Learning to be a hero is more important than you might think.

Article by Brooke Allen, Interview by Adrienne Rodney and Brooke Allen.

Last summer we interviewed Dr. Phillip Zimbardo about his Heroic Imagination Project.

Before we met Dr. Phillip Zimbardo it wasn’t clear what a hero is or how frequently we all are presented with opportunities to be one. Zimbardo defines heroes as people who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Altruism is “heroism lite” – helping others without expectation of gain. When most people say someone is a “hero” they really mean “role model.” Sports figures, celebrities, or business leaders may or may not be good role models, but few are well known for heroism.

Phil Zimbardo is perhaps the greatest living psychologist. He has been the president of the American Psychological Association, hosted the 26 episode PBS series titled Discovering Psychology, and authored many books, including a favorite, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. But Phil is most famous for the Stanford Prison Study conducted 40 years ago.

Please, take a few minutes to watch our interview and then answer a few questions.

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Can you imagine being a hero, or even wanting to be one? 

Before you answer, can you imagine the following conversations?

Conversation #1: Saleswoman, “May I tell you about our product?”

Prospect, “Possibly. But first, would you ever lie to a customer?”

Saleswoman, “Let’s just say that I will never let my children starve.”

Prospect, “Are you married? Does your husband have a job?”

Saleswoman, “Yes and Yes.”

Prospect, “Sometimes it feels like there are more unemployed unwed mothers feeding their children than there are honest salespeople.”

Saleswoman, “Whatever. Now, may I tell you about my product?”

Prospect, “No.”

Conversation #2: Hiring manager, “I have lots of unemployed friends. Would you mind if I introduced one of them to fill the vacancy you’ll leave behind?”

Job Candidate, “I would not recommend anyone do my job because my job requires I do unethical things.”

Hiring manager, “Then I can’t hire you because you are saying you are the most unethical person in the world. You do things so unethical you would not recommend anyone else on the planet do them other than you. You think it is ok to be unethical as long as it isn’t your idea.”

Conversation #3: College Career Officer, “Last year I told our president that for three years every graduate from one of our departments has been unable to get a job in their field, and I feel an obligation to disclose this fact to our students. He ordered me to stop keeping track and never disclose this fact because, as he said, ‘What am I going to do with the department? Don’t be selfish; think of your colleagues.’”

Friend, “What did you do?”

Career Officer, “I did what he said. What else could I do? I’m not selfish.”

Conversation #4. Job Candidate, “After 21 years of competent and loyal service I uncovered some shenanigans in one of our divisions. My boss and his boss didn’t seem to care so, after exhausting all internal options I quit and went to the regulators who nipped it in the bud. Although it cost me and two layers of management our jobs, I saved the shareholders boatloads of money. Now I’d like to do the same thing for your shareholders.”

Hiring Manager, “When can you start?”

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I (Brooke) can imagine conversations #1 through #3 because I’ve personally participated in similar ones.

I can imagine the fourth only because I have an active imagination.

Phil Zimbardo believes we all need to imagine having conversations like #4 and we should never find ourselves involved with the first three.

He started his Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco where he is raising money to sponsor heroism research and to educate people on how to be everyday heroes. He told us that, while you might benefit from a heroic act, it cannot be your motivation.

Not only do we need to strive to do the right thing every day, we must “Learn to love the whistle blower.” He should know. He had a whistleblower for his 1971 experiment. A recently minted doctorate in psychology, Christina Maslach was appalled at the change in Phil’s personality and behavior while he was conducting his prison study. She called him on it. They married the following year.

Do you want to be a hero?

Don’t your customers, employees, employers, students, shareholders, loved ones, and future generations need you to at least try?

You can learn more about what it means to be a hero by watching our interview with Dr. Zimbardo and then visiting The Heroic Imagination Project website to learn how to imagine being one and to help the cause.

And, while you’re here, please post a comment.

