Right when I left for home and needed to use the bathroom. At first I was little angry, not at the ladies cleaning the bathrooms, but just at the timing of it all. Not too far away from home meant I could wait, but still. Then a little shame reddened my cheeks; these ladies did this everyday for who knows how many hours and days per week.

Was I ashamed for them? I mean, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it, right? Play that out over multiple other jobs including hotel service jobs, warehouse jobs, agriculture jobs, waste management jobs — there’s an endless demand for light-skilled physical labor worldwide (not always light-skilled, but still). Yet, in America a few decades ago, the influx of immigrants (legal and illegal) gave us a new economic strata, one that aspired for a better life but taking on the low-paying jobs, which were higher paying than from where they came.

And then they stayed. Many became Americans, but some didn’t; and we allowed this new socio-economic group to grow. We gave them the jobs we didn’t want to do, didn’t feel we had to do. Because menial is for the sub-par, the sub-standard, not-of-this-world folk. We’ve done the same thing since the founding of the United States of America. Justifying the economics of institutionalized slavery goes back many thousands of years; it’s embedded into our supposedly civilized DNA like a rogue gene.

Jump to the 21st century: Most of the smart devices and other technology we buy in this country are all made in China. More specifically, a city called Shenzhen of more than 14 million people. The conditions in which they work in these tech manufacturing plants are dismal compared to our own American standards, and yet we crave the smart “stuff” for price points within our ever-dwindling middle-class reach. Somebody else can do the dirty work.

But you know, I’ve been cleaning my own home for as long as I can remember, toilets and all, among many non-glamorous tasks over the years, some of which has helped to keep food on the table and a roof over my family. I see many of you nodding along as well, closing your eyes and thanking the god of your choice that you had the work with a living wage when you had it.

However, you may have read about the Alabama immigration law and the back-breaking jobs that were supposed to be freed up for (legal) Americans are just not being filled. The argument is that “illegals” are taking jobs from legal Americans. But so far in Alabama the reality is Americans aren’t taking the jobs back. The reasons are plentiful, but primarily a living wage just can’t be made and there are little to no other benefits. There are those businesses that are evolving their business models to create more competitive pay scales, but it’s still too early to see if that’ll help them fill the jobs they’ll need to remain competitive locally and globally.

Changing the way we do business is a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. Who’s it gonna be? You with me?

Thank you to everyone who joined us last night! Welcome to 2012 #TChat! If you missed the preview, you can read it here. Join us next week when we discuss The Rise of Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) Wednesday, February 8 at 7p ET, 6p CT, 4p PT, or wherever you are.

While it’s not consistent yet, we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on our TC Digest and want to keep bringing them to you as often as we can. If you simply can’t wait for the next installment, I highly recommend following @talentculture on twitter or liking our Facebook page! (email is coming patient Jedi). We also are putting together new writing and contributing guidelines, so if you’ve always wanted to be a TalentCulture writer, here’s your chance!

So without further ado (or excuses) here’s all the news about the world of work:

Did you miss #Tchat last week? We had a fantastic time on Focus Radio, talking about HR Tech Innovation in 2012. Our guests kept up On-Air with what must have been a record-breaking twitter stream. Here’s the recap.

If you’ve ever wondered what #Tchat was, or how to participate, we’ve got you covered. One of our most loyal and fascinating participants Dave Ryan gave us the lowdown on how to do Twitter Chats, and why they help you move forward in your professional life. Follow Dave here.

Dirty Jobs. Someone has to do them but why are Americans less and less inclined to? We explored some of the answers in this week’s #Tchat and it was a remarkably eye-opening discussion. The recap’s live already and it’s a doozy! Check it out for great resources, some immigration info and a fantastic video from “more than just a pretty face” Mike Rowe appealing to Congress.

Less Pay for More Freedom? Harvard Business Review takes a look at just how many folks would trade in that big paycheck for a say-so in how they work, where they work and some access to social. Titled “The Days of ‘Managers Know Best’ Are Ending” the article hones in on what’s important to workers NOW.

RecruiterPoet chimes in with “Keys to Workplace Happiness“, an easy quiz that helps folks figure out how they’re feeling about their current position and what to do about it!

