Introduction
The headline read: "How Employers Weed Out Unemployed Job Applicants,
Others, Behind the Scenes."
In an article by reporter Laura Bassett in the January 14, 2011, issue
of Internet newspaper the Huffington Post, a trial attorney for the
federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) went on record.
Bassett wrote; “He said he frequently comes across cases of companies
using secret code words in employer profiles that indicate to a staffing
firm the race, gender, or age they want in a candidate. "A lot of it's
under the radar," the attorney said. "We had a case in Buffalo where a
number of former full-time employees at a staffing firm came forward to
tell us about how the agency complied with these discriminatory
requests; using code words for whites and code words for blacks
internally to mask some of it.” He also said, "This is what's going on
in every state, in every company—the labor laws are ignored. However,
catching them is another story. There would have to be wiretaps or
someone would have to get inside the company in order to prove what's
going on."
It isn't often someone in authority is willing to provide such an
emphatic indictment of corporate America as a whole, at least not on the
record. Too often, companies that settle with the EEOC are allowed to
deny that discrimination took place, despite agreeing to pay thousands
or millions of dollars.
After reading this story, I was surprised it didn't go viral. There
should have been a firestorm of outrage by the media. There should have
been a condemnation from the grass roots. As a corporate recruiter, I
expected, at the very least, to come across more job applicants who
understood they were playing against a loaded deck and needed to take
extraordinary action to have a fair and equal chance at getting a job.
However, as evidenced by the way applicants continue to present
themselves, making it easy for companies to unfairly weed them out, the
majority remain unaware—or unconvinced—that the rules are rigged and
they have little alternative but to play the hand they are dealt.
My motivation for this book is to inform the public, just like the
journalists who report these trends in the American workplace.
After twenty-two years in corporate recruiting, and being privy to those
secret codes and the increasing number of other strategies utilized by
hiring managers and companies, I can tell you the employment picture is
much worse than what is occasionally revealed in the media. The
recruiting, interviewing, and hiring process is inherently corrupt and
discriminatory.
Books, websites, and blogs offering job-search advice and strategy are
limitless. Some of those hucksterish offerings make claims of
job-winning resumes and foolproof answers to interview questions. Others
offer specific guides and rules for salespeople, engineers, college
grads, executives, middle managers—you name it. They all seem to
promise to reveal secrets and inventive strategies that ensure an
applicant stands out. However, few, if any, are anything more than the
standard job-search guide providing corporate-friendly, generic advice.
Whether the information offered actually works for the masses is open
for debate.
Job Wars—Confessions of a Corporate Recruiter is not one of those
guides. Although the book does contain some advice for job seekers and
employees, it is not for the faint of heart, those bent on following the
rules, or those who fear breaking them. This book is more of a warning.
What you'll find is an unvarnished, often ugly truth about the
recruiting and hiring process, which, I guarantee, will be roundly
condemned by corporate America because revelation of truth is what it
fears the most.
I will also be condemned personally. There is the strong possibility
that my career as a corporate recruiter will come to an end. The
revelations include everything employers and hiring managers don't want
you to know. I expose the corrupt nature of the corporate environment
and my role in it, as well as those of other recruiters. I also confess
to my own secret codes and strategies, which I utilized to help job
applicants beat the unfair system.
You will read about the retaliation I suffered after my attempts to
change the system, retaliation that forced me to go underground and work
against my employers. More importantly, I offer the philosophy and
related strategy of "anything goes." It is a call to arms equal to the
anything-goes strategy employers utilize to keep you out and disguise
the culture that has little to no interest in contributing to the
advancement of equality and fairness.
This book has been in the making since 1996. That's when I returned to
corporate America after running my own staffing firm for nine years. My
attempts to expose the ugly truth about the recruiting and hiring
process have moved in fits and starts since then. Outrage over the depth
and breadth of discrimination in the first company I worked for was the
motivation for my first attempt at exposure; fear of what it would mean
to my future in corporate America forced me to put it in a box. I took
it up again after each new employer, job, and outrage. There have been
six companies in all, each in a different industry. Over the years, the
discriminatory hiring processes never changed and, in some cases, got
worse. Today, the basis for unfair treatment and discrimination has
expanded to include employment status, personal behavior and lifestyle,
medical conditions, education, competence, and political views and
affiliations. It's gotten so bad that even white guys, primarily because
of age or their own stand against discrimination, are affected.
The last company I worked for was, by far, the worst, maintaining a
culture of hatred of women and minorities identical to the era before
equal rights laws were enacted. The level of contempt for the law, as
well as the level of deceit utilized to cover up, pushed me to finally
get this on paper and published.
It's my hope that, at the very least, this book will provide job seekers
enough information to take control of their own fate and get that next
job—based solely on their qualifications.
Although my thesis includes the belief that corporate leaders don't
really care, that they are more interested in quashing any semblance of
individualism, there's also a message for company executives, especially
those who claim to want an all-inclusive workforce of the best and
brightest. The war being waged against qualified job seekers is also
being waged against a growing number of employees who, like me, refuse
to go along with the status quo. It forces us to take extraordinary
action to beat it or bring it down. The war is also being waged against
CEO’s.
Hiring managers are the primary perpetrators of this war. Your business,
by design or not, is divided into fiefdoms. Void of oversight, when
managers make hiring or promotion decisions, they are operating on the
basis that their little slice of responsibility within your company is
their kingdom. Damn your vision of an all-inclusive workplace of the
most qualified. Damn the law and company policy. When no one is
watching, as far as they are concerned, they know best, and they make
decisions based on what is right for them instead of the business. Their
interest is in maintaining their power—regardless of how little they
may have.
That paradigm is destroying companies from within. As managers operate
on personal fear, bias, hate, and an inflated sense of self-worth,
employees who would otherwise give their all become disengaged because
of the disheartening reality around them. The proof comes from beyond my
own experience and the occasional news story. Consider these statistics:
· According to a Gallup poll, 49 percent of employees are not
engaged, and 18 percent are actively disengaged. Source: University of
North Carolina, Keenan Flagler Business School, White Paper on Employee
Engagement.
· In the summer of 2010, Hewitt reported that nearly 50 percent of
the nine hundred organizations they tracked experienced declines in
employee engagement. This was the largest quarterly decline in fifteen
years. Source: Conference Board Report
Much of this decline is due to poor leadership. Consider that, according
to Towers Watson's 2010 Global Workforce Study (abstracted at
www.creativityatwork.com/blog/2010/05/18/mindset-employees-engaged/):
· Only 38 percent of American workers think their leaders have a
sincere interest in their well-being.
· Only 47 percent think their leaders are trustworthy.
· Only 4 percent think their leaders inspire and engage them.
· Only 42 percent think senior leaders encourage the development
of talent.
Without dramatic intervention, the disengagement and apathy represented
by these numbers will only get worse.
Continues...
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