Get a job! Not with HR

The most common is the Myer Briggs Type Indicator test, created by Katharine Briggs. She wouldn’t have been the first to have her brain zapped by some of the theories of Carl Jung. Briggs devised a test to sort humanity into 16 distinct types, all of them fortunately benign. Isn’t it odd that these tests never pick the psychopath who comes to work one day with an automatic weapon?

The Myer Briggs Type Indicator has zero predicative value. In one study, only 47 per cent of people tested fell into the same category on a second administration of the test. Another study found 39 to 76 per cent of those tested assigned to a different “type” upon retesting weeks or years later.

The Myer Briggs Type Indicator is about as helpful as picking a person’s star sign. So you’re a Gemini? Excellent. We’ll make you director of communications. Get out of here.

The noses of many HR managers are well and truly super glued to the trough. It would be hard to find a less critical, less internally regulated industry than HR.

Conclusion

If the Australian HR industry was a soccer team, it would be struggling to win a game in the 4th division. If it has one fundamental, over-arching flaw, it is its galling lacks respect for its clients, whether they are individual job hunters, staff or corporate clients.

I have met the enemy and it is HR. I promise my clients at Republic that I’ll try get them a job despite HR. I’ll beat them at their game.

In a world where whole industries are disappearing due to globalism and the Internet is removing costs on the communication and supply chains, HR is a value subtract.

For individual job hunters, the secret to getting a job is cold calling and asking for an appointment to pitch your skills. It won’t work every time but remember, as Paul Keating once said, “If there’s a horse called ‘Self Interest’ running, I’d back him every time, because at least I know he’s trying.” Unlike HR.