Whether you’re an HR Professional trying to get your team to work with a new product or a vendor hoping you can get mainstream attention within your target market, User Adoption should be something you’re paying attention to! Don’t know where to start? How about this webinar by William Tincup and Julie Lecomte? It’s free and it’s what these smart people do every day.

We didn’t name this blog TalentCulture for nothing. In this Fast Company article..culture eats strategy for lunch. Profiling constantly gabbed about companies like Zappos, Southwest and more, it offers tips on how to make your workplace a little better and then a little better than that!

Finally, we have Blogging4Jobs’ take on the changing market. It’s happening right under our noses. Is your recruiting team ready?

TOMORROW is when we’ll be announcing the winner of our Transform HR Contest! Haven’t heard about Transform, the new conference by TLNT? Check out this post by editor John Hollon and then enter the contest. Don’t you want to say “I was there when…”? Enter to win a free ticket! See below for details.

Want a chance to go to TLNT Transform in Austin? Well we’ve got it for you! You can win a ticket to TLNT Transform to see Billy Beane, Libby Sartain, Jason Lauritsen and Tim Sackett. TLNT and TalentCulture have teamed up to give you a great discount but ONE LUCKY PERSON will be able to win a free pass to this inaugural event! Here’s what you have to do: Simply TWEET the discount code: #TF12TCH with the reason you want to go! The winner will be chosen Friday.

When was the last time you cleaned your house or did your own laundry, complete with folding and ironing? If you live in the burbs, do you mow your own lawn? Do you put out your trash for someone else to pick up? It’s likely someone else changes the oil in your car, unclogs your drains, and cleans your gutters. Turn the heat up – have you ever worked in an oil field? Call 911 – nope, probably served as a police officer, fireman or ambulance driver. Have a relative in a nursing home? Bet you’d never consider working in one.

These and a million other tasks are America’s dirty jobs. From farming to pumping gas to picking up trash, being a chambermaid in a swanky resort, machining gears, hauling luggage and putting it on planes and then taking it off again; these are jobs that make up the backbone of service culture, and allow many of us to enjoy the benefits of a “white collar life”. Most folks have never considered such employment. As an unemployed person recently told me, he ‘doesn’t dig it.’ (Insert huge eye roll and forehead slap here.)

But the jobs need doing! Streets don’t clear themselves, someone has to make the fries to go with your Big Mac, and that ladies room won’t clean itself magically once you walk out the door. For heaven’s sake, pick up the paper towel you dropped. Yet in today’s economy, when a law degree is more likely to get you face time with a debt counselor than a job, there are plenty of dirty jobs. What President Obama might, in fact, call shovel-ready jobs.

But who’s picking up the shovel? As states struggle with how to manage illegal immigrants flocking here seeking jobs (are we obligated to educate, house and care for them?) many of our own kids wouldn’t dream of working in a corn field, cleaning a public restroom, bagging groceries or cleaning someone else’s kitchen (let alone yours.) In America, it seems like no one wants to do dirty jobs anymore. That’s why our parents and many others put themselves in debt: so we could get a higher education and earn $35 K Tweeting for a marketing company (living at home to save rent too). Fabulous return on investment, that.

For HR people, dirty jobs are the third rail. No one wants to talk about them. We turn a blind eye to the fact no one in the grocery store speaks English. We leave the house too early to see who’s driving the garbage truck. We never see the men and women in uniform who protect us, both here and abroad, but we might reflexively sneer at a police cruiser or look away when we see a uniformed soldier striding through an airport, looking a bit lost. We may be the worst offenders in the dirty-job pantheon because we perpetuate the myth that the right degree and internship is the path to glory. But it’s not really true anymore.

This week we’re going to invite controversy and take a contrarian view on #TChat. The topic is dirty jobs in America – who’s doing them, legal vs. illegal workers, what HR and recruiting folks can do to lift the status of these jobs, and what responsibility management has in ensuring a decent working environment and equitable treatment for all. Join us Wednesday night on #TChat The World of Work February 1 from 7-8 pm ET (6-7 CT, 4-5 pm PT, or wherever you are). Join me, Kevin Grossman, Maren Hogan, Sean Charles and Kyle Lagunas for a very special #TChat.

