Recruiting FAIL: The Gap between Promise and Reality

Following from my own problems with recruiters, a mate sent me the following unsatisfying exchange with a "recruiting" agent, from a supposedly specialist firm.

If you're looking for work, you'll be only too familiar with this mechanical approach where they don't even both to look at your CV and confirm there's a hint of a match.

If you're hiring, this is death. The High Priced Agency might send you warm bodies, but they've done less than you'd want, and possibly would like to believe.

This led me to spending some time researching these "experts".

It's a public company in the UK that sells franchises all around the world - they claim 67 locations and 2,500 staff.
To investors, they claim "high value, high margin". They make a motza out of the suckers on both sides of the table - just look at their financials.

Rummaging around in the company and business names registry and you don't find nearly the entities widely claimed on-line. Is that a problem under the Trade Practice Act (1974) now ACL (2010) part of the CCA (2010) or could someone just register those names and sue them for using them? This is why we have "Hungry Jacks" not "Burger King" burgers. Someone didn't register the names across Australia.

Dig even a little and you find stuff you'd rather not know. A formal warning from ACMA over spamming, a Fairwork complaint on unfair dismissal which doesn't just question the judgement of managers, but makes a case for the employee being consistently 'loose with the truth'.

Then there's the reviews by clients... A few "5-star" ratings, some which read like they were purchased from a sweat-shop in India, others that jibe totally with the rest.

Oh, and one of the original principals who's now worth tens of millions of dollars after the 2005 float is best described as "colourful", four wives, lots of bling and a sting operation for cocaine use.

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Date: 19 June 2014
Subject: Re: UX Designer contract role
To: recrutier@progressiverecruitment.com

Dear XXXX,

With respect, the problem with most I.T. recruiting agencies is just this - a data mining program trolled the 1000's of CV's that you have online and sent me this "opportunity". If you took the time to read my resume, perhaps schedule a face to face interview, get to know me, my skills, my strengths and weaknesses, shared a cup of tea, a Skype meeting, maybe then you would be motivated to get me something that I am more suited too.

This is the problem - the gap between the many people with the skills and the actual work has been filled with huge "talent agencies" and programs developed by the likes of myself. Programs that perhaps don't reflect a person's skills or character.

I have HP-UX on my resume, NOT UX. Perhaps I could do this job with proper coaching, but would you actually take the time to read my resume and find out? Give me some Skype time?

[snip]

I realize costs have been cut world wide in a lot of industries but this whole process adds a layer of complexity that I find fraustrating. How many times a day do I need to update my resume with "keywords"? before I actually get an interview with you, then maybe the other two people and then the test?

I've been with your agency for over 2 years, maybe longer. I have applied for:

• Unix / Linux System Administration (the buzz word is "Engineer" or "Designer" these days)
• Windows Server Administration 2003, 2008, 2012 - one year relevant experience
• CISCO CCNA 2 Network Admin Certificate - with 2 1/2 years relevant experience managing a LAN / WAN and its hardware (modems, routers, cabling, switches, etc)
• Experience with all workstations - 15 years of experience building, troubleshooting, designing, managing.
• AMD and Intel architecture hardware - 4 years of in depth knowledge that makes me as good as at least a 1st year apprentice electronics technician
• iphones, android phones - very good knowledge
• Virtual machines - very good - set up at least 15
• Scripting in Perl and Shell - very good
• Programming in Visual Basic and C++ - good
• Database scripting (MySql) - good

[snip]

Sincerely,

BP

---

Hi B, 

I Hope you have been well. 

Are you looking for an exciting 3-6 month contract opportunity in the UX design space? 

My client is looking for a UX Designer who will need to work on an old product that needs re-vamping. As the sole UX Designer you will design, lead, and analyze end user needs and leverage the findings into site architectures, Wire-frames, and functional specification documentation for web sites and applications. The UX designer will collaborate closely with a product manager and developers to create the best possible user experience. 

[snip]

If this sounds like you please register your immediate interest by sending through your updated CV and a link to your portfolio/creative work. 

