# Why Aren't People Working? (Personal anecdotes only) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 5, 2024, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662 "2024-01-05T17:34:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/361 "2024-01-16T20:38:50Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I had a student screened out of a database job by an HR consultant because they didn’t have "Squills’ Turns out their resume had “Strong knowledge of Structured Query Language” and the HR person was looking for “SQL” which they were calling “Squills” A friend was talking to a recruiter years ago. The recruiter said “I see you have skills in tick pip.” He meant TCP/IP. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/362 "2024-01-16T22:39:07Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > That poor woman. What became of her? More or less spent the rest of her life having extended “visits” to progressively more and more distant relatives. Lost track of her after awhile. I’m not really interested in contact with most of my spouse’s family - he was the White Sheep of the lot. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/363 "2024-01-16T22:49:31Z")
Heh. White Sheep. I never thought of it that way. But yeah, I know what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2024, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/364 "2024-01-16T23:38:02Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > One of my friends at work was a rising star because he was an excellent coder, and loved it. His idea of a fun weekend at home was rewriting parts of his network stack to improve something or other. He was the guy everyone would go to if they had a problem they couldn’t figure out. > > > > Anyway, his manager announced to him that he was so awesome he was being promoted to management. My friend is a serious introvert. He told his boss he didn’t want it, he just wanted to code, please don’t promote him. The manager said he didn’t like his attitude, that he was expected to ‘step up’ when asked, and promoted him anyway. > > Most of the places I’ve worked had a dual latter, one for technical, one for management. Being high on the technical ladder paid well. I used to see the Bell Labs salary scatter plots. It is easier to get into a low level management position, and high level technical jobs expect you to lead projects, not just code, but it is still easier. > I was a first level manager, which was still technical, and I was a temporary second level manager when my boss retired. I hated it - it was all budgets and meetings and basically dropped the ball enough so that i didn’t get chosen. Never regretted that. > As an example, one person who was the best debugger in the company went from that job to executive VP of the semiconductor division. And was awful at it, but he did spend a long time doing purely tech things for a lot of money, if not a big office. I feel like a lot of companies are getting away from that sort of duel hierarchy model. The trend now seems to be this sort of “digital” “product-based” “Agile” “devops” model. Or at least some sort of hybrid. Not everyone buys into it. Executives still tend to be mired in their big hierarchies and budgets and annual planning meetings while a lot of developers tend to want to work in isolation and be handed tickets with all the detailed requirements spelled out for them. Even for me this stuff gets a little abstract. Like at what point does someone tell some dude in India or Poland or wherever how to build the API that connects to the KYC/AML surveillance database? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/365 "2024-01-17T00:00:11Z")
Quarterly and annual ‘Engineering’ meetings were annoying as hell. We got to sit there while the finance guys talked P&L, cost centers, OM, blah blah blah. Then the sales guys would get to talk about improving sales margins, contact to sale ratios, whatever. Then we’d get told all about our awesome capital moves. In the last five or ten minutes there might be an ‘engineering update’. It was clear what they did and didn’t care about. In the end, it showed in the final products, or lack thereof. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/366 "2024-01-17T03:18:44Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > > [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > > > The Squills part is horrifying (and probably very common with some of these HR nitwits) but the applicant should have known to use the acronym SQL. Resume keyword scanning has been a thing for a very long time. > > The poor student probably didn’t know better, but I don’t think I ever heard “structured query language” used in the five years I worked for Oracle. > > I got to define the search terms, by the way, and if I had wanted someone with an SQL background I doubt I would have put “structured query language” in them. I mostly put in the acronyms current for the specialty I was in. What I find particularly frustrating is how companies seem so picky about hiring what they think are perfect candidates and yet end up full of people who seem so completely useless at their jobs. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/367 "2024-01-17T03:30:51Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What I find particularly frustrating is how companies seem so picky about hiring what they think are perfect candidates and yet end up full of people who seem so completely useless at their jobs. Over the years, I saw a lot of good hires. I also saw some mediocre and poor ones, but I would say not as many. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/368 "2024-01-17T15:55:39Z")
