Future Thoughts

I had a chance to watch a webinar hosted by a company called Broadlook Technologies focused on the future of recruiting. The webinar was presented to an audience of recruiters, both agency and corporate, and was well attended with more than 600 participants. If you are a candidate, most of what was covered might bore you to tears, but there were some tidbits I thought I might share. Number one: the way recruiters find candidates, and the way candidates will find jobs will continue to evolve. No earth-shaking news there, but some of the detail might get you to thinking. Donato Diorio, the founder and CEO of Broadlook is a very forward-thinking guy who's not afraid to make some predictions. He's already thinking in terms of Web 5.0 while most of us are still trying to wrap our minds around Web 2.0, and he makes the year 2020 sound as if it were tomorrow.

Many of us in Human Resources are still trying to figure out the business role of things like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. If Donato's thoughts come true to any extent, we're all going to have some catching up to do!

Here are some of his insights, at least as I understood them...

• Social Network Apathy: As people become more and more connected to more and more 'friends' they will become desensitized to what this expanded network is really up to. As more and more social networks evolve, messaging, from companies and individuals alike, will tend to get lost in the noise. I can attest that this is already occurring - Donato challenged us to add up all the networks we are in - not just things like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but sub-groups on LinkedIn, usergroups, newsfeeds, message boards, etc. Like Donato, my count was in the 40's, and I've come to realize there is no way to humanly keep up with them all. The result may be that people will move from sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn in favor of micro-network sites, where only the people you really care about can access you and your information. 
• Literacy and Communication will make a comeback in terms of importance. As more companies and candidates move their data to the web it will be real communication, rather than simple information transmittal, between the two that will become critical.
• Social Sentiment: what's being said about companies, and candidates on the web. This is a subset of business and personal branding, now sometimes referred to as reputation management. Donato has a key insight for candidates: while it usually takes many, many impressions to change the social sentiment of a company, for a candidate a single poorly-worded, or ill-advised posting on someone's Facebook page can potentially ruin an individual's on-line reputation. While you can't judge a company like Coca-Cola or Microsoft by one solitary tweet, individual's often are judged that quickly.
• Social Intuition: As candidates develop more and more of a web-based presence, companies will use this information about candidates to tailor their employment offerings to the specific candidate. For example, companies that see on Facebook that you love dogs may emphasize that they offer pet insurance as a benefit.
• The importance of LinkedIn connections will be more and more important, at least in the short-term. Donato pointed out that he has more than 10,000 connections via LinkedIn. He can't really know all those people, but if he is looking for someone, he can connect with them directly whereas many of us on LinkedIn still rely on reaching out through our connections for introductions to others. While I may be waiting for my connection to introduce me to someone, Donato's already talking to them directly. More than 50 percent of the webinar participants indicated they were actively trying to grow their LinkedIn connections as large as possible in order to directly connect.
• The world is going mobile and there is no turning back - there will be no need for desktop computers save for some very specialized types of computing. The smartphone and increasingly the tablet will contain everything we will need as more and more data moves to 'the cloud' and the device in your hands contains all the apps necessary to access that data. The flow of information will become permission-based and you will have more control over what information you share and what information you receive.

I don't profess to know if all these things will happen the way Donato predicts, but I'd hazard a guess that if we re-read this posting in 5 years we'll all be amazed at what will have changed.

A Whole New Mind, Hot Degrees and Jobs, and other Sundry Stuff

Normally I would have titled this posting "What's Pinnacol Reading" and simply done a quick review of the latest offering by our company book club - "A Whole New Mind" - by Daniel Pink. The book has been interesting enough that it's got me thinking and relating what it talks about to other things associated with my role at Pinnacol. I haven't even finished reading it and here I am blogging about it which hints at how thought provoking I'm finding the book to be.

What I've gathered so far is that the traditional left-brained approaches to work (sequential, literal, functional, analytical and knowledge-based) are not necessarily the ones that will be critical to keeping America competitive in the future as these skills can be increasingly done by workers in other countries at far less cost or simply automated by computers here at home. Traditional computer programming is a prime example - folks in New Delhi can crank out computer code at a fraction of the cost of their traditional American counterparts.

So what will differentiate American programmers, and workers doing other types of work, from their Indian and Asian counterparts? According to Pink, its the ability to apply the right brain strengths - the ability to think and reason holistically (see the big picture), intuitively, and nonlinearly)  in conjunction with those of the left. For too long, he argues, America has emphasized only left-brained thinking, while undervaluing the attributes that the right side of our brain bring to the table. The LSAT/MCAT/GMAT tests may be accurate predictors of who will be good Lawyers, Doctors, and MBA's but leave a lot to be desired in terms of predicting the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg.

As I was driving to work this morning they were talking on the radio about one of Colorado's Universities eliminating its Journalism degree program. The advent of the web hasn't been particularly kind to traditional news media such as newspapers, magazines, television and radio. If they are to survive the next decade they will have to reinvent themselves. The smart ones are already well along in this process, and I'd hazard a guess that their ability to remake themselves is being driven by workers using their "whole minds", as Daniel Pink would put it.

