What, specifically, is assholish about it?
Excluding those who may be perfectly talented and well qualified for the job, but have the misfortune to be out of work at the moment, in favor of seeking out some mythical “superstar.”
Please explain, in simple terms for those of us who do not have your unimpeachable knowledge of all things work-related, how a person’s credit score is a reliable indicator of their ability to perform their job. I would think that someone who has been unemployed long enough for it to effect their credit rating to be more dedicated to an employer willing to hire them, not to mention more motivated to do the best job possible. in fact, I would think they would be a more desirable employee than one who was willing to quit their current job just because someone waved a higher salary at them. After all, wouldn’t they be more likely to leave you under similar circumstances?
Again, why is it assholish?
Well, before everyone works themselves up into a hissy fit again, I think they need to get a grip.
First of all, if you are talking to HR or sending 300 resumes to company web sites, you clearly have no clue how to even look for a job. All those “rules” and “guidelines” are bullshit. I got hired in my current job while they were in the middle of a hiring freeze and layoffs. If a company needs someone for a specific position, they tend to hire for that position. The trick is to find out who specifically needs help in that organization and then convince them you are the best person for that job.
Yes, it sucks being unemployed. But understand that if you don’t get yourself in front of the person who actually makes the hiring decision (and he doesn’t want to look at a hundred candidates), you are subjecting yourself to a “beauty contest” where you will be arbitrarily judged against a dozen identical candidates by a team of pretentous, judgemental half-wits.
Oh, fucking shit, do you want me to draw you a picture?
If that happens before the interview, then you won’t hear from them, which is no worse than if you were honest. If they check after the interview, and you made a good impression, they are in the position of rejecting you on principle, or hiring the best person for the job. Either way, you are still no worse off than if you had been honest. And if they don’t check until after you are hired, you have an even better opportunity to prove your worth. More likely, they won’t check at all, and you keep the job and they are happy their system works and they got the best employee.
I don’t see the downside. The worst that can happen is you will be unemployed, the same as when you started.
The worst that will happen is that you no longer have honor and self-respect. The second worst is that you will be fired for lying on your resume, which doesn’t do your resume a whole lot of good. Being unemployed again might be third worst.
Corporations and other business entities certainly don’t have any moral qualities or duties, but for the individuals who are running the human resources departments in these businesses to treat the currently unemployed as essentially untouchables as a blanket policy is ridiculous. People can find themselves unemployed for a wide variety of reasons, sometimes through fault of their own if they are fired or sometimes because an entire company simply goes out of business (y’know, like in a recession). The individuals who, as a policy, are refusing to even consider unemployed applicants regardless of the reason they are unemployed deserve to be unemployed themselves.
It’s also ironic that Rand Rover is defending this practice as perfectly acceptable when also disparaging the Obama administration for having to rely primarily on federal new employment numbers for the month of May after a paltry showing by the private sector.
I don’t know. If you’ve gotten to the point where you’re lying on your resume you either a) no longer give a shit about honor and self respect or b) feel that being out of work is more detrimental to your self respect than fibbing on your resume.
Meh – it’s Rand Rover. What do you expect?
You will find you won’t get very far if you are depending on my sense of shame.
I want you to think about that statement for minute, and tell me why I would worry about additional black marks on my resume, when I never cared enough to include them in the first place.
The employer/employee relationship is always adversarial. The employer wants to secure the most productuctivity for the lowest expenditure. I have never worked for anyone who would hesitate to mislead me in order to maximize their half of the equation at my expense. I would be a fool to act otherwise. It is just business, not romance.
Companies typically do not formally check references until they are ready to make a hiring decision. But they may ask around informally.
Usually once you are hired and pass the background check, pretty much everything is filed away and never seen again.
Yes…this is something we try to discourage in new hires.
We are currently only looking for employees with no loyalty.
Reminds me of an ad I saw years back…
it was for a Production Manager, with a minimum of two years’ experience as a Production Manager in a tile company using a specific technique which was only employed by two companies in the whole country.
The old PM of Company A had retired, Company A had poached Company B’s PM… and who did Company B want to poach? There was nobody in the country who met their qualifications except the guy who’d just left them!
Camus–where’s the irony? Unemployment numbers are bad–that doesn’t mean it’s not OK for companies to only want to hire the currently employed.
Well yes, this is a rather obvious side effect of this policy. Not only will it cost you more to get someone who is already employed (becuase you’ll have to match or beat their current salary/package) but you end up with someone who is happy to job-hop, which means you could be looking for their replacement in a much shorter period than otherwise would be the case. Seems dumb.
Frankly I think the whole thing is designed to make more work for the HR people themselves by causing a “chain” effect of employee reshufflings across an industry. HR people are very good at that sort of thing.
It may be ok, but I think companies limit themselves by creating arbitrary hiring rules like that. Current employment is hardly an indication of competency.
It’s pretty much another example of companies using circular “management-think” to create self-fullfilling prophecies for their work environment. The most common one being “we hire the best and the brightest”. Are they the best and the brightest because you hired them or did you hire them because they actually are the best and the brightest.
Of course that’s bullshit because every single company I’ve worked for has said the same exact thing. My response to such a statement would be the following:
-Was every single employee here valadictorian of their class or a graduate from Harvard or some other school typically rated as “best”?
-Has every employee been recognized as a leader in whatever it is they do?
-Is this company the largest company by revenue in it’s industry?
-Is this company widely regarded as the “best and brightest” in it’s field?
The answer to this question is typically “of course not”. Like any other company you hired the best and brightest of WHOEVER ACTUALLY APPLIED.
One of my friends who worked for a “boutique” (IOW “small and mediocre”) investment bank and his buddies used to joke “our senior management have been fired from some of the top firms on Wall Street”.
Another buddy of mine used to tell me about how he would always interview people who would put bullshit on their resume to make them sound more impressive and how he would call them on it:
My buddy: “So I see you listed ‘mountain climbing’ as one of your other interests.”
Candidate: “Yes, that is correct. I am an avid mountain climber.”
B: “Did you climb Everest or K2 or anything like that?”
C: “Well…no…th…”
B: “Then I don’t really care.”
His argument was that he wanted to see actual acomplishments. Not random hobbies people did in their spare time.
Even worse, there are some professions where that sort of stunt could cost you your professional license/certification. Law is one - I’d be amazed if medicine isn’t another. CPAs would probably be in the same boat, I should think - possibly architects as well.
Tell them your current employer is not aware you are seeking other opportunities. Therefore you don’t want them contacted. This isn’t unusual. Companies looking to poach already employed people know that this kind of confidentiality is expected.