Here's what a connection on another site posted that is intersting on this subject
https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/...?trk=prof-post
It seems like a ridiculous question to ask. A man who has won the Nobel Peace Prize. A man who graced the cover of Time Magazine while still a persecuted dissident in Communist Poland. The man who was the leader and secular spiritual force behind the Solidarity Movement. The man who was the first President of Free Poland, and perhaps the greatest modern Polish national hero behind Pope John Paul II.
If Lech Walesa had a law license in the District of Columbia or any city with a large Polish-American community white shoe law firms would pay him millions of dollars a year without asking him to do any work just get his name on the firm because he is Lech Walesa and he's kind of a big deal.
Of course, we're speaking of Lech Walesa as we know him in 2014. But there was a time when Lech Walesa could not hold down a job. Not for talent or work ethic but rather for political reasons. In the 70s he had many resume gaps. He had long periods of joblessness. He an extensive arrest record. After the Soviet Union forced General Jaruzelski to crush Solidarity and declare Lech Walesa he had the added "black mark" on his record of having been essentially the leader and public face of a now proscribed organization.
Simply put, Lech Walesa's resume in the the mid-1980s was one that if the average job seeker in this country came to a human resources manager and applied for a job, that HR manager would immediately chuck it in the trash and not even give said candidate a fair hearing.
And yet, even though Lech Walesa would have looked horrible on paper at the time here is a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize and who is truly considered one of the heroes of our world. A man who if he had been judged by the standards and prejudices that most hiring managers use never would have been given his chance to shine. He would have been doomed to alternating between low-paying, low-respect grunt work and long periods of unemployment. The resume gaps, arrest records, and membership in a proscribed organization would have damned any employment search of his.
And that brings me to the point that all HR managers should take heart of.
If a Lech Walesa came into your office looking for a job at your company today would you see the greatness in him or her and give them a chance despite the resume gaps, arrest history, and the controversial activism or would you chuck their resume in the trash just as most other hiring managers in this country would?
This is the great problem we have in the United States today.
Because of a number of mistakes by the leaders of our country that have been detrimental to the country we now are in a very tough job market and once you have a long period of unemployment you eventually become effectively "unemployable", and not because you can't work but because of the prejudices of the hiring managers who decide who gets the job and who doesn't. And good people who would do great jobs are being denied for something as unimportant and meaningless as a resume gap.
It has been demonstrated in numerous studies that hiring managers will discriminate against someone who is unemployed even though that unemployed person will be more likely to be grateful for the opportunity and more likely to work harder and give their all if given it.
It's something the old big city political machines in this country understood well.
They'd do the favors for people and get people chances that no one else would and in return they got the votes of the people they helped, their loyalty, and an army of foot soldiers ready to work the streets every election day to turn out the vote, no matter how unimportant the initiative in question was.
It's something that South American drug lords understand well. They're often the only ones in their societies who'll do anything for the poor or the downtrodden, or who'll cut someone a break that no one else will and so the poor and downtrodden, with no one else to fight for them side with the only ones who have fought for them and protect them, acquit them when they go before juries, and hide them when the law is after them.
So why is it that hiring managers in America can't understand what the big city political machines understood and which South American drug lords know so well?
Prejudice?
Corporate culture?
The fact that they are where they are in life because they've never experienced hardship in life and so don't know what it is like to be on the other side?
Or is it simply a lack of leadership?
Is it simply the fact that they simply go for the systematic lowest common denominator because they think it is the surest way for them to keep their jobs?
I think it is a combination of all of that plus the fact that in America when you get into the management class you usually haven't had bumps on the road, you usually came from a middle or upper class background, you don't know deprivation, you don't know what it's like to be the victim of discrimination, and you assume that because hard work got you ahead and everything went smoothly for you those who don't get ahead must just be lazy, or having something wrong with them, etc etc, and simply deserve the discrimination and lack of opportunities that they face.
Of course what you ignore is that you were born on third and hit a triple and really can't understand how hard it is for someone who has come from poverty or someone who has suffered a major setback to get back up. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is more fantasy than reality in the real world and if you found yourself in the position that less fortunate that you judge are in you might find it wouldn't be so easy to pull yourself up as you think.
So if there is one thing I would like to say to the hiring managers of this country, it is simply this. That person with the spotty resume history with plenty of gaps, or the arrest record, or who is not particularly well liked in town, or any of the myriad of things which people use to discriminate against one another, might just be the very next Lech Walesa sitting there before you.
So if a Lech Walesa, as Lech Walesa was in the 70s before he had attained international fame and was a name that everyone wanted to bank on came into your office looking for an opportunity would you give them that opportunity or would you chuck their resume in the trash like most hiring managers would?
How you answer that says everything in the world about you.
Someone worthy of leadership would give Lech Walesa a chance.
Someone unworthy of leadership would chuck that resume in the trash and go with the more standard candidate.
Which category do you fall in?