I like working at every level of my job. It’s a bit different than a tech job. As of 2022, I’m technically management, but I don’t officially manage anyone – yet practically, I manage _everyone_ to coordinate all of our grants. So much of my job is communicating that I need X thing from the CEO, Y thing from the QA person, Z thing from Director A. I run a lot of (highly efficient, if I do say so myself) meetings. It’s the ultimate herding cats to get a project done job. Then there’s the whole strategic vision piece. I love the leadership and strategic planning stuff just as much as the writing and administration. I even enjoy the budget stuff. I didn’t realize there was such a wide disparity in terms of what people like to do, so I guess that’s lucky. All that’s really required for me to like something is that it’s hard, so that I don’t get bored – and that I don’t have to talk to people I don’t know, because I have social anxiety. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/369 "2024-01-17T18:23:40Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What I find particularly frustrating is how companies seem so picky about hiring what they think are perfect candidates and yet end up full of people who seem so completely useless at their jobs. My partner’s company has an HR department notorious for selecting the wrong candidates for interview. There’s a perpetually unfilled position that requires a very specific skillset; once they refused to allow a contractor to interview who’d been absolutely exemplary in the job itself for 5 years as a temp; all the managers wanted him but HR said he wasn’t qualified. But they always, always send over the same person, a person with experience as a real estate agent and nothing else; she has no chance of getting the job but HR says she must be among the interview pool, again and again. In my own company we recently saw an ideal person leave the organization over this kind of thing; she’d been doing excellent work worth twice her salary, again as a contractor. The perfect job opened up for her, but they posted it as internal only; she wasn’t eligible to apply. The wrong person\* (by general consensus) got the job, and the excellent contractor quit within the month. \*I say the wrong person because usually when an opening is internal only, the reason they do that is because they want to hire a specific person. But in this case, apparently that person didn’t even apply and the boss had to hire the second-best out of a pool that was artificially, unnecessarily limited to start. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/370 "2024-01-17T18:26:44Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > all the managers wanted him but HR said he wasn’t qualified Wow, that is totally ass-backwards. At my company, the hiring manager sets the qualifications, not HR. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/371 "2024-01-17T18:30:22Z")
The HR person I mentioned previously, that was hired and lasted a matter of weeks apparently tried to interview every single applicant. Whether they were qualified on paper, or not. Thirty applications? Thirty interviews. Meanwhile we are desperate to get positions filled. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/372 "2024-01-17T19:23:07Z")
If you are somebody who got hired despite a hopeless resumé, e.g. @Spice_Weasel’s short-lived HR person, then ignoring resumés seems like par for their course. When I had to suddenly change careers around age 40 to something I hadn’t done in 20 years I found a job quickly at a start-up. Only because the person screening and interviewing (the original founder) had no friggin’ clue what they were looking for. Later when I was in the hiring role for folks to work under me I looked at those folks’ resumés, compared them to what my own had been, and realized how lucky I was. And how lucky my founder and by then business partner had been to pick me versus some other random character with an equally hopeless resumé. Sometimes the right result comes from the wrong process. But it’s sure not the way to bet. And especially not at scale in established corporations as some of the HR stories upthread attest. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/373 "2024-01-17T19:44:49Z")
It’s a bit like politics. Being good at getting elected isn’t the same as being good at running the government. When you’re unemployed for a long time, getting hired becomes a job unto itself, and requires different skills from actually doing the job. In my work, I have very little interaction with other people, and so people skills are not really a priority beyond knowing not to do anything really outrageous around others. But getting hired? You have to make the people like you! Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/374 "2024-01-17T21:02:18Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Wow, that is totally ass-backwards. At my company, the hiring manager sets the qualifications, not HR. Most companies let HR set the rules, and at least they are almost always the gatekeepers, shitcanning great candidates dues to somehting oin their resumes that HR person has a hate for. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/375 "2024-01-17T21:24:26Z")
