HealthCare Voice

“It Wasn’t A Good Fit” Spells Disaster for Prized Candidate

Dan, a promising young up and coming executive in a hyper-competitive industry who was pirated away by another company, arrived with great fanfare; it was a real coup to get him on the team.  He was truly a trophy catch, sought after by others in the market segment.

For Dan, to make the move was a tough decision in his young, but successful career.  The new job offered more money, probably faster promotions, but he was secure in his current position and his wife and kids were happy with schools, church and friends.

The entire recruitment process was played out in a cloak of secrecy.  A recruiter called a senior executive who got the green light from the CEO. The executive who was coordinating the recruitment process kept information on a "need to know" basis.   Contact with the entire senior leadership team was very limited.   When meetings or dinners were scheduled, several of those executives were unable to attend as the result of some last minute conflicts.

In the end, after weeks of clandestine meetings and intense selling, Dan decided to accept the offer.

Six months later Dan suddenly disappeared from his new company.  When a concerned colleague asked what happened, he was informed by human resource executive, "It just wasn't a good fit."

Dan's otherwise promising career now had a giant black mark, and Dan's family was devastated.  They felt betrayed. Sure he received a nice "package" but that was small consolation.

"It wasn't a good fit...." what does that mean, exactly?  To be honest, that is really HR code (read:  excuse) for a breakdown in the recruiting company's talent acquisition process.

If you are searching for specific reasons for an embarrassing corporate misstep, here are a few.  In Dan's case, there were multiple errors.

1. The company recruiting Dan had no Comprehensive Onboarding Program (COP). Well designed and properly implemented, a COP will prevent some of the most common and costly recruiting and employment mistakes that companies make every day.

2. The scope of responsibility and reporting lines were not formally resolved before the executive leading the recruitment made Dan the offer.  He knew what he wanted Dan to do, but it was clear that some of his colleagues were not on the same page.

3. The impact that management silos, built and protected by long-term executives, would have on Dan's ability to achieve success went unchallenged.

4.  The CEO, who generally approved of the recruitment, hosted a dinner for Dan, his wife, the senior leadership team and their wives.  Here again, several key executives were out of town or encountered "last minute" conflicts.  Overall, the CEO remained above the process.

5.  There was virtually no transparency regarding the company's culture or any of the negatives that exist in virtually every organization in the world.

6.  Human Resources, relegated to the role of sideline observers, assumed that Dan would discover inside information regarding the good, the bad and the ugly of the company through his own due diligence.  Instead of risking the wrath of the lead executive who was now heavily invested in successfully recruiting Dan, they took the position:  Let the buyer (the candidate) beware.

7.  Candidate interviews were more "show" than "go." More time was spent on wining and dining Dan that he should leave their formidable competitor than exploring in detail whether Dan, with all his talents and impressive record of accomplishment, was really "a good fit."

On the other side of the coin, Dan owns some of the responsibility for his rather spectacular and very visible career crash.  His relative youth and inexperience with this type of high-powered recruiting approach notwithstanding, Dan should have asked more questions during the interviews, pressing for more information on the culture, how and when decisions actually are made, and whether there was complete buy-in from the other executives, especially those with whom he had limited contact during the recruitment.  Sure the lead executive assured Dan that everything would be great. And the offer was impressive, with tremendous upside bonus and profit-sharing potential, but there were enough yellow flags that Dan should have been more diligent.

That said, it is important to note that candidates are decidedly at a disadvantage in the search process, especially those conducted under a fog of corporate secrecy.  It is very difficult for candidates, trying to stay below the radar of their current employer, competitor or vendors who might try to profit with this type of market intelligence, to dig too deeply on their own.  The more calls they make, the more risk of exposure they face.  That is the job for the recruiter – the external search consultant or the internal recruiter - but, in this case and so many others, that information was not forthcoming.

Without full buy-in from the leadership team regarding Dan's scope of responsibility, reporting lines, performance deliverables and, most importantly, how Dan would operate in a culture structured around passive-aggressive management fiefdoms, there was little chance that this prized recruit could be successful.

Finally, the CEO, who chose to stay above the fray rather than challenging his team on those very critical cultural and job scope issues, was the great enabler, not the great leader.

© John Gregory Self

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Interviewing Skills: The Telephone Interview

The telephone interview is a killer.

More potentially good candidates are eliminated from consideration based on their performance at this stage of the recruitment process than at any other time.

Everyone is blind.  You cannot see the candidate.  They cannot see you.  This gives the interviewer the advantage.  But badly executed, the telephone interview can lead to premature elimination.  

Game Plan:  The interviewer must be prepared.  Not only should they have carefully studied the resume, but an interview game plan is critical: What am I trying to accomplish?  What do I need to know about this candidate to make a decision for continued consideration or elimination?  

Selling-Recruiting: I believe that in the telephone interview stage, you are still very much in the selling-recruiting mode.  Be sure to give the candidate a chance to ask questions. I prefer to do this at the outset to avoid wasting time if in the Q&A time it is determined that the job is not a fit.  Remember, the candidate may be superbly qualified, but if you do not sell them, this interview could be a waste of time.