Here are the questions we’ll discuss:

#TChat Questions for Wed, February 1st 2012

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Want a chance to go to TLNT Transform in Austin? Well we’ve got it for you! You can win a ticket to TLNT Transform to see Billy Beane, Libby Sartain, Jason Lauritsen and Tim Sackett. TLNT and TalentCulture have teamed up to give you a great discount but ONE LUCKY PERSON will be able to win a free pass to this inaugural event! Here’s what you have to do: Simply TWEET the discount code: #TF12TCH with the reason you want to go! The winner will be chosen Friday.

Come join us at TLNT Transform February 27-28, 2012, in Austin, TX. Here’s a special $250 discount code for all our #TChatters — TF12TCH.

There are so many recommendations on what to do — the primary ones being changing the archaic tax codes, changing the banking system, improving our education system, embracing global trade, saving the Eurozone — but unfortunately so many disagreements on how to get there.

Employers added 200,000 jobs in December, twice the previous month’s pace, and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent from 8.7 percent the month before. But the even better news is that according to the AP:

“Perhaps the best evidence of that [economic improvement] was a 2.9 percent increase in so-called core capital goods, such as computers and machinery. That pushed total orders for the category to a record $68.9 billion.

“Economists pay most attention to so-called core capital goods because they are often viewed as a good way of gauging business investment plans.”

And with computers and machinery comes software, and with talent acquisition (both outside and in) comes HR and recruiting technology. My increased work with HR and Recruiting B2B vendors of late is telling that their businesses are heating up. In fact, because of the seemingly explosive boom of new innovative HR and Recruiting technologies — as well as the flurry of recent acquisitions by SAP and Salesforce — we took #TChat Radio to new heights last night with a panel of wise sages (Sarah White, Alex Raymond and Brent Skinner) to talk about what’s on the horizon for 2012 and what types of tech will make the business case for creating a new world of work efficiencies.

Technology itself isn’t the holy grail of recruiting and HR efficiencies, though. Automating a bad process still makes for a bad process. The lack of a quality candidate experience, for example, continues to haunt many employers. No matter what kind of talent acquisition system is in place, the experience is poor and that affects employer brand and business growth.

The same applies for performance management, compensation management, benefits management, wellness management — you name it. Software won’t fix your HR or recruiting processes.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately of going from best practice to making the business case. I’m talking about is the fact that during my tenure in the magnificent HR/recruiting marketing realm — both on the vendor side, as well as the practitioner side (and even before that in the literal B2B tech sector) — we spout and spout best practices over and over again to our “buyers,” and we don’t get to making the true business case to deploying a new software system.

But last night one of our guests, Sarah White, Talent Acquisition & Technology Adviser, moved and schooled me about getting to just “good enough.” Meaning, get HR and recruiting practitioners aware of their primary pain points in processes and get to good enough when improving efficiencies. Forget about “best practices,” because those are usually only attainable in a thought-leadership bubble, not in reality.

Getting to good enough will help with re-employment. Getting to good enough is how we’re going to heal.

Maybe you missed it in the end-of-the-year rush, but late last month, I was a guest on TotalPicture Radio With Peter Clayton, and we talked about a lot of different things concerning HR, talent management, the news trends of 2011, and of course, TLNT.

If you didn’t get a chance to hear the interview, you can access the radio podcast here.

We also talked quite a bit about the TLNT Transform conference that’s coming up next month in Austin, Texas, and I thought it was worth excerpting that section of the Q&A here, because it gives a lot of information about just why you should attend this forward-thinking, groundbreaking talent management event on Feb. 27-28.

A forward-looking conference

Here’s how the conversation went:

Peter Clayton: I want to talk to you about the TLNT Transform Conference, which will be held February 27 and 28 in lovely Austin, Texas. On the conference website you say “Transform will be an experience unlike any other HR event you have ever attended.” Why so?

