Welcome to the November 30, 2005 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

What's Inside:

1.   Michael Brown: Would you hire this man?

Michael Brown, the former FEMA director, who headed the agency during it's bungled response following Hurricane Katrina, announced he is starting a consulting business specializing in of all things: emergency preparedness. Experience may be the greatest teacher of all but is it really enough to close the cavernous gap between Mr. Brown's performance and skill set. When asked about his future, he said, ""I'm doing a lot of good work with some great clients," Brown said. "My wife, children and my grandchild still love me. My parents are still proud of me." Enough said.

That leads me right up to a few of the oddest job interview responses reported in a recent survey of hiring managers by Accountemps.

Top 10 Oddest Job Interview Responses

" A guy said he was the sole source of support for his puppy."

"The candidate noted that there were no redheads in the company, and said we should hire one."

"An applicant explained that his brother-in-law was successful in the industry, so he would be, too."

"Someone said she was a good reader at church, and that's whey she ought to be hired."

"The candidate said she'd always wanted to work in our building."

"The candidate said that unless we hired him, our corporate identify would disappear."

"The applicant said he'd been rejected by all the good companies"

"The job seeker said we should hire him because he just won big in Las Vegas and was on a roll."

"He said we should hire him so he could ride his bike to work."

"One person said we should hire her because she was a cheerleader in high school."

Source: Human Resource Executive, November 2005

2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts # 479 to # 480

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Fact #479:   Employers who hire young people right out of school and college professors who teach freshmen and sophomores said the public high school graduates they encounter had just "fair" or "poor" skills in:

Grammar and spelling - (73 percent of employers and 74 percent of college professors)
Ability to write clearly - (73 percent of employers, 75 percent of professors)
Basic math - (63 percent of employers, 65 percent of professors)

Fact #480:  Employers and college professors also were not impressed with the attitudes high school graduates bring to the job or the classroom.

Young people were given fair or poor ratings for "work habits, such as being organized and on time" by 69 percent of employers and 74 percent of professors.

Students also were given low marks for "being motivated and conscientious" by 72 percent of employers and 58 percent of professors.

(Source: Reality Check 2002)

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3. Two out of five employees looking for new jobs:
85% increase over past year.

"The future does not look good for traditional jobs" if you can believe what you read in the November-December 2005 issue of The Futurist. Apparently over 1500 hundred job seekers and seventy-plus businesses and organizations in Lancaster County didn't get the message. Resumes in hand, twenty-seven percent of employed job seekers had one thing to say: "Show me the money."

The 2005 Job Fair was sponsored by the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce and Industry (http://www.lcci.com) in late September. The survey was conducted by Success Performance Solutions. This is the third year Success Performance Solutions conducted the survey in conjunction with the Lancaster Chamber.

Better pay was the most important benefit sought by 421 attendees who completed the survey. To read more results, read more about Job Satisfaction Survey in last week's The Total View:

4.   The Employee Five-Finger Discount Is Alive and Well

When it comes to office supplies, the latest survey by Vault Inc. shows workers may have a different attitude than their employers when it comes to helping themselves.

According to the survey, 67 percent of workers have taken office supplies form work to use outside the office or for matters unrelated to the job. Virtually all—97 percent—of respondents said it would not matter if they were caught raiding the office pencil cups.

Most popular item to pilfer: pens. Post-It notes came in second. Other popular items lifted from the supply closet:

• Envelopes: 32 percent
• Notepads: 28 percent
• Paper: 27.5 percent
• Paper clips: 26 percent
• Highlighters: 24 percent

5.   New Screening Test for Honesty and Integrity

There is wide-spread concern about the honesty and integrity of employees. Most organizations have serious problems of pilferage, absenteeism, tardiness, employee disagreements that lead to violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and computer misuse. The annual loss from these counterproductive behaviors is estimated in the billions of dollars. There was a clear need for a brief assessment that could be used as part of the pre-employment screening process. CandidClues™ was developed to meet that need.

CandidClues™ assesses six areas of potentially counterproductive behaviors by a self-descriptive inventory that taps six substantive areas of concern as well a Good Impression (validity) scale.

• Hostility
• Conscientiousness
• Integrity
• Substance Abuse
• Sexual Harassment
• Computer Misuse

More about CandidClues

6.  Check Backgrounds before you hire

If, like Pinocchio's nose, each lie a candidate told on his/her resume or during the interview became immediately apparent, business owners could easily weed out employees who cheat and deceive. Because it's not always that easy, how can employers like you tell if an employee is lying about their work experience, criminal background, and education?

Our Background Checks Services include:

• Employment Verification
• Criminal Records Search
• Civil Records Search
• Workers Comp Search
• SSN Verification
• Credit Reports
• DMV Reports
• Bankruptcy Search
• Degree Verification
• Professional License Verification
• Drug Screening

Learn more about Background Checks

Ira S. Wolfe. 2005 - All Rights Reserved. Reprints and other distribution by permission only.

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