This thread is drifting a bit, but I will add another stupid HR story if I may. We had a job applicant who was a perfect fit for a hard to fill position we had open. But this person had immigrated to the US at the age of 25. Now, what he should have done when he arrived as a legal resident was to register with the Selective Service. He didn’t do that. What he did do was to join the Army and serve for four years, leaving with an honorable discharge. He later did gain citizenship. Part of being qualified for Federal employment is being registered with the Selective Service. This was caught by HR. The applicant wrote to the Selective Service, and they supplied him with a letter that stated that based on his service, as far as they were concerned they had no objections to him being hired despite that he did not register when he arrived in the country. HR was not impressed with the letter, because as far as they were concerned the important part was being registered, and not the fact that he served. He ended up not being hired because of this. The kicker is that this job was for the Army. I hated working with the morons in that HR office. The same pinheads insisted that a civil engineer was qualified for an electrical engineer position, because hey, they have an engineering degree. They are all the same, right? ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/376 "2024-01-17T21:27:28Z")
Based on the trend, a possible answer to the OP’s question is “the wrong people in HR.” ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Mouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mighty_mouse/32/7776_2.png) [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2024, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/377 "2024-01-17T21:34:28Z")
I cannot count the number of times some great candidate has reached out to me via LinkedIn or other method and I find that HR has shitcanned their application for BS reasons. Including in many cases, colorably ILLEGAL reasons. “People from xxxx background (foreign university, military service, got degree after age 30, took years off to raise children, has masters degree, etc) have not worked out for us in the past. Hey douchebag recruiters, I’m one of the managers who takes EEO seriously and WANTS to see diverse candidates, not just pay lip service and then hire 6’2” white guys from expensive private schools who have done two years in public accounting and “look the part” of future leaders. Our recruiting team is 100% non Hispanic White Female between 25 and 40. Our DEI team was also 100% the same demographic for many years, until we copped some flak for it on social media. This might explain some of the blinkered thinking. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/378 "2024-01-18T14:31:38Z")
The short answer is that the majority of the job market is a “lemon market”. Companies no one really wants to work for recruiting people they don’t really want to hire to do jobs they really don’t want to do. Most companies are not Google, Goldman Sachs, Mckinsey, or whatever company where every college grad and MBA wants to get their foot in the door. So they don’t have their pick of top grads from the Ivy League with the right internships and a perfect work history. I’ve been on both sides of the interview desk and it’s fucking hard. A lot of people look good on paper but suck in real life. And a lot of people are weird and awkward, but might actually be brilliant at whatever task we give them. So what you tend to get is a lot of organizations where people kind of fit in superficially and sort of know their job well enough to mostly not blow up the company. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/379 "2024-01-18T14:42:48Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Based on the trend, a possible answer to the OP’s question is “the wrong people in HR.” I’d say the answer is, “Why did anyone every give HR that much power?” Pretty much all these problems seem to stem from people in HR being allowed to lord it over everyone else, _including management._ Who is it that refuses to include salary ranges in job ads? HR. Who is it who refuses to interview people for stupid reasons? HR. Who is it who puts arbitrary rules on who is allowed to even apply? HR. Who is it who misrepresents the job requirements? HR. Who is it who doesn’t even understand the job requirements? HR. The list goes on. Until most companies decide to make it clear to the HR department that they are subservient to the rest of the company, not the other way around, none of this will get fixed. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2024, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662/380 "2024-01-18T15:09:27Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Who is it that refuses to include salary ranges in job ads? HR. Speaking of … why aren’t salaries _de rigeur_ in job ads? Would that be expected to lead to a salary-increasing “arms race” that nobody wants? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-people-working-personal-anecdotes-only/995662.md?page=20)