Don't Give a Damn About My Reputation

I just finished reading an article inspired by the Radio Shack lay-offs. It springboards into thoughts I've been having lately as I begin job hunting in my field. I wonder if companies realize the impact that their reputation in the community has on recruitment efforts - do they not get that employees talk to old classmates and friends and that the "networking" that is touted as a great way to get jobs is also a great way to find out which companies to avoid? Do companies make any effort to gauge their reputation as EMPLOYERS? Sometimes I think not- or at the least, that they are desperately out of touch with their reputation among prospective employees.

For example, there is a large, prestigous, international accounting firm here in Louisville- one of the big four. As far as I've been able to see, no one is happy working for them. I've never met anyone who works for them who likes their job or work environment. I would never apply for a job with them - and I'm not alone. My study group is the top tier of my graduating class, and only one of us is considering even applying with them - and she's not planning to stay - she wants to work with them a year or two at the most and then move into a different type of accounting. So essentially, among those most qualified, no one plans to even apply for a position with one of the big four in Louisville. This is significant. It is no way for an organization to have anything resembling long-term quality. Not a single public accountant from this graduationg class is interested in becoming a future principle in their firm.

Another company in town, one of Louisville's largest employers, has a similiarly bad reputation. It also has an aging workforce - because younger workers have seen the reputation and want no part of it. Once again, younger workers might go to work for them, planning to gain a year or two of experience "in the mines", and then they take their experience elsewhere. For example, I worked with a woman at a local company where she couldn't acquire a skill she wanted to develop. She went and worked for less than a year at the company with a poor reputation, and then once she acquired the new skill, took a job back with her previous employer. She had planned to stay at the other company, but the work environment was so poisonous that she came back, bringing her newly acquired skills with her.

Companies with poor reputations become proving grounds. New, inexperienced workers go and obtain some experience and knowledge, and then leave to work for a better company once they have the resume fodder. In the long run, especially once the baby boomers really begin to retire en masse, these corporations are going to be hurting for workers and most especially for quality, experienced workers. Companies will be competing for fewer prospective employees in the next decade anyway, because of the generational difference between the boomers and their decendents.

There are fewer of us than there were of our parents (and grandparents). Our values are different, our work ethic and our sense of self-worth is different. We grew up with lay-offs and "downsizing", we understand implicitly that there is no real loyalty contract between us and our employers. We do not have pensions. We do not have retirement plans through our employers. Many of us don't even have health insurance. We plan to live longer, and we do not see careers as an end goal, for us they are a continuation process - we may change midstream; we may develop something different.

Companies need to recognize that recruiting and keeping us is a whole new game.