What is your opinion of President Obama’s first state of the union speech? I thought it was long on delivery, but very short on substance and tactics. I will begin with positives and then move into negatives.

Because I am a member of one of Toastmaster’s most advanced speaking groups, I am very critical of any speech’s nuances. As a result, I am a very difficult grader. However, in President Obama’s case, I rated his style and delivery an “A” because: a) he was very poised before, during and after the speech b) his navy blue suit, white shirt, red tie and U.S. flag lapel pin delivered a maximum impact consistent with the American flag over his shoulder c) he was very articulate with a very strong, uplifting, inspirational and confident tone throughout (e.g. “again we are tested and again we must answer history’s call”) d) he employed good vocal variety e) he had excellent eye contact with the entire room constantly moving his head from side to side as if speaking to everyone individually f) he used a lot of timely pauses to emphasize points g) there were a lot of good hand gestures and non-verbal communication to match his verbal communication h) he offered a lot of examples to support his assertions i) he often employed humor to evoke positive responses from the audience (e.g. “we all hated the bank bailout”) j) he added a lot of memorable one liners (e.g. “I do not accept 2nd place for the United States of America”) to evoke many positive applauses from the audience and k) he ended with a very strong and memorable statement, “We don’t quit, I don’t quit.”

He also began his speech with a strong statement about employment; “jobs need to be our number one focus in 2010.” Furthermore, 2/3’s of his speech was devoted to the economy. This is important because most polls show that jobs and the economy are of paramount importance to most voters. This contrasted with such topics as health care and closing Guantanamo Bay, which have preoccupied the Administration up until now.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of items both that he shared and didn’t mention that are cause for concern. They include:

1. His language and tone was defiant continuing to cling onto his three main goals, which will distract him from a jobs creation focus. He was like a gun fighter emphasizing that he is in this gunfight to win. Furthermore, he stated and implied that his agenda has not changed and he is going to continue to pursue health care, education and energy reform. All are commendable goals, but in a time of crisis and limited resources, one needs to focus all of their attention and political capital on the most important concern of voters, creating jobs. Once this is fixed, the other items will be easier to address.

2. I question his numbers. For example, he claimed to have saved 2 million jobs. Before the speech, the administration had been trumpeting that their stimulus plan has saved or created 640,329 jobs at http://www.recovery.gov With three straight months of 10%+ unemployment, which is the first time that has occurred since June, 1983, added to figures from the Economic Policy Institute at http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/jobs_crisis_fact_sheet/ which show 17.3% of those working that are underemployed (i.e. 1 in 6), I seriously question those numbers. Where’s the proof Mr. President?

3. He continues to blame others. For example, he repeatedly blamed former President Bush for his ills. One year into his administration with a majority of both houses of Congress in his favor why is he still blaming the past administration? Furthermore, he took an unprecedented swipe at the Supreme Court in the front row. Wake up and smell the coffee President Obama, you own this problem now!

4. There are huge contradictions between what he stated and what his actions will be. For example, he talked about providing incentives to small businesses, but there was little talk about freeing them up from all the bureaucratic red tape that he has added in his one year in office. Furthermore, his mantra continues to be: the federal government is going to solve this problem. This will interfere with that process of jobs creation. Also, he talked about spending an additional $82 to 115 billion dollar on jobs creation. Wasn’t the $787 billion he already spent enough? This is going to further plunge this country into debt! Lastly, instead of what President Bill Clinton did when he was in trouble in 1995 by: a) adding a more centrist adviser in David Gergen and b) moving to the center to gain Republican’s support, President Obama has added another far left advisor to his already extreme left leaning team in David Plouffe. This signals more of the same!

5. He has the wrong people trying to solve America’s problems. For example, Arne Duncan, who had only limited success as Chicago’s school superintendent, is heading up his educational reform plan. Instead, we need more creative minds who can generate revolutionary ideas in our time of crisis. For example, 46% of all U.S. PhD’s are foreign born according to the most recent figures by the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. If we wish to truly improve technology then we need to vastly improve our math, science and educational training in this country. In the process we need to convince more students to enter the fields of R&D, chemistry, engineering and technology. To do so we need to vastly improve the educational process to make such training fun and effective.

6. Too little, too late. If he had been focused on small business creation at the beginning of his administration, this problem may not be so dire today. Instead, he spent $787 Billion on bailouts of the banks, Big 3 automakers and other new society programs, which sapped his energy and America’s resources.

