John Linton ..........or is that some sort of PR myth?
Too many things to do in too little time is a situation that almost everyone who has a 'real' job often experiences....and in tough times this situation always get's worse. I'm sure most people in commercial life believe they work hard and effectively and deliver great value to their employers - and while I've always thought that the majority of those people probably do.......over the past year or so I have become not so sure. I have begun to wonder if Exetel's 'culture' is a positive or negative aspect of our 'being' in the event that we have a culture at all.
I have done a reasonable amount of interviewing of people during my commercial life and have been responsible for hiring (directly) more than several hundred people over that time and (indirectly) for hiring well over 1,000 people (and, yes, I actually keep a record of the people I have hired since the very first one - though there are some gaps). Generally speaking my personal track record in 'hiring successfully is very good with very few 'failures' but lately I think I am losing my 'touch' - not so much in hiring people who don't work out (though there have been one or two of those over the past almost seven years of Exetel's existence) but in deciding to not offer jobs to people who perhaps ten years ago I would not have hesitated in hiring.
I'm not sure that I have changed or whether the Australian commercial work place culture has changed over that time ...... I'm pretty sure it is the latter though I by no means dismiss the 'fact' that I have also changed my views over that time. This has been brought in to perspective for me over the past three months as we have looked for 'more experienced/older' new personnel rather than pursuing our long held policy of hiring bright graduates who have either just completed university or who have 'bummed around' for a couple of years traveling and/or doing non-career jobs. The advantage of hiring 'unspoiled' people is that they have picked up no bad habits and the disadvantage is, of course, that they have zero real experience of the work place....the former is always a plus if you are able to offer the right training and experience processes.
Lately, and for that matter a year ago and several times before that, we have had the need to hire a person with a lot of experience for a position and have either advertised ourselves or have asked a personnel agency to assist us find a person with particular skills. In all of those instances but one (we hired a really great senior systems administrator some five years ago who has grown, built and maintained our now some 100 servers from then to today) we have failed to hire a single person in Australia above the recent graduate level. Now that is clearly our own, and in particular, my own failings in this part of running a business. The sort of positions we have tried to recruit for range through a General Manager, National Sales Manager, Marketing Manager, Operations Manager and also include a number of senior technical competencies in a range of networking aspects of the business.
In each case when I have interviewed an applicant for these positions I have seldom got past the first two or three minutes before 'deciding' that Exetel was just not a good fit for the various different people's career/working day needs. What always puts me off are the, more than reasonable questions about 'working hours' and 'other benefits' that most people seem to concentrate on. I have got far too used to working in smaller companies where deriving the revenue and profit to survive makes the concept of 'working hours' something of no consideration at all in getting a job done and the benefits of the job are that you are paid what you asked to be paid and you take care of your own 'other benefits' because your employer pays what you ask for (and keeps increasing your remuneratio and responsibilities). I only mention those two points because in several interviews with 'mature' and 'skilled' applicants yesterday it really irritated me early in the interviews to have a range of, to me, petty issues, raised in a serious conversation.
Clearly I have been away from 'main stream commercial life' for far too long and have become immersed in Exetel's "culture" of do it now/do it right the first time/get on with the next thing without pausing for self/other congratulation because the more things you do more quickly and the faster you learn the faster your career develops.....and if something goes wrong, which it will, don't try "buck passing" because no-one will blame you for your mistakes they will only 'blame' you if you don't fix them as
fast as possible after you make them. After a very bad interview yesterday with an applicant for a senior management position I am beginning to think that whatever 'culture' Exetel may have developed means we will very seldom be able to recruit 'experienced' people - they just wouldn't be able to adapt to being expected to work at the pace and consistency of Exetel's "old hands".....nor would they be able to work for people much younger than themselves.
Perhaps it's time to let someone else 'influence' or re-define Exetel's work practices?
Then again - I have always preferred to work with very bright people who regard perfection as the only standard wotht achieving until something better is found.
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