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w̶i̶e̶l̶d̶l̶i̶n̶u̶x̶.̶c̶o̶m̶
Brooke Allen - The Idea of Care and Community in Hiring
The idea of care and community in hiring in these two blog posts below has affected how I think. Now I want to continually and sustainably help connect employers with employees. (which is the main idea of the posts)
This blog post: "How to hire good people instead of nice people" ( https://brookeallen.com/2015/01/14/how-to-hire-good-people-instead-of-nice-people/ )
Added note: Interestingly, since I first read the above article, it has been months. I have experienced the following things:
My desire to help connect employers with employees has strengthened and then subsided and then strengthened again.
My employment status has changed between various states of: unemployed, employed, and employed-with-a-different-employer.
In other words, this is a dynamic ongoing process/topic.
After having read the first article above, just recently I read this other article by Brooke Allen: "Name the variable for the switch that says you should take a job or hire an employee" ( https://medium.com/@BrookeTAllen/name-the-variable-for-the-switch-that-says-you-should-take-a-job-or-hire-an-employee-7673b21043b1#.5latic1nx )
I have felt that the hiring system is broken. I've read tweets from others who feel this way too. This second article mentions "...had decided to try a different approach to hiring...". I am feeling like this blog post truly is describing a different approach to hiring. It is a real way to fix the broken system.
Now I'm thinking how can I as an individual fix my aspect of participation in the broken system?
First thing comes to mind is to use a modified version of my colleague's way of job searching.
A story:
My colleague said they wanted a job, so they found ten local companies, any of which they liked and so wanted to work for. Then they researched each of the ten companies and wrote a slightly different resume for each company, and kept following up with each of the ten. My colleague said the result was that they did get a job with one of the ten (which was where I met my colleague as I was there)
In this second article linked above, Brooke Allen gives a public request to "name the variable for the switch". I'd say the switch should be called the job-after-next switch, because it's when you realize this is the job (or the employee) that you want not only right now, but the next time you do a job search as well. In other words it's when you realize that this job (or employee) is an excellent fit, and you want to keep pursuing it, and you wish all your future job opportunities were this perfect of a fit, because then you'd have more opportunities that actually are a good fit.
The end of the second article writes "...Then the employer hires the people they want and we try to place the rest. ..."
Yes, this is describing a different approach to hiring. Along the same lines of the first article linked above.
Moving on.
How to adapt this to the employee point-of-view?
The article indicates that John's company (through Brooke's service) facilitates ~50-ish job seekers through seminars, hires 2, and helps the other 48 find jobs instead of giving up on them. (note: I'm assigning concrete numbers beyond the article's)
From my point of view, I could apply to 50 companies, get interviewed by 10, get hired by one of the two companies who wants me, and then help the other 9 companies to find employees instead of giving up on them. In other words, I could care about the companies that I am applying to, by caring about the hiring managers who interviewed me, no matter whether they ended up hiring me or not.
How could I help the companies find employees? I could keep names and addresses of contact people at each company who interviewed me, check in with them periodically, read what they're doing online, blog about what they're doing, and refer my colleagues. (from my professional network, refer my colleagues (who are prospective employees) to the hiring managers)
tags: #mingling
Note: This post was pre-published on 2016-11-03.
[2019 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2016/... .html.]