What smart people don't always agree (with me)

One of my favourite ideas is that of "bounded rationality".

I've always struggled with the idea of why people who are intelligent, well informed, and capable could arrive at such different conclusions. I could get differences in things like values and preferences, and the like. But I struggled to get my head around what might be called more analytical differences.

Bounded rationality goes a long way to explaining this. It is a theory of decision making - the term was coined by Herbert Simon - and won him both a Nobel Award in Economics and a Turning Award for artificial intelligence (he's one of my intellectual heroes).  Simon observed that people are only partly rational; the reason for this is because we operate within limits of our cognition. In simple terms, we are not able to apply any sort of rational process to all - or even a majority of aspects - of decisions we are making. Instead, we apply heuristics - cognitive shortcuts - to simplify the processing load in making the decision.

This idea of heuristic simplification is pretty well established. If you've seen images like the one to the left, this is an example of how we use these short-cuts, in this case for reading. Rather than reading each letter, we read words and sentences and our brain fills in the blanks, ignores the exceptions, and we see what we expect. There's a lot of research that explains various aspects of how we process perceptual information.

(note: spelling is important. As is grammar. These short-cuts our brain takes means that good spelling and grammar are essential to reduce the chances someone will mis-understand our writing).

When we're faced with a complex decision, we bring to that decision a whole raft of short-cuts - preconceptions, values, biases, preferences, and other tools that determine how we shape, ask, and answer questions and take decisions. Some of these are systematic (I'll to a blog on cognitive biases and Khaneman and Tversky sometime!) These cognitive tools can be used to direct decisions - which is the foundation of behavioural economics. It explains why I think problem structuring is at least as - if not more - important than problem solving.

But, most of all, they explain how we all make such different decisions. And why smart people don't always agree (with me).

Keeping track

A friend of mine is also looking for work. They have got themselves into a slightly tricky situation where two different recruiters have put them forward for different roles in the same organisation. A mis-understanding that has made it harder for them to go ahead with that role (and one they are really interested in).

I could've been in the same position: a recruiter asked me if I'd been put forward to a company or not. I wasn't sure - I had discussed a role at a company while driving to work one day last year; I distinctly remember that call. I think I decided it wasn't right for me; but I'm not 100% sure. So I probably haven't been put forward, but I don't know.

These two little vignettes summarise one of the biggest challenges in job hunting: keeping track of all the different applications. It's compounded by the fact that there are often roles with more than one recruiter, promoted in multiple places, and - annoyingly - with subtly different job descriptions (and titles!) Given I'm in technology, it seems there could be a solution.

My mind-set for job hunting is it's basically the same as selling process. I'm the product, the job is the deal. My CV is the proposal. The recruiter is the purchasing department. And it's often tricky to get to the real customer - the hiring manager. This thinking pointed pretty directly to the solution: CRM.

There are a number of free CRM systems out there; I chose Zoho. It's probably the second biggest CRM in the world (behind Salesforce) and the free license seems pretty open. It lets me:

• Track the stage for each deal (job application)
• Record job details when I first find the opportunity
• Record actions - and set-up tasks with reminders for next steps
• Save copies of documents - most obviously the job description and CV
• Record the various people involved - the recruiter, the hiring manager, and anyone else
• Track leads before they become jobs
• Manage contacts and calls
• Track everything from an app on my phone
• Remind me when I need to do something

Of course, a CRM will, never solve every problem; and Zoho took a little re-purposing to suit my needs. But it does provide a tool and if I use that tool well, it makes it a bit easier to keep track of everything. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for work.

The Social Construction of Organisations

One of the more challenging ideas I encountered when I was studying was 'social construction'.

Social Construction was an idea that came from a pair of sociologists (Berger and Luckman) and, as I understand it now, is actually quite simple. The idea is simply that most of the things around us are products of human behaviour - and this extends to abstracts: things like 'money', 'law', 'jobs', and, most relevantly for me given what I was studying, 'organisations'. The process by which this happens is a little more complex: knowledge gets interwoven into a degree of shared understanding and behaviour. But even that isn't actually that hard to understand. The coins in my pocket are worth a certain amount because I believe they are and when I go into a shop tomorrow and hand them the coins, they'll believe it too - and let me buy some coffee with them.

