Civil service jobs no longer require fealty
When you run through a staffing exercise to hire a new media analyst, remember two things:
- monitor staff appropriately as they conduct the exercise;
- and teach proper email procedures.
Quite a large kerfuffle in Toronto about a completely insensitive email mistakenly sent to an applicant for a low-level media analyst position in the provincial government - an email where a contract employee referred to one applicant for the job as the “ghetto dude.” How did Evon Reid, the applicant, find out? The contract employee sent her comment to him instead of her colleague as intended. (Toronto Star, among many)
Not only does this incident reflect poorly on how the hiring process was managed, but it also highlights a shift in attitudes towards winning a job in the civil service.
Back in the old, old days, a civil service position was such a sinecure that applications (or should that be supplicants) approached each qualifying exam and screening interview with a sense of deference or fear. Hiring managers often believed that applicants “should be glad we’re even looking at them, this is such a golden opportunity” - and behaved that way during the hiring process.
Well, the world has changed. Many applicants have no fear in criticizing what they see as a flawed process. Clearly, Mr. Reid was entitled to bring the email to light and highlight the inherent insensitivity of the comment about him.
But other applicants feel no reticence in highlighting unprofessional behaviour in the hiring process. Like this commenter on the Torontoist blog, who applied for the same job as Mr. Reid:
“However, when i was interviewed i was absolutely dumbstruck by Ms. Siu’s lack of professionalism. The interview process was basically Ms. Siu and her colleague, who both seemed to be recent grads themselves, and their supervisor who seemed like d a legitimate government employee of several years. They made it clear that i would have to impress all three in order to get my second interview, and questions were shared equally between the three.
Anyway, the problems came when their supervisor had to leave half way during the interview, and Siu and her colleague began joking around. Hey, i love jokes, initially they were doing a great deal to put me at ease, as i’m generally very tense in an interview. But they just kept going with it to the point where Siu was pretending to collapse drunk on the table and all focus was taken off asking me questions and trying to find out if i was the right person for the job, which was why I was there. When the questions did return to me, at least one of the questions ask was an illegal on as set forth by the ministry of labor, or however if in charge of making such guidelines (see, very under qualified for the job.) The question asked was “How do you plan on getting to work each day?” which as innocent as it sounds, cannot be asked in an interview situation. Now, should not the Ontario Government be following the same rules as its given all other HR departments in the province?”
In the past, most civil services tried to recruit from the same informal network of candidates and applicants - people with similar educational, social and economic backgrounds.
Today, we have tried to cast our net wider, to expand the range of interests, expertise and experience recruited into the civil service.
And, thanks to online technologies, candidates and applicants can continue to share information, caution and criticism about the jobs (and the managers) on offer.
h/t to Accordion Guy
