Too Busy Looking for a Job

"I don't have time to read a newspaper, let alone something called a blog," a student lamented late today. "I'm too busy job searching."

And the sad thing is...he's being honest. But once I unglued him from Monster.com and showed him the magic of the world we call Blog, he was hooked. It wasn't just the respite from his job search but the engaging candor and the uncensored opinion without fear of reprisal or lost ad revenue.

Soon we were debating several of the posted entries including my earlier posting today SWF Seeking Job Candidates. The irony is, all 24 years of him became excited, engaged and impressive as a business professional. If only he could talk about his career goals and professional interests with the same energy that he used to debate the blog entries?

So why are we restraining candidates and even employees, forcing them to say and do what seems appropriate and mature? And why have we continued for the past several years to survey, showcase and focus on the mature set--the soon-to-be retired boomers that will leave us with a multi-million worker shortfall by 2010?

Let's unrestrain the new job seeking generation! Harness their energy! Unchain the chains! Turn job seekers into live, debating bloggers! Have candidates debate with each other! The first half of candidate is candid. Ironic? I think not!

Okay, that was exhausting. And this liberating approach won't work in election season here inside the Beltway, but if we could only make it work in the business world....

By the way, thanks to Heath for including me. I'm Susan, the opinionated Assistant Director of Career Services at Johns Hopkins University and the Founder of University and Career Decisions. All of this unrestrained opinion and action has me thinking...maybe it's time I go back to corporate recruiting and shake things up a bit?