Kind regards,
XXXX

Progressive ICT

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Business Names Search
https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/bn/SearchBnRegisters.jspx?_adf.ctrl-state=ig8ji303r_13

ORGTEL, TAS BN01642042, Registration Date 01/10/2009
http://www.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?acn=139699148&juris=9&hdtext=&srchsrc=1

Name STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED
ACN 126 409 103
ABN 86 126 409 103
Registration Date 06/07/2007
http://www.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?acn=126409103&juris=9&hdtext=ACN&srchsrc=1

Current details for ABN: 86 126 409 103, ACN: 126 409 103
STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED, from 1-Dec-2007
HUXLEY ASSOCIATES, Business Name
http://abn.business.gov.au/SearchByAbn.aspx?StartSearch=True&SearchText=126409103

Name: STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED
ACN: 126 409 103
ABN: 86 126 409 103
Registration date: 6/07/2007
Next review date: 6/07/2014
Former name(s): PROGRESSIVE RECRUITMENT PTY LIMITED

NOTE: There are no current entity, trading or business name registered in Australia besides "SThree Australia" and "Huxley Associates". Claims that the other entities are "Trading Divisions" within Australia can only be internal accounting arrangements, not backed by any formal entity or registration.

Only in Tasmania is there a registered trading name: "Orgtel."

---

Progressive GE (Global Energy)
http://www.progressivege.com/about-us
http://www.progressivege.com/company-details

Progressive Recruitment
http://www.progressiverecruitment.com/about-us
http://www.progressiverecruitment.com/company-details

Huxley Associates
http://www.huxley.com/company-details

Real Staffing
http://www.realstaffing.com/company-details


SThree info.
http://www.sthree.com/about-us/our-philosophy

SThree on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SThree

SThree History via Archive.org. Started 1986 as "Computer Futures", Taken Public in 2005.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130207013722/http://www.sthree.com/en/page/history/

SThree Investment Case: High Value, High Margin
https://web.archive.org/web/20130207013827/http://www.sthree.com/en/page/investment_case/

Live site
http://www.sthree.com/investors/investment-case

SThree global businesses
http://assets.sthree.com/legal/SThree_Group_Companies.htm

---

Gary Goldsmith, one of original owners of "Computer Futures". Described as "Colourful.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/378060/Duchess-of-Cambridge-s-very-colourful-uncle

Treffry v SThree Australia Pty Ltd [2013] FWC 3697.
Odd behaviour by both employee and company is specifically commented upon.
http://www.vta.vic.edu.au/docs/News/HR%20Update%20August%202013.pdf

Senior Deputy President (SDP) Boulton found that there was a valid reason for terminaton statng that “there is evidence of dishonesty which was premeditated, preconceived, and which was perpetuated, even after it had been challenged by SThree and that Mr Treffry was warned about possible disciplinary acton”. Further to that, he noted that given the relatvely short period of employment, being about one year and three months, the fact that the conduct of Mr Treffry was clearly dishonest, it would have the potental to undermine the trust and confidence which is necessary in the employment relatonship. SDP Boulton did have some reservatons as to whether the terminaton might be correctly characterised as being one for serious misconduct. “In any event, I am not satsfied that the characterisaton of the terminaton as being for serious misconduct would be such as to outweigh all the other consideratons which have led to the conclusion that the terminaton of Mr Treffry’s employment was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable”.

ACMA, 2012. Formal Warning under Spam Act issued to SThree Australia
http://152.91.62.26/Industry/Marketers/Anti-Spam/Ensuring-you-dont-spam/sydney-businesses-failed-to-comply-with-spam-act-i-acma
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib410040/sthree_australia-s41_formal_warning-6jan2012.pdf


Progressive Recruitment Specialists Reviews - www.progressive.co.uk
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews132341.html
http://www.reviewcentre.com/r132341_2_Progressive_Recruitment_Specia.html

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Business Names search - '126409103'
Business Names search - '126 409 103'
Business Names search - 'STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED'
Organisations & Business Names search - 'STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED'

---

Business name: ORGTEL
Status: Registered
Registration date: 1/10/2009
Renewal date: 1/10/2015
Address for service of documents: Level 9 1 Market St Sydney NSW 2000
Principal place of business: Level 9 1 Market St Sydney NSW 2000
Holder Name: STHREE AUSTRALIA PTY LIMITED
Holder Type: Body Corporate
ABN: 86 126 409 103

Former identifier: BN01642042
Former State/Territory: TAS

---

Business name: PROGRESSIVE RECRUITMENT
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 21/01/2008
Renewal date: 21/01/2011
Cancelled date: 21/01/2011

