Friday, June 25, 2010
RESILIENCE IS NOT ALWAYS A VIRTUE
I'm very disturbed by a new trend I have been hearing about - and that is that companies looking to hire are now requesting "only candidates who are currently working". I find this very disturbing. The belief is that if someone has been out of work since 2008, even if that person has been working on project assignments, they may be "out of touch". This is absolutely ludicrous. I would concur had it been 10 years. But we have been in a deep recession since 2008, which has had a disproportionate effect on the job market. It's simply the luck of the draw. If a person had a job at the time the recession started but was hoping to make a change - that doesn't make them better or more qualified than one who didn't have a job at the time. It only makes them more resilient. That person probably hung on for fear of not being able to find another job. Resilience is not always a virtue.
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Grouping people into categories may not be a good approach to finding the “right” person, if anyone can be called the right person. A person who has been out of a “permanent” job is not necessarily bad. Where are the skills of a good HR/Hiring Manager? Prior to reactivating his/her job search, a candidate looking for a job may have been studying, working on consulting assignments, performing voluntary work or all of the above. Human Resources management is much more an art and less a science. Objectivity is crucial when hiring a person. The best person for a job is the person that actually performs the job (and his peers have had the opportunity to assess his performance). Thinking that "only candidates who are currently working" are the best source of good candidates is as false as thinking that “only people who have had ten or more years of experience” are competent and anything less than that (e.g., 8 or 9 years experience) is unacceptable. Each person has unique qualities. A good recruiter/interviewer has the opportunity to excel in selecting for his/her organization the best person from a pool of individuals with diversified backgrounds, education and experience. Simply selecting from "only candidates who are currently working" makes the recruiter’s job easier but does not provide the best candidate to the recruiter’s organization. Selecting from "only candidates who are currently working" does not help the recruiter’s organization or the national economy.
ReplyDeleteExactly! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, whoever you are.
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