Archive for the 'Hiring' Category


Toilet paper resumes: More feels better?

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

[Some bloggers cleverly carry a theme from one post to the next. I'm not into that. Honest: I wasn't looking to flow the theme from Pissing on the applicant into today's post. Toilet paper just kinda backed up into the system when JaneA posted a comment on Readers’ Forum: HR’s #1 job: Poisoning the well?] Businesses [...]


Why HR?

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Uh-uh, Bill Taylor. I just read Why We (Shouldn’t) Hate HR on FastCompany.com. I wish Bill (one of the brilliant founders of FastCompany magazine) hadn’t questioned the intent and meaning of Keith Hammond’s original 2005 article, Why We Hate HR. If anything, it’s more valid today than it was 5 years ago because today budgets are tighter [...]


Readers’ Forum: Spanking HR

Monday, April 12th, 2010

Discussion: April 13, 2010 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter In today’s Q&A: (Well, it’s not a Q&A!) This week I printed comments about the corporate Human Resources function that bear thinking about. A seasoned HR manager says HR should get out of the business of hiring and recruiting and go back to making sure paychecks have the [...]


Bloomberg: Profit-based job hunting & hiring

Friday, March 5th, 2010

From Bloomberg TV,  March 5, 2010: Nick talks about “the jobs numbers” and shifting hiring trends with news anchors Lori Rothman and Mark Crumpton. .


Readers’ Forum: Ability or credentials?

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Discussion: December 8, 2009 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter The Q&A column in this week’s newsletter asks whether employers are too hell-bent on hiring only “the perfect candidate,” when ability and talent might be the more efficient path to getting a job done. How long will a manager wait until perfection arrives? Do employers really want [...]


Overqualified Applicants: We are terrified of you

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

I don’t know whether the New York Times is trying to shed light on the growing unemployment situation or to poke fun at job hunters and employers. In a story yesterday ($13 an Hour? 500 Sign Up, 1 Wins a Job) the Times tells about a trucking company that ran a job posting on CareerBuilder… [...]


The Monster-ous quality of choice

Monday, October 19th, 2009

A recent post, Congress to Employers: You’re not proctologists, drew a comment that reveals the dangerous new cracks in our employment system  — and hints at the problem employers need to address if the quality of hiring is to improve. In a comment on that post, dated October 19, 2009 at 6:52 am, reader Nic says: This [...]


Congress to Employers: You’re not proctologists

Friday, October 9th, 2009

I once applied for a job with a big-time, international consulting firm. I signed off on a background check that included letting them interview everyone back to my kindergarten teacher. I had to get a physical and pee in a cup. They did a credit check. Who knows what they found, because they didn’t hire me. (I have [...]


Readers’ Forum: How third-world farmers beat corporate HR

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Third-world farmer: 1 Modern American manager: 0 If American companies want to start hiring like it matters again, it’s time to behave like the third-world country we were in the 18th century. In with common sense. Out with Human Resources bureaucracy. I’ve been teaching how to do the job to win the job on Ask The [...]


Shoot first, start a war later with HR

Friday, August 21st, 2009

I continue to enjoy Mike Urbonas‘s blog because the guy has an eye for bureaucracy masquerading as expertise. Got a problem landing the job you want? It’s probably because you’re listening to bad advice. Got a problem filling a key job in your organization? Make an executive decision, and start a war with the Human Resources [...]