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According to the Wall Street Journal, many employers in this economy think that the best candidates are those who are still employed and are “bypassing the jobless to target those still working, reasoning that these survivo
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Comments
07.02.09
Great post! I completely agree with you. Although preference shouldn’t be given to someone who is unemployed, they should still be afforded the opportunity to be evaluated the same way as someone who is employed. I think it is ridiculous to overlook someone just because they are unemployed.
There are a lot of people who are unemployed due to circumstances beyond their control (i.e. companies mishandling company funds). Many of the unemployed are talented people who deserve to be given a chance and those who share Mr. Fitzgerald’s attitude will miss out on a lot of people who could be great employees.
07.02.09
Interesting. At the end of the article, there is now this "correction"
Restaurant operator Bobby Fitzgerald of The White Chocolate Grill only uses recruiters for management positions and says he accepts applications from everybody. This article incorrectly said Mr. Fitzgerald had instructed recruiters to only bring in people who are working for openings at his five restaurants
I wonder if it was really misrepresented in the article, or if he just changed his mind after the uproar.
07.02.09
Stupid companies are content with scraping the bottom of the still-employed barrel. Smart companies use the downturn as an opportunity to scoop up the newly unemployed, but brilliant workers.
07.02.09
Habits are tough to break, even for companies.
When things are good with the economy and jobs are plentiful, people are looking at lateral and upward moving employees as the norm. You have a job and you are moving laterally between companies (or within the same one), or you have a job and you are looking for something more challenging and you are moving up.
People who have a job and choose move down, or ones that don't have jobs don't fare as well. This has been how hiring managers view people. Is it silly? Yes, of course. Will people change? Yes, but slowly! We are creatures of habit, and habits change slowly.
Personally I would be looking at people's individual situations. If you worked for the investment division of AIG...well, you better have great references outside of AIG. If you worked in a company who sold off a division (or just killed it off), good references within the company are good. This is a good opportunity to save some money on qualified employees who don't have jobs, and an opportunity to help the economy in general. Hiring managers who don't see this are short-sighted.
07.02.09
Scott, he probably just got caught up in the interview and ended up regretting some of the things he said. I mean, the statement “We are always looking for the very best of the industry, which happens to be people who are still employed” is not particularly qualified or insightful and comes off a bit brash. In the heat of the moment he may have oversold his position a bit.
My guess is this article oversold the concept in general. I'm sure, at some point in the hiring process, it crosses the managers mind that "hmm candidate A is employed and candidate B is not ... why could that be," but so do a number of other small details that may or may not factor into a final decision.
07.02.09
Thank you so much for writing this, Lindsay. I wrote a post myself listing a few reasons why narrowing a search to only those who are employed is short-sighted, and it was inspired by that same article.
I'm not working right now, though, so I probably seem a little biased. That's why it's nice to see a top-notch recruiter putting in their two cents regarding this sort of trend.
You just can't focus on a candidate solely based on their employment status, whatever it may be. There are just to many extenuating circumstances in each candidate's case to base recruiting decisions on criteria like that.
07.02.09
It doesn't surprise me this would be the attitude. Even in this economy. We'd all like to think we can control our own destinies, and so people who are employed can often have a sub-conscious idea that there is something "wrong" with the people who got laid off, or that they made bad decisions that led them there. After all if it were true, it would give you as an employed person a stronger feeling of security and self-empowerment. So it doesn't surprise me this attitude is present in many HR staff still recruiting and in hiring managers. I do however think it's completely ridiculous that if you really need to fill a position, you don't consider equally qualified unemployed people, especially if you aren't getting applications from employed people. Narrowing the field of search is ridiculous, but I can see how biases would keep employers preferring the already employed.
07.05.09
Unfortunately the employed candidate does get more attention than the unemployed one. The reason for the unemployment is rarely considered. A truism in the hiring business is that "the longer you're unemployed the less marketable you become." Sad but true. Even if unemployed you can find a great position but you do have to compete harder and be better than the rest of the talent pool.
07.05.09
@Scott I'm sure Mr. Fitzgerald is very upset with how the article came out and how he was represented. Unfortunately, when choosing to comment on such an article with such national exposure, your words could be used in a way you did not intend. And by the time an correction is issued, the damage is already done. The correction doesn't really change the issue I am writing about - companies can still deploy the same prejudices against employed or unemployed workers whether the introduction is from a recruiter or not.
@Mark - Agree, many employers think the longer you are unemployed, the less marketable you become. It's why I advise any of my candidates seeking employment to not wait around to start their search, take on consulting projects if possible, and to keep up on their industry news and trends.
07.10.09
This is an ever so true reality, I agree with Mark also, that the longer you are unemployed the less marketable you become in the job hunt.
From speaking with other business owners they have told me that they rarely consider an unemployed applicant, to me this seems completely moronic considering the current economic crisis.
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