“NO UNEMPLOYED CANDIDATES WILL BE CONSIDERED AT ALL” … wow, right?? That’s my thoughts after seeing the June 1st Orlando Florida headline of Unemployed Need Not Apply. Sad (but true!) these are the exact words from a job ad from Sony Ericsson. What may be a newsflash to you is that recruiting companies are saying this is becoming a trend for employers looking to hire employed applicants.
What’s the reasoning? Recruiting experts say they don’t really want the passive job seekers for a couple of reasons. It may take longer to get these individuals trained in fields which require constant training, due to them having been out of work. The other belief is that people who are employed, and not laid off are more valuable or the best in their field because they haven’t been let go from their job.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a blog here on GovLoop about what I called the “Muscial Chairs” trend of employed individuals beginning to once again job search while they have a job. This means more people looking for work – the employed AND unemployed. With so many job seekers available these days, it’s great from a recruiter’s perspective, right? Yeah, until all the resumes come rolling in… Sounds like Sony Ericsson just wants to limit the applicant pool to make their life easier – and so, they were (brutally!) honest about it.
From this recruiter’s perspective, Sony Ericsson may just have made a sad oversight. Yes, in the past five years or so the applicant pool has grown significantly. However, in the past couple of years, budget constraints have meant letting go those not-so-great performers as well as some of the more coveted employees. Not because their not great workers, but it simply comes down to dollar$. Sony Ericsson’s viewpoint that the unemployed are unwanted and unimportant may one day leave them UNHAPPY!
How stupid and unsavory. Sony themselves indulge in product cannibalism to ensure business growth and when resorted to such acts some one is gonna get hurt. Damn stupid philosophy and a restrictive employment practice. Take them to court. Damn….
Those hurt please die.
Goes back to what an old colleague once told me . . .
Human Resources . . .they are not blanking Human . . .and not blanking Resourceful!
Sorry about the blanking . . . emphasis was required.
It certainly sounds tacky to put that in the ad and seems stupid to exclude everyone that is currently unemployed. I have always felt that there is a general bias toward hiring someone that is already working, though, and as I helped look through resumes for our IT position recently, I found myself having that same bias. Where only part of the staff was laid off, I would wonder if they were let go because they weren’t as good at the job as others or were more difficult to get along with or … I would read the resume more defensively, like “what are they not telling me”. We did have two candidates from the same business, though – one laid off and one still working – that we did phone interviews with, and the one that was laid off seemed clearly more qualified. He had been paid more than the other candidate, so it appears that the company laid him off to save more money. That can possibly make sense if the extra pay was just due to longevity and not skills; otherwise, that seems very illogical, too.
How awful! They shouldn’t be able to consider that any more than they’re allowed to consider gender, age, disability, etc. – it isn’t important to being able to do the job!
Hmmm, very interesting. My wife & I were thinking about buying new loaded Sony laptops that are very similar to the Apple MacBook Pro with the aluminum body etc., only the Sony’s are MS Windows machines. HOWEVER, if they want to discriminate that way regarding applicants, I can be discriminating also & get another brand of laptops also. See you later Sony. I’ll be looking at Toshiba or maybe even the Apple MacBook Pro, even though the Apples are about 2-3 times more in price. I keep hearing good things about them. Who would have thought that such a well known company, with such a great product line & so many highly educated, intelligent professionals would have made such a moronically stupid blunder. Hmmm…….
@ Dennis, I can appreciate the frustration that comes along with that HR quote…however, as someone who is very passionate about HR and has been in this field for about 4 years, I can say that perhaps the reasons for the complaints against HR is due to the fact that HR is one of the first places to cut, is always under budgeted and under staffed, and rarely EVER gets a chance to work on “themselves” because they are serving their customers full time. I’m currently the most senior HR person (gulp!) in my command and I have to tell my customers who come and complain about the length of time in staffing— well, if you let me work and get what I need to get done I can get my work done faster. With every walk-in, phone call, email, etc it delays my staffing work. I can’t even get an hour to build my announcement to recruit a staffing specialist because I’m always serving someone else. Just a different perspective, if you will 🙂