One Size Doesn't Fit All: 3 New Hiring Models Part 1 of 2
When personal responsibility intersects flex-Ability (or the lack of it)
When I taught graduate school in an accredited private university 15 years ago, I noticed my graduates fell into 3 groups -
The first group had ZERO problems getting a job upon graduating
The middle group had some difficulty but ultimately got jobs
The last group had significant difficulty; I’m not sure whether they stayed in the field.
Unfortunately I was not tasked with job placement or analyzing ways to improve their ROI for their program money. (This progressive realization on my part was a big reason why I elected not to pursue a doctorate nor attempt to advance in academia. I want to solve problems, not fight for my slice of the pie in a growth-challenged environment.) That hopefully isn’t the case in all universities, but even at my “good” university I sensed that to be the case.
And so it is that today’s job recruiters seem to continue in a time consuming, synchronous, one-size-fits-all hiring process that is needlessly resource-intensive.
It is too long, too involved, too clumsy. It could be far shorter, precise, and yes binary. Just check out jobot.com or intervu.ai for far more effective, efficient examples.
What happens to these applicants who are hired?
Do they have the support they need?
I foresee enormous issues for highly specialized knowledge workers, whether in the tech, data, cyber, AI/ML - or any other of these exploding and complex industries.
1:1 Communication Silos
There is a default 1:1 communication blockade in many working arrangements today. I don’t know if this communication blockade between the junior or even senior tech worker and their boss is intentionally designed, or just the current hand me down from our evolution from factory to specialized knowledge work.
Sometimes this communication hits the wall. Sometimes one or both parties have a blindspot, or a stubbornness, or some sort of an impasse.
When this happens, the subordinate ranked person really has little choice but to make the best of it. Depending on the person this impasse can represent a plateau in that person’s career within that company - or the start of a gradual or sudden landslide toward stymied performance and probable removal.*
100% Compete for Top 10%
There’s a big talent pyramid out there. The role of instructional designers, curriculum designers, and other talent optimization professionals out there is to find ways to put the bottom 90% of talent to productive work in the junior roles. It seems this isn’t happening at all from the looks of these job boards.
If we want to increase the 25% of able-bodied young men in my state under 30 who are out of work, and aren’t even trying to get a job, we should continue such unrealistic posting.
*Increasing Awareness of Working Styles, Preferences (flexibility) versus NeuroDiversity (less flexible / inflexible)
It’s one thing to have a given strengths mix, or preferences, or style - that’s great, and this implies a flexibility in the way you approach your work, deadlines, and colleagues. You can adapt. That’s good, because you will need to adapt and flex an awful lot as workplaces become increasingly complex.
On the other hand there is also far greater awareness of the so-called “neuro diversity” which is proposed as a strength for teams. In my experience when someone speaks highly and glowingly of neurodiversity as a superpower or a special trait, it is a backhanded compliment (unless they gained wealth and success through that trait and hence could delegate the other parts). Perhaps they have a salaried job that allows them a measure of security to explore and celebrate the unique and sometimes positive sides of aTypicality.
Outside of the TED talk consultants-for-hire and other cottage industry dwellers, the career reality for aTypicals is fraught with risk. Even worse than the already quite real risk for Typicals.
Neurodiversity in my experience denotes a lack of flexibility, and this presents an immense challenge in a culture that is obsessed with personal rights and grievances, rather than putting others first and embracing grit, work ethic, and taking personal responsibility. A big part of this lack of flexibility could be an equally significant lack of situational awareness - a lack of awareness of one’s lack of flexibility. Otherwise put - unconscious incompetence, as opposed to conscious competence on the other end.
At this point I am describing two things - a potentially innate trait of inflexibility to some degree, versus the character trait of being teachable, open to bettering oneself, and efforting for the possibility of gradual change - even if that change isn’t enough.
A subsequent challenge is the perhaps unique dysphoria of knowing the failure is entirely due to oneself, perhaps even looking at actual DSM-5 data from a diagnostic test report, while also endeavoring to take ownership and complete personal responsibility for this.
