Magnus Marketing Blog

I am amazed, always amazed, at the level of dishonesty expressed in the employment process. Usually this happens on both sides of the coin and is equally damaging, but the blatant examples of employees "covering up" just blows me away. This is one nice thing about social media - like LinkedIN, because you actually can see people who you know and worked with who probably outright lied and landed a position.

I know of people who I worked with who conveniently dropped positions out of their profiles, I bet you off the resume, to "forget about it". The likely story is that they were "home with kids and family" or "transitioning from one thing to another", when in fact they wreaked havoc or displayed such incompetence that no one should hire them for anything. The immature girl who had freaked out with regard to taking criticism, for example, dropped the experience right out and went into a marketing job. Yikes! Like that will change anything, it will catch up to her at some point, I am sure. And there are others. Gee, I guess you can't call or email me to ask about these people's real performance on the job, huh? They were home with their kids.

What is worse is that honest people are slammed the other way because there are "too many jobs" on the resume or had situations. I personally would rather have the whole story and the real story, then risk working with someone who "covers up" experience.

I wonder how people get jobs sometimes. The guy who was probably one of the worst managers I have ever known, I mean the worst: his idea of conflict resolution is to fire people, his decisions led to legal action and intention, and he pitted people against each other in the name of "teambuilding", plus hired people in the wrong positions - is now a key manager at a company. Uh, no one talked to me about this guy's performance. The marketing manager that professed every time an initiative was proposed "this is not the way we do that here", was so rude and abrasive that people walked out without notice, and had failed projects in the million dollar range is now a marketing manager at a large company. How did she get that job? Remember, "El Presidente" who drove his company into bankruptcy? Director of Sales and Marketing for another similiar firm. How did he get hired? And there are more examples.

I think it is a testament to the mediocrity that pervades the business landscape. Mediocrity in the talent acquisition process, in the company culture, and in the decisions of management. These companies are "C" companies, companies people like me and my connections will avoid - we are too smart to work there. Unfortunately the real innovators and "A" players sit on the sidelines. So many people I know who are real "power" people are out of work, really intelligent, motivated, caring, organizationally oriented people who will produce great results and not wreak havoc. Hey, we just need to find those "A" companies, with "A" level employers - yah, the companies like my clients...just like my clients.