John Hollon: Well … you talked about ERE Media being (the) parent company of TLNT. ERE is known for their ERE Expos and their conferences and such.

Peter: Yes, they do a great job – always.

John: It’s simply a logical extension of that for TLNT to have a conference. We launched Transform, which as you said is going to be on February 27-28 in Austin, Texas. I’ve gone to many conferences and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been to every different type. I’ve seen them. I go to a number every year, as I know that you have. I’ve been through the full gamut of conference experiences and what really struck (all of) us about conferences, and particularly the big SHRM conference in June … (is) they’re very much about the here and now. They’re very much about what you need to do today.

What we wanted to do was to make Transform be forward-looking, not just about what you need to do to succeed today – what do you need to do to succeed in the future, what you need to do to get ahead (next) year or (in the) years to come. So that was the focal point. We also looked at having very different types of speakers there. So that’s our goal — to be a very forward-looking, very different conference experience from the other (conferences) that I’m familiar with, and (that) I think most everybody is.

Speakers such as Billy Beane of Moneyball fame

Peter: One of your keynote speakers is Billy Beane, who’s the general manager of the Oakland A’s. Of course he’s played by Brad Pitt in the movie Moneyball. I have not seen him at a conference, so I’m looking forward to that. Who are some of the other people that you’re bringing in?

Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane is played by Brad Pitt in the movie Moneyball.

John: Billy Beane is a big name and one of the reasons why we got him is that as I think the movie Moneyball shows really well; it’s about a talent management system that’s sort of ahead of its time. He did a really good job there. He’s going to talk about that.

We (also) have people like Jim Knight. Jim is the senior director of training at Hard Rock International. He really goes around the world training (people). He is going to be talking about how to build a team of rock stars.

We have Libby Sartain. (As) a lot of folks know, she was the chairperson of SHRM way back in 2000. Libby’s famous for (being) the chief human resource officer at both Southwest Airlines and Yahoo. Even though the bloom is off the Yahoo rose a little bit, both of those were very forward-looking companies when she was there. She is going to talk about that.

I also got my friend Tim Sackett (on the agenda) as well as a number of others. Some of the people who write for TLNT will be there, people like Tim, Ann Bares (she talks about compensation), and Mel Kleiman, who’s Houston-based and does a lot about hiring. In fact, we run a piece from him every Monday on hiring wisdom. Eric Meyer, who’s a Philadelphia attorney who also writes a lot about legal matters as (they) pertain to employees in the social media space (will be there). That’s gotten to be very hot. He’s going to be leading a panel discussion with a number of HR professionals about that. My friend Ron Thomas, who was the senior vice president at Martha Stewart Living … is the (conference) chairperson who is going to be keeping the trains moving at the conference.

We’re going to have sessions on engagement and health care, and just about all the things that people are dealing with now. I think it’s going to be a great conference, a great event, and I really hope people can find the time and budget to come down and see us in Austin (in February).

An event you need to put on your schedule

Part of the thinking was (that) this conference, because it’s at the end of February, is a little bit ahead of when most of the spring conferences start, so there shouldn’t be any real conflicts with folks. For people in the north, it’s a way that at that point – and I’ve lived up north and you sort of get tired of the winter by the time the middle part of February kicks in – it’s a way to get out of the cold and to get down to some place a little bit warm. We hope that will be a draw too.

Peter: Do you have an Expo component to this event?

John: Yes, we’re going to have an Expo Hall. We’re going to have a number of vendors there. We’ve had really great response from a lot of those people. If you look at the Transform website … you can see a lot of our sponsors who will be there: Pinstripe, HR Marketer, HR.com, Employee Screen IQ, People Report, BPI … there’s just a whole bunch of them and we will have more. It’s a little bit tough because we’re at the end of the year right now, so a lot of people aren’t thinking about (conferences), but it’s going to come up real fast, because again, it’s February 27 and 28. That’s really only a couple of months down the road. We certainly have some great discounts in place for people who will sign up now and go.

