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Today, while researching a job opportunity and trying to find out more about the person I was going to be speaking with. I ran into something troubling. I couldn’t find that person’s work number, email, or any other relevant information. This is unacceptable, especially within the HR/Head-hunting field. Allowing a person access to the bare minimum of your contact information is no longer a choice. We live in a 24/7 world today, everyone should have access to everyone at all times.
Does this come with some exceptions? Absolutely. Personal cell numbers, emails and addresses should only be given out to those people that you explicitly trust. However, this comes with the caveat that one should be able to contact you at all times. I eat, sleep and breathe working. I constantly check my email, twitter, and blog in an effort to grow my business. My cell number is listed on my Twitter background.
The same level of transparency and access should be made available to anyone that would need to be contacted by those not affiliated with your own company. This includes but is not limited to: Salespeople, pr, marketing, and customer service. If I can’t contact you as a web savvy individual (within 5-10 minutes of looking) the person that I do find is going to get my business. This is not rocket science. Optimizing your information is easy to do.
Privacy is overrated, I’ve given up even trying to hold onto it. So I make it easy to peer into and access all the information people need to get into contact with me. Granted I want to be found, but your customers want to find you. So throw them a bone and let them have a conduit through which to speak to you. The last thing you want is for someone to get a hold of you from a bad email address and continually contact you there. This can breed resentment, distrust and frustration: All because you did not make your information easy to locate and use.
The best customer service experiences I have had have been when I have called “Executive Hotlines” which forward me to people who can do more then press 3 buttons. Outsourced customer service people aren’t inferior to those in the U.S. in fact most of the time they are arguably better. However, they are locked into a system at their desk and are unable to solve problems that are more complex then the options they have at their console. I advocate the Zappos model of Customer Service. A customer service person has carte blanche ability to make the person on the other end of the line happy and excited. The world would be a great place if we were all empowered in such a way.
HR people are fond of saying: “If I can’t find out about you from your resume in under a minute, I don’t want to hire you”. Doesn’t the same apply with being able to find simple contact information on the web?
Stuart, I feel like you are missing a key point. You wanted that person's contact information - presumably so you could contact them if you wanted to. They obviously didn't want generic people contacting them, so they didn't have their contact data out there. As an HR person, their goal isn't to serve your needs, like a customer service rep is. Their goal is to find the best candidate for their company. and if candidates contact them constantly, they won't be able to do that. There is no incentive for that HR person to have contact information out there, but there is plenty of incentive not to.
Privacy and transparency are not black and white rules. They are tools that we customize to suit our individual needs. In this case, your need for transparency was blocked by his/her need for privacy.
What if I don't want to hear from you at all times? I'm not even awake 24/7.
I think it's unreasonable and unnecassary to expect everyone to have all their contact information out there, but I absolutely think it's important to make at least one form of contact information (e-mail address, Facebook page etc.) widely accessible.
If you're in any sort of client-related field, like some of the jobs you mentioned, I can't see the logic in not encouraging peope to get in touch and making it easy for them to do so!
I've thought a lot about the ups and downs of transparency. Sometimes it is fantastic and other times it is simply a headache. However, all I am advocating in the article is making a single conduit available to everyone 24/7. At least give the illusion of transparency.
Personally, I advocate total transparency and live my life with that tenet in mind. Does it suck sometimes? Absolutely. Totally hate it occasionally, but the good does outweigh the bad. It's a risk to put yourself totally out there. However, I think you will find that it is a risk worth taking.
Get back to me when you are an EVP or better of a Fortune 500. Or worse, a Fortune 2500 (read: I don't have a personal assistant gatekeeper answering my direct line).
There is a reason some people are hard to get a hold of. Namely, if you don't know how to get a hold of me, it's extremely unlikely I want to talk to you.
I *LOVE* BC. But I've noticed a recent trend that champion a bunch of 20 somethings telling those stupid old companies the way things should be. It's kind of obnoxious, are 9 times out of 10, makes the author look really unseasoned.
I come to BC because I want to grow MYSELF. I want tips on how to improve MY life and MY career. Not thought leadership on executive management. No offense, but I think VERY few of the regular authors here have any idea what the life of a S&P executive is actually like, let alone how to improve it.
Mike:
Understand your points. If you are an executive who is constantly getting pitched and annoying phone calls I can understand the need for privacy. No one wants to have their time wasted. I definitely don't. What I am advocating is a single conduit for people to see and respond too.
The point that I think you missed in this article was that I was not approaching it from a C-level view. If you are an executive you absolutely should have a gate keeper (it's foolish not to).
The target of my article was middle management to entry level employees that NEED to have their information listed. Typically, an executive (especially one that is at an S&P) will be inundated with unnecessary pitches and offers. However, will a PR person (especially one trying to cut their teeth) be successful if they are not easy to contact? Hell no.
So in essence: Jack Welch with transparency bad. PR/Marketing/HR person who deals directly with clients with transparency? A necessity.
Mike,
"I *LOVE* BC. But I've noticed a recent trend that champion a bunch of 20 somethings telling those stupid old companies the way things should be. It's kind of obnoxious, are 9 times out of 10, makes the author look really unseasoned."
I completely agree!!! And I am a 20-something myself.
Stuart,
You're throwing a lot of examples out here. PR/Media people need to be able to be contacted and I'm sure most of them have their contact info on their corporate websites. Middle managers probably won't publish that information since they a) don't want to be contacted 24/7 (perfectly reasonable in my opinion) and b) they don't want to be hassled by job seekers. This is the same for HR people as well.
You seem like a sane, reasonable person who probably just wanted to introduce yourself to the HR person and make a good impression. What you don't realize is that there are literally HUNDREDS of people just like you who want to do the same thing. Can an HR rep really handle 100 calls a day just "introducing" him/herself to strangers, many of whom are probably not qualified for the job anyway?
Not to mention that on top of the 100 sane job applicants, there are probably another 50 crazy ones who call and harass the poor HR rep (I have been on the receiving end of a few of these are they are not pleasant) about why they didn't get the job (um, you're crazy!).
I get your point about transparency and this "24/7" world we live in, but are legitimate security reasons for not having all our contact info everywhere, all the time.
@The Office Newb: And not just legitimate security questions (although I certainly agree there), but legitimate questions about investment of time. Most people do not have jobs that consist entirely of "introducing" themselves to random callers. They may interact with callers, but they probably do a lot of other things as well--things that they're not doing if they're always answering the phone.
@Stuart, it sounds like you were trying to discuss specific kinds of jobs in your post, but the post doesn't read that way. Although you mention kinds of jobs, you also make the entry-level-through-middle-management reference, which is quite sweeping.
Also, I can understand wanting to know more about the person with whom you will be interviewing. But why would you contact them directly? That sounds like you'd be talking to them before you talk to them, and I'm not sure why they would see that as beneficial.
Haha, looks like I'm going to have to go back and rework this article in a future post. I feel that a lot of the problems and arguments that people have raised with my points could have been easily avoided had I been more explicit with examples and descriptions. So...look forward to a reworked post either tomorrow or Thursday.
Couple Points I want to Make Clear:
In hindsight, the title sucks and doesn't lead people to the points I was trying to make with the article.
Clarify that people needing to list contact information should do so with a specific conduit. If you aren't going to be transparent (at least provide an avenue for all of us "crazy people" to contact you.
So...I'll leave you with the last point I made to Mike:
"So in essence: Jack Welch with transparency bad. PR/Marketing/HR person who deals directly with clients with transparency? A necessity."
Stop using your companies pre-printed thank you notes. Hand write a thank you note! Hand writing is much more personal and it shows you care. More...
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