Some other posts on the matter of management in education and in general:
In Management Thinking Makes All The difference
=> Bill Gates and the end of An Era
"The Backpack Full of Cash": pointing at a problem, not offering a solution
A word of advice to Mark Zuckerberg: “You are not Steve Jobs, and that’s a good thing.”
In Management Thinking Makes All The difference
=> Bill Gates and the end of An Era
"The Backpack Full of Cash": pointing at a problem, not offering a solution
A word of advice to Mark Zuckerberg: “You are not Steve Jobs, and that’s a good thing.”
Foreword: Every HR says they look for a driven
professional, an eloquent expert, a productive author, and, a collaborative
colleague. Ask them how do they know who’s who? ... Silence. How do I know? I
am experimenting :)
The Beginning of The End of
The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative
Don’t get me wrong, I love my current work, but I don’t mind an idea of moving to a slightly different climate, and I also don’t mind to try an opportunity to expand my current professional experience. This is what I write in my generic Cover Letter: “My professional goal is very clear – I work hard to maximize my professional output by applying all my skills and experience.”
And once in a while I like pocking around to get some new ideas. For example, the latest one is about Curiosity and came from my communication with the M.I.T..
That is why when I see an interesting opportunity I send an application.
That is why when I see an interesting opportunity I send an application.
Who knows what may happen, but I also use this opportunity as my own personal experiment I
conduct on HR people in different institutions.
The position I applied for is titled “Content Strategists” who “will be responsible for
deeply understanding … students, teachers, school leaders and parents, … and
developing guidelines, conventions and approaches for communicating to these
audiences.”; and also “for managing all written material across key products.”
I know how to do it because I’ve done it before – in a different
country, but that may be seen as my professional advantage (a broader
experience). Plus, the fact that I have “deep understanding of students and
teachers and school leaders” is supported in my resume by the feedback from my
students (with elements unparalleled to some other faculty) and by my
experience in the field of teacher professional development (with elements
unparalleled to many existing teacher professional development programs). Plus,
I have a very developed and unorthodox (perpendicular to the mainstream views)
philosophy of education as a human practice.
Naturally, if I would have any doubts that I would not be able to
excel on this job I would not apply.
Naturally, two days later I got a polite “thanks, but no thanks”.
I knew that would happen, but I was curious about how much time
would it take. I provided many links to the relative materials which
demonstrate my teaching philosophy, my general views on education, multiple examples
of content development and writing on the content development – to study all
that content would take some time. And the fact of the matter is that no one
did even try it.
When I send an application to a college or to a publishing
company or another regular institution, I know that the form of my resume is
way too unusual for a regular HR person (I have developed my resume in that
specific form with a specific purpose).
When I just moved to the U.S. and was looking for my first job –
any job (!) – my friend told me to hide my PhD, and even my Masters. He told me
that in order to get hired I would have to be seen as a bolt with the exactly
right thread which would be a perfect fit into the functioning mechanism. So,
to get hired to a Shaw’s Supermarket as a janitor I only presented my high
school diploma (and invented several simple jobs I “had” in Russia) – and it
worked. I only got some suspicions looks when I was conducting some simple test
math calculations without using a calculator (like other candidates did).
Eventually I learned English, and, long story short – got there where I am now (BTW:
an example of a professional character and history which HR should have noticed
at least for its broadness and the demonstration of ability to rebuild it from
a square one).
I know as an experimental fact that when HR tell us that “our
missions is to find the best talent”, they lie – to themselves. What HR does is
filtering out people who don’t fit within a set of several standard parameters
– talent or no talent (the latter is even better) – there is an empty cell
which needs to be fit. One does not have to be a “rocket scientists” to do this
type of a job. Very soon a trained AI can (and will) do the same. All the stories about HR hiring talented misfits are myths or bluffs, because there is no single HR unit in the world which would regularly assess its own effectiveness and efficiency, because they simply don't know how to do it, because they don't want to know, because they don't want to do it.
It would be an interesting experiment to ask some HR people about
their criteria for selecting applicants, and then give them as a “blind test”
resumes of various people, including HR from other companies, CEOs from their
own and other companies, even their own resume – in a standard and in an unusual
form, and see what would really happen.
Would FB HR hire Mark Zuckerberg, who said once that “the "single most
important thing" when it comes to scaling into a massively successful
business is having founders surround themselves with the best people they can
find.”? How did Mark Zuckerberg propel this rule to his HR? How does he know if
the HR is good at following this rule? Does he even want to know if his HRs at
FB or the Initiative are following this rule?
There are people who deliberately search for talented people – for
example, baseball scouts. They know what specific talent they need and when
they find a person with that talent they start working on the personal perks
one may have (or not).
I would expect that any institution which claims “to push the
boundaries of how great a human life can be”, which hints some “innovation”, or
“disruption”, should adopt the “baseball scouts” approach.
Evidently, that is not a case at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.
…
…
Now you think – “They didn’t hire him, and because of that he is
trashing them.”
And you are wrong.
Hiring or not hiring is just the final step in the process of
searching for a talent.
