This isn’t about putting people through Hollywoodish special effects to transform them into alter-humans. Actually, something similar happened in real life beginning in 2008. Millions of people lost their careers but what can be distressful for recycled people is that that period of American history is still [in 2020] presenting stories of personal consequences.
Many people after losing their career came back in the workforce after a short blip. There were low-pay jobs to be found. Others took out education loans while others sought loans for a mortgage or a healthcare bill when insurance ended. For millions of others the lengthy period of adjustment turned into a lifestyle because, as we now understand, the big data scientific revolution overtook all of us. For college graduates the hiring realm looks no different than their education rigor in that, unrelenting testing cued for memorization is superseded by science-validated theories in psychology+neurology, thus, enacting many new hiring benchmarks. As a result new hires expected wondrous diversity in their workplaces. Quickly, they began realizing that businesses are nominally diverse, assume a posture of mini-cultures comprising people who statistically benchmarked alike. Predictable – very predictable.
On the other hand, recycled professionals have been to the world’s woodshed. Recycled workers gained experience while overcoming family and financial chaos, a darkened reality, managing relational complexities, focusing on things that matter like treating customers like humans instead of numbers. They don’t need constant affirmation. The Great Recession’s trials tested their character and strength, determination, vision. It built-in greater wisdom and humility.
Human stories about change, adaptation, trials or trauma are neither resume nor social sciences benchmarking issues. Companies can pre-test recycled professionals all they want with their fake competency models and miss quality in character. A business willing to look at a recycled individual will more likely find genuineness. What HR needs to do is accept that an increasing population of professionals now have career blips, the gap, the weird job, the season of re-imagining the world. They will endure and thrive again.
If we’re really going to be so digitally connected, so "aligned" and measured – I'd much prefer to work along side people of strong character who have already fought against the mad world.
Robert Waters, 2016
*this seemed to me a post for ending year 2020.
Many people after losing their career came back in the workforce after a short blip. There were low-pay jobs to be found. Others took out education loans while others sought loans for a mortgage or a healthcare bill when insurance ended. For millions of others the lengthy period of adjustment turned into a lifestyle because, as we now understand, the big data scientific revolution overtook all of us. For college graduates the hiring realm looks no different than their education rigor in that, unrelenting testing cued for memorization is superseded by science-validated theories in psychology+neurology, thus, enacting many new hiring benchmarks. As a result new hires expected wondrous diversity in their workplaces. Quickly, they began realizing that businesses are nominally diverse, assume a posture of mini-cultures comprising people who statistically benchmarked alike. Predictable – very predictable.
On the other hand, recycled professionals have been to the world’s woodshed. Recycled workers gained experience while overcoming family and financial chaos, a darkened reality, managing relational complexities, focusing on things that matter like treating customers like humans instead of numbers. They don’t need constant affirmation. The Great Recession’s trials tested their character and strength, determination, vision. It built-in greater wisdom and humility.
Human stories about change, adaptation, trials or trauma are neither resume nor social sciences benchmarking issues. Companies can pre-test recycled professionals all they want with their fake competency models and miss quality in character. A business willing to look at a recycled individual will more likely find genuineness. What HR needs to do is accept that an increasing population of professionals now have career blips, the gap, the weird job, the season of re-imagining the world. They will endure and thrive again.
If we’re really going to be so digitally connected, so "aligned" and measured – I'd much prefer to work along side people of strong character who have already fought against the mad world.
Robert Waters, 2016
*this seemed to me a post for ending year 2020.