In closing, I see no reason to change my one-year grade of F for this administration. Therefore, I stick by what I mentioned on WGN Radio on Saturday, January 23rd and WGN TV on Monday, January 25th. Please go to http://www.strategicsearch.com/media.php to view both appearances.

We just passed the one-year mark for President Obama’s administration. My key question to you: is the jobs market better off or worse off as a result of what he has done? I believe the answer is clear: we are worse off! December marked the third straight month of 10%+ national unemployment. The last time that occurred was June of 1983, when we had ten straight months of 10%+ unemployment.

Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill into law just weeks after taking office. He says it has saved jobs and staved off an even deeper recession. I do not believe so. History tells us that small businesses actually create jobs. Not the big programs for big companies that this administration has rolled out. In fact, research from the Small Business Administration (SBA) confirms that almost 64% of the net new jobs over the last 15 years were created by small businesses. Unfortunately, very little of the stimulus money was targeted towards small businesses.

Last week I visited two growing, smaller companies that are rolling out several new electronics products. Both want to quickly recruit several new employees. Unfortunately, this administration has done little to assist them. In fact both are worried that some of the costly programs like healthcare may even slow down their jobs creation efforts by saddling them with a lot of extra costs and layers of regulation!

Furthermore, both companies provide products and services for the industrial machinery field. Because these machines are becoming more complex, both need increasingly better educated workers including on their sales and marketing staff.  This requires our educational system to improve dramatically especially in the areas of math, science and engineering. This is another area that this administration has paid a lot of lip service to, but has not delivered much in the way of benefits.

Maybe a referendum was delivered yesterday in Massachusetts when Scott Brown became the first Republican Senator elected to that state since 1972.  It is a sign to the administration that more needs to be done to help the real engine for jobs growth, small businesses!

Is anyone hiring right now? Several of my clients are starting to recruit including Right Hand Technologies (RHT). Please go to http://www.righthandtech.com/ for more details on this unique engineering consulting company.

Within the last 90 days, RHT added 3 experienced hardware design engineers, each with more than 7 years experience. Furthermore, they plan to add one or two more according to senior engineer George Dotts. “These additions represent a 25% increase in our hardware engineering staff. Two of the positions are due to new contracts from existing clients. The other is for a new client. As a premier design consultancy in focused engineering markets, we require experienced engineers with at least 5 years experience. Therefore, you cannot extrapolate these hiring numbers to less experienced engineers,” says Mr. Dotts.

RHT has projected continued strong growth for 2010. Assuming those projections are met, they will be considering more junior hardware and software engineers in 2011 with the goals of: 1) freeing up the more experienced engineers from routine engineering tasks and 2) building a pool of internal talent that can be mentored and cultivated to become the future senior engineers.

Outside of RHT, I have seen mixed results. The December Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures showed that temporary hiring increased by 47,000. This demonstrates that companies are expanding, but are still hesitant to add full time employees. Indications of new job creation are mixed. For example, Telecom continues to be soft, IT seems to be gaining momentum and embedded software and hardware engineering has some positive results.

Despite the December BLS numbers which show unemployment unchanged at 10%, many companies are starting to hire again. Below is an example of one of my client’s recent openings. Please let me know if you know of anyone who fits these requirements.

Thank you,

-Scott

Marketing Manager

Position Summary:

Responsible for developing strategies to increase sales and profits our Motion Control Products Group while providing premier customer service to the customers, distributors and field sales people. The strategies include product development, competitor and market analysis, training, managing target account programs, strategic pricing and developing target accounts including uncovering solutions and applications that meet this account’s needs. The key is we are making a major transition from fluid power based to electronic based motion control products. As a result, we need someone to guide us with this transition.

Scope/Supervision and Interaction:

30% will be travel to key customers and potential customers to uncover their needs. 70% will be new product development including working with the sales force to: a) develop new products and applications that meet customer needs and b) developing tools to help our sales force to be more efficient in their sales process. Responsible for determining pricing, products offered, target markets and product line forecasting. Interact with customers, product engineering, operations and quality assurance functions. Manage 2-3 Product Managers.

Essential Functions:

1. Lead “Voice of the Customer” interviews to determine unmet needs and translate them into new products/solutions. Make recommendations and evaluations on new product opportunities.

