This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
By EconMatters
- advertisements -
Contact Information:
Tips: tips [ at ] zerohedge.com
General: info [ at ] zerohedge.com
Legal: legal [ at ] zerohedge.com
Advertising: ads [ at ] zerohedge.com
Abuse/Complaints: abuse [ at ] zerohedge.com
Suggested Reading:
Make sure to read our "How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide
It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer, our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure. Here's our Cookie Policy.
Unions have very little to do with the hiring process, and contribute very little to finding the most qualified person.
Unions simply seek to enforce the contract, the agreement signed by both labor and management.
It really is that simple, if management could get it through their heads that once you agree and sign off on a contract you must follow it, you could dissolve the union that day. But they never have, in the history of organized labor, they never have, and never will.
Collective bargaining is simply electing a guy to go in and bargain for a group of employees. Hammer out a contract with management and see it is followed. Nothing more. It is not some death cult of vampires that want to make babies into soap. Most of you are only pissed off at unions because they have found democrats to be more receptive of workers rights than republicans. So they give them campaign money.
Fix the campaign issue if you like, but don't think being a management psychophant is going to get you anything.
"Unions simply seek to enforce the contract, the agreement signed by both labor and management. "
SOME Unions.
SOME contracts.
SOME Unions simply pick which contracts are worth their staff's time to fight to enforce.
Local One Stagehands in NYC will bring Broadway to a standstill to enforce a contract at a big $ big name site such as Carnegie Hall -and will leave the CUNY system houses -the LOWEST compensation contracts in the entire jurisdiction- to languish for over 5 years without even attempting to book meetings to negotiate a date to begin negotiating a new contract to supplant the long expired contract.
TO ECONMATTERS,
I am glad that you wrote your final article on this topic. Not to insult you in any way, but you really dont know what is going on in almost all Hiring Departments of any Company over 1000 employees. HINT: They are staffed by HR people who come from the same career track pipeline. are groomed the same, credentialed the same (see SHRM) and rewarded for "best practices" behavior, with as little original business thinking as possible. That is what companies expect from them.
What you describe in your last article IS NORMAL within almost all Corporate Hiring Deprtments in the US. Fortune 50 and High Tech companies are somewhat different in that they are "destination" companies that everyone wants to work for, and applicants will put up with a lot to get hired by them.
If you really want to find out what is going on, take a year away from your current job, work at a temporary hiring firm as a sourcer/recruiter and get to know as many people in the HR field of Corporate America and document their hiring practices. If you can do that then you will will have a blockbuster book to write, - unless of course you become seduced by the Siren Song of the HR Departments and go to work for one of those companies.
I believe that specialized employees with highly technical skills should not/could not be interviewed by HR and their weird methods. Think about someone whose potential compensation is higher or equal to the executives. The resentment of HR making less than half his/her salary will prevent making the desision to hire them. Unless a VP or CEO needs them badly
Lots of times if your CV is too strong the hiring VP may feel threatened of his position.
Lots of times VP's will interview experienced employees just to find out how you would handle a fictitious problem which is actually a real one so that they can get ideas.
Think about welders for underwater structures, crews who can put out fires on oil wells. Nuclear construction personnel, highly complex building planners. Crane operators, IT troubleshooters. These people make as much as $1500 per day. There will not be salary negotiations or they will take you out of their schedule. The HR person in such cases will be who you call to get your business phone and get assigned a sidekick for your needs.
Gen Y has been groomed to replace the Baby Boomers as the new ignorant rube consumer demographic. They were raised in a prison system of schools that closed their minds and are the most heavily propagandized generation since the 1950's.
The US oligarchs have been praying for these ignorant kids to take everything over quickly, because to have any other kind of changing of the guard (i.e. if Gen X were to actually be included in top management in their proper turn) it will spell doom for their stupid, unprofessional methods of dominating the territory called the United States.
Basically there has been a concerted effort to exclude Gen X from all levels of leadership, and for many from society itself. There has been an almost total silence of Gen X voices in the social commons, despite the fact it now occupies the age group that traditionally dominates most of the levers of power in a culture (35-55). If the Baby Boomers succeed in shutting out Gen X completely, it will be the end of their system because there will be nobody competant enough to keep it afloat.
Gen Y is a dead end. They are victims of the current oligarchs' shitty unworkable plans. The past owners had a plan for the US that seemed to work for the majority of people, but they are all dead.
We are adrift.
Gen Xers are every bit as indoctrinated as the generations that came before and after. It's AMERICANS who are the ignorant rube consumers, PT. No generation has overcome the combined power of consumerism and propaganda.
As a Gen Xer I disagree, we saw the first vidio games, bag cell phones, flat screens and PCs while we were growing up.
They were life enhancers back then, not necessities. People used to walk around aware and engaged, not looking at the ground. Fast food was not the everyday diet of....anyone in the 80s.
And as far as indoctrination, they didn't really need to do it back then. America was the ideal, the Shiz, and we knew it. We had jobs, good schools(even in CA) and liesure time. Everything, they tell us now, was more expensive back then, yet seemed more affordable.
