Recruitment and it's biggest failure

The fundamental idea of recruitment is to whittle down from the selection pool those candidates who are most likely to fit the job in skills, abilities and knowledge.  Usually because there are so many applicants the selection process will use cut-throat de-selection as a norm.  Employers can reason they are unable to spend time and money going through every single application and interviewing every single person.  It's supported by Occupational Psychologists who sell their service, Human Resource personnel who are basically administration staff and the short sightedness of employers.  What they need to understand is, people like to be in employment, and they like to earn money doing a good job, sometimes they may change over time if they are not given sufficient varied duties and responsibilities, acknowledgement, social satisfaction, have problems in their private life or become physically or mentally unable to do their job. Most employees however would just like to have a stable job and get on with their life.  Once in a while a holiday, or their own little luxury, employees are human beings.  Maybe this is a contrary view of the notion we have careers, when in fact a more likely view would be along the lines of, working class people have jobs and the idea of a career is somewhat of a misnomer.  Another reality is social and economic advancement does not happen.  For the biggest factor of job succession is who your parents were.  If you are born poor the statistics are you will probably always be poor and if you are born with a golden spoon in your mouth you will always be rich.  Opportunities versus social and economic wealth are without doubt married in a partnership which can be seen in any gypsy crystal ball.


It is the employer who decides whether they will incorporate selection methods so they look to the latest trends in recruitment.  However, the bottom line to this is no one will ever know whether those candidates often not selected for short-listing or for a job vacancy are the best candidate. This is not to say there should not be a selection process, just those in place need to be rebalanced.

The reverse of what is called head hunting should be considered, but I have never heard of it.  I wonder what such a thing would be called.  Questions should be asked of employees in organizations, whether those selected actually do the best job they can.  How they were recruited and whether another individual would of been more suitable.  Lets face it. The reality is, we are in an employers market and they should be asking questions about capability just as much as selection. Workforces should be reviewed, the indolent, incompetent and plain uninterested sacked.  Looking around any workplace organization there will be personnel who are mediocre to poor when it comes to output.  Through entire hierarchies they exist and there is a blindness for those in top positions to be questioned on their abilities.  The scyth of capability should be so sharpened it holds no bounds and no areas are beyond being severed.  This does not happen.  Yet the dead wood which turns up for work each day will continue to turn up. The manager who acts on a whim, who has gained their position through dead-man's-shoes will continually rule the roost in any way they feel fit, regardless of organizational procedures, HR policies and what anyone else thinks. They stay and often they advance through the ranks, everyone knows who they are and does their best to keep out of their way.  They are protected by tenure, qualification, incumbent knowledge, but it doesn't mean they know how to do their job or they are any good at it. And organizations with people like this, whose arrogance leads the way are unable to turn the spotlight on themselves.

Those who are failed
Those who are failed are individuals who had a tough life. Have done the best they can but the circumstances around them and opportunities have not been available. They have not had the mentor ship of good examples through their family. The son and daughter who have grown up struggling in a home life with a father who is an alcoholic or a mother who is a depressive. Where they have been living from hand to mouth for years, they then go to school and have to deal with non interested teachers, gangs, youth violence and fear.  Fear of not being accepted as part of the in crowd, not knowing what their future will be like and then acceptance the little expectations held of them will become fruitless gardens because they their dirt knows not the taste of manure. These individuals see the world in a different way, however it does not mean they are not capable.  They may show symptoms of learned helplessness but they are not useless they just don't get the opportunity.   A small spark of assistance can lead to a raging fire of passion in absolutely any sphere of employment or career. They are failed because the so called industrial psychologists of today do not know how to bait a selection hook to take in someone with such potential.  Their questions, IQ tests, assessment centres, personality types fail to understand these individuals little in the way of life skills to have prepared them to pass your tests or interviews.  Selection and recruitments processes are inherently poverty negligent, potential negligent and negligent of equality.  They don't measure what an individual is like when they are motivated, they don't measure dedication, perseverance, in a few words they don't have of Out-of-the-box thinking methods, they rely on correlations and assumptions.

Someone once discussed with me his selection and management style.  Preferring to surround themselves with intelligent people and those who would challenge and debate.  He encouraged the employment of staff from poverty backgrounds, put them on as much training as he could, he engaged and motivated them and had the best team of staff in all the organization.  He said their hunger and thirst was amazing because they had a chance to prove themselves. Pity there are few employers like this nowadays.