We are particularly interested in a story about a hero in your life, or a situation where you wish there was one on hand.

HOW AMERICA CAN LEVEL-UP SKILLS AND LAND GOOD JOBS.

Article and Video Interview by Brooke Allen

I’ve often wondered what can be done to make it fun to learn new skills and hunt for a job. Surely if FarmVille can make farming fun, and Call of Duty can make war fun, isn’t it possible for the people who produce those games to apply what they know to making the process of finding and qualifying for a job just a little bit more effective and enjoyable?

As it turns out, the answer is: ABSOLUTELY.

Recently I discussed this very question with Gabe Zichermann, an expert in “gamification,” author of Game Based Marketing, and creator of the Gamification Blog.

Gabe explained that the job search is usually a long process that has many moving parts including the concept of career mastery. He says this is the kind of thing that is well suited to modern multi-player social games.

In order to take someone through the “player’s journey,” game designers break complex processes into their component pieces and by providing guidance and rewards along the way. As missions are completed and skills are “leveled-up,” the player can look back later to see that they have accomplished something amazing – and had fun along the way.

After hearing his fascinating advice on how you can make your own job search more fun for you and for those who are helping you, I asked Gabe if this idea has ever been commercialized.

After all, Zynga has figured out how to get 1% of the world’s population to play Farmville, growing crops that nobody can eat. You join for free through Facebook and begin building your farm. Then you invite friends to start neighboring farms, and you interact daily, by visiting each other and complete specialized tasks in order to receive rewards and “farm coins” which you can use to buy gifts for your friends.

Gabe has famously highlighted Farmville’s social aspect by calling it “poke with cows.”

Wouldn’t it be great if Zynga created a “JobsVille” as “poke with resumes” – a place where you and your friends can help each other level-up your real-world connections and skills, land good jobs, and put real food on the table? What’s in it for Zynga? After all, if Zynga goes public, they will have shareholders to feed. As Gabe suggested in the interview, if people help you with editing a resume, making an introduction, or practicing an interview, it is entirely appropriate you reward them, perhaps with a real (or virtual) gifts bought through the game platform.

Better yet, why not help a charity in the name of the person who helped you?

Zynga has already thought of this; they handle the distribution of charitable contributions from their users through their non-profit Zynga.org.

Gabe told me he has not heard of a single person who has made a massively multi-player on-line social game out of the job hunt, but that it is ripe for development.

Story by: Adrienne Rodney, Interview by: Brooke Allen

Robin Dunbar, British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist at Oxford, says you can have at most 150 sensible, reciprocated relationships. This is known as the Dunbar Number, and it is discussed in his book, How Many Friends Does One Person Need?: Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks.

Our most important relationships are with our intimate friends and family – the people we love, rely on and support when times are tough. But most of the people we know make up the outer layers of our social network – our coworkers, neighbors and friends of friends, and these outer layer relationships are more vital than we think. “They’re the people who help you out when things are down by finding you jobs or letting you know there’s a job going where they work,” Dunbar says. “That’s a source of information for you.”

Yet our social well-being depends on the strength of our most intimate relationships. “Those who have a bigger social network have, on average, less intimacy with each of the members,” Dunbar says. “If your inner core relationships are going to be important to you…you do best by focusing your attention on those closest to you.”

Dunbar spoke with Brooke Allen about his research on relationships and the roles they play in our lives. You can learn more about Dunbar’s number and the layers of relationships by listening to Brooke and Robin’s conversation below.

And read the transcript to the conversationhere.

But is it a seduction or a search for true love?

Paul Zak is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University, and he is credited with the first published use of the term “neuroeconomics” which combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience in the study of how people make decisions.

Paul’s lab studies the role of oxytocin in trust and virtuous behavior, and he discusses this in his popular blog at Psychology Today titled, “The Moral Molecule.” He is working on the forthcoming book of the same name.

