than were visible. It is all too easy to become gun-shy and fearful that the new leader will fail, which may lead to micromanaging that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. What can you do?

Allow me to share my SECRET for increasing the likelihood of success for new supervisors:

Selection. First and foremost, hire a supervisor that fits the leadership culture you are trying to support or develop. Figure out, write down and make concrete the culture you desire for your organization. Post the cultural expectations as part of the job description, if you’re allowed. If not, share them with every candidate and ask whether they are willing to commit to supporting those expectations. If so, then their integrity will be on the line. Of course, so will yours, because they will hold you accountable for the same expectations.

Expectations. Discussing leadership culture during the hiring process is a good first step at setting expectations. Discuss expectations again when the person begins work. In addition to ongoing conversations about your culture and how the new hire can contribute to it, demonstrate your own commitment to the expectations. You might consider having a new supervisor shadow you for a few days to see how you respond to challenges. Be creative and find other ways to demonstrate your thinking and commitment to the leadership culture.

Coaching. Setting expectations may be easy compared to maintaining them during an employee’s tenure. Things happen. Challenges emerge. Cultural violations abound. Cynicism breeds easily. One way to combat these obstacles is through coaching. This is less about telling people what to do and more about asking what they’ve done well and what they could’ve done better. Using a growth mind-set for figuring out how to improve and support the organization’s culture is one way to invest in the maintenance of expectations.

Reflection. The idea of reflection should be central to not only coaching but also employee assessment. Ask people if they performed their job or tasks, and they naturally will respond in the affirmative, leaving no room for reflection or improvement. Ask what they did well and what they could have done better, and you are encouraging a growth mind-set. Questions should not be only about the set of tasks in a person’s job description, but also how they have acted with respect to the organization’s values and contributed to strategic initiatives. This provides a richer assessment of the individual’s accomplishments and potential while setting expectations.

Exits. Depending on which statistics are quoted, 40 percent to 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Poor match quality is challenging not only for marriages but also for organizations. We shouldn’t think of employees in terms of good or bad. All too often poor performers merely have poor match quality with their position. In the long run, if match quality is low, your organization and the employees will be better off if you part ways. But in the short run, such parting is painful because finding a better match may be costly, difficult and time-consuming. Nonetheless, if you demonstrate to workers your commitment to a leadership culture then you’ll want to help poor performers either get better or find better match quality elsewhere.

Trust. If trust flows throughout your organization, then bad news (and good news, too) is shared with you. If information about the prior supervisor didn’t make it to you until after her departure then you need to invest in growing trust—easy to say, but difficult to accomplish. Create opportunities for one-on-one conversations, so you can get to know people and solicit their advice on how to support the leadership culture.

The SECRET to avoiding micromanaging while staying engaged and ensuring good leadership is to be thoughtful about the culture you want to engender and then invest in the actions needed to achieve it.

Duce a mente

(May you lead by thinking)