The cheating scandal at APS?

There is no surprise from my perspective.  When I left the school system Time Magazine spoke to me about cheating. So, you can see it is the same old same old when it comes to cheating in APS.

When I was a teacher for APS, 6^th graders would come to us with high reading scores, but they were unable to read.  After getting to know these kids they would tell us how their teachers cheated. We’d talk to students whose 5^th grade teacher suggested that Jason sat next to Maurice, encouraging Maurice to copy off Jason.  We’d talk to students whose teachers would write the answers to the test down on the board, with elaborate methods for keeping an eye out for the roaming proctors. We’d hear about hand signals to be distributed during a standardized test (a touch on the shoulder = correct / head = incorrect.)

We sent numerous letters to the superintendent and were completely ignored.  I came to the understanding that we were led by politically motivated individuals who had forgotten that children should be the the top priority, like alcoholics not admitting they had a problem, the organization refused to admit there was a problem.  The push for test scores erased the need for integrity.

In 1996 not enough people cared about this story.  Thank goodness the AJC refused to give up.  Perhaps we will see a proper focus on this issue, so the children of Atlanta can get the attention they deserve.  Instead of pretending that everything is OK, perhaps we can drop the politics, put children first and start to work on the real problem in a real way. 

I can only hope that this scandal will have a positive effect upon our community. Frankly, I doubt that even this direct hit will positively affect the politics of our Atlanta school system, but we can hope.

By the way – the children of Atlanta can be saved. We have a wonderful resource in the youth of Atlanta. There are future leaders within the halls of our schools. In spite of a testing debacle that covers this city like a dark cloud, all we need is an administration determined to do one and only one thing -- put children first. If we could find such a leader that dark cloud would be swept away.

LinkedIn added a new feature on Monday that lets interested job applicants submit their profiles.

The recruiting community was using an "Apply Now" button. Now the LinkedIn team has added a blue button (Apply with LinkedIn) that appears on job listings. This move is looked at as part of their effort to push aside the traditional job boards and compete with Facebok.

This change allows companies to customize the page so the interested candidate will have to answer application questions or submit a cover letter. But here is the best news (in my opinion) applicants can see if any of their LinkedIn connections work for the company they are applying to and send them a message.

Today I had the honor of speaking before the Senior Executives Brain Trust Group, which is an offshoot of the Brain Trust. The Brain Trust is an eleven year old CEO Peer Group where members meet monthly to seek and give counsel to each other. My good friend Tom Cramer heads up this organization and has been an advisor to over 75 CEO's of Atlanta area corporations.

We had a delicious lunch and then got into hiring best practices. I enjoyed the interchange between the group and hope that I brought some real value.

One of the key responsibilities of an effective CEO is getting the right people on the bus.

This high octane breakfast will focus on how the business leader can and should impact hiring. By focusing on over a decade of collected best practices, I will share proven executable strategies designed to virtually guarantee hiring success.

During this one hour breakfast we won't focus on the details of the MATCH process, but we will focus on steps and strategies for implementing a systematic program designed to wildly impact your hiring ROI.

The Ravinia Club

Thursday, August 4

8:30AM -- Check In / Networking

9:00 - 10:00AM -- Presentation

$50/person -- includes breakfast and a copy of MATCH: A Systematic, Sane Process for Hiring the Right Person Every Time, published by Wiley

Contact Randi Bates at randi@accountantsone.com to reserve your space.

Seating is limited. Sign up today.

Here is what a few Atlanta CEOs have to say about MATCH:

“I have hired a great deal of people in my career. But it wasn’t until I used the MATCH process that I felt as comfortable with my hire on day one as I did a year after the employee started. I am very pleased with the results.”

"Few things impact a business more than the quality of its people.@The@MATCH process@can give you a leg up on your competition and make a real difference in the success of your business. Implement it!!!"

Today Washington announced that hiring slowed to a near-standstill in June leading to speculation that the economy will not be rebounding any time soon. This surpised many economists who predicted much stronger job creation. It also fired up the debate in Washington over how to create jobs while cutting spending.

Here is the bad news: In June only 18,000 net jobs were created which is the fewest in nine months. The unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent which is the highest rate of the year acording to  the Labor Department. If you account for "discouraged" workers and part timers who would prefer full-time work, then the "under-employment" rate jumped from 15.8 percent to 16.2 percent. This resulted from businesses adding just 57,000 jobs last month (the fewest in more than a year). Governments cut 39,000 jobs, bringing the total over the past eight months to a combined 238,000 positions.

The bad news caused stocks to plunge. By Friday afternoon the Dow sank more than 100 points . In a speech from the White House, President Barack Obama stated that, "our economy as a whole just isn't producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who is looking," He also used this new data to push Congress to raise the government's borrowing limit.

In the midst of this bad news, I would like to offer some good. Both Accountants One and The Waters Organizations had their best months of 2011 in June. Not that you should care about our sales, but certainly our mini-econonomic barometer shows that hiring is taking place. In fact, if you look at our sales since the beginning of the year you'd see slow and steady growth. Not that we're close to pre-2008 numbers, but every week is consistently better than the previous.

And in a very unscientific analysis of this hiring trend, I see the greatest increase of hiring activity within the small to mid-sized company arena. The large corporate entities continued hiring during the down-turn, but the smaller companies almost exited the field. I think it is a very promising sign to see them back at the hiring table.

Hope that bit of good news goes a long way!

A hilarious take on the interview process...

One of my Boot Camp participants sent me the link to Monty Python's take on interviewing. Mr. Cleese's techniques won't help us hire a better candidate, but it may make you laugh out loud (I particularly like the bell technique). 

Hope you enjoy.