Employment and Accountability

Having recently secured a position with a large and highly recognizable firm in my city, I have had reason to reflect on the many ways in which the job market and search processes have often become dehumanized. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me, in spite of the market having more candidates than openings, that candidates be treated as people with feelings rather than anonymous sheets of paper within a stack of resumes.

A number of examples exist to illustrate this point. Most of us are familiar with the job boards large and small that provide options, if not the sense of accomplishment that we feel, after electronically submitting a rash of resumes. Thousands of these boards exist, from the most general and familiar to the most specific and obscure. It makes one wonder if anyone has ever thought to catalog all of them. There are certainly a number of ways to categorize, by industry, by job type, by geography, etc. But I digress.

All one needs to do to feel insignificant is hang out on the job boards. Very often, you can send your ten or twenty daily resumes and persuade yourself that you have taken important, material steps toward eliminating your unemployment. But don't be surprised if you get no response from any of them.

Some will send a verification email but many will not. This is easier than some forms of rejection. I've heard recently that for many of the jobs posted on the job boards, it is quite common for an employer to receive one thousand resumes.

The advanced interviewing stages, however, are those where there is certainly room for keeping promises and personal integrity. Here is an unfortunate but excellent example. I recently survived the first and second interviewing stages for a reasonably mundane position, to be granted the occasion of a personal interview.

From all traditional measurements, it went well. I answered the skills assessment pieces with integrity and sophistication, I conducted the mock telephone call and left with the promise of receiving feedback within the next one to three business days.

Ironically, this position was with a company that prides itself (as do so many these days, legitimately nor not) as the epitome of gold standard customer service. As of this writing, six business days have elapsed, my phone call for follow-up has remained unanswered and I have had no notification of exclusion. Life as we know it will continue but I cannot imagine that there were so many candidates, so many offers and so many declines that a status update was inconvenient or unavailable.

This form of impersonal detachment from the candidates whom you might easily have asked to join your team is difficult to understand. At exactly the same time, another offer, another employer and another promise for status were unfulfilled. Having hired a number of professionals in my life, I cannot imagine not behaving in a professional manner for those who were chosen and those who were not.

To the employers who notice, somehow the consequence of dispassionate hiring procedures should translate into the best and finest going elsewhere. If that is not a concern, however, the possibility to distinguish a company with a display of integrity in hiring is inevitably an occasion for just plain doing what's right.