Provide the salary range:  This is of critical importance.  Be sure you provide the candidate with the base salary range. If there is flexibility, say so.  If there is not, make that clear as well.   I cannot tell you how much time is wasted qualifying candidates who would never accept a position with the established salary range.  This is far too common even with contingency recruiters. Never assume that the candidate knows this critical piece of information.  If there are other potential "deal breaker issues," this is the least embarasing time to disclose those as well.

Interview agenda:  I am not a big fan of overly long telephone interviews.  You will reach a point of diminishing return around the 90-minute mark.  Most telephone interviews are much shorter -- between 30 and 60 minutes in length. With time constraints, you need to have what I call an interview agenda.  When you start, tell the candidate what to expect in terms of the subjects that will be covered and in what order.

Interview forms:  After interviewing five or six candidates for the same position, they all begin to run together.  Having a complete, accurate record of the interview is important.  It is also important to ask the same types of questions of each candidate.  We develop a telephone questionnaire for each search.  The telephone questionnaire is computerized.  It is comprised of a chronological "walk me through your resume" section as well as questions that relate to specific job challenges.  The questionnaire has protected form fields which allow the interviewers to tab through as they  type notes of the candidate's responses. 

Candidate screening process:  You cannot be effective in recruiting without a defined processes.  At JohnGSelf Associates, our candidate screening process is based on Dr. Brad Smart's Topgrading^©, an exceptionally effective, but in-depth interviewing system.  We break it down into a three-stage interview process. The resume review is the first interview.  In the telephone interview, the second stage,  we focus on prior employment, selected behavior and values questions and several questions designed to measure whether the candidates can actually do the job for which they are being recruited.  The final stage, is a 3.5 hour in-depth face-to-face interview, a portion of which is videotaped for presentation to the client when they are selecting which of the recommended panel of candidates they want to invite for a site interview.  I will address that interview in my next blog.

Grading the candidate:  We grade candidate performance at each stage of the recruiting/interview process. That is why it is so important to have defined recruiting and screening systems.  The grading process is linked to the selection criteria, prior experience and accomplishments and the performance deliverables.   In a highly competitive search, this grade will determine which candidates are selected for continued consideration.  

Respect the candidate:  Finding a job is about dealing with rejection. Unless the position is super specialized, there will always be more candidates than positions.  Treat the candidates with respect from the moment they submit their resume to the moment they are rejected or employed. How you treat your candidates is a very important component of your organization's recruiting brand.  If you have a reputation for not responding to candidates and of not regularly communicating with them regarding the status of the search, you will find over time your recruiting brand will suffer. 

There is no excuse for not treating candidates with respect. 

© 2010 John Gregory Self

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Hints for Job Interviewing: How To Maximize Your Performance

While the economy is showing some signs of improvement, there are still millions of people who are out of work.   For executives who need the fulfillment of daily accomplishment, the job of finding a job can be enormously frustrating.

When you add in the fact that the best qualified candidate is selected only 35 to 40 percent of the time, according to our observations, that can make the job hunting process all the more defeating. 

When you consider that the odds are against the typical out-of-work executive -- hundreds of applicants for each position -- it is a wonder so many keep looking.  Rejection is a bitter pill that can corrupt the spirit.   Therefore, executives in the job market need to be at their best at each stage of the interview process.  

Question: If the best qualified person is not being hired most of the time, which executives are getting the jobs and how does a candidate work their way into that group?  

Answer:  Qualified candidates who do the best job of interviewing.  

If you are tired of rejection, here are some hints that will help you compete in the crowded, noisy marketplace of job hunting. 

1.  The resume is the first interview.  If the resume does not present a compelling story of the candidate's experience, skills, and accomplishments that are supported by metrics, that is a weakness that must be overcome.  There is no limit on the length of a candidate's resume; it should be proportional to years of experience and relevant accomplishments. 

2.  Perfect the elevator speech.  When asked to describe themselves, or worse, when asked to share information about growing up, far too many candidates stumble, mumble and frequently fumble, to borrow a phrase from ESPN's Chris Berman.   This is the answer that a candidate should nail.  Surprisingly, however, it does not occur to many candidates to rehearse several answers to these or similar types of questions.   

3.  Be prepared.  It is not uncommon for recruiters to zero in on resume gaps and short tenures, especially if there appears to be pattern of multiple jobs in a relatively short time frame.   The candidate must realize that these events cannot be hidden or ignored.  Develop a response for all or each event and then practice the response.  Stand in front of a mirror and learn the answer(s).  Tweak the response if you feel it can be improved.  However, be honest and be authentic.  These events are not necessarily a ticket to rejection.  This "practice principle" applies to the entire interview.  The book Topgrading provides a list of challenging questions that were used by successful corporations like GE.  It is worth the price of the book get those questions.  Stand in front of a mirror and practice .  

4.  Be authentic.  One question that many candidates seem to hate -- and flub -- is: Tell me about your weaknesses? Or, "What will your references say are your weaknesses?"  The worst response is, "I work too much."  Or, you see the candidate flinch and then the stumbling answer begins.  Stop.  There is a better way.  Talk to your references and ask them about your weaknesses.  Then incorporate their feedback into an answer that shows you are aware of these issues and that you have a system to monitor yourself.  Your answer will be more authentic.

