Recruitment in the Face of Skills Laundering
20 July 2009
Read by 1748 persons
Text: Resumes are becoming less and less important in determining a candidate's quality.
The same diploma can correspond to very different qualifications.
Recruiting is not simply about ensuring a skill and the ability to do an isolated job, it is above all about betting on the ability to integrate into a collective.
[Recruitment in the face of skills laundering] For decades, we have been claiming the mutations, upheavals, or even profound transformations that our societies and economies are experiencing: it seems that this is now the case and probably even beyond what thinkers could have imagined. Obviously, the banking, financial, economic and probably social crises will be a factor of change, as in the recent past technological developments or globalization have been.
In the somewhat more limited framework of human resource management, many companies have emphasized the need to evolve their recruitment practices to meet the need for talent, manage demographic changes or simply find the right people, since this is one of the main missions of HRM. But beyond these banalities, there is another reason that pushes for a profound review of recruitment methods: the loss of credibility of basic information methods on candidates, in short, the quality of CVs.
As Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of management and organizational behavior at Stanford University, says: "Resumes don't tell". Resumes are like real estate loans or bank values today, we really wonder what the paper is worth... While finance is often contrasted with human resources, they finally meet on something: we no longer know who is worth what!
The normalization and standardization of the exercise have led to the loss of value of CVs
It is true that CVs no longer say much, and this for good and bad reasons. Among the good ones, there is obviously the concern to fight against discrimination. We all know the experiments revealing that criteria having nothing to do with skills and personal qualities can influence the reader of a CV: among these criteria, age comes first, before ethnic origin and gender. It is therefore understandable to seek to "anonymize" CVs. The name, gender, and age are no longer mentioned, as is already largely the case in the United States. But like any rule in a bureaucratic context, it never goes far enough. Some no longer want to include the person's address because it can reveal something about their origins. But you will have understood that the high schools and schools attended reveal just as much about social or even cultural belonging. One could also wonder to what extent it is possible to give information about one's experience because its duration is normally correlated... to age. As for the jobs held, well-known companies and personal activities, are they not an excellent indicator likely to generate all kinds of discrimination: let's reread Bourdieu... At this rate, we wonder what will remain in a CV: luckily there is Facebook and blogs, which really say a lot.
Another good reason for this loss of value of CVs: the normalization and standardization of the exercise. With the generalization of skills assessments and the multiplication of job search experts, the CV now takes a totally standardized form, respecting rules whose origin cannot legitimately be questioned. CVs lose their originality, but their automatic processing is facilitated: it remains to be proven that this processing method is fairer.
Many no longer hesitate to invent skills
But CVs no longer mean much for less laudable reasons. The first of these is that many are false: in this world where everyone complains about the dishonesty of others, the practice of falsifying CVs seems to be very widespread. There is even a website where you can learn all the tricks to whiten your CV. Of course, on the site's homepage you will find all the good reasons to justify this forgery and use of forgery, even going so far as to insinuate that it is ethical to do so: given Enron, the greedy people of Wall Street, the layoffs, the corrupt everywhere, global warming and the greenhouse effect, it obviously becomes justified to write what you want on your CV. The funniest justification being: "anyway, everyone does it..." You are then told which keywords to insert to surf on automatic processing methods, how to deceive about your diploma, about references, during the interview, etc.
You are taught how to lie well during the interview. This is also learned very early on: there are preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles where young students (those who demand ethics courses) are taught to invent an internship in a company to show off during the motivation interview... and young students consider that it is normal since the professors advise them to do so.
Some will then say that they at least have the reference to the diploma to send clear signals about the candidate's value. Caution is needed here. Obviously, legislators have sacrificed to the illusion of a single diploma model at the European level: it is to be feared that this homogeneity is only a facade. Depending on the disciplines, universities or grades obtained, holding the same diploma can correspond to very different qualifications: here again, it is better to be initiated...
Everything becomes even more complicated with the validation of acquired experience, since some diplomas mentioned on a CV are only the duplication of the experience detailed in another part of the document: double whammy! As the specialists of these approaches say, it is up to the recruiter to do their job properly and to check...
We could even continue to list the oddities: assuming that the diploma is effective, it must still be obtained correctly. The academic community is currently very aware of the problem of falsification of projects, reports, dissertations and theses, often partially copied from the internet.
