Michael DeHaven
Blog entries by Michael DeHaven
In the Elevator with Too Much Fragrance
Nov 18, 2008
While leaving the office yesterday, I entered the empty elevator on my way to the ground floor and parking lot. Suddenly, one floor away from my destination, the brass doors parted and a woman entered who was wearing enough perfume for about 18 people. Normally, I would just try to ignore the uncomfortable barrage of fragrance, but yesterday was different, because I’m just getting over a chest cold, and my cough reflex is pretty sensitive. Seconds after she boarded, an attack on my olfactory senses sent me hacking. I don’t think the offending excessively flowery-smelling fellow employee realized that she had irritated my nervous system, but I’m rather confident that her entrance into the elevator was the stimulus of my coughing fit.
For the record, this is an issue with both men and women. My dad is actually one of those guys who really enjoys cologne on the rare occasion that he gets to dress formally. For him, dressing up isn’t just a suit and tie–it’s suit, tie, and COLOGNE. The family has intervened a couple times, but some additional restraint would still be helpful.
- Comments 2 Comments
- Categories Employee Retention
How to Implement Four Different Interview Styles & Find the Best Candidate
Oct 13, 2008
A quick Google search will reveal various articles about interviewing, but one of the most important aspects of interviewing is often ignored - the interview style. No, style isn’t exclusive to designer suits, power ties and brightly polished shoes - or even this guy. It even needs to permeate into the approach you take when giving an interview.
Yes, good questions are essential; but the art behind how you ask those questions is where the line is drawn between lovely and lousy interview. Knowing the styles below will help you become a far better interviewer. If you read this post periodically, you’ll probably develop an interview style of your own that leverages concepts from each of the below styles.
- Comments 4 Comments
- Categories Employee Attraction, Employer Advice, Interviewing
Hiring, Open Jobs and the Economic Crisis
Oct 2, 2008
Like most people in the U.S., I’ve been watching the news and wondering what all the economic craziness means. What’s interesting for me right now is that I’m taking a couple of economics courses as part of an MBA program, and I also have access to data that provides a different perspective on the economy than you’ll see on the nightly news.
With just a few minutes of research, I discovered that there are literally hundreds of thousands of open jobs in cities all over the U.S. There are even thousands of open jobs in some of the cities where you’d expect it to be impossible to find a job. Seriously, there are more jobs open than most of us can fathom. The challenge is connecting the available workers with the open jobs. To do that, job opening information needs to be where the job seekers are looking.
- Comments 5 Comments
- Categories Economy, Employee Attraction, Philanthropy
Managing During a Fuel Shortage
Sep 22, 2008
Although my frugal soul would detest paying more than $3.99 for a gallon of gas, I started to question that gas prices were only $3.99 in Atlanta this weekend. When the first local gas station ran out of gas, I thought it was a little odd. But when I saw stations with 30+ cars waiting in line, and many others running out of gas, I knew we had a problem. As the weekend progressed, most of the stations in our community covered their pumps with plastic bags, and removed the price numbers from their signs. I realize that hurricane Ike didn’t impact other parts of the U.S. like this, but it could happen to anyone. If our employees are distracted, wondering if their managers have a plan for dealing with this kind of issue, they are not likely to be as efficient as usual. We need to be ready and have a plan for weeks like this.
What are options does a manager have at his/her disposal in a time like this? Here are some of the things that I’m doing or considering for this week. Please post your comments and ideas below. Read the rest
- Comments 1 Comment
- Categories Employee Engagement, Philanthropy
The New Interview: More Real than a 3-D Screening of Jaws
Aug 25, 2008
I gave a pretty interesting interview last week. In this interview, I tried a new technique that could be called 3-dimensional interviewing. You should know up front that I made a big interviewing mistake a few years ago and suffered tried to make it work for about eight months before finally concluding that I had to let an employee go. As a result of this experience, I’ve spent a lot of time researching and trying different interviewing techniques to hopefully avoid such a mistake in the future. Obviously, it’s impossible to be a perfect interviewer, but there are ways we can all be better. I’m interested to know what you think about this one…
The individual (Mr. X) who came into our office to interview was set up for success. He interviewed well with someone else who was responsible for evaluating his soft business skills. My task this time was to verify the soft skills and to validate his technical skill claims. When someone says that they are proficient in certain technical skills, it’s often hard to get a good feel for their level of proficiency without having them do some work, right?
- Comments 9 Comments
- Categories Employee Attraction, Interviewing
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