My Comments on the Hiring Process Today #5

The broad topic of hiring begs the question, "Who is hiring whom to do what?"

If the accounting department needs another accountant, presumably, HR looks at applications, the head of accounting conducts interviews, and voila, another young spirit is crushed -- oops -- I mean another young accountant is hired.

I say this because two of my nieces were hired by two "nice" accounting firms. They'd interned (hold that thought) and were hired, and by now they've presumably moved up.

My one niece explained what she does. Interesting stuff but not the stuff of legend. (Anyone remember the Chartered Public Accountant who flew from England to Canada to commandeer a ship and sail it back to jolly old England. What? Answer: Repo-man. I'll bet they're still talking about that.)

Now let's move on to CNN. We all see ratings are dropping. Fox is moving up. The spirited debate is over ideology. CNN is committed to its vision. Fine. But ideology might not be the problem. The problem might simply be format.

Who at CNN is responsible for raising his hand at a meeting to say, "Maybe the reason we are losing viewers has nothing to do with ideology. Maybe it has to do with format."

What might result reminds me of the comic strip where a peace-nik is debating nuclear weapons with a General. The peace-nik uses the analogy of the two of them standing in a room up to their knees in gasoline. Each has a book of matches. The Peace-nik says, "The answer is not more matches." The General replies, "You're right. The answer is bigger match-heads."

While I admit my wife was not surprised to hear that CNN did not renew some of the contracts, (and upset with rumors they did not renew some of the others' contracts), the prognosis is that CNN is simply going with "bigger names". (I also admit to hiding behind a woman's skirt--but that's okay, the woman wearing the skirt is my wife.)

I not only read 4-5 newspapers a day, I also channel surf the cable stations. (They say everything come in threes. That must be true. The big three cable stations seem to run the same three news stories on a nightly basis.)

Now, what is this all about? Who is hiring whom to do what? At some point in time, when things are not going well, it is incumbent on those at the top to seek a fresh perspective. Just, please, don't hire anyone with a mission statement on his resume.