Transparency, Transparency, Transparency!!!

They call it the "No Fun League".

Beginning this football season, NFL football game attendees are forbidden from bringing virtually all purses and other bags into stadiums; small, transparent bags are now the favored means of carrying items in.  Surely, many fans will take issue with this significant shift, as it complicates things a bit, especially for families with small children.  Some will find the new practice to be overly invasive.  Others won't think twice about this—to them, security measures such as these that are intended to protect people are harmless and helpful.

Both perspectives hold some merit, and there's a point to be acknowledged from either perspective: the new practice was communicated properly.  A full-blown public relations campaign to national news outlets months in advance.  A comprehensive, easily understandable policy.  A quick-and-easy explanatory video on Youtube.  The 2013/14 NFL season begins in September, and the new security measures went into effect in June 2013.  Sure, by June, season ticket owners had already renewed for the coming season, but the timing allowed the information to propagate among football fans and other potential stadium-goers.  Further, it allowed teams take additional fan-friendly measures.  The New York Jets, for example (yes, the Jets will have done one thing right in 2013), distributed one clear tote bag to each season ticket owner.  Nice gesture to foster some goodwill.

Things could be worse, NFL fans.  College football follows NFL trends fairly closely; rules implemented at the professional level tend to be adopted at the college level within a year or two.  As a football season ticket owner for a major-conference college team, I was surprised to learn today, three days prior to the start of the college football season, that the university just adopted today the same bag policy that the NFL created in June.  I heard it on the radio.  No mention of the policy via email, postal mail, or phone.  No mention in the various literature that came with my season ticket packet (and certainly no complementary clear bag, though the latter is, of course, a non-issue).

When implementing a new policy, especially one that some people are bound to find constraining, it's immensely important to give proper care and forethought to how the policy should be implemented.  Good, thoughtful communication maintains and enhances loyalty; communication is a critical and often-overlooked part of policy implementation.  Those who hold the responsibility of creating and enforcing policies hold the responsibility of ensuring: a) the information is presented in an accessible and timely manner; and b) those who enact the policy demonstrate ownership and full transparency.

Some would argue that matters such as this particular policy should be voted upon by season ticket owners, and I disagree.  The university's Division of Administration and Public Safety made the call, and, timing aside, I can live with the change.  Judging by how strict the policy is, coupled with the fire-drill timing of the policy enactment, it's clear that the university is conveying that it views this as an important policy.  By that same point, however: why not roll this delicate policy out the following season and give it the amount of time and care it deserves?  Though to some extent fans should appreciate that the university is taking measures to protect their safety, the credibility of the new policy gets lost in that it was slipped in at the last minute.  Game attendees are right to feel slighted, especially those unknowing stadium-goers who will shuttle to the football stadium on Busch Campus from the main lot on Livingston Campus and wait on line to enter the stadium—just to be refused due to their bags being larger than clutch-size or being made of material other than clear plastic.

Weight!

Setting out to lose some weight over the next few months!  Will update this post weekly with updates.

As of June 18, 2013: 260 lb.
          June 25, 2013: 248 lb.
            July 2, 2013:  242 lb.
            July 9, 2013:  242 lb.
          July 16, 2013:  239 lb.
          July 23, 2013:  239 lb.
          July 30, 2013   239 lb.
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     August 18, 2013: carbs back in full effect!

Image origin: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/dominos-japan-heart-pizza_n_2662538.html

The Easter Bunny and the $70,000 background check

All the nasty news about Rutgers University's Athletic Department has been hard to miss of late, and rightly so.  First, there was the disciplinary action and eventual termination of Basketball Head Coach Mike Rice for some very immoral and inappropriate conduct toward his players.  Athletic Director Tim Pernetti footed the remainder of the blame and was out shortly after Rice.  The next bit of turmoil and publicity arose when it came to light that Rice's replacement was touted in the university's press release as being a graduate of Rutgers (he attended but did not graduate), an occurrence that would seem to reflect some disjointedness on the part of the university.  Five weeks after Pernetti's resignation, Rutgers brought on Julie Hermann, an accomplished candidate who offers a glut of coaching and athletic administration experience with other top-tier universities.  Well, as it turns out, Julie has quite a past of her own, with a series of legal settlements founded upon accusations that rival the deplorable actions of none other than Mike Rice. 

