Is It Easier to Hire Good Workers During a Recession?

Dare I say the word “Recession?” In the late-1970s, Alfred Kahn who was Jimmy Carter’s chief economic advisor used this word in one of his discussions with the press. He was quickly summoned to the White House for a wood-shed moment and abandoned the word. He replaced it with the word banana even singing the song, “Yes we have no bananas, we have no bananas today.”

Now assuming that we could be in for one big banana, how does this affect the hiring process? It would seem that with more people looking for work, good people would be easier to find.

Many job candidates in 2008 may be looking for a new position because they are facing serious financial problems, some may be facing foreclosure, and some may have less than excellent credit reports. A lot of times candidates are automatically disqualified because of their credit rating. The truth is that many people are in trouble because of circumstances, not irresponsibility. For example, it could be the housing meltdown, it could be a serious illness in their family, it could be that they started a business that didn’t work out. It is better to judge applicants not by their credit report but by their work-related attitudes.

Are they entitled versus unassuming?
Are they adversarial versus accommodating?
Are they egocentric versus people oriented?
Are they judgmental versus accepting?
Are they vindictive versus forgiving?
Are they insubordinate versus respectful?
Are they undisciplined versus self-disciplined?

Overall, there is not much good about a recession but there are tools to help the interviewer in these challenging times. The Workplace Attitudes Test looks at several of the attitudes listed above, and more. See: http://www.workplaceattitudes.com/.

Enter the Worst-Employee-Story Contest and Win a Chocolate Turkey!

Yes, you can really win a chocolate turkey covered in tinfoil. You can eat it right away, display until it goes stale or freeze it and forget about it. The turkey will be sent to you by FedEx, UPS, or the US Post Office, whichever is cheaper. You can pose with your new little friend and I will post the picture on this blog.


First, the rules. To protect the guilty, I don't want the name of your company or the name of the employee. You may refer to them by nickname. For the company you probably shouldn't use something like Starbutts or MicroFluff. For the employee, smuck, schlemiel, jerk or turkey would be allright. Just send in a brief description of their behavior on the job. This doesn't need to be of the scope of Enron. I want ordinary, rude, boorish behavior. You know, self-centered crap that makes us want to strangle someone. I have to limit it because someone like Donald Trump would win in all categories.


Now, the categories:

• Most insulting to customers
• Most costly in terms of dollars and cents
• Most difficult to supervise
• Biggest PR disaster
• Worst lawsuit
• And . . . I can't believe this jerk.

That's it. Send in your entries as a posting to this blog and I'll try to figure out how to select a winner, or loser depending on your point of view. Learn more about turkeys on the job at http://www.workplaceattitudes.com/