Hiring Etiquette: Another Perspective–The In-house Professionals

Caller:  Sir, I sent in my resume and app two weeks ago and then had  a phone interview last Thursday.  But, even though I was told someone would call me on Monday, I thought it was best, since today is Friday, to call back and find out what was your decision?

HR:  Uh, well I haven’t heard back from the hiring manager, so I don’t know what to say.  Please, we will call you next week to let you know. Thanks for calling.

Two weeks later.

Caller:  Sir, I talked with you two Friday’s ago and you mentioned you thought a decision would be made the following week, but I haven’t heard from anyone.

HR:  Well, we are still thinking through what we want to do.  Thanks for calling.

Three weeks later, the Caller notices an announcement about the job he interviewed for.  It was found on the website:  www……

It notifies job searchers that the job posted three months earlier for so and so type company, had been pulled.  It doesn’t say if it were filled, nothing.

Two days later, the same job is reposted, inviting interested parties to submit resumes and applications.

The Caller (Dumb-founded and frustrated): Sir, Why didn’t someone have the professional decency to call me and let me know what was happening.  Click on the other end of the line.  Such is life in the hiring lane these days.

Is it fear of engagement or is it just not wanting to have to explain why someone was not hired.  Time or lack of it could be a culprit, too.  Should organizations call people or email them to let them know they were not under further consideration after interviewing them, especially if they were softly lead to believe they were still in the running for a position or possible further interviews?

What are your thoughts on this kind of situation for job seekers?  Do organizations have any kind of responsibility to inform potential employees of hiring decisions or is that a legal taboo?  What does this do to the hiring process in the future and who is going to believe HR people or their surrogate 3rd party vendors?  Are there any hidden costs for organizations who run soft deceptions during the hiring process?

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The American Work Ethic for the 21st Century

Our American work ethic has normally been confined to thoughts about the Protestant work ethic.  Specifically, it suggests that hard work is the key to success.  Yes, work is a key to some forms of success, especially working hard to get what you are after.  It is particularly true when you are in control of what you want to go after.  Historically, people had a great idea of what they were after, it was a strong pastoral lifestyle of open air and open opportunities formed from living on the land.    In today’s post-industrial climate, the setting for work is quite different and at least equal in challenge to the times of the pre-World War Two American farming society.

Many Americans, obviously not all, graduate from college and move into the ranks of normal working stiffs. Everyday, they jump into their cars, scramble aboard buses and trains, even a few ride bikes to work.  Once at predetermined workplaces life moves into the scripts of routines.  Work is now about doing things which may have consequences for the world, but more than likely the effort goes unnoticed.  Farmers grow things, raise animals and hopefully serve as stewards of the land.  When you are sitting in an office what are you are you doing that which resembles serving as a steward?  Perhaps you are a steward of paper or information!

When I was teaching graduate level business students some years ago, I often asked them who was responsible for their success at work?  A few said they were responsible, while others felt it was their supervisors’ responsibility to assure their success.  The latter was a very curious response, as it placed the individual’s success in the hands of their supervisors.  In so doing the respondents were also setting their own responsibilities for success outside of themselves.  Consequently, from their viewpoints, success or failure at work where not their collective responsibility.

I have thought about this paradox for sometime.  Unfortunately, I never asked my classes in who was responsible for the successes or failures in the rest of their lives?  I now wonder if they would blame their parents, their significant others or even their children?  It seems that both domains are now socially acceptable as status markers, they need origination from outside ourselves. Oddly, we seem to place our fates in the hands of those who shadow our lives.  Is this simply a practice of each younger generation?  Absolutely not!  Old and young today harbor senses of dependency on others.  Perhaps in a society where you clock in everyday, you sign a tacit agreement where you believe you relinquish your identity to others.  Yes, that is what I believe happens when you deed away your success and failures to others.  It is an odd work ethic worth exploring carefully and fully.

Let me suggest that if you know someone who is still in his or her twenties, that you sit down and have a heart to heart talk on who controls their lives at work and at home?

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Our Transition Recession: Part Two

When you are over fifty you begin speculating about what life could have been when you were young.  When you are young you speculate about what life will be like when you turn 35 and become old.  Neither are spared their delusions as they journey onward.  This is the second part of “Our Transition Recession.”