Upcoming Speech Appearance:  On Wednesday I will be speaking on this very subject at the American College of Healthcare Executives Congress in Chicago with my colleague, outplacement consultant Craig Honaman, FACHE, CRC.

I will share some other ideas next week.

© John G. Self

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QUEST FOR THE BEST: Key Questions For Your Internal Recruiters

As increasing numbers of health systems and hospitals move to bring their executive and management recruiting functions in house in an effort to reduce costs and improve quality, CEOs -- and their Chief Human Resource Officers -- should be asking questions to ensure that the outcomes will be better and the costs lower.  Given that the human capital component is an organization's most important asset, the CEO cannot afford to delegate this function without understanding the system that will be used and the benchmarks for measuring success.

Bringing executive and management recruiting inside the organization is, by itself, no guarantee that the process will be improved.  

The key questions that a CEO or CHRO should ask include:

1.  Has your organization focused on management succession -- how will you respond if a key executive or department director leaves the organization?  Has your human capital team completed a comprehensive, enterprise-wide talent mapping plan with a strategy for developing future leaders?

2.   Is your internal recruiting process built on the principles of onboarding?  When does the process begin -- before you start the search, or after the employee is selected? A total, integrated onboarding program will help an organization ensure the quality and success of its recruiting program.  However, onboarding is NOT another name for new employee orientation.  Onboarding begins before the recruitment process begins.    

3.  How will you measure success for candidate selection?  The national "stick" rate for all candidates recruited from outside a given organization is not overly impressive:  40 percent leave within 18 months.  What is your organization's current rate of success?  What benchmarks will you establish to measure future performance?

4.  Will your organization be transparent?  One of the biggest reasons that new employees leave is too many surprises.  While most companies and their recruiters do not lie, they just do not always tell the whole truth -- fully disclose information regarding the work culture, the real problems that must be addressed and the real performance deliverables.  Are your prepared to insist on complete transparency even when some of the pre-employment disclosures might be a little uncomfortable or embarrassing?   Studies show that disclosing this type of information on the front end of the search is the least costly approach.

5.  How will your internal recruiters source management and executive personnel?  Few internal recruiters make telephone sourcing calls looking for the best talent within the market.  The vast majority use a strategy called post and pray -- they take a job order, post the selection criteria on a variety of job boards and pray that good candidates respond.  That approach will not guarantee that your organization attracts the best candidates. 

6.  Does your internal recruiting have a specific, formalized candidate screening process, or does each recruiter do their own thing?   A process like Topgrading,^©  which is based on behavioral and values questions with specific skills, experience and situational questions, is a proven system.  But there are others.  The important thing for the CEO and CHRO to understand is how the candidates are being screened.  No process, or bad process, leads to ineffective screening which will produce bad hires.

7.  Do your recruiters mine for secondary references or are they content to just check the references provided by the candidate?  Of course everyone knows that candidates, as a general rule, only provide references that they know are complimentary.  How will your team achieve a 360-degree performance review?

There are a host of other questions you can use to ensure that your organization's acquisition process for your most critical asset -- the people -- will be the best. 

Recruiting is not overly complicated but it does require talented people who are passionately committed to finding the best candidates.  It takes experience, judgment and and a proven process to ensure success.  

For more information on how your organization can improve its internal recruiting process, contact JohnGSelf Associates. We have the experience to help you succeed.

© John G. Self, 2010

 John G. Self is President of JohnGSelf Associates,Incorporated, a Dallas executive search and talent acquisition advisory firm.  The Firm’s client base currently extends from Hawaii across North America and Canada.  Mr. Self is highly regarded for his keen insight and for his record of identifying and recruiting exceptional leaders.  His success among executive recruiters is four times better than the national average.

He is a highly rated speaker on leadership, career management and executive search. 

You can contact Mr. Self at 214.573.5095 or via email.

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The Human Capital Foundation

Sweeping healthcare reform has stalled.  Many healthcare leaders I know are relieved.  They saw this as a good idea gone wrong as only Congress can do. 

The national focus now seems to be shifting to deficit reduction and job creation,  both critical short-term priorities. 

As the national spotlight "pivots" to the economy, healthcare leaders know they have much work to do concerning those issues they do control: enhancing quality of care and patient safety, improving efficiency, and reducing costs.  In that context, I want to revisit a blog I originally posted in April of last year. 

SAN FRANCISCO (April 15, 2009) – I have been thinking recently about the important role that leaders play in moving their organizations to best-in class status.  Or the blame they deserve when their organizations fail to deliver.

 For health system or hospital Chief Executive Officers, best-in-class means meeting robust standards for patient quality, safety and satisfaction from their customers, the physicians, as well as their patients and family members.  Of equal and essential importance, the best organizations also care about the satisfaction of their employees. 

 We are not talking a best effort initiative,  but a commitment to consistently delivering perfection, or as close to it as humanly possible.