We had a President. Not a perfrect president, not an economist for sure, but he stood up and made the tough descisions and didn't cry about it.
So I can see why Gen Yers and Millenials are they way they are. They cant remember those days, they were still shitting their pants back then. All they have ever seen is this clown show we have now.
I pity them. I really do.
Agree 100%. I think gen Y is a lost cause, but the millenials are still young enough to be mentored into thinking for themselves. I intend to try it with a few. I may end up just frustrated, or maybe I'll make some actual headway. Time will tell.
Established companies have net attrition. Looking for a job there is to engage the unproductive vortex of dysfunctionality. Start ups have their own challenges. But, if you have the juice you can make it. Good luck.
It will just get worse.
It does not need to be this way that fraudulent employer comments are tolerated and permitted to "string you along". We the People could quite easily have a employment investigation department that investigates these abuses and levies fines as the people's elected officials deem appropriate. Appeals to a judicial review could be a part of the system so that business has its full say.
But the libertarian mindset and ideology is averse to anything that smacks of "gubment" or of the worker having a fair deal. ZH knows this.
And so now we are ever less expecting of personal dignity and just grateful when we get work or don't get replaced by a H1b Visa slave.
As I said. This is only going to get worse.
And then the government will have to make it fair and give the emplyers the same rights.
How many of us have not entertained multiple offers and done the same thing to a potencial employer???
Maybe not for a month but I remember making one wait for about 2 weeks for my decision. This is while I was hoping for an offer from another company. Eventually the other offer came as well after I informed them that I need to make a decision by end of next day. I turned down both offers.
You were risking that they wouldn't find another acceptable candidate during those 2 weeks and dump you though.
I would not recommend that strategy nowadays, I think the job might be gone by then unless you are very niche.
Agreed, the mood here is outspokenly anti-union, anti-worker's rights, race to the bottom.
How did the Libertarian mindset get so averse to workers?
Is it because unions have voted Dem for the last 50 years? Does it go back to that?
Cause that would be pretty petty.
At no time in my life has there been this shitty of a deal for workers and this sweet of a deal for owners/mgt. Wake up and see that they don't give a rat's ass about you and will eliminate or offshore your job the very second it is possible. If you're good with that, then great.
Given the regulatory capture that exists already, as soon as collective bargaining is eliminated you can say goodbye to overtime pay, holidays, safe work conditions, worker's comp, everything unions fought for for decades. Your manager and CEO will be jizzing in their pants though, so take comfort in that.
"Is it because unions have voted Dem for the last 50 years? Does it go back to that?"
50 years? how about every year since unions began! More like 80 years!
I don't personally know of a single year in history organized labor voted anything but Democrat.
Cause that would be pretty petty.
I suppose it would be petty if that's all there were to it. But you can't ignore history and then be surprised by its effects.
Unions have always been collectivist organizations. Despite the good intentions early in the 20th century, they ruined the situation for the average blue collar worker by demanding and getting (with coercive help from the government) overblown wages and ridiculous pensions for less and less work. I remember as a kid adults who worked for the major manufacturers venting their frustration at not being able to do a simple task like change a light bulb because they were required to wait for an electrician to come do it, and this could take hours if not days. Meanwhile, they couldn't do their job.
The companies did what companies do, what's best for the bottom line. They left.
Unions don't value merit even amongst their own ranks.
WHY should some dumbass that doesn't have any work ethic be paid the same as a highly educated and highly flexible and highly productive individual?
Fuck the contract.
You clearly have no experience with government.
CLEARLY.... +100
You think this bullshit is unusual? I am a highly skilled mechanic and applied to work on gas meters for a local utility. Emailed a resume and then silence, no reply to followups. Weeks go by and I wrote the assholes off. Then I get a phone call on a Friday to report to work Monday! I needed a job and worked for the assholes for nearly two years. I was a temp making ten bucks an hour. We were sent in areas of Wilmington DE that the cops went with two cars minimum. I worried constantly about getting killed and leaving my wife. I quit to avoid getting shot.
I now have a great job and plan to stay there until I can no longer work.
FUCK YOU SCOPE SERVICES AND DELMARVA POWER
the first question you ask your prospective employer is Where is the last person who was doing this job? If the answer is THE CEMETARY, then keep moving, though I am not sure they are required to reveal that fact, in my life I have replaced dead men on at least two occassions.
I've seen a few dead dudes replaced.
Think it was stress that killed them though.
They are, however, every bit as dead as if they got shot.
I view it as scared employees, all through the company.
I have had high level executives talking about wanting a "few weeks free consulting while coming up to speed" when the original need for an external consultant was that companies incompetence.
Everyone seems to be scared and acting in ways to differentiate themselves from the other employees that are also running scared: "I don't need to outrun the bear, I just need to outrun you".... They are doing things not mandated by above, but come up with by themselves thinking that the bosses will like it and fire their neighbors...
"Everyone seems to be scared and acting in ways to differentiate themselves from the other employees that are also running scared:"
That is normal within societies controlled by tyranny, and I'd imagine ditto for sub-societies like those found in the corps. of today, many of which are run by fear and lead by psychopaths.
