Chris’s new column on HBRonline, all about setting expectations.

When I received my first project assignment as a new hire at Gemini Consulting (now Capgemini), I was quite unhappy. My peers were assigned to the fast-paced industries of financial services and telecommunications, and I was “stuck” with a client in publishing.

“How boring,” I thought. “How will this benefit my career?”

Click here to read the rest… HBRonline: “How to Set Expecations with Young Talent” by Chris Resto

Today on HBRonline, Chris discusses how to manage Generation Y talent, who ask so many questions that they might be more aptly labeled Generation “WHY?”

HBRonline: How to Manage Generation “Why?” by Chris Resto

Listen to Chris’s interview with Harvard Business Online’s Paul Michelman (MP3 file: 11.3mb, 16minutes)

TOPICS COVERED
- How to making work meaningful for interns and entry-level workers
- The two mentors new hires need at work
- Create a structure for talent development: what companies can learn from the university faculty tenure process
- Helping new hires build their networks
- Keys to effective performance reviews
- Bridging the generation gap in the workplace
- How to convince young talent that you’re advancing their careers

So shouldn’t the first rule of recruiting be know your recruits.

After reading Recruit Or Die, Stever Robbins just wrote a great piece about how companies should be treating recruiting as rigorously as sales. It begins…

We say people are our greatest resource. And Dilbert’s boss points out, “resources are our greatest asset.” But most companies put huge effort into attracting and retaining customers, and much less into attracting and retaining people. Salespeople get trainings, off-sites, apprenticeships, workshops, and books on finding and romancing customers. But rarely does a company jump so fully into finding and romancing their people (”our greatest asset,” remember?)

Click here to read the rest of “Are you as good at recruiting as you are at sales?” by Stever Robbins

Meebo is a Silicon Valley startup that allows you to sign on to all your instant messaging accounts at once…all through a single webpage. And one of the first things you see when you log in is a little chatbox-looking-window with the latest from the Meebo company blog. Here’s what I — and a bunch of other people — saw today (almost like it’s straight out of Recruit Or Die, Chapter 2).

If you read the whole post you’ll see that besides making the current interns feel special, it actually does several great things for future Meebo recruiting.

1. Shows that Meebo appreciates recruits as people, for all the cool stuff they do outside of work, too

After 3 weeks backpacking around South America, Matt just joined us for some heavy C/C++ lifting. He’s originally from Maui and spent part of his college sophomore year in China. As a result he can speak Mandarin now, involuntarily suffused with some Spanish words.

2. Shows future prospects what the current interns are really doing on the job

He’s having fun implementing the features he’s heard everyone request over the last year and has his hands in Python and JavaScript.

she’s joining us this summer to help us build out our customer care system. Lost password? No problem! What’s the #4 user request for the week? She’s got it covered

3. Shows some of what they’re looking for in new recruits

Mila found us on Castro street as Jian was heading out the front door one night and asked us if we had any summer intern opportunities. We were floored by her initiative…

AJ is a hero amongst us. If you’ve ever walked down Castro Street and wondered why the lights were still on around 3:30am… it’s probably AJ. AJ has managed to juggle a busy academic life (Symbolic Systems at Stanford), a pretty rigorous cycling addiction, and answering every single user email from the past year.

4. Starts next year’s recruiting NOW by inviting all interns in the Bay Area over for lunch

Our interns are hosting the next lunch 2.0 on July 25th. If you are an intern around the Bay Area, please stop by! There will be free lunch and four square for all!

Meebo recruiting is definitely rocking. They’re sure to lure at least a few interns from area companies over for lunch — and those interns will likely be ones with the skills they want (Doesn’t every company in Silicon Valley do software development?!) and perhaps a passion for Meebo’s product (let’s see, where might they have seen the invitation?…while using meebo).

And this all started from the company simply telling the world about their people, their “most important asset”…something every company should be doing anyway.

• Lots of young people = not a lot of family responsibilities = they stay at work a lot
• Microsoft offers offices with doors, while Google prefers the ballpen approach. The writer favors Microsoft on this
• Google has less structure for career advancement and hierarchy, mirroring what our friends tell us about their Google experience
• He make a few recommendations to Microsoft, including making the food free for a huge ROI

What’s really interesting are the nasty comments below the article that accuse him of posting Microsoft’s internal secrets. Here’s a sample:

Why are you revealing what is supposed to be an internal matter?

Idiot, idiot, you should quit. You should be ashamed. Hopefully HR will figure out who the hell you are and can your ***.

I cannot believe you posted this. What is wrong with you? Makes me shudder to think what else your pathetic and bereft character would allow yourself to post. No house is perfect, we’re all a little dysfunctional.

Very, very bizarre. Read the post (and comments) here.

As twentysomethings quickly discover, sometimes getting ahead in a career – or just getting started – can mean crossing time zones, moving to far-flung places. What happens to friends and family? Conversations are long distance, and held after 9 p.m., when our cellphone minutes are free.

[They] have forsaken the safety of familiar surroundings, friends and family, hairdressers, dentists, and pubs, to pursue their ambitions. In this testing stage of our careers, it’s too early to tell what all the moving will lead to.

[…]

Ms. Meinhart says there isn’t anyone in the entire state of New Hampshire whom she knows well enough to help her change a flat tire. “I feel completely isolated,” she says. “Its harder to meet people outside of school and that social environment. I’ve learned from this experience that a job isn’t enough, I need stimulation, and social interaction.”

The last point is interesting. Young people are intimately interested in the social aspect of their work. In other words, it’s not just about the work, but who they’ll be working with. When you’re trying to recruit college graduates, don’t ignore this. Tell them how they’ll make friends and professional contacts. Will they have a formal mentoring relationship? What about trips to the local ballgame every month? Will you allow (encourage?) them to be on AIM (instant messenger) at work?

I’ll give you an example from my own recruiting experience. Whenever I interviewed at a company, I always dug around to find out what people did during lunch. Did they eat with friends? Or did they eat alone? Believe it or not, I was afraid of working somewhere where people eat lunch at desks. It was that important to me. How can you communicate the importance of social relationships to your potential recruits?

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here.

We’ll be blogging about behind-the-scenes recruiting stories and recent developments in college recruiting. We may even post articles from the cutting-room floor of the book! Along the way, we’ll show you how to compete with the world’s best recruiting companies — regardless of your budget.

Remember to browse http://www.alwaysrecruiting.com and sign up for our newsletter to get free bonus materials. And get in touch with us any time.

Here’s to recruiting the best!

-Ramit Sethi, co-author (along with Chris Resto and Ian Ybarra)