Some reveal themselves in the reality of the field when nothing suggested it
There is therefore a real HRM challenge. Recruiting someone is investing in the future of your company. It is not simply about ensuring a skill and the ability to do an isolated job, it is above all about betting on the ability to integrate into a collective, to contribute and to develop to the best of the interests of the company and the person themselves. The question of selection is crucial: everyone who has to choose a babysitter knows this... What to do if CVs no longer say anything? Recruitment is not an exact science and sometimes people reveal themselves in the reality of the field when nothing suggested it; but the opposite is also true. How to make decisions if one cannot even approach, during recruitment, the candidate's deep motivations, the nature of their personality that allows one to take or not take the gamble of hiring them? Of course, solutions are found to put candidates in situations, to do a kind of experimentation in assessment centers for example, but these means are expensive and often not very generalizable. Unless we consider that chance and roulette are the best ways to recruit because of their low cost, it is therefore a question of questioning practices that may be revealing their limits today. If recruitment systems are worth no more than those guaranteeing real estate loans, it will be necessary to change practices. If the CV no longer seems to fulfill its initial function, it is on other aspects of recruitment practice that we must work. At least three can be considered.
Firstly, if there is one area where companies should invest, it is the clarification of the profiles they are looking for, not with a few qualities as vague as they are immeasurable, but with real reflection on the justification of the characteristics requested, the criteria for establishing them and the means of effectively measuring these criteria. We often question the selectivity of recruitment procedures. The real question is rather to know according to what we carry out the selection.
Secondly, we must question the quality of the people who do the recruiting. We cannot say that recruitment is one of the major policies of human resources management and not ensure that at all levels of the chain the best professionals are involved. Indeed, the generalization of online CVs leads to the automation of the first selections: we can wonder if the only efficiency of this first selection is not to eliminate and reduce the number of files rather than bringing real added value. Recruitment often appears in companies as an entry-level position that does not require particular skills: is this justified? People who are not too expensive are often used to manage the first phases of recruitment for obvious reasons: we understand the economic reasoning but is it very judicious? Juniors are often asked to elucidate the information on a CV: is this wise when we know the possibilities of falsification?
Thirdly, we must probably reduce our objectives in terms of recruitment: it is not an exact science, it is and will always be very difficult. Selecting the right people also means continuing the work during the first months of integration. We never devote enough time, energy and attention to this initial period. We never manage closely enough the first steps in an organization, the first missions and the first relationships. It is even sometimes so difficult to admit having made a mistake when the skills revealed during the first months are so far from what we had seen on paper (as we say at horse races).
One of the big problems of this skills laundering: it is not likely to call into question the attitude of companies that also protect themselves with all the possibilities offered by labor law to hire on permanent contracts or other more flexible formulas. Precariousness is also a by-product of laundering.
Published on July 6, 2009
Posted online on July 21, 2009
lavieeco.com
The same diploma can correspond to very different qualifications.
Recruiting is not simply about ensuring a skill and the ability to do an isolated job, it is above all about betting on the ability to integrate into a collective.
[Recruitment in the face of skills laundering] For decades, we have been claiming the mutations, upheavals, or even profound transformations that our societies and economies are experiencing: it seems that this is now the case and probably even beyond what thinkers could have imagined. Obviously, the banking, financial, economic and probably social crises will be a factor of change, as in the recent past technological developments or globalization have been.
In the somewhat more limited framework of human resource management, many companies have emphasized the need to evolve their recruitment practices to meet the need for talent, manage demographic changes or simply find the right people, since this is one of the main missions of HRM. But beyond these banalities, there is another reason that pushes for a profound review of recruitment methods: the loss of credibility of basic information methods on candidates, in short, the quality of CVs.
As Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of management and organizational behavior at Stanford University, says: "Resumes don't tell". Resumes are like real estate loans or bank values today, we really wonder what the paper is worth... While finance is often contrasted with human resources, they finally meet on something: we no longer know who is worth what!
The normalization and standardization of the exercise have led to the loss of value of CVs
It is true that CVs no longer say much, and this for good and bad reasons. Among the good ones, there is obviously the concern to fight against discrimination. We all know the experiments revealing that criteria having nothing to do with skills and personal qualities can influence the reader of a CV: among these criteria, age comes first, before ethnic origin and gender. It is therefore understandable to seek to "anonymize" CVs. The name, gender, and age are no longer mentioned, as is already largely the case in the United States. But like any rule in a bureaucratic context, it never goes far enough. Some no longer want to include the person's address because it can reveal something about their origins. But you will have understood that the high schools and schools attended reveal just as much about social or even cultural belonging. One could also wonder to what extent it is possible to give information about one's experience because its duration is normally correlated... to age. As for the jobs held, well-known companies and personal activities, are they not an excellent indicator likely to generate all kinds of discrimination: let's reread Bourdieu... At this rate, we wonder what will remain in a CV: luckily there is Facebook and blogs, which really say a lot.
Another good reason for this loss of value of CVs: the normalization and standardization of the exercise. With the generalization of skills assessments and the multiplication of job search experts, the CV now takes a totally standardized form, respecting rules whose origin cannot legitimately be questioned. CVs lose their originality, but their automatic processing is facilitated: it remains to be proven that this processing method is fairer.