The potential elimination of the Journalism program got me to wondering what are the hottest job prospects looking forward so I went to Collegeboard.com to see what they were predicting would be the occupations with the most job openings through 2018. The list surprised me; I was half expecting nanotechnologists and wind farmers to be right up there. Instead, the list had some very traditional job titles - teachers, doctors, lawyers, along with, yes, all sorts of computer-related jobs. That brought me back full-circle to Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind" - its not so much what our job function will be but the way in which we will do it.

Filling out an application....

Used to be that candidates would be invited in for an interview and the first thing they would do would be to sit down and complete a paper application. Technology has of course changed that and now candidates generally complete an electronic application for employment on line. Regardless of the method there are still some do's and don'ts you want to consider as you complete a company's formal application for employment (including Pinnacol's!).

• Do list all employment going back a minimum of 10 years. If you have less than 10 years working, list everything you have. If you have more than 10 years you can certainly list it all but employers are most interested in what you have been doing recently than what you were doing 15-30 years ago. Going back too much more than 10 years is also a give-away of approximately how old you are, and I hear from candidates all the time that age discrimination is alive and well out there so think about the real value (how topical is that dated experience to the job you are applying for today?) of going too far back.
• Don't fudge ( to fudge: a highly technical HR term for misleading, misrepresenting, or otherwise attempting to deceive!) on an application for employment. Some HR people frown on any fudging on resumes, but the reality is your resume is your advertisement of skills to the world. In the HR world we know the ONLY purpose of a resume is to get someone in a role like mine to pick up the phone and call you. We also know that fudging on resumes is rampant and the initial purpose of an HR person's call is to see how close the reality is to what you've put on your resume. When it comes to completing the application, fudging can lose you the job, both before you've been offered it, and even after you have been in the position for a substantial amount of time. Stories of people who fudged about degrees, military service, job experience, etc. and who got fired from their positions after their misrepresentations came to light are all over the web. Don't fall into this trap. I often tell candidates that the application is a legal document; Pinnacol's application has some very specific language right before candidates submit that says: By clicking on the SUBMIT button I certify that I am ..., that I have completed this application on my own behalf and that all information I have provided in this application is true and complete. I understand that any false information or omission may disqualify me from further consideration for employment and may result in my dismissal if discovered at a later date. Most employer's applications have language very similar to this.
• Do give professional references if at all possible, preferably those who have actually supervised your work in the past. Let these people know in advance that you are using them as references so that when someone in my role calls them they aren't completely blindsided. After all, you want them to put in a good word about you. When the first thing I hear from the reference is that they weren't even aware you were looking for a job I know my call is starting on a bad note and probably will go downhill from there. 
• Don't ever mislead an employer about the level of education you really have. In today's world it's too easy for an employer to check and verify. If you don't have a degree, even if you are just a couple of credits shy, don't claim that you do. This also goes for certifications, licenses, etc. This is where fudging on your resume crosses the line - if you lead someone to believe you have more than what you do, the discrepancy between your resume and the application is HUGE in the eyes of most employers.

I'm seeing an increasing number of applicants making some of the mistakes listed above so thought I'd pass on some quick tips. Just in the last couple of days I've seen one too many applications giving only the most recent employer, or going back only a year or two, when the resume shows many years of experience with a variety of employers. I've never been an avid reader of the National Enquirer, but their slogan is apropos when it comes to filling out an application: "Inquiring minds want to know". I'll leave you with one more quote, this time from a slightly more reliable source, former President Ronald Reagan, who would have turned 100 this month: "Trust, but verify".

Save a Life

When people interview with me one of the things I always let them know is that the training is pretty continuous at this company. There are always new things to learn, from new people joining the company, to new laws impacting our industry and new technology affecting the ways we do our jobs. Yesterday I and the rest of the human resources and training team (collectively known internally as the Employee Services group) had the chance to go through CPR/AED training together.

For some of us this was simply a chance to renew our certifications, but for others it was their first exposure to this potentially life-saving training. Dana, one of our Safety Consultants, was the trainer. Dana's background includes not just safety but fire-fighting experience as well as serving as an army medic. Dana is a wonderful trainer who brings some real-world perspective to what he teaches. Pinnacol, like many employers, has made the investment to have several AED's and first aid supplies scattered throughout our building, but as Dana pointed out if people are unwilling to use them because they don't know how to use them that can be a bad thing.

I've sat through a lot of these sessions through the years, but Dana's approach to teaching the AED was unique. He queried the group as to who had gone through the training before. Many of us raised our hands. Then he asked who had actually ever used an AED. Fewer hands were raised. Then he asked one of the group who had not raised their hands to either question to come forward. On the floor was the first aid mannequin with an AED. He asked our team member to try to save the life of the person on the floor. Our team member looked petrified at the thought of using the device, but with gentle encouragement he got her to open the AED and then prompted her to simply turn the unit on.

