30 Replies to “Recessionary Labor Market Economics”

  1. Yeah, been thru this BS 10 years ago when I just immigrated. The most famous reason for rejection that I and my friends love to mention was ‘lack of Canadian experience’ as if C++ code was dramatically different in Eastern Europe.

  3. Above the fold front page of today’s regional daily newspaper the London Free Press carries the severance package of $451,000.00 for the information officer of two London Ontario Hospitals.
    The original employment contract allowed for one years pay plus one months pay for each year of employment.
    The inept employee (information officer) did not issue tenders for over $3,000.000.00 million dollars of hospital contracts.
    Went to a former co-workers firm.
    Inanity in management hiring practices to write in the consequences of being fired even for cause?
    Try insanity!!!
    London Health Sciences Board me thinks is a boars nest of overpaid insanity.

  4. Joe- I find the attitude of the CEO to be that of a typical bureaucrat. He appears not to be concerned with the transgressions of the CIO, but rather punishing the whistle-blower for breaching confideniality rules.
    Insanity indeed!!!

  5. The big four accounting firms are a joke in terms of real accounting experience. All you learn is what the rules & regulations are and how to manipulate the numbers. You don’t learn how REAL VALUE is created in a business and what underpins those numbers you have on the financial statements.
    I’ve been working as a Controller at a small manufacturing company for a year and a half. There I have learned how a real business operates and have had real responsibilities on ensuring the business is successful. You would never experience that being a “big four” trainee.

  6. I heard this from an associate who had to go through a bankruptcy.
    His advice—go to one of the BIG 4—-smaller trustees were sooo inquisitive while the big guys didn’t take a middle class bankruptcy seriously but got the discharge through without being very picky.

  7. My advice for hirings has always been to pick the best person with only limited weighting of experience (as training and experience can be transferred quickly to the right person).
    Picking the wrong person with the right experience saddles you with a potential problem for a long time.

  8. Captain, the answer is: Yes. Just as inane.
    My father’s comment was priceless:
    Experince is nice but smarts is better.
    Any idiot can acquire experince, but being stupid is a life sentence.

  9. AHA !!!
    see what I mean, from my post in the yout’ unemployment thread:
    “sheeeee-it. the insanity of it all.
    Posted by: curious_george at September 28, 2009 11:15 PM”
    I was bytching about the catch-22 you need the experience to get the job so that you can get the experience so you can get the job.
    this is proof it happens all over the place.

  10. From the Rockwell Collins website:
    Diversity and Inclusion
    Our future at Rockwell Collins depends on our ability to provide smart solutions for our customers around the world. To achieve that goal, we have developed comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategies that will drive business performance in more positive, productive and innovative ways.
    Diversity infuses richness, nurtures people’s strengths in the workplace, builds morale, and leads to creative business solutions. At Rockwell Collins, we define diversity as difference – difference such as age, educational background, gender, geography, interpersonal traits, learning styles, lifestyles, personal beliefs, physical and mental attributes/abilities, race, sexual orientation and work environment.
    Looks to me like Rockwell Collins should be having a case of cognitive dissonance over the specific need for it’s new accountant to have worked with one of the “Big Four Accounting” firms.
    Fails the diversity of work environment at least, IMHO.

  11. OT,but would like to know if anyone has seen the list of hollyweed celebs that are petitioning for the release of convicted child rapist polanski?
    I read elsewhere this am that the list contains
    at least 100 names,be nice to see it published for all to see imo.

  14. In Canada the equivalent is the ability to speak French fluently. You don’t have to speak English fluently, but the key to high positions in the Federal civil service, promotion to the rank of colonel or above in the military is fluency in French. There could be people more competent, but if they can only speak English the French speaker gets the nod.
    Did I mention that the French fluency test for Anglophones is impossible for FRANCOPHONES to pass–unless they are experts in the minutiae of French grammar?

  16. “Is the Canadian labour market as inane?”
    Absolutely.  When I was more actively involved in big business, my favourite rejoinder to those who wrote unrealistic new hire requirements was “So, to sum up: you want twenty-cubed — someone who’s twenty years old, has twenty years’ worth of experience and is willing to work for twenty thousand dollars a year.  Good luck with that.”
    Garth

  17. Some employers do ask for an insane amount of experience for an entry level. I’m not suggesting there should be no experience but one may have to undo the years of experience of a new employee.
    As for nepotism, seen that. Too much of that.

  18. “Out of curiosity, is the Canadian labor market as inane?”
    Yes. Particularly in medicine, where in the middle of an -acute- shortage of doctors, nurses, PTs and etc, they ratchet up the regulation and oversight to eliminate ever larger numbers of able and willing people from these professions.
    Oh, and coincidentally cut the number of seats available for med school, nursing and PT school, radiology techs and etc etc etc.
    Central planning. Same result everywhere, every time.

  19. Also, let’s not forget, when you see an insanely detailed list of requirements, generally the internal candidate has already been picked, so it’s just a formality to say “no” to everyone else who applies.

  20. “Lacking Canadian experience” can also translate into “You probably have a relative back home running a clone of our business and you’re here to steal every bit of knowledge or process not nailed down but we are too lazy to check your foreign references and too chicken to give you a chance. Sorry”.