We begin with a comment on an interesting article by Reihan Salam (Time Magazine, March 22, 2010, pg.46, 47).  Its title foretells the life stories for many in future generations:  “The Dropout Economy, The future of work looks a lot like unemployment.”  Whether or not present spectators of our times believe we are witnessing a tectonic shift in how the economic, social and political landscape is being reconfigured, we are definitely feeling the ground move beneath our feet.  Incidentally, that big wall of water is not a mirage, it is a tsunami racing towards us to wash-away the doubters about change.  Salam’s view of the future is not grim, nor sci-fi in its conclusions.  He simply writes a picture board of images depicting what many of America’s tomorrow’s will look like.  If those tomorrow’s are for the better or for the worse, they will depend upon how we prepare ourselves for unknowns, countless challenges and in how we energize ourselves to live–with reduced governmental and institutional support.

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What does our Transition Recession Look Like, Part One?

The American Transition Recession began at the beginning of the 21st Century.  Two very important questions must be asked:  Are our next generation of leaders prepared to not only confront the economic and social traumas evolving as they grow up?  And, are they studying to know how to think wisely, critically, and unselfishly?  As a former adjunct professor of management in MBA programs, and as a professional management sensei, I am truly concerned by what I see are systemic human deficits in organizations.  I would add that this includes my observations of young and mid-age professionals in small to large corporations.  

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A Transition Recession–Defined–American Style

Transition Recession  Meeting 5

A transition suggest something or someone is moving from one state of being to another.

America, along with much of the historical, industrial world, are forcefully being moved away from archaic, status nausea, mentally collapsing economic, political and social structures.  It is an ugly process as it has no order and often tilts towards chaos.  At the end of this transition things, for example businesses, trade, relationships between governments, travel and communication, will look vastly different from what we know today.  Fortunately, it will improve the world.  Unfortunately, many people will suffer for reasons beyond their immediate comprehension.  But the reasons, no matter how noble, will never outweigh the suffering and dislocations of beliefs.

A Transition Recession [TR] is created by unprecedented turbulence at the confluence of economic, political, and social belief systems, which are experiencing systemic internal and external disruptions. This means people feel like the sky is falling.  At the census count level, a lot of things happen at the wrong time, in the wrong places, to people who have little real control over their lives and nowhere to hide.   In short, a TR creates emotionally numbing experiences similar to the destructive forces of war and nature. Even Hell can feel threatened by a TR.

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Transition Recession: The 20 Year Economic Adjustment

America has been in an economic and social recession for at least ten years.  I suggest this scheme,  as I think back about events, reported and not reported, in the popular press. For instance, remember the recession faced by the Japanese as a lesson in poor recessionomics.  It is now January 3, 2010 and I firmly believe we have another ten years of systemic economic discomfort ahead of us.

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So!

Tomorrow begins today! It begins Now!

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Designing Perspectives of Leadership for the 21st Century is a different approach to looking at leadership development for our evolving workplaces.

America has a new imperative to reinvent many areas of its economy and create new types of jobs, work environments and attitudes about making a living.  Even the idea of making a living may require an extensive self-examination.  For instance, as we have finally accepted the fact that even a two income home may not have the resources to meet daily needs, we will have to recalibrate what home-life will mean over the next ten years.  If anyone is questioning why we need to change our lifestyles, then they need only look at the impact the Transition Recession is having  on their communities. We are in a Transition Recession!

Ultimately, a Transition Recession owns the facts, which are indisputable and very clear to honest and sincere individuals. How people navigate through this transition will help define not only their futures, but also those of their children and their communities.

Our blog will include print and audio material for subscribers and others to consider and hopefully add their comments.   It is the intent of this author and supporters, through the Blog, to provoke its readers to ponder reality-based and relevant issues, which are impacting the American landscape of ideas and lifestyles.  We must recognize that no one is immune from the fate our country is compelled to negotiate over the next ten years.  The “good days” were lived in the movies and will remain in our memories.  For those over fifty, we must work diligently to make sure those following us will have their good old days to remember as fondly as we do today.  Michael Mason Norman

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