News and Analysis

Mind The Recruitment Gap

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In a recent conversation about HR and recruiting, an acquaintance and I discussed the ‘age’ gaps in recruiting – namely, how a gap in ages between recruiter and recruit could negatively affect communication.  Such an issue makes sense as it’s basically a generation/demographic gap, of course, so we mentioned it and went on with our conversation.  We accepted such a gap as normal.

When we parted, that conversation stuck in my mind.  Such a gap seemed normal to us.  So what other gaps, I speculated, were out there that seemed normal – and we were so used to them it was, in fact a problem in recruiting and job seeking?

Very quickly, many, many gaps between recruiter and recruitee sprung to mind.  As I review, I can think of many:

  • The Age Gap – Obvious.  It may be hard to communicate with people due to different cultural experiences.
  • The Economic Gap – Now part of the age gap, a few years of difference means people grew up in radically different economies.  This affects people’s ideas of jobs, what they’re seeking, and how well they’ll trust others.  It also affects ability to move.
  • The Technology Gap – Is gaping in many cases, as even a few years difference may mean people have greatly differing technical experiences.  This makes it harder for people to understand and fill jobs – and understand when a lack of one skill is made up for in another.
  • The Geek Gap – Geek may be chic, but still there’s a difference in people who are geek/less geeky.  This is further amplified by technical gaps, meaning both gaps combine can create a situation where two people rarely understand each other.
  • The Regional Gap – The economic and cultural gaps, in my experience, have made regional divisions even wider.  Ever feel like someone from another city/state is speaking a different language?  You’re probably right.

What am I trying to do by listing these?  Frankly, looking at the things that may keep recruiters and recruitees from actually speaking the same language.  It’s more meditation for you and I, my readers, than anything else.

What do I find as Iook at this?  Actually I’m a bit disturbed.  I can see a lot of these acting synergistically to create insanely huge levels of misunderstanding among intelligent people.  Frankly, this makes me amazed two people of largely different ages, across the country, in different fields can even talk about jobs together . . .

This is also a reminder that we have to bridge these gaps, be we recruiter, candidate, or someone like me who’s a busybody trying to make this work.  There’s a lot of different experiences that can separate us in the career world, so no matter who we are, we have to help bridge them.

Get to it . . .

– Steven Savage

 

 

 

Steve’s CISPA Roundup

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OK, a lot of us at FTP have been insanely busy, so we didn’t do any really good job covering CISPA, which some see as a bastard child of SOPA.  Here’s what I’ve dug up.

CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing And Protection Act) came onto the scene pretty quick earlier this month.  It seemed to be an odd mix of overly broad language, added some privacy reviews, and troublingly, let people off the hook for sharing data with the government.  It also had a lot of sponsors.

The odd thing with the bill is it seemed “less” SOPA-like than I’d expect, but then had some huge back doors and odd language revolving around security.  It seems broad enough that it could be massively misused.  The EFF has a roundup here, including amendments.

I’m not sure this is so much the “return of SOPA” as it is “general broad powers.”

It didn’t seem to cause nearly the kerfluffle that SOPA/PIPA did.  That was kind of worrysome.  Heck, *I* should have been more aware.

The bill got amended like crazy later, which the EFF found pretty lame.

It passed the house on April 26th.

It’s now on to the Sentate to do their own bill, and there’s at least two competing ones: The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (Leiberman/Collins) and  The SECURE IT Act of 2012 (McCain).  There’s a nice roundup here.

The Obama Administration is backing the Leiberman/Collins Act, though there’s obviously plenty of concern about it (though from what I can tell it has some legitimate ideas which may be good).  The White House issued a veto threat against CISPA.

So that’s where we stand.  I can’t say this is “son of SOPA,” its’ broader in a way, which is probably why we didn’t get as much of a firestorm.  It’s bad enough (and CISPA supersedes some past law) that I’m concerned.

– Steven Savage

Hands Off The Passwords

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Well here’s a refreshing breath of rationality: Two representatives, Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced a bill to make it illegal for employers and educational facilities to ask for passwords to social networks.

I don’t know how widespread the practice is, as we have isolated reports, but this seems to be a relatively sane thing to make a law out of.  I’m glad to see something that looks savvy like this being done, though I’m sure there’s at least some bandwagon-jumping here.

The good news is that some respect for privacy in America’s IT laws bodes well for the other fights, like CISPA.  Yeah, I know we didn’t touch on that like we did SOPA, I’ll try to rectify it.

– Steven Savage