Mural by Nadi Spencer, as posted on Flickr by mrphancy
Power corrupts, goes the saying, and when it comes to hiring in a weak economy, employers have the power. On an ethical level, this has led to a morally bankrupt hiring system.
Long before one responsible, hard-working individual (i.e candidate) can look a potential colleague (i.e. interviewer) in the eye, s/he has to pass through a dehumanizing and unfair system.
First, an automated process must analyze your background and verify you meet certain prerequisites that merit your contact with an actual human being. But the problem is that people are not keywords, and life is complicated. If you don’t believe me, look at the challenges that professional sports teams face. They employ scouting systems to personally evaluate promising athletes, and yet even such systems can’t accurately predict the composition of a winning team.
Second, growing numbers of organizations now ask candidates to do performance tasks before they are granted interviews. Example: create a sales presentation as though you were selling our product to a Fortune 500 company.
So you — a smart person who needs a job — have to jump through hoops that seem arbitrary and unfair, just to get to the point at which you can look someone in the eye.
Contrast this to how companies recruit “high potential” talent. (Translation: successful professionals who have a job.) Top consulting firms hire executive recruiters to personally contact proven consultants and executives at other firms. They begin with personal, human to human interactions. Why? Because top talent has power, too.
So the implicit message is: automated searches are for prospective employees who don’t matter.
Some will argue that companies are merely engaging in an efficient process to manage high volumes of applicants. I’d argue that they are doing irreparable harm to their corporate cultures.
If companies introduce you to their organization by forcing you through a dehumanizing process, they are providing you with clues about:
what life in the company is like
how much — or little — the company values its people
how one-sided the employer/employee relationship is
what to expect when times get tough
Making you jump through hoops just to land an interview? Not a good sign on any of those four fronts.
I have a theory of business, and it’s ridiculously simple: human relationships drive business success.
Companies love to embrace technology and financial models and new metrics and hot management fads, but human beings still decide what to buy and when to buy. Companies still get acquired or sold based on how investors feel about a management team.
If companies treat potential employees like cattle, they will get a workforce comprised mainly of people who are willing to be herded. To put it another way…
The people who are best with other people, those who especially value human connections, will not engage in such a dehumanizing hiring process.
In the name of efficiency, many organizations are screening out the people most likely to lead them to success. Creative types. Divergent thinkers. Innovators. Entrepreneurs. Resourceful folks who recognize: there is always a choice.
There is always a choice. Choose humanity.