I think it will be well worth their while. Our hope is to build on this and to make Transform a real annual event that’s really worth going to. A big part of our thinking is, we sort of looked at it and once you get past the big SHRM annual conference that they always have in June – last year it was in Las Vegas, this year it’s going to be in Atlanta… it’s sort of like, what’s the next (big) conference? Once you get away from the niche (conferences) like HR Technology and things of that sort .. we really couldn’t think of a general HR talent management conference that sort of jumped out.

So our feeling is that Transform, if we really do it right, is going to be able to fill that gap. Yes, you need to go to SHRM but there’s also this thing Transform … that is a great forward-looking event that will really help you to get on top of where you need to be, and what you need to be doing, succeed in the future.

How to get an additional $250 off registration

You can hear the entire radio podcast interview here.

And one more important thing: We really want you to join us next month in Austin, so take advantage of this great deal so you can attend Transform. We have a  discount code for #Tchat followers – TF12TCH for $250 discount off Transform

Does technology emerge to fill a business need – say, serving customers better – or is technical innovation driven largely by cost pressures? Does a completely external, unknowable force influence the development of disruptive technologies? Was it foreseeable Jeff Bezos would disrupt big-box stores and consumer brands with a web site, when most brands had a web site? Was it predictable Steve Jobs would turn the music industry on its head with a digital music player, when everyone already had a Sony Walkman?

I’ve been considering these questions because we are in a period of major disruption in HR technology. Of course, this makes me very happy but it also brings to mind so many unanswered questions. Conventional wisdom may say technologies emerge in response to a raw desire for innovation, but in fact business reality tells me that innovation is a byproduct of the need to reduce costs and streamline business processes – in other words, attempts to automate daily processes – whether social or otherwise. Perhaps nowhere is this easier to see than in the emergence of software-as-a-service (SaaS) and Cloud technologies aimed at solving HR and Workplace challenges.

For many Leaders and HR practitioners, just talking about innovation is not the way to advocate for technology change. It’s much easier to prove the business value of technology if you present it as a way to improve processes and deliver business value. We are challenged as an industry, particularly in the recruiting trenches–with a glut of candidates and, simultaneously, a scarcity of qualified candidates. Clients ask recruiters to source candidates against very specific job requirements; they want to speed recruiting and see key performance indicators (KPIs) and analytics to show HR processes are effective; they need to retain skilled workers, manage and a develop a compelling workplace culture, and create a credible, appealing and connected social media persona and workplace brand to be attractive to job seekers. These drivers require the application of appropriate technologies and the development of HR services to make the technologies easier to use and simpler to deploy. This is just one example that comes to mind.

So this week on TalentCulture #TChat we’re going to look at HR technology trends and leading edge thoughts to watch in 2012. We’ll examine which comes first – innovation or automation – and how knowing the answer to that question will influence how technologies are adopted, and which will thrive or fail. Join us Wednesday night on #TChat The World of Work January 25th from 7-8 pm ET (6-7 CT, 4-5 pm PT, or wherever you are), where HR and Recruiting technology topics are in the hot seat. The #TChat Twitter chat and the #TChat Radio Show are created by @MeghanMBiro and @KevinWGrossman; hosted by them and @MarenHogan; powered by@SocialMediaSean and @CatyKobe; and our partners include @HRmarketer, @talentmgmttech, @Focus and#hrtechchat as well as our media partner TLNT. Come join us at TLNT Transform February 27-28, 2012, in Austin, TX. Here’s a special $250 discount code for all our #TChatters — TF12TCH.

Join me, Kevin Grossman, Maren Hogan, Sean Charles and Kyle Lagunas for a very special #TChat and #TChat Radio Show!

Questions we’ll be debating this week include:

#TChat Questions Wed, Jan 25th 2012

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I am going to attempt to answer this question from my perspective as a human resources expert, because after all that’s where I came from and that’s where my brain is 24-7.

As a starting point, we all know that it is absolutely critical and crucial for business to be strategically leveraging social media.  We also know that approximately 8 gazillion social media platforms exist today, so it’s pretty easy to get confused about which ones are the best, and ultimately which ones to use.  You simply can’t use them all, but you can certainly identify which ones should work best for you.

