Wednesday, May 17, 2006

DODGY RECRUITMENT

My professional body has changed its name and is recruiting a new CEO. Good idea - time for a change. A friend of mine got rather upset when he was rejected on the basis of having no previous experience in this kind of role. Astounded that an organisation purporting to embrace change could cut itself off from the most likely source of inspiration and innovation, I got on the warpath only to discover that he'd been fobbed off with a manufactured reason. We'll probably never get to the bottom of this, but I'm assured by a member of the recruitment team that 'no previous' is not an obstacle to selection as the new CEO and that several shortlisted candidates fit this profile.

All fine and dandy you might think. Well, not really. In all of this I discovered that the recruitment process is absolutely bog standard. That means that an agency compares CVs to the job spec and reduces the pile by 90%. No surprises there then - that's what all agencies do, right? Yes, and the result is that 90% are rejected on the basis of how they write a CV - not on the passion, creativity, energy and vision that the organisation needs. How do you get that into a 2 page post-mortem of your career?

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