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Donna Ballman’s Great Article on Workplace Rights


Those who visit my blog consistently probably remember my post The Distortion of Bill of Rights in Small Business and know that I frequently come back to the issues of an employee's freedoms and rights even in the pieces not related to to those topics directly.  I would like to draw the readers' attention to this great article by Donna Ballman written for AOL Jobs 10 Workplace Rights You Think You Have, But Don't. 

Ms. Ballman is an employment attorney, so unlike my insider's point of view, her perspective is independent and supported by legal expertise – really a must-read for everyone who confused their workplace for a democracy.

Case Study: The Marketing of Fear


In my consulting practice, I have a client who has a family-ran business.   It has been established several generations back.  He is doing well.  Yet, one of his sons wants to be an entrepreneur of his own stature.  He wants a complete independence – something I very much admire.  The young man has a pretty fascinating idea worthy of at least trying to attract venture capital.  Of course, he wants to do everything himself.   I know the boy for a really long time – when he embarked on figuring things out, I told him he could always count on my advice if he had any questions.

He came to me a few days ago, his model  clearly formulated and ready to be formalized in a business plan.  But he was all out of sorts about the business plan.  His original intent was to buy a PaloAlto's Business Plan Pro (still a #1 business plan software on the market) for $199.99 and work within its framework.  But then somebody told him that he can go cheaper and "easier" with a Growthink's Business Plan Template – only $97 for a pre-written, fill-in-the-blanks, Word document/Excel spreadsheets.  Excited, he went to look at the company's website and ended up having a panic attack.

I went to see for myself what could possibly spook him like that.  Let me tell you right away that I have nothing against Growthink, a 10-year-old consulting company, specializing in business planning and investment brokerage.  They appear to be quite successful in their core business of charging high-rate fees to moneyed clients looking for more funds, expansion or exit strategies.

The thing is, though, that in their daze of success they also decided to "reach out" to the general public.  According to their Special Announcement, they

"regularly receive requests from entrepreneurs who want to hire Growthink but cannot afford our consulting fees. For this reason, we have developed a business plan template that allows entrepreneurs to quickly and cost-effectively develop professional plans."

How about that?  They charge their conventional clients tens of thousands of dollars for their services, but here it is – for $97 you can have exactly the same thing.  Well, that's nothing new.  Consumer beware!

What caused the young entrepreneur to go into a frenzied mode was something else – it was the brutal, fear-fueling tactics that Growthink uses to market their side products.  I don't know how they talk to their conventional clients, but their online lingo is nearly unethical.

You take a vulnerable group of people setting off on a scary quest of entrepreneurship and you tell them,  "You don't know anything.  We are the only ones who know all the secrets.  Here, we tell you 4 out of 10 things you must know and then you will have to buy more products to know the rest.  If you don't do it you are doomed.   Here is another set of products with secrets from Venture Capitalists that were revealed only to us.  Everybody else do it wrong and so will you, if you don't buy this," etc, etc.  And it all enhanced with a rapid-speed audio. 

By the time they are finished talking, the poor young entrepreneur feels he MUST SPEND $1,200, or there is no hope for him.  And all he wanted to do is to spend two hundred bucks on the best business plan software on the market.      

The funny thing is that the template has only three reviews.  Do you think that the $1 billion of venture capital, Growthink claims their clients raised, was attracted by a ready-made generic template?  I don't think so.  Plus, if you are a creative person, capable of original brilliant idea, would you really want fill in the blanks and have somebody else's words expressing your aspirations?                 

Job Search: Lessons from AOL Resume Contest


Not that my stories are usually bright and sunny, but in this case I feel obligated to apologize in advance for the accentuated feeling of gloominess the visitors may experience reading this post.   This particular topic is depressing on three levels. 

First of all, it deals with the fact that there are millions of well-qualified people out there, who are classified as "long-term unemployed." 

Secondly, it highlights the problem of plunging work quality we can see everywhere.  I am not saying everyone, but it seems like the majority of people  just don't want to try hard anymore.  