The added realization that this failure directly impacted the whole team and your boss’ track record, perhaps even career, is heavy stuff. A simple “I’m sorry” really isn’t enough. Want to evangelize your peers and colleagues to your personal faith or belief system? Great way to be a horrible witness to them, irrespective of whatever level of good-faith effort you invested.In hindsight, perhaps better to do less? “Working hard” is a paradigm that made great sense in the physical blue collar world of 50 years ago where things were much more tangible and observable - and correctable. In the knowledge worker world of digital screens and personally curated content feeds, this is all data below the iceberg - it’s almost impossible to discern until after the project or task is incorrectly submitted. When this happens, better to not “work hard” at all until you know that you are pointed in the right direction.
Such are the hindsight conundrums and internal gaslighting involved in trying to add value to the outside world on their terms. Because it’s on me to add value in real ways that really are valuable. Otherwise it’s taking value.
Receiving a neuroAtypical diagnosis in today’s culture may actually impact both of these traits (inflexibility vs teachability) in a lose/lose manner due to our entitlement culture. This means that people might dig in their heels about their perceived disability or disadvantage, weaponize their identity around it, while discounting or absolving themselves of personal responsibility to mitigate, fix, or reverse their career shortcomings in the workplace.
The reverse is true. As more and more of us realize the reason behind our unique gift mix, our quirks and idiosyncrasies, we also need to take responsibility for them. Otherwise whatever remnant of social fabric we have remaining will vaporize as everyone weaponizes their identity and grievances against one another and piles on more intersectional weaponized identities to out-victimize the next person in the hegemonic hierarchy.
This is a perfect time to mention that “rejection-sensitivity” is a key additive in many if not all aTypical diagnoses - not sure how it’s possible to have a logical conversation about responsibility when the other party is so extra sensitive.
At the risk of blathering on even further about this, it is the perspective of this blog that this is unacceptable. Whatever one’s disadvantages are (even rejection-sensitivity - yes even that!), it is that person’s responsibility to take responsibility and keep trying. It is not society’s fault that someone has a different way of processing or relating. It creates conflict, and wasted resources, and it brings down the top contributors.
It also makes things even more touchy and politically sensitive at a time when everyone needs to be on board, performing highly, and making money so they increase market share so that they don’t go out of business and everyone having to lose their jobs.
On The Other Hand…
Back to the Atypical person who is trying to take responsibility, trying to work in a chaotic environment, trying to train others how they can best communicate and get best results from the person (the so-called “accommodations”).
What if they know they need a special accomodation - one that may be stated on their hiring documents - but is not specifically protected if not provided?
What happens if they quietly acquiesce and perhaps work with their therapist privately and try their best to do the work?
What happens if they aren’t perfect, and things slip?
The reality is that it’s still not the employer’s fault if the candidate doesn’t do their work perfectly. It’s always going to come down on the employee.
We know this, but I’m finally going to switch sides and pose one important question: what about the mentally/socially crippled* employee who realizes this, owns their part in this, and is trying to use what little skillset they do have to ask for help?
What the best companies realize is that when they build a flexible culture they will often bring out the best in the employees and get the most productivity out of them.
Tomorrow I am going to submit 3 unconventional hiring models that might work well moving forward especially for people who know they need special accommodations, despite working “hard” and doing their “best”. Some people know that working hard and doing their best isn’t good enough. It’s not perfect or as good as their other colleagues who are able to work hard, do their best, and remain in their jobs because they are super productive.
The goal is not perfection, perhaps it’s a tradeoff between compensation and communication. For imperfect yet hardworking folks whose best is not good enough, they might happily prefer to earn 20%-50% less in exchange for an employer who understands that they need extra communication and/or mentoring in order to stay on track. Why mustn’t white collar jobs follow a blue-collar apprenticeship model?
Even regular / good employees need lots of communication. But we know communication takes time and flexibility. We know that today’s busy workplace only values people who do their jobs near-flawlessly. Perhaps some may be prepared to make massive concessions in the compensation area in the hopes that they don’t get sacked on the 2nd or 3rd mistake.
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