To deliver this level of quality and safety, CEOs must build exceptional teams who are passionately focused on those goals.  This passion must run deep within the cultural DNA of the organization.  These results are not attainable without a extensive commitment to leadership, management and employee develop – ongoing educational programs that cover all facets of the operation that lead to these challenging best-in-class goals.

The vast majority of CEOs who lead health systems or hospitals will say that their people are their most important asset.  However, if you look at industry-wide investment in these types of continuing education programs you will quickly see that our industry is more about talk than action.  Which explains why our death rate from avoidable mistakes remains excessively high.

There are two dead giveaways when you measure an organization's talk and their real commitment:

1. Do they view enterprise-wide educational programs as an expense or as an investment.   The best run companies in America consistently invest in educating and developing their employees in good times and bad.
2. Compare the CEO’s comments and his calendar.  In the book, “Talent Is Overrated,” Geoff Colvin writes that of  the companies that claim they are interested in developing leaders, many fall short.  The University of Michigan’s  Noel Tichy, a top authority on the subject, says testing a company's real commitment is easy: ‘Just show me the CEO’s calendar’.

I have always believed that critical improvements in healthcare delivery -- improving processes, safety, quality and reducing costs -- all depend on the quality of an organization's workforce. Fortunately, there are some important, cost-effective strategies that CEOs can initiate that will help  build a solid human capital foundation that will ensure that their organization's survive the challenging times ahead: 

• Overhauling internal recruitment processes 
• Implementing an integrated onboarding program
• Talent mapping to create a best-in-breed systematic enterprise-wide management assessment program

The cost of creating this human capital foundation is one of the best investments an organization can make.

This latest effort to reform healthcare may be pushed from the spotlight, but the economic and competitive hurdles facing healthcare providers will not subside.  

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A Cautionary Tale for Healthcare Leaders: GM's $48 Billion Talent Strategy Mistake

In his book Why Smart Executives Fail, Sydney Finkelstein provides an excellent example of what can happen to a company when they forget that, in the end, it is employees who will make the difference between success and failure.

Healthcare providers, in the throes of evaluating their strategic options in the face of increasing competition and impending healthcare reform, must look at their employees – particularly executives and managers – to determine whether they have the right people to deal with the consequential changes.  They must examine whether the skills of their team match up with the demands of new strategy.  Do the executives and managers have the depth of experience to succeed if, for example, you require them to be more entrepreneurial in how they grow revenue?

A spectacular strategic misstep at General Motors more than 25 years ago provides an excellent example of what happens when you focus on strategy and not the people.

In the 1980s, Roger Smith, GM’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, was frustrated,  Finkelstein wrote.  He faced two thorns in his side:

“First, low-cost, high quality Japanese imports were starting to gain a foothold in the U.S. Market.

“Second, GM’s labor relations were horrible.  What to do? The questions Mr. Smith asked aren't hard to reconstruct.  What was the biggest expense on GM’s balance sheet?  Workers.  Who prevented increased operation speeds by threatening to strike? Workers. Who made the production line errors that resulted in defective cars?  Workers.  Who made life difficult for managers by refusing to do what they were told?  Workers.”

“Bold, brilliant in its simplicity and, in retrospect, more than a little loony,” Smith's solution was to solve all of his problems at once by eliminating his workers.  Robots could work night-and-day with no wages, no complaints, no strikes, and no worker errors.

But there was a fatal flaw in this if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is strategy to turn back the Japanese auto invasion and return GM to global dominance.  Instead of installing the lean manufacturing techniques that made the use of robotics more effective and, to this day still defines how Toyota operates, GM’s senior team focused on the idea that robots would make their life easier and profits more robust.  This obsession with machines over people led to what manufacturing engineer Charles McElyea described as “automated confusion” and fueled GM’s spectacular demise which ended in 2009 with a humiliating government bailout and forced bankruptcy just to stay in business.

When you leave people out of the strategy equation, you are in effect pouring gas onto fires of failure. 

The question for healthcare leaders who are facing a critical point in our industry’s future is whether they match the demands of their market and the strategies necessary to survive with the skills of their workforce.  Mr. Smith learned a $45 billion lesson.  He focused on a strategy, not the real problems that threatened his organization.

Far too many healthcare organizations are traditional top-down, command-and-control operations.  That management approach does not foster strong middle managers, and market conditions that require rapid response to strategic shifts, will have significant financial and clinical consequences. 

As healthcare organizations review their strategic options, the Chief Executive and Chief Human Resource Officers need to plan for an enterprise-wide systematic evaluation of the strengths, weaknesses and skills of the existing team – from the executive office to shift supervisors to determine whether they can adapt.

This cannot be a one-time exercise.  It should become, at a minimum, an integral part of the organization's quarterly operations review.  While the dashboard data is important, if you focus only on those metrics you will miss equally key indicators of your future success or failure.

 Our team is in the business of designing processes to evaluate executives and managers.  We can take your existing system and convert it to an enterprise-wide program faster, better and at less cost than the average health system, hospital or large physician group practice. 

GM’s Mr. Smith lost focus.  It was an expensive lesson.  During the time that automation was touted as THE ANSWER to all their corporate woes, production costs actually increased.  For the $45 billion he invested in automation in hopes of defeating the Japanese invasion, GM could have bought both Toyota and Nissan, according to one analysis.  