This could easily be an entry pecking at the unfortunate and avoidable events that have transpired at Rutgers over the past several months.  I can certainly voice an informed opinion on these matters, as I'm: a) a Human Resources professional; b) an annual donor to the university; and c) a great fan and longtime season-ticket-holding follower of the Rutgers Football program.  This could easily be an opinion piece arguing that Tim Pernetti took swift action and did more due diligence than he gets credit for, being that he orchestrated a process which sought out and utilized formal involvement from the university's President, its HR professionals, and a host of internal and external counsel.  Or this could be an entry about Julie Hermann and the host of wildly alarming accusations and settlements attached to her name. 

 

No, this is really mainly about background checks.  It has been widely reported this week that When asked how it came to be that many of the reported incidents from Julie Hermann's storied past that have recently come to light did not get discovered or scrutinized during Rutgers' hiring process, university officials, in support of their process, stated that the background checking that was done on Julie Hermann was so thorough that it cost $70,000. 

A $70,000 background check?

I've very thoroughly and very recently shopped background checking vendors, and I can report that a background check — even an excruciatingly detailed and time-consuming one, virtually never costs more than $300 and more typically costs less than $200.  So a $70k background check is rather hard to fathom.

he $70k that the university spent was more likely spent on the recruiting effort; the university likely paid $70k to a third-party recruiter, and perhaps as part of the service provided, that recruiting agent held responsibility for conducting or initiating background screening.  

In a scenario whereby a third-party recruiter is tasked with background checking, it's reasonable to assume that the recruiter might have a stronger interest in placing a candidate than in scouring to find reasons not to place the candidate.  After all, the monetary incentive does not pay out if the hire is not made; further, a recruiting agent generally wants to please hiring managers by delivering quality candidates quickly.  By doing otherwise, the recruiter runs the risk of losing out on the contract entirely.  That's not to say this is a challenge solely inherent to third-party recruiters, nor is it to say that recruiters tend to act unethically more often than not.

But even a background check would not necessarily show the types of occurrences that have now come up post-hire as black marks for Julie Hermann.  The offenses we're reading about in the news media would not typically yield any criminal arrests, nor any convictions, motor vehicle offenses, or sex offender list entries.  If, however, Hermann had lied about her college degree or dates of employment, or if she used a false social security number or had bad credit, she would have been caught.  Without a doubt.

No, background checking does not tell the tale of one's character, and theoretically, the only way Rutgers would know about Julie's past incidents would be via conducting uncommonly thorough reference checking.  Reference checking is widely regarded in the corporate world as a low-value process.  A prospective employer asks the applicant to provide the names of two to four references, and maybe one or all must be professional references.  The applicant chooses folks who will sing loud praise in their favor, and HR or a third-party vendor contacts those references.  After some proper chasing, and after several references are collected (complicated further in that many companies forbid employees from providing references), the offer is made.  This is the reality of traditional reference checking; it is time-consuming and tedious, and, mainly because the sources of information are scant and selected by the applicant, the resulting information is virtually never negative.  In my ten years of HR experience, I've literally never received one bad reference.

In recent years, some organizations have gone all-in and implemented incredibly thorough reference checking with the assistance of sophisticated third-party coordination tools like Checkster.  This sort of practice is not suited for every organization or every job.  Realistically, though, this is the sort of thing Rutgers, with its highly visible, highly scrutinized Athletic Department, needed to do.  In this new-style reference checking, the hiring organization demands a thorough cross-section of references from folks who have worked with the candidate — perhaps 25 to 50 references altogether, and all sign non-disclosure agreements.  In the example of a former coach and Assistant Athletic Director like Julie Hermann, the process would ideally involve a wide variety of players, coaches and administrators from each of her prior employers.  Needless to say, this adds exponential complexity and time to the hiring process, and the risk of her current employer finding out she is interviewing is heightened.  But if executed correctly, the end result of this disciplined process is a valuable and extensive compilation of information that serves to support good hiring decisions and raise flags at questionable ones.  Given that Rutgers stuck to its guns and decided against the bold and unlikely course of doubling back to initiate reconciliation with Tim Pernetti, the university should have amassed as much supporting evidence as possible about the character and background of candidate Julie Hermann, as the scrutiny that transpired was foreseeable given the recent Athletic Department hiring history.  Rutgers is a world-class university, and this process deserved diligence to the utmost extent, if for nothing else, to disprove the inevitable naysayers.

