Recruiting & Candidate Development

How Do You View the World?

Daniel T. Bloom

danielbloom To begin with on this first day of a brand new yea, may I wish you and yours a great new year.

I was reading the local newspaper this morning and a column by Bill Maxwell caught my attention. The column was entitled "White doubt reserved for black professional and it dealt with an effort of the local school district to enhance the number of black teachers that are hired.One of the members of the school board who is white is quoted as saying after the effort was announced who said the effort should be to hire quality over numbers.

The reason why this caught my eye was it gave me a moment to consider this from a broader perspective.

No one will deny that we have a large unemployment issue in this country. But how large would the problem be if we removed our preconceived notions from the staffing process. Over the past several years I have seen in the social media realm various posts which suggest that we are rejecting applicants because of these notions. Consider these examples:

One recruiter posted that if she knew a candidate had grey hair she would automatically reject them from the candidate pool.

Individuals who call themselves professional recruiters who really believe that those with disabilities do not belong in the workplace and should be relegated to a home or family residence.

Disregard your political views for a moment and be true to yourselves and ask how many of you thought the President was not able to do the job because he was African-American? Be honest.

How many of you believe that just because a fellow professional does not come from the same background as you they automatically are inferior in their abilities to perform the responsibilities of the position?

Maxwell in concluding his article asked what it will take for so many whites to stop automatically questioning the qualifications of black professionals who are not entertainers or jocks. I would carry this further and ask what will it take for corporate America to recognize the worth of EVERY employee regardless of their origin. In his book on the Toyota Culture, Liker states that the hiring managers at Toyota look at the skills the person has, even if they are not from the same industry. They discuss people who were managers in the grocery store industry who moved to the production floor as a lead person because of her skills. We all need to take the same attitude going into this new year. Many corporations are reporting that they are having a hard time finding the right talent for their operations. Could this view be hindering the hiring effort?

Think about it for a moment seriously. Lets talk about how to change the hiring perspective to remove these illogical notions. We are not suggesting that you should hire anyone off the street That is equally illogical. We are suggesting that looking at the candidate pool with the eye that we will eliminate someone because they are not mirror images of the hiring manager is equally wrong.

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Biography

Daniel T. Bloom is the founder and Managing Partner of Daniel Bloom & Associates, Inc. Founded in 1980, DBAI is a Largo, Florida based human Capital consulting firm. Serving corporate clients nationwide, we have assisted organizations from small real estate firms to members of the Fortune 1000 with various human capital related issues.

DBAI services three niche markets with services to assist organizations to maximize the human capital assets of the organization.

The first niche is comprised of those organizations with fewer than 100 employees who either do not have or never had a human resources department and now find them selves in need of expert counsel on human capital issues. We in essence become their HR department but on a retained basis where they can call us as the need arises.

The second niche market are those corporations with a small HR staff who have an urgent need for specialized human capital services and we can provide the expertise to complete the application of these services on a timely and cost effective basis.

The third niche is strategic human capital project completion for the large corporations on a divisional basis.

The service package of DBAI includes, but is not limited to, the areas of talent management, training, vendor management, policy design, relocation management, process improvement and EEO.

A resident of Florida since 1980, Mr. Bloom was an executive recruiter with several contingency recruiting firms in the metropolitan New York market, a member of the internal HR staff of the ECI Division of E-Systems (Now Raytheon), a licensed real estate broker providing relocation services to corporate clients, an educator and since 1980 a Human Resource Consultant. He is a national member of the Society for Human Resource Management, Worldwide ERC (the corporate relocation trade association), and the American Society for Quality. In addition he is a member in the Tampa Bay area of American Society for Training and Development, Tampa Bay Metro Business Leadership Network and the Tampa Bay Executive Forum. In addition he serves on the Expert Panel for the Round Table Group in the area of human resource issues.

Mr. Bloom received a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from Parsons College majoring in Education and Certification in Six Sigma from St Petersburg College. He holds certification as a Senior Professional in Human Resources from the Human Resource Certification Institute, a Senior Certified Relocation Professional from Worldwide ERC and a Six Sigma Black Belt from St Petersburg College.

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