Go Coogs

We'll be at the University of Houston Engineering Career Fair next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it. This will be my second career fair with Austin Industrial. Hopefully it will go as well as the last one at A&M. University of Houston is one of my Alma Mater. I haven't been there in years, so it will be interesting to see how it's changed since my last visit.

We'll be looking for mechanical and civil engineering graduates and interns as well as construction science. So, if you are majoring in one of those areas, stop by our booth.

Moving On

Yesterday was a sad day. Our receptionist gave her notice. She's been with the company for 19 years. I'm happy for her though. This allows her to spend more time with her family while her son is growing up. We'll miss you, Linda.

Got TWIC?

As if the hiring process wasn't complicated enough these days, now we may have to add TWICTM. TWICTM stands for Transportation Workers Identification Credential. You can read more about it at:

http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers/twic/index.shtm.

Also, unemployment costs may be going up. Democrats in the Senate are proposing an "economic stimulus" package that extends some unemployment benefits. See the Yahoo News article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080128/ap_on_go_co/economy_stimulus

"You can't send a duck to eagle school"

This link shows an excellent video related to Recruiting / HR. Check it out! It makes a lot of great points.

http://www.theeagleschoolmovie.com/?SRC=WPOIDUCKM



I'm attending my first CRG Meeting today (Craft Recruiting Group). I'm looking forward to it!

HR Carnival

The newest addition of HR Carnival is up, hosted by Deb Owen at 8 hours & a lunch.

One post that she mentions caught my eye; it's cleverly titled "Employee Engagement has a Ring to it", and it's by Wayne Tumel. Cute, huh? That's the best thing about working for a company that's employee-owned; that makes for a LOT of employee engagement. What could be better than being an owner of the company where you work for being engaged with the company?

Enjoy.

Q&A

If you have any HR, recruiting, or job hunting questions that you think I may be able to help you with, please feel free to send them to me. I'll be happy to answer if I can help.

Gig 'Em

I'm back from the Engineering Career Fair at Texas A&M. We met some great candidates. They did a great job of organizing this event (except for running out of Diet Coke for a while in the afternoon). It's definitely nice to be back home though. They even give free massages to the recruiters and provide cookies as an afternoon snack. The only down side to the whole event was too much barbeque; both meals that they provided were barbeque. LOL! I'm all barbequed out!

I was surprised that only one candidate that I talked to said that he was especially interested in working for us because we are 100% employee owned. I was expecting more candidates to comment on that, since it's so exciting to work for such a company. It's so cool to own stock in a successful, growing company that's been around since 1918! It's also sort of funny that most people who see our company name assume we are based in Austin. You should never assume. My company is based in Houston. It's also very cool to be a Houstonian.

Some pictures of our booth at the event are attached. Obviously, I'm a horrible photographer (I won't quit my day job). It doesn't help that these were taken with a cell phone. This was my first time including pictures in a blog, and it's not as easy as you might think.

Two weeks from now, I'll be attending the University of Houston Engineering Career Fair and University of Texas Engineering Expo. Hopefully those will be as well run (but less barbeque).

Happy recruiting or job hunting.

Enthusiasm is Contagious

Today I head out to my first college career fair for this company. I'm looking forward to it. New graduates and interns tend to be very enthusiastic and energetic. It can be very refreshing to speak with them about positions, and their enthusiasm is contagious. Very experienced people often lose that passion for their field over time. Speaking with college students reminds me why I love working in HR and especially doing recruiting. It's nice to remember how it felt when you were graduating and entering the working world and also how far you've come from there. Also, aren't you glad you don't have to do homework anymore or study for tests? Even though I'm studying for the SPHR exam, it's much more interesting than studying for a biology exam or something like that. I can't wait to start telling those students how fabulous it is to work for Austin Industrial.

Stress Free Job?

One candidate I contacted about an administrative position I'm recruiting for said she was not interested in that position because it would require more than 40 hours per week and it would be stressful. She said please contact her for future positions that would be 40 hours per week or less and that would not be stressful.

This did make me think. Are there any jobs in the construction industry these days that are 40 hours per week or less and are not stressful?

Sorry, my job's taken. (Just kidding, of course.)

Interview Tips

It never ceases to amaze me that some interviewees don't seem to know even have a clue how to interview. These are very basic tips, but please, if you're going to take the time to go to an interview, follow them.

1) Be on time (or about 15 minutes early is even better). It wouldn't kill you to plan to get there early, make sure you have found the place, and then hang out at a nearby Starbucks or McDonald's so you arrive about 10-15 minutes before your scheduled interview time. The last candidate that I interviewed even told me that she drove by our office the Sunday before the interview to make sure she could find it. (She got bonus points for that.) :) If traffic is bad or something and you find you are running late, call to let the interviewer know you are running late. Make this call BEFORE you are late.

2) Plan to fill out an application completely. Bring anything you need to fill out job history, reference contact information, etc.