In Nazi Germany, not to equate the two, but only to bring focus to the psychology of it, this behavior was called "Working Toward Hitler." This meant that you should work hard to do what you thought Hitler wanted, so as to differentiate yourself, and possibly be seen as a good Hitler-ite and Nazi.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
You have very good obeservational skills. Bravo.
At least the guy was able to engage in a dialog with the company, however unpolite the company was. That's more than most US citizen tech grads have been able to achieve in the past decade especailly with the employers hooked on using H-1B visas (and the ones who don't use H-1B are just overwhelmed with applicants, such as Google with their 1000+ resumes for a single position!).
Out of about 40 applications during my last period of UE, two replies: One very politely telling me I did not measure up and the other from my current employer.
The "screen out or dont fit" resume app has been installed in all Applicant Management software for at least 15 years. Most Human Recruiters will not see even 5 +% of the resumes that apply to specific job openings within a company.
You are fighting the machine first, in order for the machine to match the job requirements TO YOUR SKILLS ON YOUR RESUME and "screen YOU IN."
Then you are fighting the "screener" who calls to get additional information, then the recruiter, - untill you reach the hiring manager/team.
You then "comptete" with xxx number of other applicants for the job. That compitition can entail everything in your life, education, age, race, gender, reputation in in your field, reputation in your industry, likeability by the "team" and finally your looks and " Corporate presence" on social media.
From start to finish you can be looking at 90+ days on average, when the newly hired employee walks in the door.
One can alwasys circumvent most of this, if one has a highly placed source within the Corporation and hiring you simply becomes a matter of formality.
Exactly. Best to track down a real live human in the organization, any human you can find if HR has hidden themselves in some inpenetrable nuclear bunker, and at least take 5 minutes of their time in the politeist manner possible. They might not be able to do anything against the HR mafia, but at least a cost has been imposed upon the elites who run the organizations in responding to one's application.
If you just sit there and throw your application into those computer websites most companies run, the cost to the company in ignoring you is approximately zero. There's literally no downside and only potential upside. What are they going to do, put you on a blacklist because you had the initiative to follow up on a sales lead?
I needed an AR clerk. Told HR to run ads and get me one.
HR took two weeks vacation. Meantime we were getting frantic and pissy, I had a lady announce her retirement date and we have to replace her. She's been here for twenty years and has all kinds of experience and history.
HR came back from vacation. First thing on her desk was to get me interviews. End of the day I had three that proved they could do math in their heads. Interview with me and the AR supervisor was the next day. We're looking for someone who could fit in with the rest of us, what they know about billing is irrelevant, we're so complicated that anyone coming in is guaranteed to screw up. And we tell them that. We expect it, we'll tell everyone about it proudly, because we're all screw-ups. Welcome to the team!
Interviewed three ladies between ten am and twelve pm. By 1 pm we had narrowed it down to two. I told her that she had to work with them, hire who she wanted or just go with who had the biggest tits. She went for the biggest tits out of the three (yay!). Offer was made at 2 pm by HR subject to drug test and other bullshit you have to do these days. Started work the next day.
We're a privately owned company, over the last eleven years we've lost three employees (this year) due to retirement, I had one disappear and called the sheriff to do a wellness check in 2006, and two that got married and moved...out of a stable staff of fourteen.
I think hiring is over-complicated by mega companies because there's politics involved internally and externally. Here, we don't care about politics, we need a body that can demonstrate mental math as a first prerequisite. Flexibility in job requirements as a second. And a bit of personality as a third. Over the last eleven years I've only managed to hire two people under 30. Both were my personal aides and I mentored them in accounting and becoming masters of disasters. One is a very successful CPA, the other made me maid of honor at her lesbian wedding by accident. And she was even smarter than the dude that went on to be a CPA.
Being a family owned company brings different values to the hiring decision. I like it, and our employees like it.
"She went for the biggest tits out of the three (yay!). "
Hey, that's tit-ism.
What about smaller tit-ed women with fine butts?! They deserve work too.
I can just about hear the broads of The View carping about "tit-ism." Zion will have the indoctrination centers, gov. schools, handing out anti-tit-ism literature and imposing rules about same--"Yeah dude, I know, but I can't date Shelley, as my last girlfriend had big tits too, and I'm now required to date a small tit girl next. Is your sister available?"
However, I'm practitioner of ass-ism myself--Only fine-ass-ed skinnies need apply.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"I, the Honorable Judge Stein, find that you and your firm discriminate on the basis of tit size. You are now fined $145,298, and must have all employees attend tit-sensitivity training."
WIll live models be present for the training? Are ice cubes provided or do we need to bring our own?
And big tits is never a bad thing.
Classic...
Many years of experience have taught me that the way your are treated as a prospective employee is the way you'll be treated as an employee.
How many resumes for Starbucks? Which would be more of a bellweather?
They have already announced that they are only hiring teens and twenty somethings.
Hey, that's age discrimination.
Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz#Early_life_and_education
Oops, my bad, I forgot to check first, as that only applies to ducks, and not hens.
Of course,"age discrimination" is itself a division tool produced, and used, by Zion to divide us against each other.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"Tenants" in our own "duck pond."
In other words, "only perky tits here".