Why it is so hard to hire good employees? (degrees, interviewing, employer)
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Again, the attitude I brought up. Thinking it is O.K. to take someones money, and not be willing to do the job, the way the owners, the mangers, etc., want it done. When these brats in the managers opinion try to tell the management they are doing things wrong, it is actually insubordination, and it is time to get rid of a trouble maker.
They forget, there may be a Right Way to do something. The wrong way do do it. And the company way to do it. The company has determined what is the best way to do things at their facility, and are putting their money where their mouth is. They are paying to get the job done the way the company want's it done. They are interested in how the young person or maybe not so old, whats to do it, but want the job done the way they want it done.
if someone is not asking questions about "how" to get it done...company way or not its a sign to me that they are not fully engaged, or more dangerously they think they know all the answers. I find that this generation is even afraid to ask questions, they either don't care if the final product is good or are too afraid to look like they don't know what they are doing.
In my field this is a big deal and I'm afraid to see the end product after they have done the work without asking any questions of the group or manager. Sometimes until the questions are asked the manager doesn't even realize there is a problem.
I was being sarcastic. The poster was trying to make a sweeping statement about younger workers based on the comments he's read in this thread. That seems to be a way to shut down the discussion.
People of all ages and occupations have been posting in this thread and related threads and most of us are frustrated by the lack of work and being told we don't have the right skill and experience set. We want jobs but because we don't fit into a cookie cutter we are brats?? I don't get it.
In the last six years we hired 3 young Engineers with the intention of training and preparing them to fill the gap as our older engineers retire. Yesterday, I was talking to our Manager and we both agreed that none of these three engineers can be relied upon to take over major projects now or in the next 5 years when our three most senior engineer retire. These three young engineers all lack the desire to gain deep knowledge and understanding of our technology and have no interest in learning about up coming trends in the industry. One guy has deep emotional issues that make him extremely unstable and sometimes even suicidal. The other two only do what they are asked and usually do not attempt to question anything. They all lack the maturity you expect for professionals in their early 30s. I am in my late 30s and I don't remember I was like that 10 years ago. Certainly they are not bad enough to be fired as our company is known for keeping deadwoods around forever. I know our company will be in trouble in 5 years if nothing changes because I and one other Senior Engineer can't do everything by ourselves. I know it is a difficult job identifying good employees if we only spend a few hours talking to them during interviews. I am partly guilty because I also interviewed two of these guys and gave them good marks. What are the strategies to identify traits of good people? How companies can find good employees and retain them?
It could very well be that these people don't want to be engineers - they only studied engineering because they believed it was a golden ticket to a well-paying job. Most people (last I checked it was around 94%) would do something else with their lives (other than their current job) if given the chance.
A friend of mine graduated from the same science & engineering program that I graduated from, and is studying economics right now. He aspires to go into investment banking. This guy is really smart and could probably succeed at anything he put his mind to. He chose investment banking not because he's passionate about it, but because he figures he can make a lot of money at it. He's been in internships for finance, and he said they've been almost painfully boring. He attends a prestigious Ivy League college that he's told me he doesn't like... he only stays because an Ivy League degree is a good bet for getting you into a well-paying job. I don't know how long he will stay in finance but he sounds like exactly the same type of guy that you're talking about. You said that the three young engineers all lack the desire to........... well, you can stop right there because lacking the desire means they aren't passionate about the craft.
If I were their therapist, I would ask each of them what they would do for work if they could do anything at all and make $10,000,000 per year doing it. A C-note says that not one of them would choose engineering... and another C-note says that they all discovered, no later than junior year in college, that they really didn't want to do engineering.
Then you work for a good company that actually hires their temps. Most companies arround here almost never hire temps and the temps know it so they end up with a miserable work atmosphere of disengaged workers that hate the company and have no passion for their work. I can name several large companies in my area like that.
It doesn't change the fact that temp work is nearly always less desirable than direct employment as a result only workers with no other alternative will take it.
The company hires temps, when they are not getting good applicants and need the job filled right now. They hire the temps, hoping one of them is going to be worth hiring as a full time employee. In other words they are taking the temps on as a test drive, to see if they are worth hiring permanently.
