Posted by denised in A recent Salt Lake Tribune article featured a small business owner who had, in a 12 month period, hired and fired 5 recent college graduates. One was fired on the first day for “inappropriate sexual comments,” another lasted only a week. The question the article asked was, who’s responsible for training recent college grads for the workforce?
At an average cost for just a year of college running at $35,000, career and placement centers should harbor the bulk of the responsibility for getting their students prepared for the working world. But, realistically speaking, there are certain skills that only on-the-job training can provide. Hiring recent grads, at lower starting salaries than seasoned workers, comes with the understanding that these grads will require a certain amount of hand holding. Or at least it should. Inappropriate sexual comments aside, if this is a person’s first job, there are some lessons they just haven’t learned yet, and if you’re their first boss, you’re going to be their new teacher.
I have a better question than who’s training new grads. What’s wrong with your hiring process that it allows you to hire five employees over the course of a year to fill a single position? In addition to questioning the education college grads are receiving, I’d encourage this employer, and any other in a similar situation, to question their interviewing and hiring skills.
I’ve been here before. A hiring manager demonstrating a complete and utter inability to hire and keep good employees, blaming everything, short of the full moon, for her own incompetence. I get it. During the interview process, people tend to exaggerate their skills and abilities. But, as a trained hiring manager, isn’t it your job to spot that? And while everyone makes the occasional bad call, five unsuccessful hires for the same position in less than a year? If you repeatedly make the wrong hiring decisions, maybe your job should be the next position posted. Harsh? Discuss after the jump.
