HR: How can you be so stupid?

There are times, my fellow HR Professionals (and I use the term lightly) when I am ashamed to be counted as one of your number.

A job advert recently appeared (in the USA, it has to be said...) which stated that job applications would not be accepted from anyone who was not currently in employment . The precise words were: “Client will not consider/review anyone not currently employed regardless of the reason.”

Far from condemn such an evidently crass and divisive approach, at least one member of the HR community stated that such an approach was really no big deal and in fact probably had much to recommend it, particularly as the unemployed do have an annoying habit of applying for a large number of jobs, some of which they may be not entirely suitable or eligible for. This thus adds to the administrative burden of those involved in the shortlisting and selection process.

Unemployed? Then Don't Bother Applying

Admittedly, the HR "professional" goes on to offer some highly strategic advice to the unemployed ("Keep busy", "Network, network, network" and (I jest not, dear readers!) "Don’t answer the phone if you were asleep when it started ringing."

But. My stars! How can the "no applications from the unemployed" approach be endorsed in any shape or form?

Or perhaps we should embrace this strategy by requiring the unemployed to wear sackcloth and ashes, and walk around leper-like, ringing a bell so that there is no danger of them contaminating the master-race of the employed?

Or perhaps we should even encourage them to end their miserable lives, thereby removing themselves as a burned on the taxpayer? Sorry Dave. I'm going to have to let you go. Here's your termination letter and a cyanide pill. I know you'll do the right thing.

The "only those in employment need apply" approach is clearly based on the utterly fallacious assumption that out-of-work employees contributed to their own unemployment (or possibly even deserved it).

It's not often that the editor of HR Case Studies pleads with his readership, but please, please PLEASE! my fellow HR Professionals (especially those in the UK!): tell me that I'm not alone in finding such an approach utterly abominable?

After all we're called Human Resource Managers. Not Inhuman. Not Inhumane. And hopefully not Stupid.