Tuesday, January 20, 2009

It's a Conspiracy - Stealing your time



"Companies are just out there trying to waste my time! It must be a conspiracy!" Now that's a common (and ludicrus) sentiment I hear from candidates I coach.

I'm not sure how this conspiracy started, perhaps in the backrooms of a big corporation one day. Maybe it started just as a joke, and then spread to other corporations.

I can see it now... managers sitting around with HR people, laughing, about how they post job ads, receive resumes, make phone calls, set up and conduct interviews, have applicants fill out paperwork, take notes and make applicant files, and in truth, It's all fake! There's no job opening. They're not wasting their time, they are wasting yours. Oh my! I can see how funny this must be. How productive it is for the company!

From a candidate's point of view

They took:

Ten maybe fifteen seconds to click on a job posting

Three to five minutes on a phone interview

Time for the commute both ways

Thirty minute interview

Then they get rejected and think to themselves, "What a waste of time. They brought me in just to reject me!" They "wasted" two hours of your time collectively, yet how much time did they "waste" writing job postings, screening applications, reading resumes, making phone calls, scheduling interviews, conducting interviews, deciding on who (one person out of many) to hire, and filing necessary paperwork?




Something tells me that for the ONE person that got the job, it wasn't such a waste.

Maybe you need to be the ONE or notice why your not, in lieu of thinking the company is out to waste your time.

Dennis
(Video snip is property of IBM corporation)

2 comments:

  1. Talk about needing an attitude adjustment! I'm aghast - literally! If a job seeker understood the COST of recruiting a new employee - they'd be less likely to view it as a conspiracy.

    Business is about making money and hiring a new employee is a VERY expensive proposition. As an employer, I worry about whether or not the employee will be productive and will justify the cost of hiring and training them.

    In other words, I worry about accidentally hiring someone who thinks I'm investing the time to advertise the position is a conspiracy!

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  2. Thank you for the comment. Agreed it is very expensive to find good employees. What I want candidates to understand is, it is their responsibility to earn the position, is not their given right. That when they are called for an interview, they don't automatically have the position, it is their time to impress and win the position. I hear many comments that are similar, basically blaming the company, If candidates understood that they are competing for the position, and that they need to make it worthwhile for a company to hire them, they will get the positions they desire.

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