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<<< Elissa is a documentary filmmaker

Abby is a writer >>>

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Elissa and Abby were two of the many people who responded to an advertisement for an executive assistant placed by Brooke Allen, founder of No Shortage of Work, and who, by day, heads a quantitative trading desk for a securities firm. Brooke has an unusual approach to hiring that involves, in his words, “due diligence and full disclosure.” He says, “I try to be completely honest in presenting myself, the work and the firm, with a concentration on the negatives because I don’t want any nasty surprises afterward.” He has discovered that when he is honest, most people can’t help but be honest in response. Although Brooke got to know both Elissa and Abby very well, and now counts them among his friends, he did not hire them – not because they wouldn’t be excellent workers, but because his job would not get them closer to their dreams.

Many people have compared job hunting to dating, and Brooke agrees. However, he likens most job hunting advice to lessons in seduction, where landing a job is like going to bed for the first time – as if it doesn’t matter what happens afterward. “I don’t want to hire anyone until we both get to see the other person’s authentic self, because who else do we plan on being after work begins in earnest?”

Paul Zak has made a career of studying how people establish long-term relationships and create bonds of trust, whether in the workplace, the marketplace or the home.

Paul joined Elissa, Abby, Brooke and Adrienne (the person Brooke did hire) to discuss how the process of matching people and jobs can be made more honest, effective and humane.

Listen to their conversation:

Or right-click here to download the .mp3 file.

Audio engineering was provided by Glen Allen.

Interview by: Brooke Allen

LISTEN TO NEIL and learn to MASTER A JOB INTERVIEW from a master.

Years ago, Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers) taught Cambridge educated Neil Mullarkey how to be funny, and along the way Neil discovered his authentic self.

Neil has been in double-acts with Mike Myers, Nick Hancock, and Tony Hawks. He has performed in numerous radio and television shows, including BBC’s Whose Line is it Anyway. (The show began in1988, ten years before ABC brought it to America.) He has been in many films including Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Goldmember.

For 25 years, as a founding member of the Comedy Store Players, and as owner of Improv Your Biz, Neil has been teaching the art of improvisation.

I recently caught his performance in the British Comedy Invasion in New York City. The audience was thrilled when he introduced his colleagues and mentors, Eddie Izzard and Mike Myers, as surprise guests.

So I asked him if he would speak to NSoW about the importance of mentors, and he graciously agreed.

Listen to Neil describe his relationship with Mike and what he learned. He talks about how he mentors others, teaching people from all walks of life how to improvise. You will hear about his alter-ego, L. Vaughan Spencer, the world’s worst self-help guru and author of Don’t be Needy, Be Succeedy.

Neil explains how improv can help you discover your authentic self. While actors might play people they are not, improv artists have no time to be anyone but who they are. In a good scripted performance, each line leads to the next. In good improvisation, each person hands other performers an opportunity to carry on, using what is called an “offer.” You may not know where you are going, but you offer the opportunity for another person to go somewhere. However, in normal conversation, we often bring a conversation to a screeching halt with what is called a “block.” These are conversation enders.

But a really good improvisationalist sees a block as just another form of an offer. Neil and I role-play with what is probably the most dreaded block job seekers face: The Turn Down – “I can’t possibly use you.” You will learn how this is not a block at all, but an invitation to explore everything else you might do with your life. And the best place to start is in the hiring manager’s office; the best time to start is immediately after you are rejected. The conversation does not need to be over. You have just been handed an “offer” to begin an entirely new discussion.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW NOW.

or right-click here to download the .mp3 file.

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Before there was Dr. Evil, there was Dr. Wicked.

Watch MIKE MYERS and NEIL MULLARKEY perform together at the Edinburgh Festival on YOU TUBE.

Read the Humongous Shortage of Work’s  review of Neil’s latest book, Don’t be Needy, be Succeedy. They even have a promotional video you can watch that is a real hoot.

A conversation with Henry Mintzberg, Professor of Management Studies at McGill University.