 John G. Self is Chairman and Senior Client Advisor of JohnMarch Partners.  He is a Co-Founder of the Firm.  

With more than 30-years of healthcare leadership experience in public relations, national marketing, business development and as Chief Executive Officer of hospitals and consulting firms, Mr. Self is highly regarded for his keen insight into operations, business culture and for his ability to consistently select the right leaders.

John is a highly rated speaker on inspirational leadership, career brand management and the future of healthcare in America. To learn more about his presentations, you can reach him at JohnMarch Partners.

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Healthcare Leadership, John Griffith and Much More...

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (March 19, 2009) – One of the great parts of my job is speaking to healthcare executives, early careerists and graduate management students across the country. For me, the real value is the opportunity to spend time with some very bright people like Dr. Christy Harris Lemak and discuss how we can improve our leadership and the performance of the organizations that we lead.

Today I spoke to a large group of graduate students at the University of Michigan’s top-rated health services administration program – the home of the legendary John Griffith, teacher, mentor, author, and renowned thought leader on the management of healthcare organizations. In so many ways, for so many years, Professor Griffith has set the standard for educating future healthcare leaders and for setting important standards for running a well managed hospital.

The University is paying tribute to his accomplishments through the development of the Griffith Leadership Center that will focus on health management and policy. Linda Grosh, the Center’s Managing Director, and other faculty members are planning some exciting and innovative initiatives. I will not step on the Center’s public relations thunder because so much of what they hope to do in the future is in active development. Suffice it to say that I think this Center will become an invaluable resource for healthcare CEOs who seek to adjust their leadership styles, values, and priorities to the varied challenges that will change and/or intensify with lightning speed during the span of their careers.

The University of Michigan is working hard to educate exceptional graduates – our future leaders – who will be less siloed, who will be more aggressive in challenging accepted systems and outcomes, and who will see opportunity that no one else sees. How timely, since we cannot afford to operate the world’s most expensive healthcare system with clinical and safety outcomes that are far from cutting edge.

In our world today, hospital CEOs are frustrated, doctors are unhappy, and employees are stressed. The current economic peril in which we find ourselves threatens to blur our focus on improving quality and ensuring safety. To make matters just a bit more interesting, business leaders, unions, pro-business trade groups and even industry insurance lobbyists all now agree that we can no longer afford our brand of healthcare. To make matters more interesting, some members of Congress seem to be trying to exert more control over the solution.

So to the many students and healthcare professionals that I have seen this year, and to the hundreds more that I will meet next week in Chicago when I speak at three sessions of the American College of Healthcare Executives annual Congress, I urge you to think critically about how we can reform our industry in a way that improves quality, safety and access while reducing costs. Speak out here, on the HealthCare Voice site, or any and all available venues. Please do not stand on the sideline while our trade association policy gurus, the Washington policy wonks, economists, business roundtable types, unions,insurance lobbyists and the other usual cast of suspects make decisions concerning the structure, delivery, and reimbursement of healthcare.

The vast majority who will weigh in on healthcare reform have never taken care of a patient, run a hospital or a long term care facility or managed a medical practice. It is extremely important that the aforemention list of healthcare reformers listen carefully to those of you who are in the trenches – those of you who can make considered and thoughtful recommendations.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry. You can reach John at 214.220.1234 or email him at JGSelf@johnmarch.com.

On Reference Checks, Background Investigations and Telling the Truth

This is the last in a three-part series on the resume. I hope some of these hints will be helpful to you in your next career search. Please let me know what you think.

References, Credential Verification, Background Investigations

These are important issues for candidates entering the job market. Managing this part of your job search is critical to your success. Before discussing the guidelines for these issues, it is important to establish some context concerning the job search process.

First, most jobs are not filled by outside recruiters. That is why establishing and maintaining a robust network of contacts is so important.

Second, when a recruiter contacts you, it is important to understand the type of recruiter you are dealing with – Retained or Contingency. Retained firms are client centered. This means that they are engaged by the client to fill a specific position or number of positions. The vast majority of the time, retained recruiters hold the exclusive rights for the position(s). They are paid for the work they perform regardless of whether the position is filled by the firm. Contingent recruiters, however, are paid only if their candidate accepts the offer. It is more common for clients to use several contingent recruiters for the same position. When this happens, it is possible to be contacted by different recruiting companies for the same position. Contingent recruiters who do not have an exclusive for a specific position are reluctant to share too many details about a job posting until they have your resume. The problem is that if two recruiters have your resume, and submit it for the same job, there is a chance that a disagreement over “ownership” may result if the client does not keep accurate records concerning who submitted the resume first. Clients do not want to find themselves in the middle of a fight between recruiting agencies over candidate ownership. If this does occur, the candidate may discover that they have been eliminated from further consideration. If a recruiter calls and offers an opportunity that sounds similar to a position for which your resume has already been submitted by another recruiter, ask the recruiter to name the city. Candidates do not want to give the second recruiter too much information because they may attempt to obtain the rights as a competing recruiter to work on the same assignment, thus creating more competition for the position. Use discretion.

