Do The Work

Memos to the Universe

Archive for category TO: Applicants

For Shame.

Jul 23

Posted by Frannyo in TO: Applicants, TO: Line Managers, TO: Owner or CEO, To: Staff | No Comments

You may remember that earlier last year I featured Laurie-Ellen Shumaker in my series on great people who need to get back to  work. Laurie-Ellen was recently also featured at the Huffington Post in a series on the unemployed in America. This brief article part of their “Bearing Witness” project designed to highlight the effects of this recession on real families.

The story was fine. The comments were mostly ignorant, judgemental, and angry. For example, a user who defames a Texan great lady with the username LadyBirdJohnson wrote, “…Your story does not add up and is full of self pity and drama. Most of the time when people have trouble they only need to look at themselves to blame. Maybe you should be asking what role you played in this mess you find yourself? Actually, your story sounds as make believe as your unicorn.”  Self-righteous comments like this go on for 26 pages, thus far.

Brene Brown, A Houston-based researcher,  studies shame for a living. (I know, right? Talk about a Dirty Job) This talk she gave at the UP Experience summarizes her work beautifully. Go watch it.  It takes 25 minutes. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? Isn’t her work challenging and intriguing?

Brown notes that we most severely judge others in areas that we ourselves feel insecure.  We do everything we can to create a wall between ourselves and those we see as failing or less than ourselves. As the economy continues to lag and jobs remain in scarce supply, the self-righteousness level of our coworkers, family members, and friends may continue to ratchet up. The comments in the HuffPo story are a perfect example of that phenomenon.

On Clarity and Privacy in Hiring

May 25

Posted by Frannyo in TO: Applicants, To: HR | 4 Comments

A friend, let’s call him Ralph, recently lost his job. He was really upset because he doesn’t have a degree and he knows how hard it will be to get to the same type of job without one. Around the same time, another friend in my network called looking for someone with basically the same unique skill set and background that Ralph had. Miraculously, a degree was not required. I hooked them up, just like a good little node in the social world wide web is supposed to do.
I followed along as Ralph breathlessly proclaimed his excitement at every step on the weeks-long interview ladder. He just knew it was the right job for him, and he couldn’t wait to get started.
Until they asked for his 2009 W2.
And he said, “No.”
So they said, “No.”
And now Ralph is sitting in his apartment watching Oprah rather than doing great things for this company.
Who’s in the wrong here? I dunno.
But if you’re a job seeker looking for career advice, here it is: Don’t expect that every aspect of the hiring process will be respectful of your privacy. (We share a bathroom with a company that has all applicants do drug tests on the spot, whether it’s a call center or CFO job opening. Dignity and privacy are not high on the descriptor list for that process.)
If you’re an HR department looking for recruiting advice, here it is: Explain the entire hiring process, including that you will be asking for W2s or making them pee into a cup, if that’s what you do, in the first interview. You can save yourself a lot of time and heartache by being upfront about your expectations from the very beginning.
If, like me, you’re just a cog in the networking machine, keep trying. You never know what can come from introducing people to one another. If something works out, great. If it doesn’t, you can all still learn something new.