Those of you who have gone through this training know what happens next: the AED speaks to you and tells you step by step what to do. With no further direction from Dana, our team member correctly applied the pads and gave the mannequin a training "shock" with no problem whatsoever. She was amazed at how easy and straightforward the process was. The fear factor had been eliminated.

Dana has conducted CPR/AED training to more than one hundred of our employees and has the goal to eventually teach all of us at Pinnacol how to use these simple tools that can be so critical in a medical emergency. One of the things we cover with new employees during orientation is where our AED's are located, and we point out that if someone is having a heart attack their chances of survival are cut by as much as 50% if emergency aid (performing CPR/ using an AED) is not given within just the first couple of minutes. I'm sure I would speak for Dana if I encouraged everyone, inside Pinnacol and out, to go through this training. You really have nothing to fear but fear itself. And who knows? You might just save a life.

Quick Update on Openings with Pinnacol as of 02/08/11

We have been receiving a tremendous volume of interest in some of our recent openings so wanted to give everyone a quick update as we have filled several positions but have also had a new opening.

We have recently filled our openings for our HR Administrative Support position as well as our Unix Systems Administrator opportunity. Thank you to all the great candidates who expressed an interest in these positions!

We have recently posted an opening for a Business Intelligence Programmer and there is a specific blog regarding that opportunity. That is a fairly specialized role and we have not seen that many candidates so if you, or someone you know, may be interested, now is the time to apply.

For those of you interested in our open claims position we have completed the intitial interviews and are awaiting a decision by the hiring manager. There were many qualified candidates for this position, some of whom applied late in the process after the interviews had begun, so not everyone was selected for an interview. If for some reason the hiring manager cannot select from the first round of candidates, we may go deeper into the pool.

I wish we could personally touch base with all of the folks interested in working with Pinnacol but I'll try to make sure you are up to date on where we are on our openings via this blog and of course our company website where we list the currently available openings.

Thanks to everyone for their continued interest in Pinnacol Assurance!

Business Intelligence Programmer Opportunity

Pinnacol has a new opportunity in our Decision Support Services team for a "Business Intelligence Programmer" . If you're not an IT wizard, which I am definitely not, just the title is intimidating, so I sought out the hiring manager, David, to share some insights as to what this position really does and what he's looking for in candidates. Joining David in the conversation is Dan, one of our Decision Support team members. If you, or someone you know, are interested, it really is a unique opportunity to join this key team at Pinnacol Assurance.



Here is a copy of the formal job announcement:

Pinnacol Assurance is looking for a Business Intelligence Programmer to develop, maintain, and assist in the design of our business intelligence systems including, but not limited to, ETL scripts, html and java interfaces in Microstrategy and our mobile device applications. Position codes, maintains and assists in the design of data mart/warehouse tables, queries and metadata, tunes data mart/warehouse queries and other programs as required, and works with our Application Services and Data & Network Services teams to create and maintain interfaces between data marts/warehouse, information tools and production systems. Must be able to establish and maintain strong relations with Decision Support Services staff and internal customers.  Position plays support role in DSS-related portions of IS Application Development projects, company-wide strategic initiatives, and business-focused initiatives. Candidates should possess expertise in, and the ability to mentor, SQL, PL/SQL and SQL*Plus, as well as have expertise in ETL practices, html and Java. Also required is a high proficiency in advanced SQL tuning, table creation, indexing and links along with proficiency in data warehouse theory and applications, and star schema (Kimball Model). Bachelor's Degree or equivalent work experience; computer science degree/MIS, business/economics or statistics preferred. Experience with Oracle and/or other relational database management systems, the use of database query tools using SQL, working with data warehouse design, 3+ years related experience in Programming is required.

If you understood all of that, you really should apply! Please complete an expression of interest via our company website's careers page.

Pinnacol employees perform on Report Card

The Colorado Division of Workers’ Compensation (DOWC) conducts an annual claims audit of insurance companies in the state to determine how well they are serving Colorado policyholders. In the most recent audit (2009), Pinnacol earned an overall average score of 96 percent. Compared to other insurance companies that compete with us, Pinnacol earned the highest scores in the following five categories:

• Reporting of claims (91 percent)
• Timeliness of compensation payments (97 percent)
• Accuracy of compensation benefits (93 percent)
• Medical benefit payments (100 percent)
• Termination of temporary disability benefits (96 percent)

Pinnacol’s scores in the remaining four categories were:

• Initial positions of liability (99 percent; second place*)
• Final admissions (98 percent; second place*)
• Average weekly wage (92 percent; third place*)
• Waiting period (98 percent; second place*)

The DOWC’s 2009 claims audit measured the performance of several workers’ compensation insurance carriers in Colorado including Farmers, Travelers, State Farm and Liberty Mutual Group.

Pinnacol's claims staff takes pride in the level of service they provide day in and day out. We're not perfect, and there is always room for continued improvement, but kudos to our employees for these very strong scores. To see a brief compilation of the scores click here. The Claims Report Card is a snapshot of all the data for Pinnacol and 12 of our competitors.