Note that the $300 figure referenced above includes thorough reference checking — but if you or someone you know ever needs a $70,000 background/reference check, please don't hesitate to call me.

You just might be the one holding you back.

Harvard Business Review recently published an article by author/entrepreneur Daniel Gulati titled “Your Credentials Are Holding You back”.  It's a worthwhile read, and in it, Gulati made some valid and interesting points about just how severely encumbering debt can be for a college graduate.

I’m a prime candidate for supporting the author’s points.  As I mentioned in my Master’s thesis, roughly 43% of tuition in the United States is paid by loans, and on average, undergrad students leave college with tuition debt in excess of $46,000.¹  My education cost me nearly double that amount, and I paid for my degrees primarily with college loans (Mr. Gulati would be pleased to know that I've been paying off my debt very aggressively).

However, the focus of the Harvard Business Review article lies not so much on the cost of post-secondary education, but on life choices and limitations.  An overarching theme runs throughout the article; it’s a depiction of well-educated early- and mid-career professionals as tragic victims “trapped” in their careers by the debt associated with their high-priced college degrees.

Whatever.

There’s an old joke: “Why does divorce cost so much?  Because it’s worth it.”  Well, kidding aside, college costs so much because it can be worth it.  A simple and unpopular point to make is: those who pursue college degrees know that a post-secondary education can commonly open up opportunities that would not otherwise be available.

Americans know college degrees can be essential to achieving their career goals; in 1970, 28% of jobs required at least some college education; as of 2008, that number had risen to 60%.  Average W-2 earnings for a high school graduate in this country are 74% lower than the average for a college graduate.¹

Economic recession has widened the divide in the United States between graduates and non-graduates, in terms of career stability.  In August 2010, among individuals above age 24, the unemployment rate for those possessing a bachelor’s degree was 4.6%, whereas the rate for those without a bachelor’s degree of 10.3%.  In December 2007, at the onset of the recession, the gap between these percentages was 2.6%.  On average, laid-off college graduates are unemployed for about two-thirds as long as their non-graduate counterparts. ²

That’s not to say college costs haven’t been rising at impossibly steep rates for the past several decades. From 1999 to 2004, public colleges in the United States raised tuition 46% in aggregate¹!  The point is simple: students know college costs a lot, and so that should be a motivator to think hard about their career interests when choosing a degree program to pursue in college.

Life doesn’t always follow the practical path we lay out, however.  Sometimes life deals out intense moments when you’re unsure of whether you want to stay on the same career path.  Maybe you’re second-guessing why you chose your current job—or your career as a whole.  There are probably a number of contributing factors, and some pretty significant ones.

Don’t jump!  At least not yet.

Times like these, when you’re having some pretty significant feelings, thoughts, and realizations, can tend to be emotional times, laden with second-guessing and frustration.  Give yourself some credit.  Acknowledge that there are some valid reasons for what you’re thinking and feeling.  Veering from your original career path could be exactly what you need.  But one poorly thought-out, hastily executed career move can really mess up your life.  You don’t want to continually switch career paths time and time again, as that can negatively affect how potential employers will perceive you and your stability as a potential hire.  The decisions you are weighing are really important, as they will impact your life in a number of ways—so give yourself the time and disciplined approach you deserve.