  22. Posted by: curious_george>
    “……..you need the experience to get the job so that you can get the experience so you can get the job”.
    Such is the plight of 99% of Canadians under 30 years of age. Funny though that after reaching 40 years of age 98% of those people have the experience and the better paying jobs.
    The moral – Those that use their intelligence and hard work will achieve their goals despite the seemingly impossible “catch 22”. This is one method that separates the wheat from the chaff in our system.

  23. Sgt Lejaune, that could be true in a high-end manufacturing company. (Do we still have any of those here?)
    But not medicine. “Lack of Canadian experience” translates to “Your med school isn’t listed on our form. If it isn’t on the form it doesn’t exist.”
    Never attribute to malice what can be explained by sheer, stunning incompetence.
    I discovered a way to beat it though. You wear a really nice suit, you smile charmingly, and you LIE like a Persian carpet. Because unless they are hiring a guy to operate one specific machine, or they require a specific certificate, they don’t need all that “required” experience at all. And they don’t check it. They hire the nice suit. With you in it.
    Also, putting your resume on legal sized paper is an excellent trick. It sticks out the bottom or top of the pile. Put your name on both ends of it in a discrete way, and it will always be staring Miss HR Dimwit in the face.
    Unfortunately if you actually get whatever pointless job they have on offer it will make your life miserable. Better to seek self employment. Your brain cells will thank you.

  24. This could be a sane policy:
    Have a disqualification that applies to everyone until you make an exception for the one want.
    Where they are too stupid to realize the qualification is impossible: Well you should be glad you don’t work for those idiots.

  25. My favourite is when employers ask for ten years experience in something any idiot could master in ten minutes.

  26. A few notes based on my experience…
    If an organization must state it is world class, it isn’t (note New York City, London, Paris & Tokyo never have to mention they are “world class”). If you must state you value diversity it is because you don’t. If you do, it is obvious and need not be stated.
    Canadian experience? I have worked with Filipino CPAs who could not do bank reconciliations, senior Lebanese accountants who could handle cash like all get out but had no clue about accounts payable, trade receivables, depreciation or amortization. All their experience (with some huge enterprises) was cash only; no one gets credit in a country when you cannot enforce the debt in court.

  27. As a selection expert, I know that many firms do not know how to select good employees well. Many do/can not hire experts, but rely on their own impressions. “Experience” is a useful tool to make a first cut among applicants, but the bar should not be set so high as to screen out excellent people who can learn certain parts of the required knowledge/skills profile. Alone, it is a very poor predictor of success, as 5 years of experience does not mean that the person was any good. As well, personal factors are important, as jobs require varying levels of interpersonal and communications skills. Many HR professionals do not know how to assess these skills well.
    Equating experience and training in foreign jurisdictions to Canadian credentials is tricky. We do not want a workforce with diluted capabilities, but current educational and regulatory institutions are not meeting the needs. Our professional organizations are far from helpful, as they tend to be invested in and revel in academic credentials. Canada needs a lot more quick and tailored upgrade training programs in most professions, plus some internships to bridge/diagnose the Canadian experience/knowledge/communication gaps. There are also perceived fairness issues in the mix to be resolved and addressed.
    Resolving these issue is not rocket science, but frankly, Canada does not have enough really well-trained selection experts, as CEOs are not making the investment.

  28. The criterion often seems that a company would rather hire or promote somebody who has proven he can’t do the job than somebody who hasn’t yet proven that he can.
    Just an anecdote: In 1999, I saw a job posting that sought somebody with three years’ experience with a web-based retail business. In other words, if you weren’t Jeff Bezos, you shouldn’t bother to apply.

  29. You’re all being somewhat harsh. The reality is we frequently cross-train internally for important vacancies and find outselves downsized to the point that it’s not possible to put a rookie in certain positions without bringing your function to a screeching halt. Also, it’s naive not to have a back up or three in place if the available candidate pool turns up weak. There’s also the problem of huge pools of candidates that can’t possibly be interviewed in under a month. Critical experience criteria is required to avoid wasting their and your time – although typically many will apply anyway.
    Frankly, except in government yet because of federal employment laws, any company of any size has to mind their HR business or they’ll find themselves in hot water in short order.
    A lovely Sudbury gal we knew held an important spousal abuse commission position several years ago in Ottawa because she was seeing a married minister. Since she’d never been married and hadn’t a lick of college, that was her sole exposure to abuse of any kind that I could see.
    She did look great on television. Government operates outside the legislation they impose on everyone else.

  30. Oh, and, she was French Canadian. Unlikely as it seems, we became friends with a large group of FCs during that trip because of an unfortunate comment my husband made to this very group during happy hour at the hotel. I had been railing about the U.S. solving the Mexico petroleum and Canadian cecession issues by just annexing them both. My husband actually said that out loud to this group of FCs including several RCMPs on holidy. I was up in the room and so didn’t hear it and would probably have dropped to the ground in embarrassment in any case. For whatever reason, the FCs thought he was hilarious and we hung out the rest of the trip and for a couple of years with a few others subsequently. One never knows, do one.

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