A Jeff Waldman Psychology Factoid…

I have been saying the same thing to clients since email became mainstream, and that is, “it doesn’t matter what methods of communication you use, face-to-face is and will ALWAYS be king”.  It allows people to pick up on body language—visual cues that are so critical to effective and clear communication.  BUT… yes always a but… you can’t always be face-to-face with someone, especially in today’s highly complex world so it’s as important to complement the face-to-face by using non-visual communication tools.  It’s imperative that such tools effectively satisfy the unique factors (i.e. skills and interests) of those that you work with.  The rest of this blog post is dedicated to talking about a few of these factors.

In thinking about what the factors are, I identified many but then saw that they could all be grouped into 3 categories.  They are physical location, organizational culture and employer brand.

Physical Location

Our business community is global.  Within corporate environments, gone are the days where every single employee works under 1 physical roof.  It’s common for teams to be physically located in various countries around the world, and to have never spent a second together in the same room.

Organizational Culture

How is information naturally shared?  How organizations are structured and the demographic make-up of their workforces can significantly impact which tools will and will not work.  Does your organization support and enable open collaboration between departments, or are departments largely operating in silos?  Do you think a tool like Yammer, which is a highly effective collaboration tool, would work in a bureaucracy?  Or, do you think face-to-face meetings as the primary information sharing channel would effectively work in organizations that are staffed predominantly with Gen Ys?

Employer Brand

We live in a “branded” world with employer brand being a key one.  In effect, how an organization operates, how they are structured, and how they support, enable and measure success are key elements that define their employer brand.  These elements are also key drivers of who they attract as prospective employees.  Work and personal are more intertwined today than ever in the history of the organized corporate world.  As such, corporate workers are placing more importance on how a business operates (i.e. the internal infrastructure, the machinery/tools that run the business) than ever before.

If your organization employs traditional methods of communication then you’ll attract prospective employees who are naturally comfortable and interested in this form of communication.  The same can be said for people who love using leading edge tools.

At The End of the Day…

It was interesting to reflect on last night’s #TChat.  The one glaring thing that I realized is how many different methods of communication I use in my own life, and the final count was astounding.  I couldn’t even imagine how corporations (who are highly complex entities) could survive if they used too many communication tools.

So, where I’m going with this is regardless of what your employer brand is, regardless of where your employees reside, and regardless of your organizational culture, one thing remains consistent with all organizations.  That one thing is “simplicity”.  Keep things simple, do not over-complicate by using too many mediums of communication.  Pick the select few that work the best, stick with them and maximize what they can do for you.

By the way, it isn’t mandatory that I use Twitter… BUT… I use it because it has enabled me to effectively build and promote my personal brand, make awesome new business contacts and socialize with people from all 4 corners of the globe on mutually common interests.  It’s been a huge win-win for me.

My Communication Channels

There are quite a few but here they are:

• Face-to-face conversations.
• Traditional phone.
• Skype.
• Android phone—texting, email, mobile social networking.
• Facebook.
• Twitter—I use Hootsuite as my main platform.
• Google+.
• LinkedIn.
• Blog.
• YouTube.
• Google Docs.
• 37Signals.

Sure, early adopters are compelled by their very nature to keep the fire hose on their hip next to their smart phones — like six-shooters ready for action. We want to experiment with innovative ideas, build on them and launch our own.

But do we really need this much action and interaction? Or is it creating a lack thereof? For me personally, I probably experimented with over 10 new “communications” tools in 2011, 9 of which I’ll never use again. I’m sure there are dozens more I’ve never even heard of.

When you ask the question, “How many communication tools/services do you use daily both in business and pleasure?,” my answer is, “Too many and not well enough.” I would argue that’s the case for most of us — tasting and playing and using less than 5%-10% of the communications tool capacity no better than an email see-saw. New and old services alike need utilization that sticks, because if you don’t use it regularly, you kill it, and that’s not what the founders of new tools want to hear. That’s why it’s highly subjective and contextual, finding the right daily communication tools that help move life along and not hinder it.