Stay logical and reasonably rational, and try to focus on one thing at a time; in time, a plan will emerge.  Think about the reasons for your dissatisfaction before you give a great deal of thought to what it is that you would rather be doing.  Seek advice from people you trust, and people who have made sound decisions.  Speak with people who know you and are willing to be candid and honest with you. 

More importantly, look inward; not every answer will be clear, but in all your introspection, be honest to yourself.  Think thoroughly about what it is that you don’t like and why you don’t like it.  Be cognizant of your personality.  Some people just simply get bored very easily.  For them, virtually anything, even a very fitting and rewarding career path, might get a bit dull.  Other people just don’t know how to be content and happy.  Strange as it may seem, sometimes factors completely unrelated to work can significantly impact our outlook, and even convince us that it’s the job’s fault.  The possible reasons for job dissatisfaction are too many to name.  Try as hard as you can to figure out what you want.  Also, think back to a point in your career when you felt differently, and reconnect with what it was that made that you feel content or fulfilled at that point in time.

List out the things that are causing you discontent or uneasiness in your job.  Which of them are within your span of control?  Think about what you have the power to change.  Then make some changes and observe how you feel.

Resolve to come up with a plan.  Maybe that plan is to quit and start a business.  Or perhaps the plan is to stay home and raise child(ren).  Your plan might be to travel the world and do volunteer work—or just never work again.  Whatever the case, come up with a real plan, a whole idea of what you’ll do—one that is holistically fulfilling and also sustainable to support a life through which you experience the enjoyment and other things you desire.  The plan doesn’t have to be drastic, and it doesn’t have to happen quickly.  Envision yourself several years into that plan and whether the changes will have made a great difference.

Realize that, regardless of how intriguing some careers are, none are 100% fun, 100% inspiring, all the time.  Even the most amazing jobs and business ventures have their challenges.  So be as objective as possible in trying to compare different career paths or life paths; really spend time trying to envision the positives and negatives and what will work best for you.  This is an important time to be a realist.

Don’t waste your time and energy feeling sorry for yourself; don’t get caught up in apathy.  When you’re discouraged or confused, it can be easy to start slacking up on your current endeavors, including but certainly not limited to, work.  As a result, your energy will dip and your relationships and your work quality will likely suffer, and even the things that you do enjoy about your job will start to become burdensome due to the weight of your reluctance and poor decision-making.  Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, push yourself to perform at a high level.  You’ve probably got a lot on your mind.  Don’t ever compromise your emotional well-being, your reputation, or your livelihood at this important juncture.  Nothing is worth self-destructing.

Pause and deliberately consider what’s at stake; don’t underestimate the significance of a job and career that support your life pursuits.  Part of a rational approach to this puzzle is being cognizant that you shouldn’t expect all of your enjoyment to come from your professional life!  If, for example, you dislike your job because it feels artless and sterile, don’t assume that jumping to a very creative job is going to make you completely content.  Most people enjoy a good mix of rational- and creative-minded work.  If you don’t see much room for creativity in your current job, think also about your hobbies and personal pursuits of the arts.  As an example, you might have a knack for accounting and a career in it, and in your personal time you might play in a band or paint.  Many people haphazardly decide to leave their careers for what they consider noble pursuits of one sort or another, and the change ends up only helping in the short term.  There’s nothing wrong with making money and being able to comfortable support your hobbies.  Acknowledge that your skills and your spirit won’t always run in the same direction, and that there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with a career that is stable and relatively predictable.  Regardless of what you end up choosing to do with your career, keep being energized by the things you love, and, most definitely, pursue them.

No matter what path you choose, there's a whole lot of bright side.  If you have a degree, you’re in a much better position than many others.  As a recruiter I can assure you, I’ve never ruled out a candidate because she or he has a degree.  Further, recruiters are in many cases very open to hiring candidates with very little regard to college major.  Think opportunistically, creatively, and positively about leveraging your assets, including your credentials and your most proficient skills—and not just your interests.

…just don’t look for empathy on account of your credentials “holding you back.”

 

 

¹ Ulrich, C. 2006. Generation debt. New York: Warner Business Books.    ² Young, M. 2010a. Social Security. Detroit: Greenhaven Press.