Almost every week on the defunct TV show "Fear Factor," the hapless contestants would be forced to eat bugs, or larvae, or worms. It was, to put it mildly, gag-inducing — to the viewers (who knows what was going through the minds of those actually doing the deed?). When the show popped up on my screen during channel-surfing, my well-trained finger dashed on by with urgent, electric speed.
It is with similar revulsion that I contemplate a frantic, mid-life search for work following a job elimination. It's something most people would prefer not to think about. But very often these days, the unthinkable happens.
This week I spoke with a gentleman who recently found an executive finance position after searching for the better part of a year. He had the required experience — public accounting, controllership, treasury, financial planning and analysis, compliance, risk management. The company he landed at is larger than his previous one, but he's got a lesser title.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he displayed his frustrations vividly, leveling both barrels at employers' current human capital mindset. His insights seem quite well-informed, since he claims to have spoken with at least 150 companies and 30 recruiters during his job-seeking sojourn. Here are the highlights:
"This should be a big time for companies to build up human capital resources. When times are tough and people are worried about their jobs, if you go out and invest in the right people who you want to remain with the company, they will remember that loyalty. But what is happening is the opposite. Many times I witnessed companies trying to consolidate roles. Maybe they had people heading SEC reporting, controllership, and financial planning and analysis, earning maybe $120,000 to $150,000 each, and they decide to combine two or all three of those roles and hire one person to do it.
"But they're trying to get away with paying $130,000 to $140,000 for that one person. People in current positions will not move for that. Those who were laid off or had roles eliminated will do it, but as soon as the economy turns around they're going to leave. Companies are being very short-sighted in their cost-cutting efforts by trying to get a bargain on human capital.
"The other thing is that companies are afraid to make decisions. You talk to them for the first time and they talk about their great, urgent need to hire someone. And then they delay the process for a month, or two, or four, or they don't make the decision at all, as a cost-cutting initiative. What does that do? The person looking at the company says, is this a management team I really want to work for? One that will not invest in people?
"That's my personal experience. There's huge levels of disappointment. There are hundreds of candidates for each role. It might take weeks or even months to get down to two or three, and at that point it's a flip of the coin — it has nothing to do with whether I can do the job. I was in that position a number of times."
All I can say is that I might rather eat bugs.
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