One of the common traits of a talented person is being different
from many others. I deliberately presented myself as a different person, and as
a different type of a professional. This presentation may result in only two
major reactions:
1. Self-defense: “What the heck does he think about himself”?
2. Curiosity: “What if everything he said in his resume is true”?
The former reaction is evident when one sends a resume, it takes
at least a day to process it and to deliver it to a living person, who spends 5
minutes on checking the form of the application and general parameters of the
applicant, and sends back “thanks, but no thanks”.
The latter reaction would lead to (at the minimum) spending some
extra time on digging into the professional experience of the applicant,
specifically, into the outcomes of his/her productive actions
(some of those outcomes, though, like “Seven
Reasons Why Rich Philanthropists Fail at Making Systemic Changes in Education” or
“The Degradation of The White Male American Elite” could
backfire, but at least could also provoke some thinking). The next step could
be “this guy looks strange; on one hand, he seems having a very broad and
successful experience in the field, but on another hand, the way he presents
himself is odd, weird, strange. Maybe I should have a face-to-face? It does not
cost me anything, and does not promise a thing, and I may have an interesting experience
for myself”.
But we know what happened: “Curiosity killed the cat”, “I’m not a
cat, but I have no curiosity”.
And that is the issue for any HR of any organization which poses
itself as “innovative”, or “disruptive”.
The HR people at CZI do not know how to deal with unusual
professionals, and do not want to deal with unusual professionals, they have no
curiosity (hence – no imagination), and hence no ability to build a “Team of
Rivals”.
The HR people at CZI fit a vary regular format, and see only people
who also fit a very regular format, and build a team which can function only
within a very regular format.
No risks. No unexpected outcomes. Easy to manage (!)
– the fallout from the Newark disaster.
But also – no vision, and no breakthroughs.
That is why we are observing today the beginning of the end of the
Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative as an innovative disruptive breakthrough
organization.
The Initiative will function, of course, will be humming on the
path to helping students and educators, and without any doubt will help many
students and educators to make their learning and teaching experience better –
like the hundreds of other similar foundations and philanthropic organizations.
But “to push the boundaries”?
Please.
Don’t make me laugh (but thank you for the material for this
post).
With best wishes,
Dr. Valentin Voroshilov
This is what HR should be doing
This is what it does.
This is the latest post on the matter: Why Americans are Starting To Lose the World Race for Prosperity?
BTW:
"Free business ideas from Dr. Voroshilov: part 1"
https://youtu.be/TdUMXOSjX9Q
"Free business ideas from Dr. Voroshilov: part 2"
https://youtu.be/zZ1m9fV0PNM
This is what HR should be doing
This is the latest post on the matter: Why Americans are Starting To Lose the World Race for Prosperity?
BTW:
"Free business ideas from Dr. Voroshilov: part 1"
https://youtu.be/TdUMXOSjX9Q
"Free business ideas from Dr. Voroshilov: part 2"
https://youtu.be/zZ1m9fV0PNM
Table of Content / List of Posts
P.S. It is interesting to see the actual gap between the general claim "we embrace competition" and the reality "we don't like anyone who is different". Remember numerous movies where a team of talented misfits makes miracles? Just movies. Has nothing to do with the real life. Because the majority of HRs do not hire misfits. They just don't.
P.P.S. An old linkedin post on the matter.
I am thinking about relocating.
I sent my resume to several colleges which are
seeking to find a "highly experience physics instructor".
I am a highly-experienced physics
instructor. Definitely above the average level. With a solid formal proof
of that fact in the form of my student evaluations: http://www.teachology.xyz/evvv.html.
With a strong conceptual view on what teaching is
and how to teach physics effectively, efficiently, and sufficiently: http://www.cognisity.how/2016/10/book.html.
With a strong experience in teacher professional
development: http://www.cognisity.how/2016/10/facilitating.html.
But evidently, the hiring committees have some
other criteria which trump the need for a highly-experienced
instructor.
I find this observation interesting.
And also consistent with my previous
experience. http://www.cognisity.how/2018/03/conformity.html.
I find the reaction of many hiring committees telling/revealing. These days, the tale about "team of rivals" is just
a tale.
P.P.P.S. You are in HR and want to x-ray your employees? See how they react to a challenge (special applications for educators). If you are an administrator who would like to assess the innovativeness of your HR, please, feel free to contact me (www.GoMars.xyz). If you are a manager, I can help you to optimize your team. I will not tell you what you need to do, the final decisions are yours. But I will help you to crystallize your own view on what you want to do and how will you and your team do it.
01/07/2019
According
to Janelle Gale, Facebook's vice president of human resources, they hire
“skills over experience”. It may sound innovative. Nowadays, demonstrating your
innovative creative nature is a must – otherwise how can you prove that you are
a frontrunner? Remember “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”? Now it’s “If it
ain’t innovative, it can’t be right”. And the result is massive “invention” of
useless ideas/things. For those who know history, one word – Motorola. In
reality “skills over experience” means “list of courses over professional
achievements”. Making an equivalence between taking a course in, say,
creativity, and being actually creative may look good only for people who have
no idea about human psychology, specifically, human intelligence development.
The triviality of this approach is just amazing – but bold (respect!). Well,
one has to do what one has to do. What are you going to do if your boss demands
that you hire only creative people?
Thank you for
visiting,
Dr. Valentin
Voroshilov
Education Advancement
Professionals
To learn more about
my professional experience:
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