2. Lead new product development teams and provide clear product definitions to teams.

3. Develop specific market and customer strategies in cooperation with field sales.

4. Manage, develop, and track key accounts to achieve growth and profit targets.

5. Develop and conduct product, sales and market training for field sales, distributors, and customers.

6. Develop product literature and marketing materials.

7. Assist in developing advertising and promotional programs.

8. Attend sales conferences, trade shows, as required. Manage marketing materials such as displays and literature for trade shows and tech tour.

9. Establish programs and procedures to assist field sales achieving profitable volume.

10. Support field sales with information regarding pricing, sales and customer policies, monitor complaints.

11. Conduct periodic market evaluations.

12. Conduct competitive analysis of product lines.

13. Accompany and assist field sales as required.

14. Maintain records up-to-date, by customer, for ready retrieval.

15. Facilitate exchange of information between engineering and field sales management.

16. Assist in the developing pricing strategies.

17. Assist in the developing product and positioning strategies.

18. Fact finds and relationship builds with field sales and customers to identify growth opportunities.

19. Identify technology, growth trends, global competitive factors and forecasts in market segments. Identifies and develops new products, enhanced capabilities, value added services and opportunities for existing products to meet targeted growth plans in conjunction with engineering and operations

20. Ability to demonstrate accountability for results and sound business judgment/decision-making.

Qualifications:

1. Bachelor’s degree (Prefer engineering degree). MBA is also preferred.

2. At least 10 years experience in sales and/or marketing of electro-mechanical or motion control or controls or electronics products or robotics or servo motors or any products with a heavy emphasis on electronic motion.  Prefer experience with a manufacturer, but would consider a strong candidate from a distributor.

3. Strong sales presence with a demonstrated excellence in written and verbal communication skills.

4. Very customer-driven with a strong customer mindset including: a) engaging and interviewing the customer b) learning customer behaviors c) uncovering the customer value proposition d) uncovering the customer benefit e) uncovering unique applications that meet customer needs f) a belief and track record in 1st call resolution g) implement the right pricing strategy to meet customer needs and h) determine where to sell based upon customer needs.

5. Creative and strategic thinker who can “think outside of the box” to: a) uncover and apply innovative marketing techniques b) develop product strategies c) develop new products and applications to meet customer needs and d) generate unique applications and problems that differentiate our company from the competition.

6. Strong track record in business intelligence and data mining including: a) can quickly discern what is absolutely essential and what is not? b) what do our competitors do better than us? c) quickly understanding the market including where the industry as a whole is moving and uncovering what the unique applications we as a company need to deliver to our customers? d) what’s our biggest need in product development? e) analysis of vast amounts of data to quickly uncover what are the major customer trends and then quickly developing useful products and applications based upon those trends.

7. Strong project management experience including: a) Road-mapping and b) Gap Analysis.

8. Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills. For example, has the mindset, “how do I solve this problem?”

9. Strong leadership and team building skills.

10. Computer and Internet savvy including: a) MS Office preferred – excel & database experience and b) strong familiarity with social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

11. Experience with managing advertising agencies.

How to apply:

Please send the following listed at http://www.strategicsearch.com/interview-preparation-contact.php to our retained recruiter:

Scott Sargis

President

Strategic Search Corporation

312-944-4000

mailto:ssargis@strategicsearch.com

Happy New Year everyone! After the football bowl games if you are ready to start recruiting again, please go to http://www.strategicsearch.com/technical-recruiting-tips/ and click on 7th to view this month’s technical recruiting tip, which is the 7th magical interview question, the mirror question.  Let me demonstrate this by an example. Let’s say that: a) you are interviewing a candidate b) you ask this job candidate who their best friend is and c) the candidate’s response is Joe. Then you ask, “If I were to ask Joe what type of person you are, what would they tell me?” Do you see what I did?

My over twenty years of recruiting experience demonstrates that most candidates will try hard to mirror that person’s actual response (e.g. Joe’s response).  You can also plug in a wide range of people into the mirror question including past employers and co-workers. Regardless of whom you plug in to this interview question, this job candidate’s answers will tend to very truthful. So remember to employ the mirror question during your job interviews.

This is the final one of my seven magical interview questions for you. Next month I will change gears and offer you other types of technical recruiting instructions.