Former identifier: B2068812U
Former State/Territory: VIC

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 10/11/2009
Renewal date: 10/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN21413800
Former State/Territory: QLD

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 26/10/2009
Renewal date: 26/10/2012
Cancelled date: 11/03/2011

Former identifier: B2229987W
Former State/Territory: VIC

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 4/11/2009
Renewal date: 4/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN01646217
Former State/Territory: TAS

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 27/10/2009
Renewal date: 27/10/2012
Cancelled date: 10/03/2011

Former identifier: BN11447059
Former State/Territory: WA

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 5/11/2009
Renewal date: 5/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN05058880
Former State/Territory: SA

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 28/10/2009
Renewal date: 28/10/2012
Cancelled date: 24/03/2011

Former identifier: F00136100
Former State/Territory: ACT

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 27/10/2009
Renewal date: 27/10/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN01134048
Former State/Territory: NT

---

Business name: COMPUTER FUTURES
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 26/10/2009
Renewal date: 26/10/2012
Cancelled date: 9/03/2011

Former identifier: BN98463286
Former State/Territory: NSW

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 4/11/2009
Renewal date: 4/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN01646229
Former State/Territory: TAS

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 26/10/2009
Renewal date: 26/10/2012
Cancelled date: 11/03/2011

Former identifier: B2229974L
Former State/Territory: VIC

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 27/10/2009
Renewal date: 27/10/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN01134050
Former State/Territory: NT

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 26/10/2009
Renewal date: 26/10/2012
Cancelled date: 9/03/2011

Former identifier: BN98463284
Former State/Territory: NSW

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 28/10/2009
Renewal date: 28/10/2012
Cancelled date: 24/03/2011

Former identifier: F00136099
Former State/Territory: ACT

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 27/11/2009
Renewal date: 27/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN21436927
Former State/Territory: QLD

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 5/11/2009
Renewal date: 5/11/2012
Cancelled date: 10/03/2011

Former identifier: BN11453424
Former State/Territory: WA

---

Business name: JP GRAY
Status: Cancelled
Registration date: 5/11/2009
Renewal date: 5/11/2012
Cancelled date: 18/02/2011

Former identifier: BN05058892
Former State/Territory: SA

Microsoft: Have missed the boat on catching up to Apple & Google.

In early 2007 I started opining that Microsoft would "hit a financial pothole" around 2010. Thirty posts followed before I gave it up: the mainstream & financial press were looking seriously at the topic. [A Forbes columnist "called the game" in January.]

What prompted my view in late 2006, pre-iPhone, I'd noticed that Microsoft hadn't been able to maintain it's growth above 10%. They (legally) manipulated their figures to remove extreme volatility. Since the early 1970's, I've seen a bunch of Tech companies falter, stumble and fail. Always starting with one "off" result. When the iPhone appeared, I knew the mechanism of their "pothole".

I missed the GFC in 2008 and its effect (revenue down) and in 2012 went on record saying "I missed the date". I'm a technical person, not a financial analyst.

MSFT: The Application that dare not Speak Its Name

There have been recent reports about the decline in global PC sales. Laptops replaced Desktops are the most common "PC" platform 5 or more years ago. What impact on the market will this have?

Unringing the Bell: Impact of IT systems on Large Business Survival

I've posited that Telstra will be severely challenged within 15 years due to Structural Change within their Industry. They aren't fast or agile enough to adapt to the new world..

What are the factors that will prevent them from adapting? My top two:

• Management Culture
• IT Infrastructure

An underlying problem is that we don't have language or metrics to describe and quantify the many important aspects of management. In Physics and Engineering we have many concepts and terms that are measurable to great precision. The importance of those is shown by the materials revolution over the last 100 years. For a tour de force on the topic, a book that's been in print for 45 years: The New Science of Strong Materials.

Whilst "Management" and descriptions and theories about it has become an increasingly large field of study, we don't have a "Science of Management" with precisely defined and measurable terms.

This is crucially important when ownership (shareholders) and control (managers) is separated. The owners have no nuanced, standardised measures to evaluate the most critical part of the business: management. All we've got is the Accounting Standard Reports provided in Annual Reports. This is far from enough to make informed decisions on a business' future prospects.

