Chapter 5 Discussion Topic

The company I work for is big on nepotism, which in many areas can be seen as a bad thing. Unless it gets me a job, which it did, after having been unemployed for 3 months and the feds being too tight to pay out so my parents were kind enough to cover my bills until I got back on my feet.

The company doesn't just use relatives, but it has a few direct applicants, mostly from internship programs and referrals. I haven't found anyone there yet who didn't come from one of these three categories, in some cases this is very limiting, but for them it works. The benefits are pretty great, they do tuition reimbursement, several companies for insurance so you can find a good fit for your budget and situation, and flexible scheduling.

Direct applicants are pepople who apply for a vacancy without prompting from the organization. Referrals are people who apply because someone in the organization prompted them to do so.

The book said that there are advantages and disadvantages to all of these, the biggest concern being that using referrals and nepotism you keep a lot of the same kinds of people in your organization and that you limit the likelihood of exposing the organization to fresh viewpoints. Advantages would be that its cheaper and easier on the company since they don't have to do any of the recruiting.

I think at the company I work for because they offer tuition reimbursement more of the employees are going back to college or going to college for the first time and learning about things and situations and software they wouldn't have normally learned about. I haven't noticed much of the CEO's kids getting hired above us more quickly either, one of the Heads of Recruiting has a son that is in my department and he is treated like everyone else...possibly because everyone has a parent or friend or relative that works there too.

What issues do you foresee for a company such as mine? Or other company's that run based on nepotism? What do you think could be done better/differently?