When giving your resume to a contingent recruiter, always specify that your resume cannot be distributed to other clients without your prior verbal or written approval. Include that directive in your email when sending the resume. The vast majority of contingent recruiters are ethical professionals. However, there are numerous examples of situations where recruiters have used resumes, sometimes with all contact information, as a “tease” to capture an assignment.

References

There are no standards on the number of references a candidate should have. At a minimum, it is four or five. JohnMarch Partners requires eight: two superiors, two peers, two subordinates, and two personal references. Recruiters for certain positions may require additional resumes from former bosses.

The timing of the submission of references depends on the process used by the employer or the recruiter. Our Firm requires four references during the vetting process. Confidentiality – and possible negative repercussions from a current employer – is always a concern for candidates who are currently employed. This is understandable. In our case, we wait to check current employer references until an offer has been extended and the candidate has notified their current employer. However, as a rule, these offers are contingent on final background and reference verification.

Candidates should be very clear that the current employer or related parties should not be called. You should only provide initial reference information from colleagues who will respect your confidentiality. Recruiters will try to accommodate candidates who express concern that their interest in a new opportunity will compromise their existing employment relationship. However, candidates need to understand that few recruiters will submit a candidate without vetting their previous performance, which is why candidates should always be candid and forthright when asked about prior performance and professional employment relationships.

Secondary References

Ninety plus percent of the time, references provided by the candidates are favorable. Clearly, candidates are not inclined to provide the names of former employers or colleagues unless they know what will be said. That is why recruiters and the best employers will attempt to collect additional names to verify this information. These are commonly referred to as secondary references.

When asked to name others you have worked with in the past, candidates should be aware that these individuals might be contacted to verify certain information concerning your scope of responsibility, performance and even reporting relationships. A rule of thumb is to only mention names in your interviews that you know will be supportive if they are contacted.

Recruiters increasingly require candidates to sign release of information forms before they check references. This typically allows them to talk with anyone excluding those references that you exempt to protect confidentiality of your interest. If you mention a name that may have a connection with your current employer, specifically tell the recruiter not to contact that individual based on those ties.

Credentials

After several highly publicized events where candidates misrepresented credentials, employers and recruiters now routinely verify this information.

Remarkably, recruiters or employers will need your social security number and date of graduation in order to verify degrees. Most colleges and universities now use a national database company to process these inquiries. A valid social security number is essential in order to obtain that information. This raises the fear among some candidates of identity theft. That is why it is important to verify your recruiter, especially if you are dealing with a contingent fee firm about which little is known. There have been examples of people posing as recruiters asking candidates for social security information and even driver’s license information in order to conduct a preliminary background check. If this occurs, candidates should take steps to verify the authenticity of the recruiter and the assignment before complying with this type of request.

A common candidate mistake is to list a credential related to a professional association whose membership renewal was forgotten or allowed to lapse. It points to a candidate’s lack of attention to detail.

Background Checks

With increasing regularity, recruiters are now conducting background checks of their candidates. Fifteen years ago, recruiters who drilled down to this level were the exception. Eight years a recruiter with one of the largest healthcare search firms even asked me why I went to the trouble since the clients did not seem to care and were not requesting that service. Hopefully, times have changed for that firm.

Background investigation firms report continued incidents where candidates fail to disclose material issues: undisclosed arrests,material problems with personal finances, problems with credentials or unreported employment that is relevant to the search.

Contingent recruiters rarely go to this level of detail because of time and financial constraints. They have to move quickly to submit the resume in order to get the credit —and to be paid --if the candidate is hired. More often than not, employers are left with the responsibility for more in-depth candidate screening as well as the all important background checks.

At JohnMarch Partners, we complete a background review prior to the candidate’s face-to-face interview with the Engagement Partner. We routinely verify previous employment, academic and professional credentials, civil and criminal court filings, driving record, and credit history. Because we use outside investigators to conduct this work, our Firm falls under the rules of the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1998. That law specifies the language of the release of information form. It also establishes rules concerning what information can be shown to the client. For example, credit reports may not be duplicated and can be seen only by the company making the request. At JohnMarch we report to the client only if there are any material findings related to employment, and we are precluded by law from providing the client with a copy of the actual credit history report.

Disclosing a prior mistake is not necessarily fatal to a candidate’s chances of landing the job. Failure to disclose usually is a deal killer. We view disclosure as a positive sign of the candidate’s integrity. However, there are certain types of issues that will disqualify a candidate, depending on the job. This will vary based on the ownership of the company, the job title, and/or scope of responsibility.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

To Journal Or Not To Journal

DALLAS, Texas (Dec. 28, 2008) -- Journaling is a trendy sort of thing. I know people who have been doing it, religiously, for years. Others started but did not stay with it. It is like a routine of physical exercise, I guess. I know others who have started after taking a journaling class. Interesting. I did not know there was a class for something like this – teaching you to write thoughts and ideas in a book.