So why did I find this idea so hard to get my head around - such a challenge? I can think of three reasons.

The first is because I tended to confuse materialism with objectivism. Materialism is the idea that material things are the essence of all things (and a rejection of the notion that things exist outside of material world - specifically, a rejection of Cartesian dualism: my mind is not separate from or independent of my body). Objectivism is the idea that things exist independently of human perception. They're not the same thing, but I didn't really know that! Social Construction sits right in the middle of that difference: it argues that the material artefacts of society are a products of human behaviour, which, in turn, is a product of human perception.

The second is that language of social construction tended towards obfuscation. The original 1966 book is wonderfully written; it's dense: but necessarily so as it deals with complex ideas. However, much of the surrounding writing was that worst kind of academic writing - this was around the same time of the Bad Writing Awards.

The final reason, which is a consequence of the first two is is seemed anti-empirical: "How can you measure it?" Ironically, once of the foundations of my field - The Hawthorne Studies - is easy to interpret as an example of the same mechanisms as social construction. In these studies, workers were split into two groups; one was left in normal working conditions, the other were exposed to a variety of experimental conditions. The group exposed to the experimental conditions saw increases in productivity - even when those change should have made things worse (e.g. both lower and raising the lighting levels improve productivity). There are competing interpretations as to exactly why this happened, but the simple fact is behaviour (of the scientists) had a material effect on the productivity of the organisation.

Funnily enough, this idea that I so resisted became the core of the findings from my Ph.D.

(If you want to read Berger and Luckman, you can download the PDF here).

Some good advice

A couple of my earlier posts were a little negative: one focusing on a recruiter; the other focusing on a couple of jobs that went a bit weird (although, in both those cases, the recruiters were great).

But there were plenty of positive experiences in my last job hunt.

One was some advice I got from a recruiter. He was referred to me by a friend - who used him to find staff for his business. He was working in IT, but didn't have anything that suited me. Nonetheless, he took some time to meet with me. In that meeting, he gave me some good advice:

1. Use the job boards well: make sure you're on the right ones (CWJobs, Reed, LinkedIn); update your profile regularly so you stay at the top of searches; make sure you hit the keywords of the jobs you're looking for
2. Research local companies and target ones that I'm interested in; see if they have roles that suit me
3. Provided some feedback on my CV, including making my academic background a little more prominent

All up, it probably took an hour of his time; but two of those three pieces of advice worked together to get me a job a few weeks later.

Writing for the Job

A major part of my professional life over the past few years has been writing proposals in response to Tenders (the dreaded RFP/RFQ/RFI processes). What learnt from that process is remarkably relevant for completing job applications. I was always told to customise your CV for each role; and I can now see much more clearly how to do that.

Today, most applications I'm looking at give me the opportunity to attach a file - normally my CV. The big job-hunting sites typically allow me to use a saved CV or to upload a new one. I (almost always) upload a new one. Some things I think about when doing that:

• I start with a good CV - there are sites and services that can provide plenty of advice on that. The usual guidelines - keep it brief, focus on achievements, describe the value I bring to employers - are all good guidelines.
• I read the job description carefully. I normally have it open next to the document I'm working on. Read it several times - looking for key words and phrases. A few job descriptions are genuinely boiler-plate documents that could refer to almost any role. But most have some sort of signs as to what makes the role different.
• I carefully evaluate the description against my skills and desires. Some jobs stand out - and look exciting. Some look fairly bland. Some look quite un-interesting. This doesn't always tell you everything. For example, "Senior Manager - Data Lead" turned out to be a role in a new and exciting analytics team at one of the world's best known companies.
• I know my audience. Am I writing to the recruiter or the company? Is it a technically proficient reader or a more general audience.
• I usually include a cover letter. Not every application process allows for this; but even if it doesn't, I'll often add a cover letter as the first page of my CV. This serves to high-light why I'm good at the job.
• I pay attention to detail. Job titles, names, spelling, all of this is important. I've made mistakes here from time to time - but mostly, these are short documents and can be easily reviewed before submitting. Mistakes shouldn't happen.
• I edit descriptions to make sure I emphasise what's in the job description - particular skills or experience. I'll often re-order lists of accomplishments or achievements to focus on what I understand the job to require. 
• I echo the job description - repeating key words and phrases from the job description in my CV and cover letter. If the Job Description is asking for an, "ambassador for analytics" I don't rely on the reader to interpret, "a passionate advocate for using data top make decisions" as the same thing. I change the words to say I am an, "ambassador for analytics".
• If I speak with a recruiter about a role and learn more about it, I take the opportunity to have another edit before the hiring manager sees my CV. It may not need much editing, but any improvement is worth the effort.

