This is my response to an article about how “Grads need honesty, dependability, work ethic” to land a job:

I was on the active job hunt for two years while I held part-time and full-time temporary positions. During that period I observed a lot about the people, procedures, and techniques that led to success and failure. So let’s be honest about the issue, since that’s what this article says employers are looking for…

Telling students that employers desire integrity, ethics, and dependability is telling them to fake it. Who doesn’t claim to be a dependable hard-worker? And who will honestly admit an ethical weakness? No one… job interviews are all about giving strategic answers to potential employers so to convince them you’re the perfect candidate for the job.

You can’t train someone to be ethical if they are not. A confident smile and a firm handshake can easily be a fraudulent misrepresentation of one’s ethical standards, but what else do you have to bank on? You can teach them right from wrong, but they will still be dishonest if they are a dishonest person. Of course, you won’t pick up on such during an interview because you’ll be too distracted by their “self-confident dependability and friendly, professional demeanor.”

Dependability is yet another intangible trait, but employers still try to measure it against a candidate’s past experience. This is a flawed metric, though, because recent grads will not have enough relevant experience to properly decipher how dependable they will be in the workplace. And high academic marks are easy enough to attain even for someone that isn’t going to use good judgment in their professional life. Do you think the executives at Enron maintained a C average in college? They were probably top of the class.

All in all, I think the entire system is skewed in favor of those that are dishonest enough to fake the best intentions. Someone that admits their weaknesses will be disadvantaged because of that weakness. Wow.