It’s an ethical question. My organisation is going to be announcing widespread layoffs in a few months, and it seems that everyone is potentially on the block. We’ll see. In any case, we are all looking for jobs, myself included, but it is a pretty dire situation since there are so few opportunities in our quite specialised field.
The other day I came across an advertisement for a position that is quite a good fit for my skills and experience, and I applied. However, I have a colleague who I think would also be a decent candidate for the position. He is a nice guy, but I don’t know him that well. He is just a colleague rather than a close friend, if that matters. So I am wondering whether I should tell him about the position. From an ethical point of view, it would be a nice thing to do. But if he ends up getting the position and I end up out of work, I might regret telling him. (Of course, it is quite possible that neither of us will even get an interview. One never knows.)
It is also possible that he already knows about it (and hasn’t told me!). But this job hasn’t shown up yet on the usual job lists (I found it on the org’s website), so it is likely my colleague doesn’t know about it.
An economist, a chaos theorist, and a statistician are trying to shoot a deer for dinner with a bow and arrow. The economist assumes no wind, and misses five feet to the left. He hands over the bow to the chaos theorist, who overestimates the effect of the wind, and misses five feet to the right. The statistician pumps his fist in the air and exclaims: “We got him!”.
Do you have an agreement with him to share job openings? If not, I don’t see any reason to tell him. Even if you think he is a much better fit, you don’t owe a company you don’t work for anything, and you might be encouraging him to leave your company even if there are no layoffs or if he isn’t affected.
Now, if you apply and do get the job and find that there is another opening, you can certainly tell him about it and give him an in.
I would share the job with him. My thinking is this:
Your odds of not getting the job are already quite high - there are probably a hundred other applicants. All else being equal, your odds of getting it change from 1/100 to 1/101. (from 1.00% to 0.99%)
But telling him about it probably creates a favor between the two of you. It’s hard to estimate the value of that, but it doesn’t need to have a very high value/likelihood to compensate for a 0.01% reduction in odds of being hired.
I agree there is no ethical obligation and if I were you, I would not tell him. Not even to limit the number of competitors, but it would be a little weird if you landed the job that you recommended to him.
Another possibility: you tell him and he gets the job before the layoffs start, improving your odds of keeping your current job. If you are one of ten people with a certain skill set and the management wants to end up with five, your colleague leaving voluntarily increases your chances of surviving the layoff by ~11%. However if management considers you to be just another replaceable drone your benefit will be negligible.
This is why I love the Dope. Pure rationalisation, backed up by math
Unfortunately, what is happening in my organisation is basically a genocide. Management wants to get rid of as many of its core staff as possible, for mostly political reasons. If my colleague leaves on his own, that reduces the total cost of redundancy packages that management has to pay, but the rest of us are just as likely to get the axe.
Anyone who thinks the nonprofit world is kinder and gentler is sadly mistaken…
Network, and not just with people you know well. You never know when a favor is going to get returned, or how, or by whom.
Tell the guy, but be honest - tell him you’re applying too. He may already know, and in return tell you about something else. If he gets it, and if you both stay in the same field, you’ll cross paths again before long, with him owing you one. If you get it, he’ll remember you as a straight shooter and helpful, and you never know when *that *will come in handy.
I have no idea how big the talent pool is in your area for your line of work, but if it’s fairly small, it’s likely you will encounter this gentleman again at some point. Why not make him a fast friend and tell him about the opening? Even if he gets the job and not you, he is likely to remember you and be a good personal reference should you need one. I once fired someone who later hired me at another company. He felt I’d treated him fairly when I had to let him go and told the new company that I was honest and could be trusted, big power words in the HR world.
In 35 years of working, I’ve never known anyone who told someone else in their company that they were looking for a job, and especially which company they were applying to. No one in his or her right mind is going to be put out by not getting this information. My experience includes pre-layout situations.
And much better for the OP to be the reference and not get the reference.
There is nothing unfair about not broadcasting where you are looking for work.
If you are applying for a job with 100 other applicants, and you can see no reason why you should get the job besides pure chance, you probably shouldn’t even be applying. Certainly not for the specialty job mentioned in the OP.
My experience with the job market does make it look pretty much random, at least from the applicant’s perspective. You only know a small set of the traits the employer is looking for. Even if you meet every qualification listed, you can’t be sure that you’re not over qualified or a bad fit for the culture or who knows what.
Exactly the problem. If someone is applying for a McJob, probably no way around it, but when one is looking at jobs like the OP is, the number of people in the field is limited. If someone does some research, finds someone who knows the job from the inside, and then asks, he or she will get a leg up and probably also get brownie points from the manager.
If two people had the same basic qualifications, who would you hire - the guy who shows some initiative or the guy who sends the resume by pushing a button?
Networking does work. It’s harder than mass posting resumes, but it is a lot more effective.