My interest in journaling did not come from a lofty notion that I had something important to say, recall or reflect upon. No, it was much more superficial. It was a picture in a magazine of a great looking leather notebook and a beautiful pen (in what you write, and with what you write, is very important to some journalists). A rugged looking model posing as one of the world’s great adventurers/writers was making notes while sipping what looked to be a glass of expensive single malt scotch. That was the purpose of the magazine advertisement, not the merits of journaling. That leather journal and the pen made an impression. Then during one of my frequent business trips – not to Africa or some exotic Far East destination, but Wichita -- I saw someone else making notes in an interesting notebook. He, too, was using an interesting looking pen. Then I heard a speaker at a leadership conference talk about the value of reflective journaling. I learned that some of the most celebrated leaders in the nation -- in business and the military -- journal on a regular basis

I began to think about the idea from time-to-time. As a former crime writer and investigative reporter for a major Texas newspaper, I missed the “art” of writing although there are those who would argue that this type of writing – a report on some bloody killing or bizarre auto accident – is really 250 words in short declarative sentences organized in three or so paragraphs masquerading as tomorrow’s history. About seven or eight years ago, I began to make notes in the classic spiral notebook on how I could improve my business and my life, as well as notes on tasks for the next day – something that I do more and more frequently as my hair continues its march to total grayness. Occasionally I wrote something that was good but most of the time I rarely went back and reread the previous entry's musings, except to look at my notes for the Outlook calendar. Then I met Rand Stagen,Senior Partner at Stagen, a Dallas-based management consultancy. Mr. Stagen helped me connect the concept of reflective journaling and improving as a leader – Chairman and Founder of a JohnMarch Partners -- an executive search firm. He believes, and I am now a Stagen devotee on this issue, that there is a correlation between the discipline of reflective journaling and an executive’s ability to master the art of next-level leadership. To read more about this deeply important leadership concept and download a copy of this white paper, visit his web site.

I am no next-level leadership expert as I am clearly about to demonstrate, but borrowing from Mr. Stagen’s excellent work is very helpful when I talk to students in graduate healthcare management programs. I frequently use one of Rand’s great examples: the head football coach. Television cameras cut to a close-up of the head coach on the sideline at crucial times during the game, plotting his next move. Stagen makes an important point – that he may have the final say in calling the next play, but the coach has the worst seat in the house – at field level, which precludes him from gaining any perspective with regard to how his offense is being defensed. However, he does have a headset and he is talking to a member of his coaching staff who is located in the press box high above the playing field, Stagen writes. That coach may not be as smart or as experienced as the head coach, but he does have a different perspective and he (rarely, if ever, a she) can see opportunities the head coach cannot see. That, briefly, made the case for why every leader should keep a journal.

The discipline of reflective journaling allows a leader to move high above the playing field to revisit key decisions or events, and think about how a decision was made and executed. To gain a sense of perspective of what was overlooked or misjudged when the actual decision was made. And to learn from the experience.

My journal entries today cover my Firm's efforts to reach next-level recruiting, on the critical decisions we make in our searches as well as ideas for future blogs. As the birthdays fly by, and I am required to make more notes on day-to-day operations, I keep a separate log to update my Outlook Tasks list and calendar.

Today I have graduated from the spiral notebook. I journal in the classic Moleskine and I have a really good pen.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

The A,B,Cs of Human Capital...

New York,NY [November 23, 2008] – So the price I paid for chatting up an unsuspecting healthcare consultant at Chicago’s O’Hare airport while awaiting the departure of a flight was to write an essay on what a search consultant should tell a hospital CEO who wants to transform his or her annual report language on human capital into action. It seemed such a small price to pay for the insights he shared regarding his biggest regrets as a hospital CEO.

By way of a reminder, this former hospital CEO said that his biggest disappointment was his failure to come to grips – to understand – the real importance of human capital issues, and how they directly related to his success or failure as a hospital leader. The number of hospital senior executives who focus on human capital issues with sufficient depth of understanding and passion as to make their employees a meaningful part of their market differentiation strategy, is miniscule, he believes. Now a Managing Director for a global consulting firm's human capital practice, this former hospital executive spends most of his time trying to convert healthcare leaders to the reality that having the best, most engaged workforce is one of the single most important pillars for achieving sustainable success.

As I started to write, I realized that my essay, save my first recommendation, was really a series of questions I would ask a hospital CEO, beginning with whether human capital is addressed in the organization’s long-range plan, and operationalized in the annual business strategy.

1. How many A, B, and C rated employees do you have? To get to this critical benchmark, complete a top down assessment of your workforce. Bring in a consultant – either an executive recruiter that you trust or a Topgrading© specialist – to collaborate with your team to complete this work.

2. If you have an abundance of C players, then it is time to ask why your employment team is spending dollars to recruit mediocrity. Is the problem the strategies your in-house recruiters use to source candidates, or the processes they use to screen them? Do you believe you are getting A candidates but far too many turn out to be Cs?

3. If you have too many Cs -- the employees who foul up service excellence, kill your productivity gains, or directly or indirectly contribute to an environment that jeopardizes patient safety -- why hasn’t your annual performance evaluation process caught this? Is anyone looking at the results on an enterprise-wide basis, or, are they more focused on the total financial impact of the raises each employee will receive?

