Wednesday, August 5, 2009

It's an Employers' Market. Ugh!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release The Employment Situation for July 2009 on August 7th and the weekly jobless claims data is expected to show further decline giving those few organizations that are adding staff more confidence than ever to throw professionalism out the window.

Remember how employers had to behave during the dot com bull market when employee's were hard to find? Organizations across the country decided to develop an action plan for ethical practices in the hiring process when one was not already in place. This quick feedback and consistent communication made most transactions pleasant or at least polite.

Now that corporate America is flooded with resumes and operates in an environment of government audits and OFCCP compliance on their hiring practices, the trend of hiring one select candidate and treating the rest of the candidate pool with only the minimum amount of respect required by the federal government will continue.

One recent example includes a fortune 100 company that asked a select candidate pool to complete exhausting screening application where successful applicants were invited for an hour plus teleconference interview. So far, so good. The top two candidates were then invited for an on-sight interview with the hire manager and other staff. This too is in-line with a professional process. However, this was a four hour interview. After both of the four hour interviews, neither candidate was selected, the organization re-posted the position, and failed to return phone calls or emails from the original candidates! Five weeks later, the organization delivered an electronic notification that the position had been filled.

Forward looking organizations that recognize the long term value of professional business communication with respect to adding staff will be rewarded when the resume flood dries up. However, growing federal contractors don't follow that type of thinking. They have secure contracts 5, 7, even 10 years down the road and they have them with option years too. Yet, hiring organizations that act with arrogance and blatant disrespect, just because they happen to be growing in this down marked, would benefit from some sole searching and a small dose of modesty.

On the other hand, I congratulate organizations that have implemented traditional practices of explaining their decisions to top candidates and leaving doors open for the future. After all, the candidates that aren't a perfect fit today may very well be the perfect fit tomorrow.

I mean, I get it... It is an Employers' Market. But companies that act like it's a candidates market, will win when the tables turn. The tables always turn. They always have.