Many no longer hesitate to invent skills
But CVs no longer mean much for less laudable reasons. The first of these is that many are false: in this world where everyone complains about the dishonesty of others, the practice of falsifying CVs seems to be very widespread. There is even a website where you can learn all the tricks to whiten your CV. Of course, on the site's homepage you will find all the good reasons to justify this forgery and use of forgery, even going so far as to insinuate that it is ethical to do so: given Enron, the greedy people of Wall Street, the layoffs, the corrupt everywhere, global warming and the greenhouse effect, it obviously becomes justified to write what you want on your CV. The funniest justification being: "anyway, everyone does it..." You are then told which keywords to insert to surf on automatic processing methods, how to deceive about your diploma, about references, during the interview, etc.
You are taught how to lie well during the interview. This is also learned very early on: there are preparatory classes for the Grandes Ecoles where young students (those who demand ethics courses) are taught to invent an internship in a company to show off during the motivation interview... and young students consider that it is normal since the professors advise them to do so.
Some will then say that they at least have the reference to the diploma to send clear signals about the candidate's value. Caution is needed here. Obviously, legislators have sacrificed to the illusion of a single diploma model at the European level: it is to be feared that this homogeneity is only a facade. Depending on the disciplines, universities or grades obtained, holding the same diploma can correspond to very different qualifications: here again, it is better to be initiated...
Everything becomes even more complicated with the validation of acquired experience, since some diplomas mentioned on a CV are only the duplication of the experience detailed in another part of the document: double whammy! As the specialists of these approaches say, it is up to the recruiter to do their job properly and to check...
We could even continue to list the oddities: assuming that the diploma is effective, it must still be obtained correctly. The academic community is currently very aware of the problem of falsification of projects, reports, dissertations and theses, often partially copied from the internet.
Some reveal themselves in the reality of the field when nothing suggested it
There is therefore a real HRM challenge. Recruiting someone is investing in the future of your company. It is not simply about ensuring a skill and the ability to do an isolated job, it is above all about betting on the ability to integrate into a collective, to contribute and to develop to the best of the interests of the company and the person themselves. The question of selection is crucial: everyone who has to choose a babysitter knows this... What to do if CVs no longer say anything? Recruitment is not an exact science and sometimes people reveal themselves in the reality of the field when nothing suggested it; but the opposite is also true. How to make decisions if one cannot even approach, during recruitment, the candidate's deep motivations, the nature of their personality that allows one to take or not take the gamble of hiring them? Of course, solutions are found to put candidates in situations, to do a kind of experimentation in assessment centers for example, but these means are expensive and often not very generalizable. Unless we consider that chance and roulette are the best ways to recruit because of their low cost, it is therefore a question of questioning practices that may be revealing their limits today. If recruitment systems are worth no more than those guaranteeing real estate loans, it will be necessary to change practices. If the CV no longer seems to fulfill its initial function, it is on other aspects of recruitment practice that we must work. At least three can be considered.
Firstly, if there is one area where companies should invest, it is the clarification of the profiles they are looking for, not with a few qualities as vague as they are immeasurable, but with real reflection on the justification of the characteristics requested, the criteria for establishing them and the means of effectively measuring these criteria. We often question the selectivity of recruitment procedures. The real question is rather to know according to what we carry out the selection.
Secondly, we must question the quality of the people who do the recruiting. We cannot say that recruitment is one of the major policies of human resources management and not ensure that at all levels of the chain the best professionals are involved. Indeed, the generalization of online CVs leads to the automation of the first selections: we can wonder if the only efficiency of this first selection is not to eliminate and reduce the number of files rather than bringing real added value. Recruitment often appears in companies as an entry-level position that does not require particular skills: is this justified? People who are not too expensive are often used to manage the first phases of recruitment for obvious reasons: we understand the economic reasoning but is it very judicious? Juniors are often asked to elucidate the information on a CV: is this wise when we know the possibilities of falsification?
Thirdly, we must probably reduce our objectives in terms of recruitment: it is not an exact science, it is and will always be very difficult. Selecting the right people also means continuing the work during the first months of integration. We never devote enough time, energy and attention to this initial period. We never manage closely enough the first steps in an organization, the first missions and the first relationships. It is even sometimes so difficult to admit having made a mistake when the skills revealed during the first months are so far from what we had seen on paper (as we say at horse races).
One of the big problems of this skills laundering: it is not likely to call into question the attitude of companies that also protect themselves with all the possibilities offered by labor law to hire on permanent contracts or other more flexible formulas. Precariousness is also a by-product of laundering.
Published on July 6, 2009
Posted online on July 21, 2009
lavieeco.com
