Flightleader hasn't replied, i'm so disappointed T_T
Hector > I'm cool, anonymous and civilised debate on random message boards is a hobby of mine. Admittedly, I'm not very good at it, but still!
Reading back to my previous post it came across as a little more hostile than I wanted it to.
Personally I have nothing against the HR staff. Being from the same line I can understand how it's hard to be enthusiastic choosing 10 people from a pool of 1000 applicants, especially when you've been doing the same damn thing over and over and over again for 10 years.
[Semi-Unrelated, Long-winded story below]
And at least I have to give them credit for being honest with their feelings. I have a friend in a local subsidiary of a big multi-national's HR department. They have a yearly management trainee drive, and they treat the applicants like kings. The introduction week is held not at the company, but at a swanky hotel with catered meals.
Sounds great, no? Well, this star treatment is purposely to snare the suckers - they find themselves smack in a 10+ hour a day, high stress environment with low pay and virtually no promotion prospects. They can't leave either, thanks to a 2-year bond that they signed.
After the 2 years more than half of them leave. The company itself isn't affected though; the replacements are eating food in a posh hotel as the new batch of management trainees.
So in this way, apparently the company saves a lot of money because of not having to dole out promotions or pay raises.
I can't imagine being in those employees shoes - being treated like royalty specifically for the purpose of getting exploited for two years. Kinda like how cows are bred specifically for their meat, haha.
[Semi-unrelated, Long-winded story above]
Back to the issue at hand, my initial purpose for this thread was just to describe the entire recruitment experience, and attempt to provide a objective comparison to other companies' job recruitments. I do not expect or want any sympathy or "pats on the back." I'm old enough that it doesn't affect me, and I get far worse $hit from my boss on a daily basis.
Also, I don't want to come across as being an arrogant SOB who thinks that the HR staff should be on their knees offering me a job. Far from it, I know that ultimately whether or not I get the job depends on what they think of me, so I do try to be humble.
But being humble and being a doormat are two different things entirely; a company that routinely walks over their employees as if its' employees owe them their lives will eventually lose them - which is possibly one of the factors of the recent MAS pilot exodus problems.
I will end today's post with a not-very-tasteful joke, if you're not interested, then don't read further.
[Bad Language Alert]
A visiting missionary to a jungle village pays a visit to the village chief, and brings along a present of a box of tylenol (panadol/aspirin/whatever), saying, "Chief, this is for headaches."
Noticing that the village was having a population explosion problem, on his next trip the missionary presented his host with a box of condoms, saying, "Chief, this is for fscking."
On his third trip there, the missionary was just about to offer the chief another present when he saw the chief pop a tylenol into a condom and swallow it. Horrified, he asked, "Chief, what did you do that for?" to which the chief replied:
"I had a fscking headache."