By Brooke Allen, founder of No Shortage of Work

“Perhaps business schools should issue recall notices.” These words were spoken last week by Henry Mintzberg, a featured speaker at a Fordham University conference titled, “MBA Under Siege: Reimagining Management Education”

Because I feel my MBA is one of my all-time worst purchasing decisions, I gave Professor Mintzberg a call at his office in Montreal.

I began, “As a hiring manager, I can report that there are lots of recently minted MBAs with upwards of $100,000 of debt, who, as far as I can tell, have no skills or knowledge I’d pay them a dime for. Worse yet, they come with an attitude, and it usually isn’t a good one. Are you saying that business schools have an obligation to tell students when their product is faulty?”

He replied, “There is no question that schools have a moral obligation to disclose, but it isn’t clear that they have a legal one. Toyota has a legal obligation to let people know when they uncover a problem, but the case can be made that schools are not failing all students, and in many cases they add value. I refer to the functional courses in business, not the courses in management, where they do very badly.”

“But, the fact that most Toyotas work just fine does not mean they should cover up a fault in a few,” I said. “Besides, one of the things I hated about my MBA education was that the discussion in Ethics class was about legality, not morality. Isn’t a moral obligation enough of a reason to do something? Shouldn’t universities hold themselves to a higher standard than businesses?”

Mintzberg laughed, “Don’t look for too much morality at most Universities these days. It is popular for academics to make the case that honesty pays, that ‘It pays to be good’ n – not so– it’s a sham. Sometimes, it pays to be bad. Shouldn’t you always do the right thing, whether it pays or not? I’ve written about that in my book, Power in and Around Organizations.”

“In your more recent book, Managers, Not MBAs, you say that businesses are all about making things and selling them, but MBAs don’t study that. Instead they develop a disdain for production and sales.”

“That’s right. Selling is earthy, and business schools don’t do earthy things. Marketing is one-to-many, and it is hard to tell if you are doing a good job. Selling is one-to-one, and there is instant feedback.”

“And rejection can make you feel bad,” I said, “I once took a day-long sales training class that began with the instructor asking each of us why we where there. One fellow said, ‘I want to manipulate people so they will do what I want.’ The instructor took out his checkbook, refunded the $100 fee, and told him to leave. He said selling was about helping people make decisions that are in their own best interest. Then he taught us how to do it. On that one Saturday, I learned more of value than during five years of night classes at N. Y. U. where not once did I see anyone, professor or student, called on the carpet for their ethics or morality.”

He said, “If you want to be a doctor, you should go to Medical School, and if you want to be a nurse, you should go to Nursing School, but if you want to manage in business, you should not go to management school.”

“So, how can someone learn about management if not in school?” I asked.

“Some colleagues and I have created a program called Coaching Ourselves. We provide materials and guidance, but the basic idea is that small groups of people can learn a lot by reflecting on their own experiences, and sharing their thoughts and feeling with others. Rather than send employees to business school, we created an in-house program that helps develop groups of managers for a few thousand dollars, rather than hundreds of thousands.”

I was impressed. “We’ve sent three people in our group for master’s degrees with explicit instructions to report anything they learn that we can use, and they have not reported a single thing. I can certainly imagine it would be much better if we just got together and discussed things in the context of our own circumstances. But what advice do you have for our readers, many of whom are unemployed or working at firms with no education budget whatsoever?”

“They could do Coaching Ourselves by themselves; implement our methodology without us. They would get the benefits of pre-selected and synthesized material, not a person to help, but people can certainly implement these concepts on their own.” Of course, on their own, managers can still get the benefits of reflecting with each other on their experiences, just without the CoachingOurselves content downloaded to stimulate their discussions.

“It may be much more time-efficient for us to buy a solution for our employees, but if my friends and I were unemployed, we’d have more time and much less money, so perhaps we could roll our own. Professor Mintzberg, I, and our readers, thank you for your time.”

