In among the terrific feedback we received about a recent toxic candidates. Many of these candidates are so clueless that we never even find out how qualified they might be.
So many job candidates now present themselves so poorly, in fact, that we have been left wondering what our responsibility is to society when faced with them. We understand that sending job inquiries, cover letters and resumes via e-mail and Web-based forms is now standard operating procedure. But can anyone spell anymore, or use punctuation or capital letters properly? We're pretty sure that the comma and shift keys still exist on keyboards.
When we do find someone we'd like to meet, interviews have turned into an adventure. We love that we get to dress informally in the fitness industry, but wearing shorts to an interview? With visible underwear? From would-be personal training candidates who think that they will command top dollar from clients? Did these kids have parents? Did they walk into any place of business, of any sort, in their lives? Ever?
Even when some of these kids try their best, they just don't get it. We got a thoughtful thank-you note from a job applicant recently, and it struck us how rarely we now receive one. It was actually a thank-you email message, which was fine - except that it was littered with misspellings, grammatical errors and what we hope were typos.
It was that e-mail that got us wondering: Should we spend our time to get back to a candidate to point out how poorly he or she is represented by such an e-mail? In our view, we must. So, we are prepared to say the following to our next shorts-wearing, underwear-displaying candidate: "Thanks for coming in today. We're not going to interview you, and you're not going to get a job with us, because you obviously don't have enough common sense or life experience to know that you are dressed inappropriately. Do yourself and the future of this country a favor, and please go learn how to dress and behave at an interview."
We certainly know what we're not going to do. We're not going to apologize for them, as 19 rules has proven anything to us, it's that the inmates shouldn't run the asylum. We're barring the door from those who need not apply - although maybe we can help them stay off unemployment.
