For The Austin Morkas Of The Labour Market – By Frank Ofili
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Any human resource practitioner, especially in our part of the world, would readily tell you that his job is like a football match. You never know what the outcome would be, or where the outcome would lead. This is understandable, given that you deal with human beings. Off all the resources available to a manager, human beings are the most difficult to manage, the reason being that only human beings have the attribute of independence of mind, and have the capacity to hold different opinion on how things should be. Those opinions invariably run against Management expectations. Human beings by nature do not like to be told what to do.
A human resource executive comes across all sorts of behaviour characteristics everyday both from employees and potential employees alike. Sometimes one has to go outside the rule book and adopt some kind of hunch or gut feeling to solve some particularly thorny employee problem. At those times, your hunch or gut feeling hardly go wrong. It is difficult to describe. When you are carrying out a recruitment activity, for instance, you constantly find that sometimes your hunch comes into play to decide the candidate with the right fit among others. A hunch, or gut feeling, however, need not come into play at all times a critical decision is required. It is much more beneficial to be scrupulous and make your decisions based on fact. But just like there are unusual employees or job candidates, there are also sometimes unusual managers, recruiters or employers.
In my case, I have to admit I am an unusual recruiter. I am not the conventional every day interviewer who shoots questions and expects the candidate to provide the answers. When I interview for a job role, I interact with the candidate. I conduct my interviews like a chat session. In-between the chats I slip in the real questions. I make the candidate relax.
The objective is not to find out the candidates with the correct answers, but to get inside the candidates and know them from within, to know what kind of person they are. What are their motivations, aspiration, world view, interests, judgment and reasoning, their intellect, their insecurities and sensitivity? I look for introverts or extroverts, depending on the requirements of the position I am recruiting for. At all times though, I look out for candidates with leadership qualities, those who are independent minded, adaptable and top on the integrity pedestal. While I do of course, however, expect the candidates to be able to provide answers to my questions, I look out for those with intriguing personality. Sometimes I have to reduce my questions to classroom questions – the basics – just to get what I am looking for.
Many years ago, I had cause to recruit a middle level human resource manager for my former employers. Resumes were received and seven candidates were penciled down for interview. All seven resumes were impressive – at least on face value. At this level, the interviews would normally be less an “interview” but more like a discussion on the candidates’ background, career, experience, motivation, world view, and personality. All seven candidates were scheduled over a 3-day period. One of the candidates was Austin Morka (not real name), from Isele Mkpitime in Aniocha North Local Government Area, Delta State.
At the “interview” proper Mr. Morka proved to be a Demonthenes – an orator of sorts. He was good; too good! His resume showed he had had a rich career as human resource manager across three key sectors including insurance, manufacturing and banking from where he was downsized in 2010 following then CBN governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s howitzer.
Mr. Morka was a second class (Honours) lower degree and an MBA holder. He cut the picture of a good HR generalist. Though he floundered a few times during the chat session I was impressed with his quick recovery. We thought we had got the man for the position, until I decided to slip in an innocuous question which I culled from his resume just before the end of the interview.
I asked to know what major roles he thought a human resources manager plays in a highly complex unionized conglomerate. The guy went on and on about recruitment, promotion, discipline, training, compensation and benefits management, performance appraisal etc. These are all well and good, but I needed the broad outlines of the different roles a HR Manager plays. So I probed further and presented the question in another form, but the guy went blank. I then realized he had come to his limits.
Austin Morka did not get the job. The panel could not fathom the fact that he lied about his skills and experience. It was unacceptable that as human resource manager he did not know the three major roles which he ought to be playing, yet he listed them in his resume as having actually done them. Austin Morka probably copied someone else’s resume the contents of which did not match his own career profile.
What, or who, we wanted was someone with good knowledge of contemporary human resource management, spanning personnel management, industrial/employee relations, industrial/organizational psychology and organizational development. We needed someone well versed in labour regulations in Nigeria, skilled, knowledgeable, and experienced in emerging issues in HR best practices, health, safety and environment; someone not only with great emotional and financial intelligence, but also familiar with HR value chains and the links connecting the business dots. We needed someone who understood how HR decisions impact on the bottomline! Austin Morka knew some but lied about others – a grave mistake for someone at his level.
