Because nothing captures the job search like endlessly rolling that mythical boulder up and down the hill...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
When Companies Don't Know What They Want...
Everybody remembers the teenage breakup. The long staring into one another's eyes, the endless tears, the never-ending pseudo-drama that inevitably ended with the same five words:
"It's not you, it's me."
And while we all probably contemplated various acts of revenge - breaking into the offending ex's house while s/he was away and dialing automated long-distance calls in order to run up enormous phone bills was a common fantasy among many of my friends - most of us inevitably just settled for the typical 16- or 17-year old idea of vengeance and TP'd the offending ex's house.
If only there were some modern equivalent for the job interview.
This week's story comes from a friend of mine who has seen the same position advertised by the same company not once, not twice, but three separate times. What's changed, you ask? Only the title. Some of the following text has been changed to preserve anonymity, but the basics are regrettably all too accurate:
Director of Marketing
[Type] of firm seeks marketing director for media outreach and development...
My friend applied for the position and received a notice that the position had been canceled. "Well," she said. "Another case of a company talking before doing its thinking."
But it didn't end there. A couple of months later, she saw this position advertised by the same firm:
Marketing Manager
[Type] of firm seeks marketing manager or outreach and business development...
My friend applied for the job through the agency running the position and was surprised to be told, "Sorry, you already applied for this position a couple of months ago."
"But that position was canceled, I was told," my friend replied.
"No, it's the same job," she was told. "The company couldn't find anyone qualified as a director, so they bumped it down." Well, my friend thought, so much for that.
But it doesn't end there. Two weeks after this conversation, my friend was contacted by the agent and asked if she would be interested in the following position with the same firm:
Marketing Manager for Business Development
[Type] of firm seeks marketing manager for business development and outreach projects...
"So, let me get this straight," my friend told me. "You have a company that advertises a position at one level, can't find anyone willing to take it the given salary, but rather than raise the salary a few thousand dollars to the competitive level necessary to attract qualified candidates, they bump the job down instead. When that doesn't work, they bump it down EVEN MORE, thus wasting more time, effort - and yes, money - going through all these pointless efforts just to 'save' a few thousand dollars?
Or, to put it more directly, how much is the company really "saving" if it is wasting so much staff time and effort running in circles like this one?
"It reminds me of Alice in Wonderland," my friend concluded. "Where the cheshire cat says, 'You must be mad, or else you wouldn't have come here!"
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You're just as likely to find long range vision in most companies as you are to find it in most teenagers, so this is not a surprise. Unfortunately.
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