Do employers want the best or just a body to fill a chair

06/16/09 11:06 AM Filed in: Looking for meaningful work

Another aspect of the housing collapse that employers don’t want to acknowledge is the fact that a lot of people cannot afford to relocate for new jobs even if the job pays a lot more money. I recently, for example, talked to a friend who currently lives in New Jersey and was offered a position in San Francisco at a 40% bump in salary. When he and his wife spent a weekend in San Francisco looking for homes he came to the conclusion that moving out West would result in a substantial decrease in his quality of life. Why are employers not willing to pay for top talent today? Why should they after all aren’t most just looking for someone to sit in a cube and check boxes?

There is not a week goes by that I don’t hear from someone who gets a call from a headhunter inquiring about a job. My single friends who are not homeowners are reluctant to move because a lot of them have great jobs and they have come to realize that having a great job is more important than having a job paying a lot more money. My other friends who are home owners have the same problem that millions of people have throughout this country: they can’t afford to move because they owe more than they could get if they tried to sell their house now. This is true for people all over the country and I have had colleagues turn down jobs all over because they cannot afford to move and lose money.

So what are employers doing about this? Well most (99.9%) are not willing to compensate candidates for the loss of equity on their homes, after all isn’t it a privilege to work for them? The answer to that is a resounding NO.

There are some companies that people love to work for, Google, Genentech and Apple among them, but for the most part employees have learned from this recession that most employers look on employees as nothing more than people who are an expense. Why in the world would someone give up $100,000, or more in lost equity to work for a company that could at anytime say “we don’t need you thank you and here’s the door”?

Then there are the companies that advertise for people and get candidates excited only later, after getting the candidate excited, decide to put the position on hold. Translation: we don’t want the spend the money right now to hire someone because we need to trim expenses. One might think that they would have thought of this before looking for people and getting them excited about possibly finding a great job but then why should they care about potential employees? They should care because potential employees are also potential customers and the Internet gives them a voice to talk negatively about their brand/company.

I often talk to a good friend of mine who works and lives in Europe. He often said that he cannot understand the long process that American companies put people through when deciding if they are going to get a job offer. In Zurich, where he works, when they need someone in marketing they often give an offer on the spot to a person who they feel is the best candidate. “If you find someone who is a great fit and you feel can excel at the job, why in the world would you wait to extend them an offer” he recently asked me. I wish I knew I told him but the way companies hire today it’s never been about the best person it’s about the person who can keep a seat warm and deliver on deliverables. After all it’s a buyers market and why should they care?