Those of you, who have read my book, Business
Fits, know how much I hate acronyms. Their use results in ineffective communication and wasted marketing
expenditures.
How many of you know what U.N.N.A.
stands for? If you have every looked at
a help wanted ad, you may have seen it.
Did you know it stands for “Unemployed Need Not Apply”? Some companies only interview or hire people
that are currently employed. There are a
variety of reasons for this policy, but none of those reasons are valid for
excluding unemployed applicants. If you have ever been unemployed, I doubt you
agree with this hiring policy.
Human resource departments of large
corporations often try to put applicants in boxes. I once had a friend that worked in human
resources. She was going through a large
stack of applications for a particular position while visiting our house. She quickly scanned the first paragraph of
each application and threw most on the floor.
When I asked her what she was doing, she
said she was scanning the first page for two or three words. If she did not see these words, the
application was thrown on the floor and never considered. When I commented that the best applicant was
on the floor, she said, “I’m sure that’s true, but I don’t have time to read
them all.” She found a few acceptable
applicants and did not worry about finding the best.
How many of you have ever applied for a
job and was told you were overqualified and/or overeducated? I have and it is very frustrating. The logic is that an overqualified person
will not stay in the job. This may be
true, but there is no guarantee that any applicant will stay.
If you are hiring, hire the best you can
hire. The more overqualified the
candidate is the better. Maybe your
company can grow to fit the new hire.
I once was the plant manager for a
recreational vehicle manufacturing plant.
Over the objections of our company president, I hired an overqualified
individual for the position of office manager.
The applicant was an unemployed bank president that had been laid off
due to a bank merger. He was financially
comfortable and did not want to relocate for personal reasons, but did not want
to retire yet. He did a great job as my
office manager, and based on my recommendation, replaced me as plant manager
when I left the company. We both
benefited because I didn’t put him in the banking industry box, or worry about
him being overqualified and unemployed.
If you or anyone you know is a capable
manager and sick of being put in a box, or unemployed and overqualified, now is
the time to look at self-employment.
This country is going to see significant growth in the private sector of
the economy and significant layoffs in the public sector. It sounds like a great time to consider your
own business.
I recommend reading Business Fits
as you start this journey. It is
available on Amazon as an eBook or a paperback.
God bless America .
Let’s make it great again.
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