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Branman posted:
This is a bad thing, because it reinforces that whole 'levels' thing. Obviously, nowhere is going to be able to do a perfectly objective measure of merit, but there's a lot of legitimate reason to call in-networks that promote because of who your daddy is or what prep school you went to are harmful, both to the organization they're part of and society as a whole.
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Apr 19, 2014 19:43
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Branman posted:The problem is that this is a strawman. Yes, hiring someone because of their dad's connections is most likely a bad thing for both the organization and society. That's nepotism. My point is that conflating professional networking with this type of neoptism and saying that "finding jobs through networks is a bad thing" ignores reality. Really, saying 'this ignores reality' isn't a very good substitute for an argument. Professional networking often propagates exclusion of people from lower classes and the non-dominant race. Even though the reality is that a lot of people get jobs through their networks, it doesn't follow that this is therefore fine. There is a big difference between being vouched for as "Yes, I know him, he did a wonderful job and he'll be a great employee," and "Yes, I know him, we were in the same frat, he's our kind of people." The latter is, indeed, bad, and is also common. The previous isn't in and of itself bad, but it can be in that it excludes people who didn't get the chances to prove themselves in the first place. For example, getting internships (the real ones, not the 'make 'em do the photocopying' type) can be a significant foot in the door, can help with grad school applications, etc., precisely because someone can then legitimately vouch for you. But if the way that the internships are awarded is itself tainted by the second kind of 'networking', then a lot of people never got the chance to prove themselves. The two types of networking are highly intertwined and hard to tease out, precisely because of this.
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Apr 19, 2014 20:05
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Infinite Karma posted:
I didn't say 'networking is so destructive'. I said there's an aspect to one form of networking that is destructive. quote:There isn't a magic spell that employers can use to find suitable employees for job openings, just like there isn't a magic spell that employees can use to find open jobs. Job sites like Monster.com are bullshit, newspapers are dying, is there a solution besides "hire the first warm body who really wants a chance?" It's extremely complicated, but that doesn't mean you should just throw up your hands and despair. Even if it's nothing more than keeping in mind that the black guy who grew up in a lovely neighborhood in Oakland and graduated from a good school conquered tougher obstacles than the kid who went to Choate and then who went to that good school. Like most social problems, it's a cultural problem, and you seem kind of close to saying we can't possibly change our culture. quote:Nepotism (where someone unqualified gets a job because of connections) isn't even remotely the same thing as a qualified person getting a foot in the door because he's previously proved himself somewhere along the line to someone who can vouch for him. Nepotism can also be the qualified person getting the job over other qualified people because of who he is, yes. I'm not sure why you think the definition excludes that. Jarmak posted:One of the biggest things an employer is looking at during an interview is whether they think you'll fit in with the culture of the business, having someone vouch for that fact can almost be as important as vouching for hard skills. Human's are social animals, the ability to get along socially and work well with your peers is actually a part of your value. THis undervalues people who can affect or change the system, though. This is predicated on an idea that your system and culture as they are currently is superior and doesn't need to be changed. A lot of good employers, especially when looking for candidates for top positions, actually actively look for people who can shake up and change the culture, so what you're saying isn't even strictly true. There's also the difference between the actual working culture, and the socialization of workers outside work. It is almost certain to get really lovely if you're not only considering if the guy will do his job right but also if he'll hang for beers with you after and if you'll feel comfortable with him then.
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Apr 19, 2014 21:04
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The Warszawa posted:While I'm having a hard time figuring out where the daylight is between "the culture of the business" and "having the same basic profile of the people who do the hiring/run the business," there is something to be said for social fit. It's not just a matter of "will he do his job right," but "will I want to summarily execute him after 60 straight hours in the office trying to get something out the door on a tight deadline." I think things like this tend to be incredibly hard to predict, though, and hard to communicate, too. There's people that will be great workers as long as they're managed well, others who need a hands-off style, some who'll be great as long as you don't have to do overtime, others who are kinda slackers but really pick it up during crunch, etc. I really don't think this kind of poo poo is suss-out-able in an interview process, nor do I think that it's something that people can easily predict through recommendation. Really, despite the amount of research, there's very little good data on hiring practices and outcomes, because the variables are so hard to track. If you're comparing a guy who wasn't referred to a guy who was, the second guy may also receive more support, have been given more complete information about the job, and so comparing their performance is difficult because they may not be on an even playing field. There's also a big difference between worker-recommended and manager-recommended practices. The former tend to be a lot more generally successful; however, again, this 'success' may be explained by post-hire treatment rather than anything about the actual candidate. Manager-recommended hires have a host of problems associated with them, and it's often how you get an entire department of useless fuckups. This article, for example, is a sociological study of a call center that tracked post-hire performance, and showed that 'referred' hires initially outperformed non-referred, but eventually their performance matched. The performance of the 'referred' tended to normalize faster if their referrer left the company. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/10.1086/427319 A good article on culture hiring in a non-stupid way, meaning not 'the culture of the immediate group of people doing the hiring' but the actual organizational work culture, is here: http://www.jstor.org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/4165035 There's also a great paper I don't have a link for called "On Hiring Lemons", which shows that in companies with competitive promotion/hiring, that there's a vested interest to hire 'lemons', and that this fits in with another hiring practice that's problematic for manager-recommended hiring, which is managers hiring people that they can dominate and who will not challenge them, or be able to replace them. It's a really, really complex area, but since we don't actually have any reason to believe that recommendation works, it shouldn't be assumed as the gold standard.
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Apr 19, 2014 22:58
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