I can't detail or quantify the many problems of Telstra's Management Culture, just waive my hands and say "it's the vibe". E.g. they not only don't do Customer Service well, they prioritise short-term cost-savings above good service and seem to go to great lengths to not resolve customer faults, at least in some areas.

Management is about doing what's important consistently well, doing what has to be done well enough and not doing at all the things that don't need to be done. [And avoiding entirely the things that should never be done.]

My Professional expertise is in IT Infrastructure. I hold a contrary view to the mainstream Management view of "IT is a Cost Centre". IT provides automated Business Processes, like employees directly responsible for all the Business Revenues: IT is a Profit Centre, not Cost Centre.

We've already seen businesses failure due to their failed I.T. systems: One.Tel is a shining example.

IT Infrastructure has, for the last two decades at least, constrained business mergers. If I recall correctly, the St. George-Westpac merger was cancelled twice due to "incompatible IT systems". Not sure how they solved that in the end.

Westpac itself is notorious for a decade long project, CS90, that was cancelled in December 1990. It was meant to be the ultimate Banking System (an 'ERP') that IBM would resell around the world for them. It was consuming 5-10% of Westpac's operational revenue.

The $10B Telstra "IT Transformation" under Greg Winn ran for around 5 years with the intention of reducing 1500 systems to 300. It failed to meet its targets and went live in 2009 with the 30% most valuable customers not migrated [from my Case Study evidence, now full of migration errors.]

The point: large businesses are inextricably intertwined with their IT Systems - they are part of the Business DNA and essential to the Business Differentiation: What we do differently that people value.

Too often IT Systems are allowed to "grow like topsy" and are never rationalised or reorganised, presumably because no immediate savings or value can be demonstrated, but mostly because nobody is responsible for everything and ensuring IT Systems are well maintained and suitable.

Leading to "Big Bang" projects like Telstra embracing of off-the-shelf ERP and CRM systems to resolve the mess. Inevitably they find that things are much more complex and intertwined than they knew, not the least because they have no correct, current System Maps and the whole was never designed or planned, it just happened. All of which suggests Management asleep at the wheel.

It will probably take Telstra 10 years to get staff trained, most, not all, data corrected in their new systems and workaround established to cater for what the new systems don't do.

But what will it be left with then? Will those systems be nimble, quick and responsive or big, cumbersome and so hard to change as to be effectively frozen?

Young, small companies start small and add functions as needed: the I.T. equivalent of "greenfields".

They don't carry of a legacy or mindset of "we have to cope with everyone and everything".

This is the commercial advantage small ISP's had over Telstra: no past, no baggage, just simple effective systems.

This will be the problem that Telstra will have to face again in 2020 as Retail Providers using the NBN challenge it. Telstra knows the pain, cost and delay in redoing their I.T. Systems, they won't be going there again anytime soon.

This is a generic and on-going challenge for all successful businesses, including those small, nimble Retail Providers: how to keep I.T. Systems from degrading into an unchangeable morass?

When Data hardens in Organisational Arteries and structures/processes ossify, a major Cardiac event will follow... More of the Same cannot fix the problems, radical rethinking is needed.

In an increasingly automated world, a problem looms for every large business: what happens to the IT Systems when you downsize?

You get to drag the big, bloated corpse of yesterdays organisation along with you. It never gets better with age...

It's easy to lay-off staff and "reorganise", but I've never heard of any organisation looking to make commensurate simplifications to their I.T. systems.

I suspect that Large Business who aren't consciously and deliberately cleaning-up and refreshing their I.T. Systems will ultimately fail due to the complexity, inflexibility and inadequacy of their Legacy Systems.

You can lay off Staff and cut whole Departments, but where do you start with the weeds that permeate your whole organisation and choke the life out of it?

Once built, it seems you can't "Unring the Bell" of legacy I.T. systems, you're stuck with them and they define what you can do, while smaller companies whizz past you on their way to Market Domination and being strangled by their Legacy systems.

---

Jerry Gregoire as CIO of Dell Computers in 1999 talked about how he tackled this problem - and won.
When he joined Dell, there was a massive ERP project underway, "One System To Rule Them All". It was late, over-budget and failing. His first action was to cancel the project and front the board...

Instead, he moved Dell to a new architecture dubbed "G2", based around a message broker.
It reduces the N*N-1 or N-factorial system interface problem to one...