4. If the majority of your employees are A and B players, with a small percentage of Cs, then look at other critical human capital metrics: rate of turnover, vacancies, and your orientation program.

5. Do you consider leadership development an expense or an investment? How much are you investing in your leadership/management development programs as well as employee education? Do you tie the effectiveness of your leadership and other education programs to performance improvement benchmarks?

6. Do you conduct a strategic assessment of your human capital – deciding who is ready for more responsibility or promotion, who needs additional attention and who should leave the organization? Or, is this performed on a division-by-division, department basis? If the latter is the case, how are you able to look at the human capital big picture?

7. How high is your organization’s accountability score? An 8 to 10 indicates that employees know that exceptional performance and accountability are critical to their survival; that there are consequences for everyone in the organization.

8. How often do you personally make rounds on all shifts? Do you require your senior leaders to make rounds? Your department managers? Is someone from your management team seeing every patient during his or her admission to monitor your human capital performance?

My O’Hare conversation just reconfirms what I have been trying to promote for years. The key to an organization’s success is its human capital. You cannot recruit and retain the best people without a comprehensive soup-to-nuts evaluation human capital development and assessment process that is constantly measuring where your organization stands.
This will not happen through best effort.

John G. Self, Chairman of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. He is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

A Hospital CEO's Tough Lesson Learned

Dallas, Texas (November 16, 2008) -- The great thing about my job is that I get to meet and talk with a wide range of current and former health system and hospital executives.

Most of the time these encounters occur at ACHE events or other conferences. Occasionally they are chance meetings in hotel lobbies or airports. I am struck by how often these serendipitous encounters occur even though our industry is modest in size. However, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I have the ability, I am told, to chat up a brick wall. About that I am certain that my colleagues, my friends and, most assuredly, my family will agree.

The latest case in point was yesterday in Chicago. This unsuspecting "encounter" (read: victim) is a former hospital CEO who moved from the “daily grind” of running a hospital to the weekly travel grind of healthcare consulting, advising hospital executives on “tough lessons learned,” a term he used more than once.

OK, I bit. I am a former newspaper reporter who morphed over 15 years into the founder of a boutique search consultancy. You simply cannot drop a statement like that and not expect me to pounce. So, I asked, tell me, what was your toughest lesson learned?

“My biggest disappointment,” he explained, “was my failure to come to grips – to really understand – the real importance of human capital issues and how those directly related to my success or failure as a hospital leader. So many CEOs talk in platitudes, or business-speak, about how important their employees are, but the number of hospital senior executives who really get it, with sufficient depth of understanding and passion as to make their employees a meaningful part of their market differentiation strategy, is miniscule.

“They talk a good game but their actions do not support the words in their mission statements, strategic plans, or annual reports,” he lamented. “I guess you can say that I am recovering from a dangerous malady from which far too many CEOs suffer: Do as I say, not as I do. I talked but I did not really understand. I always found more traditional or convenient reasons for my successes and failures.”

Today, as a Managing Director for a global consulting firm's human capital practice, he spends most of his time trying to convert healthcare leaders to the reality that having the best, most engaged workforce is one of the single most important pillars for achieving sustainable success.

When I mentioned that I would like to use his comments in my blog, he asked that I not use his name to avoid any issues with his firm.

This healthcare leader said that he is continually amazed at CEOs who do not know how many of their hundreds or thousands of employees are A players, the best available talent for their respective positions. Or how many employees are Bs, those solid workers who are the heart and soul of any organization. Most alarming, he said, is the number of CEOs who do not have a clue how many of their employees are C players, those with whom you spend 80 percent of your time for a 20 percent return. These C employees, he maintains, crush productivity, foul up service and, in healthcare, contribute to an unsafe environment wherare patients are placed at risk.

“Listen, I think we are heading for some tough economic times... I am so busy and I hope that means that healthcare leaders are beginning to understand the importance of this issue. I really hope so because the upside is so great...This is truly not rocket science.

“You simply cannot be successful without focusing on the people, day in and day out,” this battle-tested former CEO said. "You may have gotten away with it in the past, but not anymore. If you are not zeroed in on your human capital issues, you cannot be the best in the market, and if you are number one, you will not stay as the market leader without an uncompromising focus on recruiting, training and retaining the best available senior leaders, managers, physicians, nurses and clinical support personnel – everyone, from the people who greet and register patients to the housekeeper polishing floors or cleaning patient rooms.

“For the sake of patient safety and to achieve enhanced operating performance, you have to elevate the performance of your workforce.”

I was amazed at his passion. I was impressed with his clarity of success. Before I realized it, my 90-minute wait for a flight to Dallas had passed. I was almost tempted to take a later flight to continue the conversation. As is the case with the best of leaders, he was so willing to share hard-earned insight.

Now, believe it or not, I have a homework assignment. He wants an essay outlining what a search consultant should tell a hospital CEO how to transform his or her annual report language on human capital into meaningful action.

Well maybe he was not serious about the essay, but I think I will give it a whirl. I think I will begin with the thesis that you do not have to be smartest or best paid CEO to embrace this maxim.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper, Mr. Self has been leading high profile executive search engagements for more than 15 years. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.