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Myths of Hiring, Part 3In the last few issues we discussed some of the most common myths we hear in the hiring process. In the next few issues wewill continue to address them. "PEOPLE WITH SMALL CHILDREN HAVE ATTENDANCE PROBLEMS." There is no statistical proof of this at all. Like tardiness, people who are going to have attendance problems will have them if they have no children at all. The issue here is that having small children, especially if the candidates are single parents, is an obvious concern; but so are other issues in the candidates' backgrounds or experience. Employers will tend to use this as an excuse and never hire a candidate because of it. A careful checking of references with candidates' previous employers will tell if there is going to be a problem. This is valid even if the last employment was before the candidate had children. People who want to be away from work will find some excuse. Those that are committed are committed. "WE NEED TO SEE RESUMES TO SEE IF THEY FIT." A recent survey of employers from 250 Fortune 500 companies showed that the average resume is read for less than 30 seconds and less than 5% of the resumes read result in interviews. This has nothing to do with hiring, just interviews. We estimate it takes 250 resumes well read longer than 30 seconds to produce a new hire. We wrote a couple of issues of HIRING LINE regarding resumes, but it is very safe to say collecting resumes is normally a waste of time. They don't get read. Those facts on top of the fact that good resume writers often don't make good employees on top of the fact that the only closeness to perfection on this earth we come to is when we write our resumes suggests that there is no way anyone can detect a match by reading a resume. "PEOPLE WHO AREN'T LOCALLY BORN AND RAISED WILL EVENTUALLY LEAVE AND GO HOME." Don't tell any of the people with American Airlines, J.C. Penny, Caltex Petroleum etc. We hear this more than most people would think. The fact that a person is from anywhere but Texas has nothing to do with his success or his staying or going. This is more of a function of the economy. We don't get as many calls from candidates in Boston or California as we did in 1982. Some come to Texas, some stay, some go elsewhere. Anytime we hear a person talk about Yankees we correct them and remind them of what the above-mentioned Yankee companies have done for our economy. The same is true for individuals. Where a person is from has nothing to do with his professionalism or his commitment to work. PEOPLE WHO ARE OUT OF WORK PRESENTLY AREN'T AS GOOD AS CANDIDATES WHO ARE PRESENTLY EMPLOYED." This is some silly myth that someone dreamed up. It has no validity at all. Somebody must have written it down somewhere and sold it. There are more companies going or down-sizing these days than there are coming or expanding. Whether a candidate is employed or not has nothing to do with his ability. The question that should be asked is WHY is he unemployed. If his company closed for good reasons that Is one thing, if he was fired, that Is another. Some of the smartest and best business people we have seen took their company's severance packages and devoted all of their time to seeking a new position. To say these people are less than qualified because they aren't presently employed has no validity. "PEOPLE THAT HAVE EARNED MORE THAN WE ARE PAYING JUST WONT BE HAPPY." For the most part this rule of thumb has no ground of practical application. Within reason good people rise to their level of competency and take their job function with them. Now we are not saying to hire someone who has made $75,000 at a $35,000 salary. That is not reasonable. But we do see employers eliminate candidates that have earned $5,000 even $10,000 more than what they can afford to pay simply because of the difference in the salary. That is not reasonable either. The issue here is to take into consideration all aspects of the candidate in relationship to the job. The job function, the company, its growth, the future, the long term commitment of the candidate, how well he likes the job, his personal goals and values all have an impact on what kind of starting salary the candidate will consider or be worth to the employer. The type of job, be it sales, administrative or technical and how much if any incentives there are involved will also have an impact on the starting salary. Some positions are limited as to what they are worth no matter who does them. A person can effect their monetary value to a company by performance. To arbitrarily eliminate candidates because they have made more money than the job initially pays is illogical and not to everyone's business interest. People's satisfaction in a job just doesn't come strictly from money. |
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