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Poll: Internships and Cronyism

April 16th, 2008 @ 6:22 am

1 Comment

Categories: Ethics, Office Life, Personal Conduct, Polls, Workplace

Tags: Applicant, Tradition, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, William Baker

Today’s poll deals with how to handle a tradition of cronyism.

Your Dilemma: You’ve recently been hired as the vice-president in charge of recruitment for a medium-sized firm, and part of your job is to screen and select applicants for the company’s coveted summer internships. There are ten positions, and you’ve received hundreds of applicants, including five who are the children of current employees. As you are finishing your selection process, a superior comes to your office and tells you that it is company “tradition” to give the children of employees the first crack at the openings.

In your unbiased opinion, only one of those children would make the top 10, and following tradition would mean turning down top-notch applicants who could someday help your firm.

How Do You Handle the Situation?

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Office politics is all about choosing your battles, so is this a balancing act, or a fight you don’t want to win? Tell us what you think of cronyism in the comments section.

Have a workplace dilemma you’d like to see in this poll? Email wherestheline (at) gmail.com

 
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    1

    sbrennaman354

    04/22/08 | Report as spam

    Poll: Internships and Cronyism

    If it were only that easy. Let's face it, cronyism is a fact of (business) life. We see it on the playing fields of our youth and the youth of our children. Business is but an extension. I voted for the winning choice (yeah like any of them are winners) but that is because I am not sitting there looking a co-worker (or superior) in the eyes and telling her/him that their child did not make the cut. Make a rule that internships only go to qualified applicants and that there is committee (another ugly word) that will review all applicant and choose only those that make the grade. Do away with a tradition that is not fair to all.

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