All every system needs to interact with every other system is one 'message broker' interface.
It comes with a cost - you need infrastructure and rule sets to switch the messages. But at least that's a known, computable cost.

Dell Business Strategy Secrets
An ERP Package for You...and You...and You...and Even You

Death by Success II

There is another, much more frequent "Death by Success" cause, first introduced to me by Jerry Weinberg and Wayne Strider and Elaine Cline (Strider and Cline).

It's the same process that some herbicides use: unconstrained growth.
Monsanto's flagship herbicide Round Up is exactly this sort of agent.

If you are very good at what you do and much sought after, this can lead directly to massive Failure - personally and in business.

Growth is Good, but too much, too fast is a Killer.

The only protection is awareness.
As  Virginia Satir pointed out, "We can't see inside other people's heads, nor can we see ourselves as others see us" (courtesy again of Jerry and "Strider and Cline".)

Typically you need objective, external help is recognising this condition.
Once you have restored Situational Awareness, you can choose your response. Which may be "I'm outa here", Denial or something in between.

There is an alternative form of "Death by Success", which again we see in the Plant Kingdom.

Your initial approach, solution or technique may not Scale-Up or have a fixed Upper-Bound.
E.g. if you sell "factory seconds", there is a limited supply that sets your maximum turnover.
Or selling fragments of the Berlin Wall - at some point the Genuine Article is all gone...

The example in the Plant Kingdom are when tree seedlings 'set' in unsuitable places, like a small pot or within a bottle. Down the road, they will become "root bound", which slows growth, then they'll consume all the nutrients and having converted 'everything' into plant material, die.

That's it for that plant - all of one resource has been exhausted and it's Game Over.

Death by Success

The things you do in the beginning, when you're the minnow-against-the-giants, to start and build a business may not work well when you're successful, when you've become The Giant.

Exactly what leads to Success can eventually lead to your downfall.

You become very good at the things that have gained and seemingly maintained Success.  Every problem and challenge you've met have been solved with your brilliance and individual style.

Why would you ever want or need to vary that approach?

Until something new comes along and it all goes wrong:
  Inevitably in Business and Life, things change (perturbations arise in Control Systems terms).
  Responding with "More of the Same", as in the past, will, at some point, not work.
  If you've grown large, it will take time to fail, you'll have notice "things aren't great".
  Many companies only ever do "More of the Same",  often amping-it-up as results don't appear.
  The results are as predictable are throwing oil on a fire.

Often I mention Sydney Finkelstein's book, "Why Smart Executives Fail" in which Finkelstein describes the results of 6 years of research.  He self-describes as "Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where I teach courses on Leadership and Strategy".

In Smart Executives, Finkelstein and his team documents a whole slew of companies (50) that burned bright and collapsed. This book was published in 2003, covering a turbulent period of US and global business, as well as some famous cases going back decades.

The subjects of the research were chosen precisely because they were wildly successful and suffered a notable collapse. Enron and Worldcom are on the list, plus many I.T. companies such as Wang Computers.  The common thread is the collapse was avoidable and predictable.

Would the conclusions, Lessons Learned and "Early Warning Signs" be different post the 2008 GFC (Global Financial Crisis)?  I think not...

Finkelstein lists 7 naive causes of failure:

1. The Executive were Stupid.
2. The Executives couldn't have known What was Coming.
3. It was a Failure to Execute.
4. The Executives weren't trying Hard Enough.
5. The Executives lacked Leadership Ability.
6. The Company lacked the Necessary Resources.
7. The Executives were simply a Bunch of Crooks.

and comments in a para entitled "Failure to understand Failure":

All seven of these standard explanations for why executives fail are clearly insufficient. (Because the companies had demonstrated excellence in becoming highly successful.)

The next 300 pages are his answer. Part I describes "Great Corporate Failures" and Part II their Causes.
This research ends with a positive message, Part III is "Learning from Mistakes":

• Predicting the Future, Early Warning Signs.
• How Smart Executives Learn, Living and Surviving in a World of Mistakes.

His "Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful People"  are worth reiterating:

1. They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environments.
2. They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation's interests.
3. They think they have All the Answers.
4. They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn't 100% behind them.
5. They are consummate company spokespersons, obsessed with the company image.
6. They underestimate major obstacles.
7. They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past.

Each of the 11 chapters has 30-50 references.  Although written and published for the general market, this isn't any "Puff piece".