unrealistic goals

I Need a Job, But Not That One

Another update from the Jungle…..

Nancy has been the HR manager at her company for several years. Over that time, she’s looked at scores of resumes and interviewed many job applicants. She has a lot of practice since her employer tends to have less than ideal employee practices, leading to a revolving door.

Nancy converted her experience into a thriving hobby of helping friends of friends and family to spiff up their resumes and practice interviewing techniques. She thinks of her unofficial placement service as passive resistance to her company’s less than stellar notions of how to treat employees. Her boss thinks she’s brilliant at spotting talent without realizing that her hobby is the source of the candidates she uncovers.

Last week Nancy agreed to meet with Mercedes, who recently moved to town and would like some help with her job search. Mercedes shows up ten minutes late. Mercedes says her family moved to town about six months ago, and she’d like a job that allows her to use her college degree in marine biology.

That’s unfortunate, thinks Nancy, since they live in a land-locked state, a time-zone away from the ocean. Nancy takes another look at Mercedes’s resume to see whether any of her work experience might be transferable to another industry. Mercedes volunteers that she’s had a couple of job interviews but they weren’t “right” for her. What wasn’t right about them? asks Nancy.

Mercedes says the first company requires some evening and weekend work, but she wants her weekends free. The other interview was with a company in a neighboring suburb. Mercedes doesn’t want to sit in traffic, and besides, the salary they offered was too low. She’s really hoping for a job that pays a salary comparable to what she made on the west coast.

Mercedes rambles on for several more minutes on what she wants from her future employer. She has a garbled explanation of why every suggestion made by Nancy won’t work for her situation. Gradually, Nancy realizes that Mercedes has just wandered on to earth from a distant planet.

How might Nancy advise Mercedes?

  1. She can tell Mercedes to have a nice life and bail on her.
  2. She can suggest that Mercedes look for a modern day Daddy Warbucks to take care of her.
  3. She can give Mercedes a few pointers on refining her job search to increase the chance of finding a job she wants.

HR managers (and small business owners) expend many hours reading resumes from job seekers who aren’t clear about what they want to do. Some decide to outsource the task to placement services.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

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Welcome To The Real World

Another update from the Jungle….

Mercedes is a millennial who was recently assigned to Sandy’s department.  Sandy likes working with younger people who are natives of the digital world and can show her how to use her smart phone apps. They are young, enthusiastic and some, like Mercedes, are idealists.

Mercedes wants to change the world. After college, her parents supported her for an additional year so that she could work at a non-profit. Her record of clever ideas for the non-profit helped her get hired at Sandy’s company.

In her first week, Mercedes suggests some relatively inexpensive software upgrades that improve efficiency and save money. Most of the savings come from job cuts as tasks are automated. The older workers who are let go aren’t qualified for other open positions and management cut the training budget back around the time Mercedes was born. Mercedes doesn’t notice the job losses because she’s on to her next big idea.

Her next big idea is an IT systems upgrade that may save the entire company millions of dollars. Unfortunately, the upgrade will also cost tens of millions of dollars, require the company to shut down entirely for six months, and cause massive job cuts. She announces her idea to Sandy’s boss, Bob.  He thanks Mercedes and boots her out of his office.

Mercedes doesn’t understand how Bob can be so dim-witted as not to see the long-term benefits. She won’t listen to Bob or Sandy when they tell her that the company simply can’t afford to give up six months of sales to rebuild IT systems from scratch.

Mercedes thinks that Bob and Sandy are being negative because they are dinosaurs who don’t “get” new technology and how it improves the world. Mercedes decides she needs to bypass the unenlightened ones and go straight to the top.  She tells Sandy that she wants to pitch her idea to the company president.

What advice should Sandy give to Mercedes?

  1. She can encourage Mercedes and then watch as the company president explodes like a geyser at the thought of losing six months revenue.
  2. She can suggest that Mercedes drink fewer cappuccinos and increase her wine consumption in the hopes she will have fewer brilliant ideas.
  3. She can tell Mercedes that the company president will be more receptive to her ideas if she can come up with a plan to offset the short term costs.

Idealism is a wonderful quality but not necessarily in the workplace. Idealistic employees can be encouraged to volunteer with local non-profits. HR can help by encouraging management to offer paid leave for volunteer work.

If your company is struggling with HR issues, Corporate Compliance Risk Advisor can help you create HR policies that are appropriate for your company’s size and then serve as a resource to your staff as the policies are implemented.

Ebook Link

Join the HR Compliance Jungle today. Click here!

Follow us on Facebook & Twitter!

Visit our website!