On Thursday 29 January 2009, Rene Churchill wrote: > > > Rion's comment caused me to chuckle because of the inherent logical > conundrum. A company only hires if they are lacking resources, so they > may well not _have_ the resources to respond in a timely and polite > fashion, that's why they're hiring! Man, wouldn't it suck to have your > first task at a new job to be calling all of the ones rejected and > telling they didn't get the job? I think that would be the 1st task for the person hired as the 'hatchet-man':)
> > > My boss and I were discussing this a couple of days ago, he's trying to > hire a personal assistant and has gotten 50-ish resumes already. He's > rather daunted by the task of contacting everybody but one and telling > them the bad news. Nobody likes to disappoint someone and it's one of > those tasks that keeps getting put off forever. You know, despite the obvious superficiality of it, just an auto-responder would be better than nothing. At least then you know it found its way to the in-box. And, FWIW, I'd rather be disappointed than left hanging. > > It *is *rude not to acknowledge resumes and submissions to a company but > it is the norm and will stay the norm until supply and demand reverse > their current position. When a company only gets two applicants for a > position and they both say "You didn't make a good impression, so I > don't want to work for you", then behaviors will change. When there are > 100's of people clamoring for the same job, then the hiring manager just > goes to the next one on the list. Now that's an interesting prospect, tho not likely to happen in this current economy. Not that this isn't STO to anyone here on the list, but here's the tell: There is prima-face evidence of the demise of long-term employment. Holding a job in IT for 3-5 years in a smaller company is about par for today's course. And the larger corps have proven themselves not to care about, and even undermine, those in seniority in their scaling down; good-bye pension... So, today's new recruit does not see their new job as a life-long employment opportunity. The result of this treatment of employees by management obligated to shareholders has demonstrated to educated white-collar types that they are no different from blue-collar breatheran. By-n-large industry has demonstrated that there is no job security and no loyalty; to workers or to the community; rare is the exceptions to that rule (tho, hopefully, less here in VT). The flip side of this coin became apparent to me a few months back watching a news show about the attitudes of students and recent college grads towards their role in the workforce and employment in general. I did a bit of research to corroborate and the take-away was readily confirmed: Young adults emerging into the workforce do not care much about laboring for "the man". Comparatively to generations previous, overwhelmingly increasing numbers would prefer and are oriented toward becoming their own boss in their own business. The rest have adopted the attitude of "if you won't hire me, I'll just go across the street and apply there". Most see any new job they do land as only transitory (prob due to the economics wall street) and as such, are always in the process of seeking greener pastures. As an aside: some months back this list was discussing FOSS apps. So I decided to collate a list. After reading about this phenom I decided (as a way to play around w/jquery) to create a mock-up site that could be further developed to inform would-be entrepreneurs about FOSS and using it to get off to a good start in their endeavors. My site is called thebizfoundry.com and for any so inclined, I'd be happy to get any browser-testing feedback. Their sentiment, I suspect, is co-incidental or correlated to their (as everyone's) experiences in applying for jobs and the prevailing attitudes in HR. Basically, being treated like shit if you don't make the short list. Welcome to the real-world. So, here is what I perceive as the ironic rub: Today's (continuing) attitude of bosses not caring about workers and vis-a-vis, workers not caring about the company is going to affect a sea-change when it reaches some tipping-point and the paradigm breaks. From the worker perspective it will be less hours on the job, more flexibility, better bene's; quality-of-life issues that resonate more w/the europeans and their 6-week vacations:) e.g.: caring less about the job and more about life. From the corporate perspective it will be about ensuring continuity in the face of economic realities that may affect hiring (like outsourcing), length of the work-week, perks and benefits, etc.. all more conducive factors for employees to take their jobs less seriously. I personally believe that the de-centralization of corporations, at headquarters and at the departmental level is just a matter of time. The time it takes to replace aging luddite bosses w/a newer generation that is more comfortable with technology and the miriad ways of communicating and being in touch. When that happens, telework for knowledge-workers will be order of the day and the promise it holds for living greener, more flexible lives, where one doesnt have to live2work/work2live will change the entire system. At least I'm remaining hopeful. Rion > > Paul Flint wrote: > >> Corporate is what corporate is -- and Logic Supply is probably > >> following the > >> money, and doing so while supporting Linux on their platform, supporting > >> Vermont, and not routing calls to India. > > Yet I hope that being in Vermont is more than this baseline. The > > feeling I get is that they could be located anywhere. > Stan is right, they're following the money and that's what they are > supposed to do. They don't have to be located in Vermont, they could > easily pick up and move. So what are we doing to encourage them to stay > here? Has anyone invited them to speak to Vague about their products? > Sounds like there have been a few purchases make by local folks, that > alway helps. > > Rene >
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