The story of Austin Morka provided the impetus for this write-up which is particularly difficult for me to do because in Nigeria everyone expects you to jettison competence for sentiment. You see, Austin Morka is an in-law of sorts. He was brother to a friend’s wife, and the friend had put in a word for him with me. But then this was a panel I was a junior member and decision was by vote. I feel compelled to share this experience because it occurred to me there may be so many other people in Austin Morka’s shoes today.
For the umpteenth time I found myself having to sit a candidate down and explain to him why he could not be selected after a somewhat good performance at an interview. Like I said earlier, this one was particularly difficult for me for obvious reasons. But it was my lot to deliver the bad news in a pleasant manner. So I prepared him for the post-interview session which was also meant to be a corrective one. Below are five mistakes that are likely to deny you a job opportunity.
MIND WHAT YOU POST ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE: Some questions that cannot be asked at a job interview are often answered on your social media page, especially Facebook. It takes a recruiter just a few hours to find you out on Facebook, send you friend request (or follow you), and then see your activities there. Those activities are likely to belie or contradict the candidate (you) sitting before him.
DO NOT DENY BEING ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Some candidates are not comfortable with what they have on their social media page. So if they are asked at a job interview if they are on social media they answer in the negative. Often times this turns out to be a mistake. I have a friend who is an expert at figuring out social media buffs. If you are on social media and you deny it before him, he has a way of slipping in some seemingly innocuous social media talk, and your response to such will often prove you out. So if you are on social media admit it. If you use a pseudo name on your social media page, also admit it. If your social media page is full of craps better still to admit it before the recruiter. This will give you the picture of an honest person. It is even worse to deny that you are on social media in these days of global village. Not being on social media may in fact deny you some job opportunity. It means, somehow, that you are not moving with time, or that you are an introvert. It could prove to be costly – depending on the job role involved.
DO NOT COPY SOMEONE ELSE’S RESUME: One major mistake many people make is lying about a past job, especially if they left on not-too-pleasant terms. Potential employers seem to have a sixth sense about experiences that you glossed over or were dishonest about. So when you apply for a job it does not pay to falsify your career profile. Do not claim experience or skill you do not have. Any experienced recruiter would see through it straight away. If you have to adopt some else’s resume, be sure it fits into your own career profile in terms of skill, experience and achievements. If it does not, modify it to align with yours but do not lie. Or better still, craft your own resume. Your resume, or CV, is like your personality. It is supposed to be unique to you alone and different from any other person’s. Just as no two persons have identical personality, no two resumes, or CVs, are supposed to be the same either.
DO NOT CRITICIZE YOUR FORMER BOSS OR EMPLOYER: Criticizing your former boss or employer in any way lets your potential employer know that you would do same to them if you leave their organization. So if you are asked why you want to leave your current employer, or why you left your former job, answer honestly. Say for instance that you want bigger challenges. If your experience with your current or former employer is not so good, better to explain that you have (or had) a difference of opinion in terms of work philosophies or style. Make the answer short but illuminating. If you were downsized, admit it. No harm is done here. After all everyone knows the economy is not what it should be. Also do not bring up any personal problems at a job interview.
IF YOU ARE ASKED IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, DO NOT SAY “NO”: Saying NO tells the recruiter that you are probably not very interested in the company, or not very smart. So research the company before your interview and come up with at least three questions to ask about the company itself during the interview. For instance, ask what plans they have for expansion, or ask what new products or services they might be considering. Under no circumstances, should you ask “what is your company into?”, or “what does your company do?” You are supposed to know this before appearing for the interview.
The good news….
Austin Morka has since secured employment in a packaging company. Now and then, he puts a call to me and exchange pleasantries. Eventually, our relationship got reduced to personal level that one day he confessed he was not really a HR manager in his previous employment but a lowly-placed HR officer. He said he thought he could maneuver his way to HR Manager’s position. A mistake, I told him. This is the lot of very many job seekers today and they hardly know it.
