It's Rough Out There

No one would argue that this is a tough job market. 

Business (in Canada anyway) has rebounded to a degree, although there is still a long way to go to get back to the level of business that we had a couple of years ago.

We have begun to turn a corner, but it’s a BIG corner and it’s going to take a while to navigate our away around.

In the meantime, Hotels have cut back on management and supervisory positions.  Well, actually, they made these cuts over a year ago – now it is more the case that they are continuing to operate at these levels, rather than return to the levels of management and supervisory staff that they had in place a year or maybe two ago.

So, how does this translate in the real world?

More experienced, skilled managers and supervisors out there looking for work, and, ultimately more qualified candidates competing for fewer positions when a position does come up.

Ironic isn’t it?  Just a year or two ago every Hotelier that I know was worried about how they were possibly going to find enough employees to keep their Hotels staffed.  There were positions posted everywhere, and far too few qualified, experienced candidates out there to fill the void on the line.  Some positions remained posted for weeks and months.

Now, the tables have turned and it is once again a situation of too many candidates for too few jobs.  Hoteliers will be rejoicing.

While I am genuinely happy for my colleagues, once again able to sift through multiple candidates until they find the best of the best to fill the occasional position, I would also like each of them to experience what it is to be unemployed in a market like this.

Perhaps then, they would have an understanding of what people are going through, “out on the street,” and take that into account when they determine how to treat candidates who apply for positions in their respective Hotels.

Perhaps even more to the point, how is it that Human Resource Managers, people hired with the sole purpose of successfully managing people, and, ensuring that their companies treat employees properly, do not see the value of treating people properly BEFORE they are hired?

When did it become too onerous a task to email a candidate to let them know how the process is progressing, or, to return their call with the same purpose?

How can you treat people in one way, only to tell them, once they are hired, if they are lucky enough to be hired, how you value people and how your company respects their team members?

Is the hypocrisy of this situation rather obvious?

I’ve been unemployed before, and on one occasion, as I was going through the recruitment process with a particular company, I made a conscious decision NOT to accept their offer when it eventually came, because I had been so unimpressed with the totally unprofessional way that they handled the recruitment for that position, I no longer wanted to work for them.

In a business that is “all about relationships” in my opinion, I simply could not get passed the fact that the people that I had been in contact with seemed to have no respect for people, no idea how to treat people and to reinforce the values that they espoused.

It reminds me of a quote that I like.  “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

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