“And I thank you.”

It is refreshing to hear a business school professor call it like it is.

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If you would like to join with other NSoW subscribers to learn from each other as Professor Mintzberg suggests, go to our newsletter submission page, and select “Form a Study Group” from the first drop-down menu.

Learn how to have purposeful conversations with anyone, and the job interview will be a piece of cake.

by: Brooke Allen

When Darya Gorlova met Lola Falkowski through No Shortage of Work, they did not just chat; Darya interviewed Lauren about her business, LolaFalk.

And Darya did not just write down notes, she wrote up an article.

She published it on her blog.

I am often asked by colleges to speak to their seniors about interviewing. I ask the colleges why they don’t want me to speak to their freshmen.

By the time a student is a senior, and ready to apply for the first serious job, she could have dozens, perhaps hundreds of interviews under her belt. And, I’m not talking about “practice interviews,” I’m talking about real ones. An interview is little more than a purposeful conversation intended to obtain information. If you want to learn something from someone, interview them.

A college friend of mine was never satisfied simply referencing publications in her schoolwork; she often called the authors on the telephone and interviewed them.

In a classic scene in Annie Hall, Woody Allen gets in an argument with a pedantic professor. Woody finds Marshall McLuhan behind a movie poster and gets him to straighten out the professor. Likewise, my friend could tell her professors, “Well, when I spoke with the author last night, he said…”

I admired my friend, but I did not emulate her, and that is why, when she graduated, she had many more useful contacts than me, and she was much more at ease speaking with strangers – particularly ones more powerful or knowledgeable than her. She had practice. I did not.

Here are some suggestions for how you can be more like my friend:

When you interview someone, your goal is to learn something. You will soon discover that people love it when you take an interest in their interests, and they will be very forgiving if you are amateurish at first.

It is important that you take notes. Not only does it make it clear you respect the person’s words, it will help you remember later. And if you don’t remember a conversation, it may as well not have ever taken place.

Take some time and write up your notes in more formal prose. As you do, you will uncover follow-up questions. This will give you a reason to call or write and that will solidify your relationship.

Everything is interesting when viewed from the right angle. Occasionally, you’ll find yourself interviewing boring people, and you’ll start to lose focus. Here’s a trick I use: I ask myself, “How am I going to make this interesting when I write it up?” Committing to producing a finished product gives you a goal that will motivate you to continue. You will discover that almost everything can be made interesting.

Learn to interview like a reporter (and get lots of practice), and you’ll ace the job interview. Few hiring managers know how to conduct an interview, so it will help you greatly if you do. My suggestion: don’t just make the other person’s interests (or yours) the topic of the interview. Make the conversation be about the WORK. Look to learn all about what needs to be accomplished, how it gets done, and why. Don’t try to impress people with your knowledge (reporters don’t do that) but rather with your interest. People would rather hire a learn-it-all than a know-it-all.

Look for every opportunity to interview people, and there is a good chance you’ll get job offers without needing to answer ads or go on “job” interviews. Hiring managers know how hard it is to find people with a sincere interest in the job at hand, and when they run across you, they will wonder if you might be available the next time something opens up. They don’t enjoy conducting “job” interviews any more than you like going to them.

So, take the initiative as Darya has.

A No Shortage of Work networking party is a good place to find people to interview – we’ll even help you. Of course, so is every other place in the world – wherever you find people.

Interview by Nick Cordodilos of Brooke Allen, founder of No Shortage of Work.

Nick Corcodilos, host of AskTheHeadhunter.com and author of How Can I Change Careers? and How to Work with Headhunters. Nick also publishes the free weekly Ask The Headhunter Newsletter.

Brooke Allen is the founder of No Shortage of Work. He recently hired an assistant. This is the story of how he went about it.

Brooke: Yes.

Nick: Does anyone become annoyed?