Facebook doesn’t have to worry about that. Neither does Twitter or LinkedIn. But all are anchored in email, the long-standing messy message moving tool. Not a communications tool, a messy message moving tool. The novelty wore off for me in the early 1990s when I worked at San Jose State University and we used email to push messages back and forth. Because it was fun and we could do it. Woot.

Have you ever tried to have a collaborative conversation via email? I know you have. It’s painfully disruptive and a time sink. Back and forth. Wait. Back and forth. Wait. Back and forth.

Hold the friggin’ phone. Literally — hold the phone and call me. It’s easier that way and more productive. Three others that I’ve found for all my iterative work worlds are Yammer and Skype and SocialEars. I’m sure you have your favorites as well. If you’re in a bigger company, your HR software might even have social communication functionality.

Let’s kill email like I want to kill the resume. Please. And no, I’m not a big texter either since I always text in complete English sentences like critical thinking homies. Word.

The good news is that the #TChat collaborative communication car pool fast lane is one that has remained open for over a year now, and the sharing and comparing and contrasting and venting and networking and catching up every week about all things world of work has made the information superhighway a little easier to traverse.

Then again, another value of virtual collaboration and online communication is that I can turn it off and actually get some real creative work done.

Don’t look at me that way. Get back to work. We’ve got communication innovations to invent.

***

Thank you to everyone who joined us last night! Welcome to 2012 #TChat! If you missed the preview, you can read it here.

Next week on #TChat — HR and Recruitment technologies in 2012 — 1/25/12, 7 pm ET (4 pm PT). Join us!

Hi there, it’s me, the organizational psychologist with whom you’ll be spending the next few hours. I know that you’re nervous and that I’m all that stands between you and this next gig, but I’d like to give you a few pointers to help make this process less painful for both of us. A few things to consider:

Don’t Make Shrink Jokes – I get it, my job is goofy. I also get that the stereotypes about beards and tweed are there for a reason. But, making a shrink joke with a psychologist is about as original as making a Men in Black joke to a guy named Will Smith. I promise you’re not as clever as you think.

Try to Relax – You’re understandably nervous and I’m going to do everything in my power to be disarming so that you can be your best. Nervous people tend to clam up and over manage impressions (cough, Mitt Romney, cough), which makes them hard to connect with. I promise we’ll develop better rapport if you chill out a little.

Be Honest – It’s natural for you to want to put your best foot forward, but it’s going to be harder to snow me than it was that 22 year-old generalist that first interviewed you. There is a real human tendency to want a complete picture of those with whom we interact. If you withhold information, I’m going to fill in the blanks myself and the inferences I draw may not be accurate or positive. Save us both the guesswork and be yourself – you’re your most likable when you’re your most forthright.

Don’t Game the Assessments – Odds are, I’ll be asking you to complete some personality profiles as well as some cognitive testing. The cog tests are hard to game and pretty much impossible to study for – take a deep breath, work quickly and do your best. The personality profiles on the other hand are a little easier to game. Please know that these assessments come with “social desirability scales” and that if you try and make yourself look like a superhuman, I’m likely to dig a little deeper in the interview. What’s more, you really don’t know what we’re looking for. Every personality trait has strengths and weaknesses, so please don’t try and manufacture someone that you’re not. After all, the real you may be just who we’re looking for – warts and all.

I’m really looking forward to meeting you and I’ll enjoy the next few hours we’ll have to talk about your personal and professional preferences. Your would-be employer would not have gone to the time and expense to arrange this meeting for us if they were not serious about you. Knowing that, be your funny, quirky, talented self and come get this job.

Sincerely,

Dr. Daniel Crosby

BIO: Educated at Brigham Young and Emory Universities, Dr. Daniel Crosby is President of IncBlot Organizational Psychology, a consultancy whose vision is to “flood the Earth skills for living and leading.” IncBlot’s clients include NASA, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, RS Funds, Guardian Life Insurance, and Grant Thornton.

Dr. Crosby has been featured in the Huffington Post, Registered Rep, Risk Management Magazine and regularly contributes thought leadership for Monster, CareerBuilder and Glassdoor. You can follow Daniel on Twitter @incblot, like the IncBlot FB page here (http://www.facebook.com/incblot) or visit their website at www.incblot.org.