The Job Interview – Then and Now
Then
Not so long ago, organizations filling a job position were looking for the most qualified person for the job.
Here’s a typical job interview between Ethel – looking for a job – and the organization’s person doing the hiring – let’s call it Company X.
Company X: Tell me about yourself.
Ethel: As you see from my resume, I have the knowledge and experience you’re looking for. From my education transcripts you see I carried a high GPA, the result of working hard to learn and excel.
Company X: What would you say is your greatest weakness?
Ethel: Probably my sometimes struggle with time management. So recently I’ve been meeting one-on-one with my manager each week to go over status updates and establish priority lists for the different projects I’m working on.
Company X: What makes you interested in this job?
Ethel: I’m ‘all in’ on your company’s mission to provide a quality product and to satisfy your customers.
Company X: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Ethel: I see myself as head of the department where this job is located. I have a burning desire to advance in all areas of my life and career.
Now
Many organizations have adopted the “woke” and ESG agenda. They tout both internally and externally how “in” they are. That means they have adopted the whole “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” ideology. As a result, their conduct of the job interview might likely look something like this:
Company X: Tell me about yourself.
Ethel: As a black woman, I have grown to understand that, like so many others like me, I am a victim. I’m a victim of white supremacy and am held back from not only getting a decent paying job but inhibited from advancing my career. In addition, as a transgender man I have been severely discriminated against.
Company X: We couldn’t agree more with the plight of your situation. We have taken steps in our company to rectify the oppression you and other black women and transgenders have suffered in their lives.
Given those facts what would you consider your greatest weakness?
Ethel: Because of the oppression I have suffered, I couldn’t excel in school. So, I’d say my greatest weakness is my educational background. You might also think a weakness of mine is the jobs I had in the past has lessened by experience for doing this job. I don’t need experience to get this or any job.
Company X: Understood. We know that there are many people like you out there who only recently have been recognized for your value despite failing a number of subjects in your various school’s curricula, and that has contributed to lessening your experience for this job. Please understand we don’t hire on the basis of educational achievement or experience anymore.
But why are you interested in this job?
Ethel: As I understand it, the job pays really well. I’ve always dreamed of having a big paying job.
Company X: We can certainly appreciate that perspective. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Ethel: You know, I really don’t know. But I now see myself as somebody famous with lots of assets and the respect I deserve.
Company X: In line with that last statement, I need go no further and offer you the job right now. As an African American, a woman and a transsexual you’re the perfect “intersectionality” candidate and will help the company achieve its goal of diversity, equity and inclusion – and a giant step toward achieving social justice.
The two job interviews visited above are obvious fictions of my imagination. What’s not fictional is the bent to hire people on the basis of their gender, gender identity and race.
Many high schools have been uncovered showing unwillingness to share information which could provide a merit scholarship for students to colleges because they want to see equal outcomes regardless of merit.
In the public forum we’ve seen the federal government hire unqualified people for various important jobs based on their ‘identities’ rather than knowledge, expertise and experience. A recent candidate for a federal judge position before the Senate Judicial Committee did not know what Article 2 or 5 in our Constitution says.
When we take stock of many of our leaders and bureaucrats, we see people in positions who have no business being there in a rational world interested in getting a job done efficiently and effectively.
For the most part, we make our own futures by who we elect to our government. We need people with commitment and determination to succeed in their chosen careers and hired for jobs based on merit.
Providing a job to an unqualified person is not only foolish, but also self-destructive – suicidal.
This is the woke agenda.
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
SPIDER Bites
Trivia question of the week: What is the name of the fairy in Peter Pan? (Answer last week: femur – the biggest, strongest bone in the body.)
So far, this winter has been chocked full of surprises, with temperatures swinging wildly from one extreme to the other. The phenomenon behind these unexpected shifts is the polar vortex, a yearly occurrence that dictates how our winters will go. The polar vortex is a large area of low pressure and cold air surrounding both Earth’s poles. It always exists near the poles but weakens in summer and strengthens in winter. I wish it would stay away from affecting lower temps in Paradise.
Asteroid 2023BU missed the earth by 2,200 miles Thursday evening. Whew!
As S & P indicated business activity slowed for the 7th consecutive month and manufacturing numbers showed a 4th straight month of declining orders, corporations already faced with higher labor and material costs are also now dealing with the increase in taxes this year as signed into law last summer. Tax increases during a recessionary period is exactly the wrong thing.
While the tech industry has experienced significant layoffs – with Microsoft, Amazon and Goggle laying off 50,000 in the last month, it’s now spreading to others. 3M just announced 2,500 layoffs,
As oil futures prices return to, and stay above $80/barrel, gasoline prices surge again.
Congress is holding hearings on Ticketmaster’s fiasco with Taylor Swift tickets and Southwest’s flight problems in December. Why is either a governmental matter? There are no hearings scheduled on the recent Transportation Dept.’s grounding of all domestic planes. Hmmm.
President Biden’s classified document drama just keeps getting worse. Now 70% of Americans, including 57% of Democrats, don’t want him around after 2024. Meantime the president indicates he has “no regrets” about his secret papers mess.
Most voters believe that uncontrolled federal spending is the reason Washington has burst through the debt ceiling again, and they’re OK with shutting the government down until Democrats and Republicans come up with the needed cuts to bring down the debt. (See last week’s blog)
Starship is SpaceX’s next generation launch vehicle, designed to take cargo and people to deep space destinations like the moon and Mars. NASA has contracted SpaceX to develop Starship into a lander that can take the agency’s astronauts to and from the lunar surface.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a constitutional amendment last Monday to impose term limits for members of Congress. The legislation would limit U.S. Senators to two six-year terms and Members of the U.S. House of Representatives to three two-year terms. Prior to introducing it, Cruz said: “Term limits are critical to fixing what’s wrong with Washington, D.C. The Founding Fathers envisioned a government of citizen legislators who would serve for a few years and return home, not a government run by a small group of special interests and lifelong, permanently entrenched politicians who prey upon the brokenness of Washington to govern in a manner that is totally unaccountable to the American people.” Amen!
No relief in rising electricity costs is in sight according to Mark Wolfe, director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. He says the shortage of natural gas will raise electricity prices by at least another 10% this year. Closely following Russia, the US has the largest natural gas reserves in the world. Too bad this administration won’t allow tapping into them and helping us all paying the bills. The cost of “saving the world” apparently falls to us voting dummies.