The Worst Experience

Probably the worst recruitment process was a year or two ago. I wasn't seriously looking, but I'd found a role that was interesting, so I applied. The recruiter called me, discussed the role, which sounded good. So I went through the process - the only warning was that the salary they wanted to offer was lower than I wanted to get.  This isn't a show stopper: and it's worth going into the recruitment even if you expect to negotiate towards the end.

Initially, it was pretty standard process - a CV, written for the job. A few questions. All very normal. The next conversation with the recruiter said they were interested, but needed some convincing - we had a few calls talking about the role and the process. I was fine with that: if I could get in front of them, I'd make my case as well as I could.  Then the card would fall as they may.

But instead of this,  I was asked to go through a number for recruitment tools: a psychometric test (that's quite normal) and a video of me explaining why is fit the role (that's less usual - I've never seen this before. Or since). If this was the process, then I'll go with it.  So I scripted up a presentation, filmed it (multiple takes, cutting a few versions together to get something good - I think few people, even in media, can deliver a long monologue flawlessly in one take).

So, I invested a reasonable amount of time and effort, I took the process seriously, and submitted the video and everything else they asked for. And then... nothing. No feedback, no email. The recruiter stopped taking/returning my calls.

I've dealt with a few recruiters now. When I fire in a CV, I'd like a response; but I don't always get one. I understand that some roles get hundreds of CVs, so this happens. But once the recruiter' s engaged with me, I'd like a little feedback. Even if it's just: they're not interested in you. And to be fair, most do that - and plenty have been excellent.

But not all do - and when you've asked someone to invest time and effort into a process, a simple courtesy of, "Thanks,  but no thanks" wouldn't go amiss.

Joys of the Job Hunt

For the second time in a year, I'm on the job market! Not totally surprising, but for someone who spent over 10 years in my previous company (albeit, not in the same job!) it's a bit of an experience!
In my previous job hunt (about a year ago), the experience was a huge change from last time around (over 10 years ago in a different country).

Some of the things I encountered were:

• The 'game' of modern job hunting - and the need to pass the right filters and it is a number's game
• Some excellent advice from a few recruiters
• Some very poor recruiters - with poor communication
• Some employers who don't know what they want
• You get a long way by doing the basics - write a CV (and cover letter) for the job
• The experience of my job, particularly with writing proposals, was hugely valuable

Of the unsuccessful processes, two stand out.

The first was an exciting role - I started with an interview with the CEO on a bank holiday, then in person for an interview in the offices. It was all very exciting - a great sounding role with an exciting company. Then I had a final interview on Skype with my prospective line manager - and that's where it all went wrong. Simply put, it felt like I was interviewing for a completely different job; and a quite narrowly defined one at that! From that basis, I was under-prepared. I stumbled and was inarticulate, struggled to answer the narrowly defined questions with analogous experience - even though it was there. It went badly: naturally, I didn't get the job. At the time I was upset but, on reflection, it was probably a good thing. Either the job was narrowly defined and anyone would have struggled to fill it without that specific experience or the role was inconsistently understood across the business and would struggle to succeed.

The second was another interesting role. They didn't have an office as such - so the first interview was in a reasonably funky coffee shop (my suggestion) - I was interviewed sitting on a bag of coffee beans: the second interview was in a cafe/bar in a London train station. Both went very well - and I was, again, excited about the role. I went for a beer afterwards with the recruiter, which is always a good sign. Then it went a little quiet - making me nervous. Eventually (a couple of weeks later), I got a call from the "hiring manager". They'd found someone else, with more directly relevant experience. Another disappointment. But another near miss. The two people who interviewed me have moved on. The guy who got the role over me (a little judicious LinkedIning found him) has moved on. They now have one person 'working' in the UK. And there's not even a glimmer of schadenfreude here. Honest.

So, now I'm back into it. Back into looking for a job.

Two applications done today!