3) Do your homework about the company. Look at the company's website. One candidate, when asked what he knew about our company said, "Um.......uh..........I think........you do construction or something like that." I'll just say, "Um..........no bonus points for him." The same candidate that I mentioned before who drove by the office on a Sunday also mentioned during the interview (without me asking) some things she read on our website. Again, bonus points for her.

4) Do your homework about yourself. Think about your knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) in relation to the job, the company, and the industry. Be prepared to explain how yours apply to the job, company, and industry if your previous experience is not an exact match. For instance, before my current position, I never worked in the construction industry, but I was prepared to discuss why and how my previous experience applied to it. Think about your strengths and weaknesses in relation to the job ahead of the interview and be prepared to discuss them.

5) Don't ask anything related to what's in it for you. I.E. Don't ask about salary or benefits until they make you an offer. The interview(s) is(are) to convince them to make a job offer to you. Then you ask what's in it for you (politely and professionally). However, it is a very good idea to ask some questions. This shows the interviewer that you are interested. You do want to find out about the job, the company, the culture, etc., so you can assess whether it would be a good fit for you. Personally, I don't mind at all when candidates ask me about the salary or benefits. For one thing, I love to talk about our benefits, because they are so cool. However, I know that some interviewers are very turned off by it.

6) Be honest. State things as positively as you can (while still being honest). Smile. Show confidence, but not arrogance.

Again, these are basic tips, but they are very important. They can make the difference in whether or not you are offered the position. You not only have to be qualified for the position, but you have to convince the interviewers that you are the best candidate for the position.

I actually have a smile on my face on my way to work in the morning.

Why do I like my job so much? Of course, the best thing about working for Austin Industrial is that it is 100% employee-owned. We don't have any employees. We have employee-owners. How cool is that? There are so many other great things about working here though:

- My manager and co-workers are nice, smart, and friendly. It's actually fun to work here

- The upper management appreciates the people here and realizes that they are responsible for the success of the company. In fact, the company tag-line is people - performance - solutions, and they actually put that into practice

- Great financial stability and success with aggressive growth plans

- The company actually puts into practice the values that are espoused on the company website- integrity, performance, responsibility, safety, and employee-ownership

- The company is big enough to have most of the benefits of a big company, but small enough to have the benefits of a small company, like high visibility and access to the company president. You actually see him in the hall or in meetings sometimes.

- There is strong support for training and development and getting employees the resources to do their jobs as effectively as possible.

Did I mention the company is 100% employee-owned? It is a great feeling to work at a company that you own part of and contribute to every day!

20 Tips for a Positive New Year

Check this article out; it is wonderful advice!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.greatmanagement.org/articles/356/1/20-Tips-for-a-Positive-New-Year/Page1.html

So True!!!

"If you think hiring professionals is expensive, try hiring amateurs."

Anon.

Posted by: Amitai Givertz

Potpourri

These are some things I'm working on:

- Recruiting Business Development professionals and Project Managers that have Industrial Construction experience.

- Succession Planning

- Developing a formal program for interns and new grads so that they will do real industry work and learn a lot about our business; not just make copies and that type of thing.

- Improving our onboarding

- Marketing our company; I work for a great company that has amazing branding already, but I want to get the word out about it, so everyone else knows what a fabulous company this is.

- Finding a source of good, current salary survey info that covers the construction industry in Houston, TX and throughout the US.

- Improving Training and Development programs

- Finding good HR training programs for myself (especially talent attraction and retention related)

- Instituting Mentorship and Buddy programs

- Finding good constructions related associations to join and attend conferences / seminars to network with others in the industry and make good contacts to potentially recruit for our organization

- Developing a network of recruiters who work at my competitors so we let them know when we are ending projects so they can pick up some of the people we are laying off, and they can do the same. (It's normal for construction industry personnel to work short-term projects and move around a lot.) Also, anything else that can help reduce our unemployment claims. (We have very low turnover for regular positions; it's just the project work.)

- Finding ways to make the transition to paperless go more quickly. We are currently scanning in all new employee files and have been for the last couple of years, but we have tons of older files to get scanned in.

Please comment if you have any suggestions to give me in any of these areas. I can use all the help I can get.

Welcome

Hello,

Welcome to the HR in Industrial Construction Blog. I came across some fun and informative HR blogs, and thought it would be a great idea to start my own blog. I've been in HR/Recruiting for over 7 years, but I just started in the construction industry last month. I find that commercial and residential construction are big industries, but industrial construction is a fairly small niche. It's difficult to find candidates with a lot of experience specifically in industrial construction. Examples of industrial construction are refineries and chemical plants. That reminds me- I should mention that I am in Houston, Texas. I've found it difficult to find training or a seminar that's an overview of construction for administrative people like me; all the construction training I've found is specific technical training. It's a very interesting industry though, and I'm very much looking forward to learning more about it.

Here are a couple of other HR Blogs to check out:

The most recent HR Carnival is posted on Ask A Manager:

http://askamanager.blogspot.com/2008/01/carnival-of-hr.html

This is a very fun HR blog:

http://www.hrwench.blogspot.com/

Enjoy.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and I'd love to hear any comments that you have.