Brooke: Seldom. I have over 3,000 contacts and there was only one complaint. A guy said he was a senior executive who had been out of work for over a year, and this position was beneath him.

Nick: But, your email asked if I knew of anyone who might be interested; it didn’t presume I should be interested.

Brooke: That’s right. This fellow was only thinking of himself. The second response was from the wealthiest person I know… he’s worth billions… and he said, “I’ll see who I can find.” Later, when I thanked him for his time, he said, “No problem. Everyone has to start somewhere.”

Nick: I bet I can guess why the first guy is unemployed, and the second is wealthy.

Brooke: My words exactly.

Nick: How many responses did you get?

Brooke: Perhaps 20 from the mailing. We also ran an ad on Craigslist, and some people reposted it elsewhere, so within two weeks we had about 200 applicants.

Nick: How did you read all those resumes?

Brooke: I didn’t. For a position like this, I hire for attitude and aptitude, not for resume writing skills.

Nick: What do you care about?

Brooke: Two things – Integrity, people who lack integrity are really bad news.

Nick: And the second thing?

Brooke: The ability to do the work. You taught me that years ago. It’s all about the work.

Nick: Thank you. How do you find out if they can do the work?

Brooke: For every position, you must not be lazy and be able to read and write English. If you sent a resume, I sent you a four page email describing the work, our group, the company, and our industry. I tried to answer the questions I could anticipate, even ones that might put us in a negative light, and I closed by asking you to send me your unanswered questions; if you were interested in the position, you should tell me why. If you didn’t respond, either you were not interested, which is fine, or you are lazy, can’t read, or can’t write, which means you don’t meet the minimum qualifications for the job.

Nick: How many responded?

Brooke: About 40. It always seems to be about 20% no matter what job I’m advertising.

Nick: So, did you read those resumes?

Brooke: I did not. I asked them to give themselves a grade on various skills such as: Spreadsheets, HTML, writing and editing, accounting, programming. Grades were:

E – Expert (could teach others)

G – Good (but could get better with further self-study and practice)

P – Poor (but willing to learn more)

N – No experience at all (but willing to learn)

U – Uninterested in this skill – don’t care to learn, or work in this area

Nick: How did know if they were being honest?

Brooke: I explained that if they told me now they weren’t good at something, we would send them to training after we hired them. But, if they told us they were good, and they weren’t, we wouldn’t hire them no matter what, of if we didn’t figure it out until after we hired them, we’d fire them. I also set a tone of honesty in how I described ourselves – both the good and the bad. Our mantra, “no nasty surprises later” and people like that. Few people want to be dishonest, even to land a job.

Nick: How many people were you down to now?

Brooke: Twenty-seven. I invited them all in for one of three open houses.

Nick: How did people feel about a mass interview like that?

Brooke: I made it clear that we were not going to interview them; they were coming to interview us. When they arrived, I gave them $20 for their time, a book about Wall Street, and we had pizza.

Nick: That must have cost at least $1,000. Where did the money come from?

Brooke: The money came from not paying an H. R. person six figures to tell me how to hire someone. It came from not paying $10,000 to a headhunter to send me resumes that I might have then had to read. It came from not running ads in Monster and CareerBuilder. It came from profits made by the great people I’ve already hired this way. $1,000 is a pittance compared to the cost of hiring the way most people usually do.

Nick: But in this market, people are so desperate for an interview, you don’t need to give them anything.

Brooke: Perhaps, but I wanted to thank them for giving me one of the most important things anyone can ever give.

Nick: What’s that?

Brooke: A choice. Unfortunately, in this market, most people don’t think they have many choices. They have plenty – they just don’t think they do, but that’s another conversation.

Nick: What did you talk about when they came?

Brooke: The work, our company, our mission, and so on. Then they discussed ways they could help each other find work.

Nick: Why do you care if they find work elsewhere?

Brooke: Because I want people to work for me because they choose to, not because they think they have no choice. Besides, if I were them, that is how I would like to be treated.

