How Far Will You Go To Get What You Don’t Want?

“Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way, what’s the matter with kids today?” If you’re old enough to remember the song, you’ll know what I mean.

What is it with job seekers today, and why can’t they be like we were? How come they have such a difficult time making commitments?

In a North American world that runs on fear, fear of terrorism, fear one of our children will be snatched in the street, fear of the next pandemic, fear of making a mistake, there is a new fear creeping into the accountancy workplace among the ‘Gen Xers” and that is the fear of commitment.

This is a direct quote from an associate of ours when we asked for a referral for tax candidates, “I will do my best to help you. However, what I am experiencing is that almost every time someone tries to leaves their current firm, if the individual is any good, he or she will be offered whatever it takes to get them to stay. I need 4 tax managers in Ottawa. Our Calgary office would employ around 12 if we could find them. Lately I've had an individual sign back a great an offer and then send me an email two days later to advise that she had changed her mind!”

Send an email? Fear. Whatever happened to picking up the telephone, letting the firm that you have accepted an offer from know voice to voice, or even, heaven forbid, face to face that you’ve had a change of heart (or salary)? Doing the right thing? I don’t think so.

In our recruiting work we come across them all too often. The ‘I just want to look around and see what’s out there candidate’, it’s kind of a ‘grass is always greener on the other side’ sort of thing.

We do our best to weed them out of the recruiting process for our clients, because we know when it comes right down to it they have another agenda. Usually we succeed but nobody’s perfect and unfortunately the occasional one slips through the net.

Accounting firms and their recruiters alike have all been burnt one too many times. Even after ascertaining the intention of the candidate with questions like: “If you were offered a job at this firm today, what would be your answer?” and getting the response “Absolutely, it’s a great firm, I would go there in a heartbeat’, somehow things change.

Fair enough, after all everyone has the prerogative to expand their horizon a little, to see what kind of game they could be playing in another field. But what I can’t understand is how far they are willing to go with the big job bluff. Attend interviews with recruiters, sure. Attend interviews with clients, no problem. Entertain job offers, why not? Accept those offers or even worse, give the appearance of accepting them while operating on a different agenda? Unfortunately, yes.

Case in point. I have changed the names to protect the not so innocent, but recently we had a candidate, let’s call her Diana, who went through a two month back and forth process.

Several interviews, negotiating an offer, having the new employer agree to several thousands of dollars worth of pro bono work for her favourite charity included in the terms of agreement, and relentlessly haggling a higher salary, then in the end backing out after having accepted the position and misled both us and our client that she was simply waiting to see the partner she had worked for to agree a leaving date.

In the meantime they have wasted their own time, our time and worst of all, the time and money of the prospective employer. They have also prevented another equally qualified candidate from moving forward who could have been up and running in the position.

And this all happened the day before the Christmas holidays and six weeks before the start of busy season.

Does Diana really think that the extra five or ten grand they wheedled out of their present employer is going to change what previously wasn’t working for them at the firm now?

Will it give them more career satisfaction and allow them to take on greater challenges, enjoy international travel and progress more quickly within an egalitarian organization?

Will we be willing to help Diana in six months time when all the broken promises rise to the surface that made her consider a move in the first place?

No, No and No!

And now there is another more potentially career damaging prospect to fear. Not only does word get around about employee behaviour and impact future opportunities, but does this person really think that their present employer is going to look at them in the same light after having their feet held to the flame for more money?

Statistically, (and by the way did you know that 84% of statistics are made up on the spot?) they won’t last five years in their present firm. Their employer will start thinking about a back up plan should they decide to start looking around again and before you can say ‘breach of contract’ the back up plan will turn into the game plan and that employee will no longer be the starting quarter back.

Can they then flirt with the prospective firm again? In the words of our client, ‘I wouldn’t want them here now, even if they worked for free’.

The irony is that for the ‘just looking around but can’t commit’ candidates in their minds it is all about what’s best for them. What they don’t realize, however, is they are operating in their own worst interests in the longer term.

© MFA Group Inc, 2008