The Human Side: Pete Hires A Faker

Abstract

THE HUMAN SIDE following hypothetical human resources issue has, like so many of its ilk, no correct solution. To help your colleagues deal with such a situation, please tell us how you would resolve it. We'll print as many as space permits. Editor Gettings, director of personnel at XYZ Research Laboratories, burst excitedly into the office of Ferguson, manager of materials research. Joe, you've been urging me to find you a good materials specialist to help your people generate some breakthrough research on the polymeric materials required for Project M. You'll want to look at this unsolicited resume that just came in. I think he's what you need! Joe quickly reviewed the resume. It was from a young man who related that he had been employed in a major company after graduating from college and then had left that company and gone to the State University and completed a Master's degree. At the university, had gained considerable research experience in fiberreinforced composite materials-just the technology for which Joe was looking. Kent's resume indicated that after receiving his Master's degree, he had worked again in industry and then had gone back to the University to start working on a Ph.D. But he had run into financial difficulties, suspended work on his Ph.D. and had taken a job with a small company. He was now circulating resumes to try to find a job with a major industrial research organization. resume did not indicate what his plans were for finishing his Ph.D. Joe asked Pete to bring Kent in immediately for an interview. Pete cautioned, Don't you want to do some checking on him first? Joe replied, The resume cover letter asks us not to check with his present employer and we probably ought to honor that. I don't think we need to check with the university if we just ask him to bring his transcript and Master's thesis when he comes in for the interview. If he is knowledgeable about fiber-reinforced composite materials, that's really all I need to know. Kent was invited and the interview went well. However, instead of a transcript he simply brought a list of courses taken that indicated a few courses beyond the Master's degree. He brought a photocopy of his thesis and it appeared to be a respectable piece of work. He seemed to possess just the technology knowledge that XYZ needed. Subsequently, Kent was made an offer that he readily accepted. Mediocre at Best few months went by and Kent's performance was proving to be mediocre at best. Joe was puzzled because Kent seemed unsure about the same technology upon which his thesis had been based. Subsequently, a senior member of one laboratory approached Pete Gettings to explain that the lab had an informal network of employees of R&D, product engineering and manufacturing engineering who were interested in keeping one another up to date on new developments in using computers for process control. A few days ago, one of the members of this network from manufacturing engineering came by the lab to give me some new literature to study. While he was in the lab he spotted Kent and asked me, 'How did that guy get ajob at XYZ? …