Hiring several temps, means out of the entire batch should be worth keeping on a permanent basis.
Most temps, are not going to show any initiative, and just show up so they can have a paycheck and will never be hired on a permanent basis. The one that shows they are what the company is looking for on a permanent basis is one that gets hired permanently.
Most temps, are not going to show any initiative, and just show up so they can have a paycheck and will never be hired on a permanent basis. The one that shows they are what the company is looking for on a permanent basis is one that gets hired permanently.
Yes if you hire enough temps you may get a few quality workers but for most people the minute the temp agency is involved they will only consider you as a last resort. You will also get a ton of candidates that are the bottom of the barrel. Also a lot of temps aren't going to show initiative because they are getting robbed blind by the agency and aren't happy about it, they are devoting all their energies to finding a better job, arround here at least they know no matter what they do the company won't hire them [the companies love not having to pay benefits, being able to fire them with one phone call, be able to categorize them as a variable cost rather than headcount...]
You don't get higher quality candidates by paying less which is what you are doing when you let a temp agency take half of what would be your workers pay.
I was hired permanent in 3 out of 5 temp positions.
In my first temp assignment, they offered me a perm position after a month. The previous temps were not hired, due to various issues.
For the 4th assignment, I was temping for a 1 1/2-day assignment for a no-show. After a week passed, I was called back for a permanent position in a different dept.
On the 5th temp position, it was a 3 month temp-to-perm position. No hiccups. It went smoothly. I was offered the job in '09. I ended up leaving it for a better job though.
Temping is a great way to test out a company. If you don't like the environment, you can move on to another assignment.
That isn't typical I posted the stat the only 27% of temp-to-hire jobs are made permanent and one of the local staffing agencies that emails me the crapo permatemp jobs in this area advertises that 20% of their staffers get hired permanently. Those are not good odds and it tells me what most already know. The temp system is being abused like crazy by companies not wanting to pay benefits.
I have vowed I will never work a temp job again and will quit the field entirely if I have to. Most of the people I graduated with have already given up on the profession because of these parasite agencies and went into teaching, healthcare or started over and I have vowed noone in my family will ever study science again because of them.
You should also consider that young people starting college are looking at what careers pay decently and how many young people are going to go into science and engineering when they look at indeed and see crapo no benefits temp job, crapo no benefits temp job, crapo no benefits temp job. Might as well study something easier and enjoy the Animal House experience.
Last edited by MSchemist80; 01-20-2014 at 04:31 PM..
I have a couple of theories for your question of why it is so hard to hire good employees:
1. The Dunning-Kruger effect: Dunning
which states that the incompetent do not recognize their incompetence, while competent people are able to recognize their own shortcomings. When HR people are looking for confident people who tell them what they want to hear, they risk getting the incompetents instead.
2. You have an MS in chemistry, while I only have a BA on biology (although with 257 semester hours in various subjects), but we are both science majors. The HR people are not, probably did not associate with science majors, and do not relate to science majors.
As I was earning my degree, I took the same general education courses as all of the other majors. On the other hand, the non-science majors took math and science courses for non-science majors. I played lead saxophone in the college-community band for 3 years. There was no band for non-musicians. There were no physical education courses for non-athletic males with thick glasses and allergies. If there had been, I would have been camping out overnight in the registration line to sign up.
Imagine if colleges required all students to successfully complete a year of calculus, and to take the same science courses that count for credit in science majors. There would be a lot fewer college graduates, I suspect.
My basic electronics course had a test question at the end of each chapter. One example was the engineer sends you a project with an error. The correct answer was to tell your boss. In real life, I would talk to the engineer. The purpose of these test questions was to pass the HR test, not to successfully work with your fellow employees.
Another problem is with the integrity tests, which seem to emphasize zero tolerance. I do not drink, but would not have a problem if a fellow employee had ONE beer for lunch. The correct answer is to tell your boss about it. Theft is always wrong, of course.
ahhh the dunning-kruger effect.......that explains it
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