Plain Dealer lawsuit

Talking paper routes and 10-cent candy bars. I guess this thread has run its course!

 

Just want to point out that "Junky" is NOT long time SportsJournalists.comer "Junkie", former debating (!) partner of mine and all around good guy. Not that Junky isn't, I'm sure.

Just wanted to make sure there's no confusion

 

As usual, Alma's post on page 2 (which I can't quote due to the SJ character limit) is dead on.

I've been a SE for nearly 10 years, all in the so-called minor leagues of non-major metros. I've done hiring at three different stops, and the only reason I haven't done it at my current stop is because I haven't had any openings.

I'd conservatively estimate that I've had 400 resumes cross my desk over the years for the several openings I've had. Of those, I can count the amount of female candidates for these mostly entry-level positions on two hands ... at most. Minorities? Not as easy to gage, of course, but I'm certain the percentage is about the same. I'd say 15 candidates (the number is probably lower) I've had out of 400 (the number is probably higher) resumes are women or minorities. 3.8 percent?

How am I supposed to make headway in diversification via less than five percent of the candidate pool? Why don't I have more female and minority candidates to choose from? I think Alma provides the answer.

Yet the desire to diversify is very strong. Even though I've had fewer than 10 female candidates for all of my job opening combined, I've offered jobs to two of them -- one accepted, but got a counter-offer from her current employer and stayed where she was, the other was hired.

And she was a disaster. Nicest person you can imagine, but totally out of her depth. I'm still jaded about the whole hiring process from her hire. References are, and were in this case, dishonest. Clips -- which only reflect the best, not the mean average output you get from a candidate, are misleading. Some of these issues have nothing to do with diversification, but this particular hire is where my skepticism of the hiring process in general came to a head. And I was just as guilty as anyone.

There were a lot of liars and suckers in that process, none of them being the candidate herself. The liars were those making glowing recommendations, the suckers were us.

Her struggles had nothing to do with being female at all, plenty of male writers are just as out of their depth. But being female and the strong desire to hire female/minorities to our staff, led us to make a bad hire and led her down the primose path to disaster (she has since happily left the business after unhappily struggling for almost two years) and the hire damaged the quality of the section.

In this case, the desire to diversify served neither the paper nor the candidate in the long run.

 

This is kind of douchy for me because I'm riding under the cloak of anonymity, but I know Marty and he's a good guy. Funny guy. In the end, to me, that's 99 percent of what matters.

I interviewed at the PD and while I didn't get the job, for an Ohioan, it was like seeing the inside of Wonka's factory. Pretty cool experience even though it didn't work out.

 

It's so strange because I figure I know a few of you folks and I guess I'll never know who you are! My number is in the first post of this thread, so feel free to call and we'll talk about old times. I had so much fun with my fellow sportswriters. Now I write sports alone from my basement! It's not as fun.

 

That's because they only hire Oompa Loompas. Duh!

 

I know one 30-something guy who said Willy Wonka was a better movie than Wizard of Oz.

I know such things are subjective, but I admit I got pissed.

 

Sounds like you just sucked at hiring in that case.

 

Satchel is right about Marty on both counts: He is a good guy and definitely a funny guy.

Additionally, he has a ton of talent.

Can't speak about the PD incident. Sometimes, things aren't a good fit or meant to be.

Regardless, I wish Marty well.

 

How? He did what he was supposed to do. He checked references; they lied.
Could he have installed a writing test? Sure. Bad for him.
For the most part, he did what he was supposed to do.

 

Just so every knows, the PD did follow up and wrote a very fair story about how the judge ruled the discrimination lawsuit was not frivolous.

I had questioned on the first take of this thread whether the Plain Dealer would write about that. I wanted to be fair and follow up with this post. It was the ethical thing for the PD to do, so they should be commended.

 

Marty, this is not meant to be harsh but take it like a man. They don't want you. You move on. It's difficult but there are many others who can say the same thing. Rejection is not an easy thing to deal with.