By Patricia Beasock, Senior Recruiter 52 PDX
Ugh. Let’s face it. At one time or another, we have ALL been unemployed. For the general population, if you have had the misfortune of adopting this status, even momentarily, it is normally NOT a result of your own boneheaded action.
As a recruiter, the gal constantly pounding the proverbial pavement to find the best talent around, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up recently while reading an article on CNN.com that stated: “Unemployed candidates will not be considered”. 
According to Lisa Chenofsky Singer, a HR consultant from Millburn, NJ, specializing in media and publishing jobs, “most executive recruiters won’t consider a candidate unless they have a job, even if they don’t like to admit to it.”
Really? Um…. We’re calling bullshit.
Let’s look at the facts: The Unemployment rate in Oregon is 10.4%. That is 3rd highest in the nation and that sucks. If executive recruiters aren’t looking at that 10.4% at all, then they are doing a disservice for both of their clientele: their paying client, and their talent who are ready and willing to hit the ground running.
The Client: A large part of the qualified class could be unemployed… if you ignore them, you ignore a potential fit.
The Talent: Unemployment doesn’t designate a lack of qualifications. In this economic climate, most of the unemployed class were laid off due to recession… through no fault or error of their own.
A good recruiter, a status I would proudly pin on my own girl scout scarf, is going to vet talent based on an in person meeting, evaluate them as an individual, ask the right questions to get to the answers necessary, all this in order to present that talent to a prospective client. THEN (and only then), it should be decided whether or not a talent is a viable fit for the position that is open.
To assume that “you must have been laid off for performance issues” is indeed one of those myths that we should add to Snopes.com.
I agree with Judy Conti: “Making that kind of automatic cut is senseless; you could be missing out on the best person of all,” she said. “There are millions of people who are unemployed through no fault of their own. If an employer feels that the best qualified are the ones already working, they have no appreciation of the crisis we’re in right now.”
Here at 52 LTD, each talent is looked at as an individual. No matter what you do, 52 wants to learn more about you. Not by having you fill out a standard online form, but by actually getting to know you better.
We’ve developed our very own revolutionary system for screening prospective talent, which is made up of such groundbreaking techniques as Listening™, Looking At Your Book®, and Discussing Your Experience©. Because before we work together, we want to know everything: your background, your aspirations, what makes you tick, what you’re good at, what kind of tree you’d be if you could be any kind of tree—like we said, everything. The better we know you, the better we can match you with the right jobs in the right work environments. And that will make the work we find you seem less like work and more like getting paid to do what you’re good at.
PS – We won’t really ask you what tree you’d be. Promise.
Quotes taken from CNN Money.com. Read the article here.
Tags: clients, talent, Unemployment
Hell yes, Patricia. I like the way you do business and the way you speak so frankly about this idiot take on employ-ability. Never once have I looked at an incoming candidate and discarded them based on whether or not they were currently employed. Never. It serves no purpose.
Thanks for writing a great post from the heart. It’s nice to read a corporate blog that feels like I am being talked to, not at. Keep those posts coming.
Unbelievable. Layoffs or discharges can be for a number of reasons and will vary based on individual corporate culture, economic conditions, and downright failing of corporations based on poor decision making at the top – and dare I say the often poor mishandling of employee affairs by Human Resources?
Take Washington Mutual, an enormous employer in Washington State that imploded because of the lending crisis and their own corporate practices from the CEO and upper management. My friend, a Marketing Analyst for more than 10 years at WAMU was only one of thousands of employees laid off. After 18 months, he remains unemployed but actively consulting as he searches across the country for new work.
How could someone say, without meeting him, that he is an unqualified professional? Does 10 years commitment and multiple promotions to senior manager mean anything?
So, what this HR consultant is really admitting, is that YOU ARE UNQUALIFIED IF YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED. Wow, as an HR consultant, she should be more than aware that many remain employed who are under performers. Staying employed does not mean you’re the best.