Nick: Many employers claim to be good to their employees, but why be good to people you haven’t even hired yet?

Brooke: I believe we’re all in this together. For me, hiring someone is getting a bunch of people to help me solve my problem. But, having them work on my problem without caring about theirs seems selfish. I know how I’ll help the person I hire, the trick is to find time-efficient ways to help the people I can’t hire. This approach seems to pay dividends, but I can’t tell you why.

Nick: Does your approach take a lot of time?

Brooke: Not really. Remember, I’m sending out mass mailings and  holding group meetings, so I’m not repeating the same thing with individuals. In essence, I’m having my candidates do the work of determining if we are right for them before they bother me with an application.

Nick: After the open house, how many were still interested?

Brooke: About a dozen. So, now we began reading resumes and their skills inventories. We called in six people to spend half a day learning the job. No interviews in the traditional sense – just work and rubbing elbows.

Nick: Did people prove to be honest about their skill levels?

Brooke: Yes. The important thing we got to see was how well they learned. Some people might be superb at something, but learning the next marginal thing proves difficult. Others didn’t know what we were talking about at first but caught on immediately. I prefer the second type because we’re always operating right on the cusp of not knowing how to do the next thing that needs to be done.

Nick: Then what?

Brooke: We ranked our candidates. Our first choice was a woman I will call Alice – it was almost embarrassing how easy everything was for her. I called her up and said I’d like to make an offer. The salary was $35,000 and was non-negotiable, but I was willing to pay for graduate school. I told her I wanted her to think about whether it was in our best interest to hire her, and I would think if it was in her best interest to accept an offer.

Nick: That is what you talked about, “If the shoe were on the other foot, would you hire me?”

Brooke: Yes, except that we did it by email. I wrote an essay, and so did she. When we were both ready, we swapped.

Nick: And…

Brooke: I had written about three pages. For this to be her best choice, I would have to offer her much more of a career path than I had planned on, so I discussed how that might progress.

Nick: What did she write?

Brooke: She said that she realized that she wasn’t sure what she wanted, and this period of unemployment was a good time to explore. She also said she had developed a moral dilemma in that she saw that taking this job would deprive someone else – and this wasn’t just abstract, she had met those other people. She wanted to withdraw.

So, we decided to work together on some side projects that interest me and that might help her figure out what she wants to do.

We moved to our second choice.

Nick: Who was?

Brooke: I’ll call her Betty. She had created an on-line group so our various job candidates could interact and help each-other find work. Not only did she have the technical skills, she had a good heart.

Nick: A good heart? Is that important to you?

Brooke: Yup, we even put that in a job ad once. People laugh, but I suggest if you are at a big firm, you should try the experiment; populate one department with good-hearted people, and hire only nasty people into another one. Wait a year and see how things go. I can’t afford to do that experiment.

Anyway, Betty called back the next day to say she wanted to withdraw. She wanted to see if she can make her business work. I had my own business like hers once, and I know you can sometimes get in a rut, and it is good to talk to someone. To give up on something she’d worked so hard on might not be her best decision.

Nick: So, in this market, you’ve had your top candidates turn you down!

Brooke: That’s right, I prefer it that way. I hate telling people “no.” Next, I called Darla. Previously, she had told me she was interested in going to grad school for marketing, but now she confessed there was nothing in business school that interested her.

Nick: So, it was on to number four?

Brooke: Not at all. Darla was honest, which is refreshing. Besides, I have an MBA and it was an almost complete waste of time. I asked her, “Is there nothing you want to learn?” and she said, “Lots of things… just not in business school.” So, I asked her to make a list of all the things she wanted to learn, and whether, if she were me, I should pay for her to learn them.

Nick: And she said?

Brooke: Excel-yes, Powerpoint-yes, AutoCAD-Maybe, Watercolor Painting-No, Statistics-maybe, Cooking-no, Creative writing-maybe. The list went on. She was clearly an interesting person.

