Flit

THE CPA: CLOSED SHOP?

Max Boot writes:

Starting from scratch, [the Coalition Provisional Authority] has a hard time recruiting qualified candidates to come to Iraq. And those it hires are likely to leave after a few months.

Makes sense to me. It can be so hard to find good people these days. You know, though, it may sound crazy, but one method that I've found more useful than you'd think in the past to help with hiring shortfalls is to have something more on our organization's website besides just, "The CPA is not currently soliciting positions for employment. We are not accepting resumes at this time."

I know, I know, you're probably saying, as the CPA no doubt is, that it's so much easier if your new employees just emerge spontaneously from the ether already sitting at their desks, and of course there are those companies that still believe in cloning their employees from protoplasm in giant cybernetic vats, and apparently do quite well with that, too.

And I know the whole process of giving all those interested talented people -- those that are not cyborgs, of course -- you know, giving them the vaguest schmick of what your organization is actually looking for, really does seem like you're just spoon-feeding them... for surely the truly qualified potential employees they'd be looking for must have sensed Paul Bremer's brainwaves telepathically by now and duly reported to his office in Baghdad to collect their staplers and pen sets. But for some reason, possibly ionospheric interference of some kind (no doubt something we can blame on the French, or Iran) the mind waves just don't seem to be carrying as powerfully as they used to from his overlarge head. I'm sure once they install that 30-foot titanium antenna-array-slash-Tilly-Hat they're planning for him now, the reception on this side of the ocean in the tooth-fillings of future employees will improve markedly, and we'll see an end to the need for anything as far-fetched and untried as "HR contact information" or "minimum employment requirements."