Saturday, October 19, 2013

Wayang wayang

In Singapore, we like to wayang. The latest show we want every business to put on is that they must show fairness in their recruitment advertisements. This means that the ads cannot contain words like 'fresh graduates', 'Permanent Residents', 'foreigners', 'women', etc. You just shouldn't, not can't, be too specific in who you are looking for. The exception is the word 'Singaporean'. Now this is allowed. It's the golden word. The mother of all words. I don't know what our HR professionals must be thinking. I for one think its ridiculous. Its plain and simple stupid. Even our highly educated senior government ministers are singing the same tune. I am calling this a wayang because you can don't use those words in the ads, but when the recruiter shortlists applicants for interviews, only specific people will be invited, no? Looked at another way, you are giving false hopes to people. The more job seekers do not get replies, the more demoralize they will get.

Thus this policy causes people to waste a lot of time writing in when they aren't suitable to start off with, and wasting recruiters' time having to sift through a larger than necessary pile of applications. The result will probably be no different from employers' original intentions anyway. I am sure we have something more meaningful and productive to occupy our minds.

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