Then I asked her for what she thought I would want her to learn that she would agree to learn. She listed: Accounting principles, Project management, Adobe Illustrator, Logic, etc.

Nick: So, did you hire her?

Brooke: We went back and forth – I brought up reasons working here wouldn’t be in her best interest and she brought up reasons she might not be our best candidate. We couldn’t find any insurmountable problems, so I made an offer and she accepted. She’s great, there have been surprises, but they have all been positive, at least for me.

Nick: Are you sending her to school?

Brooke: Nope, better than that. She is studying on her own and teaching what she has learned to the rest of us. I buy each of us a copy of the same book, and she presents it. Last month she did writing and next month she does accounting. The fact is we’re all doing this now; someone presents a book each week. If we keep this up for a year, all six of us will have a library of about 50 books and it will cost me less than had I sent Darla to two college courses!

Nick: Why didn’t you think of that earlier?

Brooke: Because I hadn’t met a candidate who didn’t want to go to college. I’ve probably spent $100,000 sending my employees to grad school and I personally have gotten less out of it than six weeks of Darla not going to school.

Nick: Did you ever read Darla’s resume?

Brooke: Near the end. It wasn’t that impressive, a degree in Geography from Thomas Edison State University, which I had never heard of… some experience doing historic preservation. I might have tossed her resume. It wasn’t until after getting to know her that I discovered she’d gone for the first three years at the University of Chicago. There were some other things that might have eliminated her.

Nick: Like what?

Brooke: The attachments to her first email didn’t open, so I asked her to resend them as pdfs. She got lost coming to an open house and so I told her to come to the next one. I think that HR people who play the elimination game might have rejected her for any of those reasons, which aren’t good enough in my opinion.

Nick: Did she write a cover letter?

Brooke: Funny you should ask. A few weeks after I hired her I went back and looked. She was the first person to send a real cover letter, sixteen minutes after my ad ran on Craigslist, and it was perfect. Because my ad said she needed to know how to write, she attached an essay she’d written in college. Then she asked two questions, and I quote:

1. Do you like going to the office every day? I want a job I like going to, so it’s pretty important that current employees are generally happy where they are at your company.

2. What growth is involved in this position? I don’t usually define my life by my current job, but it’s also nice to know I can move up within a company after putting my best efforts forth and being rewarded for such.

How cool is that?

Nick: But you did not read the cover letter when Darla originally sent it?

Brooke: I did read it when it came in, and I added her questions to the list I was accumulating. However, I did not use cover letters as part of my decision making process. If someone was too busy to write a good cover letter, it did not mean they were not a good candidate for me. However, it is such a great pleasure to discover that her cover letter is consistent with the forthright, responsive, and talented person I hired.

Nick: You would recommend people ask their hiring manager if they like going to work every day?

Brooke: Absolutely, although people do lie. I asked that question on an interview at Merrill Lynch once, and the guy told me how great the place was. The following week, I interviewed with the same person, but now he was at the New York Stock Exchange. I asked him why he had changed jobs over the weekend. He said, “Merrill sucked… I hated working there. I couldn’t tell you that last week because I worked for them” That tells you something about a place if part of your job description includes lying.

Nick: You enjoy hiring people, don’t you?

Brooke: Absolutely, it is the best part of my job.

Some people like shopping for a car. I don’t. I like shopping for talent – and people are so much more interesting than cars. Besides, the people I hire this way don’t seem to need much management, so I’ve got to find something to do with my time.

I learn so much, I meet so many wonderful people, and I can usually help some of the people I can’t hire.

Speaking of which, what advice would you have for good people in this awful market?

Nick: Let’s meet soon and discuss this.

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Note: This approach is one that Brooke Allen has used on occassion with his current ventures, and former employers. It does not represent policy or standard practice of any particular organization, and it is not even the only way he has gone about hiring all his employees.