The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

September 1, 2024
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The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

A friend told this story to me and gave me permission to share it.
About 15 years ago, I took a series of interviews with a publishing company for a role to run their IT Project Management Office. Met with two Accenture consultants. Apparently aced the interviews and later received an interesting phone call.
“Listen, we’d like to bring you in as a consultant to train the person who’s been hired for the role, would you be able to do that?” Yeah, really. Not kidding. Back then I figured that a year from now, they’d figure out they needed an experienced hire and not a friend-of-a-friend. And sure enough, a year later almost to the day, the same role was advertised once again. Interesting how that works when someone honestly thinks that you can use an experienced hire to train someone with no experience and expect it all to be successful.
So today I got this feeling of Deja Vu when I got a call from a recruiter with whom I was speaking whose client was looking for someone to do their project management, so I gave them my consulting rate and said to let me know if they want to speak. Today, they’re interested in setting up a conversation, but want to know if I’d be willing to “just do it part-time so they can see what their needs are and whether they’d make it full-time or just keep it part-time.”
WTF? Seriously? So you expect me to be committed to them but they aren’t willing to fully commit to me. Now there’s a recipe for success. Said no one ever. Told them that it’s a recipe for having to search for a candidate multiple times because anyone worthwhile will sprint at a better full-time offer.
“Well, maybe you can get a second part-time gig.” What the hell are they smoking? Pretty sure it’s crack because no clear-headed person would take this seriously. So I told them I’d have a conversation, but unless they’re willing to fully commit, there’s no reason for them to expect that in return.
So I just want to know where people come up with the notion that you can just underfund and under-resource a role and think somehow that will end up being successful for all involved. Because we know that they’ll want to squeeze 40 hours of work out of someone who’s only being paid for 20. That might be ok if they decided to double my rate for the hours, but it still means they’ll only get 20 hours of work. Again, it’s a matter of committing to people who aren’t willing to share in that commitment or have the same realistic focus for success.
There are a few simple rules:
1. If you need someone who has 20 years of experience, you’ll need to seek and compensate for that, not take the guy with 4 years and hope he cuts it.
2. Projects can cost organizations tens of millions of dollars. When they don’t deliver, those dollars are stranded. Want to be successful? Empower and enable your project manager to do the job for which you need him/her. Don’t hamstring them.
3. Say your project will cost $15M in the year it’s being executed. And say it goes longer and costs the same proportion of money for each month it extends. It’s still cheaper to get a qualified resource than paying the cheap rate. I’m waiting for companies to figure out that being pennywise is pound-foolish in this and many other respects.
I mean just ask that publishing company who had to hire twice because of bad advice and crony resourcing. Or probably this client.
Think of it another way: You want the best and most qualified contractor to perform renovations on your house. You know he isn’t cheap. Three guesses what he’ll say to the idea of being paid half of his normal rates, the first two are just practice.

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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER

People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS Career Advice globally because he makes many things in peoples’ careers easier. Those

Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

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