Thirdly, it disparages our illusions about the impact of "internet exposure."  Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and web-powered Social Networking are even more popular mantras nowadays, than Dashboards.  Everybody and their mothers are writing about it.  People believe that if they get their name on a high-traffic site, they are going to be noticed.  The reality is that unless you write about sex, celebrities or electronic chachkis, nobody will care.  And before you bring up Huffington Post, let me tell you – Arianna Huffington was a political powerhouse and a decent memoirist way before she went on the net. 

So, here is the story.  In January AOL Jobs announced a Resume Contest and offered job seekers to submit their CVs and photos.  The winners were "to be selected by AOL Jobs career experts."  The incentive to participate was boldly formulated:

"Each winner will have their resume featured on AOL.com for millions of prospective employers to see..."  

AOL Jobs never revealed their traffic information to support this claim of tremendous exposure.  But of course, people are desperately unemployed and ready to grasp at straws; plus, the internet exposure illusion…  Resumes were entered into the contest.

Here comes the funny part.  Afterwards, the organizers did not even bother to announce how many resumes were submitted.  Like, it did not even matter.  However, in addition to the original 12 winners,  AOL Jobs announced 24 runner-ups, claiming that "there were so many amazing… entrants" (no actual numbers).

I happened to know personally one of these runner-ups.  Guess when these poor saps were featured on AOL Jobs…  The first group on Saturday, January 29th, at 7:57 AM, and the second group on Sunday, January 30th, at 4:42 PM.  Who was looking?  Recruiters?  Employers?  None of these 36 winners got any job offers through this "wonderful" campaign.

The personally -known-to-me winner did not receive a single phone call or an email.  Well, that did not really surprise me.  What shocked me was that nobody from AOL cared to follow up with her.  There were no emails asking if she got any leads, nothing…  Weren't organizers interested at all in the results?  As I say – low quality of work everywhere.   

So, I have a constructive suggestion, which at the very least will have a quality-improving effect.   How about, AOL Job's management actually pursues their "Employing America" mission and replaces the incapable staff, who developed this failed contest, with some excellent winners of the Resume Contest?

Job Search: A Sad Tale of a Misdialed Area Code


Images Posts related to job search issues have become more frequent.  I guess, it is unavoidable with such a persistent problem – a lot of people are unemployed and the jobs availability diminishes every day, no matter what the big-time economists and government statisticians are saying. 

This story was related to me just last week and I felt compelled to share it here.  A fellow financial exec has been contacted by a recruiter with an opportunity for a CFO position with a service company.  The recruiter does not work for an employment agency.  He is with a consulting company that specializes in hedge fund and private equity brokerage.  They offer a broad range of assistance: from finding companies suitable for takeover or merging to post-closing transitioning.

Excellent!  Recruiters working for such consulting firms are less constricted than conventional headhunters from Robert Half et al.  Because they are immersed into an entrepreneurial world, they actually try to find talented people instead of counting the check marks they drew on a resume.

So, the two have an extensive phone interview, going over the financial exec's experience with various functions crucial for this job.  At the end, the recruiter is very positive and tells her he would make a presentation to his boss, the consulting firm's Managing Director.  A couple of days later he calls to inform her that he got a favorable feedback and wants to make an appointment for a telephone interview with the boss.  They set the day and time.  

Now (this is an important bit of information), the consulting firm is in Philadelphia, where predominant area code is 215.  The candidate is in New York City – 212 area code there.

Appointment time comes – the interviewee sits and waits by the phone.  An hour later – nothing happened.  She writes an email to the recruiter advising that the Managing Director did not call.  He writes back immediately saying that she did call, nobody picked up and she left a message.  How is it possible?  The woman in New York was by her phone all the time.  Well, we, CFOs, are quick like that – our job seeker realized right away that the Philadelphia woman, out of habit, must have punched 215, instead of 212.  

The recruiter and his boss probably looked at the call log and saw the wrong number too.  The interview was rescheduled.  But now, there is a subconscious resistance in the interviewer's mind – she is human, and we don't like admitting to embarrassing errors like that.  She re-schedules again, then again, then never calls. 

And just like that, the opportunity was gone.  What always bothers me when things like that happen, is that it is quite possible that this woman could have been the best thing that ever happened to the company.  She might have impacted the future of the enterprise in the most positive way.  It seems so unfair that stupid little things like this misdialed area code have such a big role in this Comedy of Errors we call life.