The tragedy of the ever increasing (and very
dangerous) encroachment of insurer preferences into our day to day lives is
most evident within the staff recruitment process.
In an era of widespread abstinence from assuming any
aspect of responsibility computer dating systems are being increasingly
employed within the employment process to choose the right people for the job.
Yes, it’s true.
Let me explain.
There are three key attributes that any sensible
employer will want to examine fully when deciding whether this or that person is
right for the job at hand – these are:
Knowledge
Skills
Attitude
Generally speaking (although there is some degree
of overlap because hey, we are not machines or Vulcan like Mr Spock) knowledge
focuses on academic excellence, skills on experience gained in past employment
and attitude on the personality of the candidate.
Since we are becoming increasingly more enfeebled
in communicating with others by technology such as email and text messaging it
is hardly surprising that the assessment of potential employees has become a source
of dread for anyone involved.
The fears are understandable:
What if the employee turns out to be a nut job?
What if I recruit someone that loses the company
millions of pounds?
The cure however is often far worse than the
disease.
The cure is to pass the buck either to the HR
department (on the erroneous assumption that they are trained in the recruitment
of persons as opposed to the employment of dating site matching practices) or to
a recruitment consultant.
By way of aside I was very recently astonished to
discover that a recent arrival to the recruitment market, which had won awards
for service to the recruitment industry for innovative practice methods was
headed by two individuals who had obtained “over the weekend” NLP certificates and
who had reduced their analysis of potential candidates to an inflexible
checklist more suitable for a Xmas party dinner menu than for someone looking
to build a committed career.
The fact is that the current trend of recruitment has
sought to streamline the recruitment process by devising selection procedures
that focus entirely on devising Matrix-style computer systems which shortlist
candidates entirely by the words they have chosen to use in the preparation of
their resumes.
Yes, that’s right – entirely by the words the
candidates have used in preparing their resumes or application forms.
The collective delusion of the safety of this
method is brought sharply into focus by the oft posted recruiter’s disclaimer:
if you’ve tricked us into employing you (and if we find you out) your file will
be passed to our lawyers who will rub their hands with glee at how much money
they’ve made out of everyone else dodging the bullet.
How reassuring to know that your lawyer will be
able to buy yet another ivory backscratcher with money earned from the pass the
buck recruitment process that you’ve been hoodwinked into accepting.
Incidentally, if you are employing recruitment
consultants and paying them a hefty finders’ fee why are you allowing them to
short change you with a cheap checklist selection process?
Is this what are you paying them for: a back of an
envelope “pin the tail on the donkey” charade?
This now accepted practice of assessing candidates gives
rise to an obsessive focus on the regularity of employed key words as being
pivotal to selection; effectively handing the decision to employ to the
candidate rather than retaining it within the employer’s business.
If you don’t believe me consider how many
candidates:
have good communication skills
are highly organized
are team players
give 110%
are computer literate
with good communication skills
Need I go on?
When you decide to recruit an employee you want to employ someone with the personality assessment skills of an accomplished poker player not a hustler playing playground snap.
