Companies Use Fortune Telling to Recruit Executives
Recent surveys indicate that a large number of HR Departments in Swiss companies consult fortune tellers and mediums before hiring candidates.
While prestigious companies across the West are known to sometimes have recourse to private investigators in vetting their most sensitive executives, Switzerland clearly scores points for rural creativity in its sourcing techniques.
Apparently the practice of resorting to fortune tellers, mediums, and handwriting analysts is also current in France. The french refer to a fortune teller as ‘Madame Soleil.’
In Perpignan, France, a certain Madame Ventura who plies the trade of fortune teller told interviewers that her clients often consulted her in the context of important recruitments. She reported that companies also paid her for ‘psychological profiles’ based on a photograph (we warned you not to attach your photo to your CV!) and also astrological charts.
As one company recruiter explained, ‘a manager who is a Leo will never get along with an employee who is a Scorpio with the wrong ascendant.’ He admitted having regular recourse to mediums for ‘risky recruitments’ or upper level executives.
On the internet one finds countless fortune tellers posing as Human Resources consultants or tarot readers for companies. It appears to be a very well-remunerated business — enterprise consultancy in fortune telling. And it has the additional advantage of not yet being regulated, not yet having any recognized degree, nor any guild.
So the unemployed executive might perhaps consider at this juncture a wardrobe change and a new career as highly paid medium to a multinational. Besides an ample remuneration and a clientele that can be retained by fear, the profession has the additional advantages of being able to be practiced from home, at one’s leisure or caprice.
It is well known that fortune tellers are more respected (and therefore more highly paid) if they are late-rising and eccentric.
According to ABCompetence in Ecublens, many companies use non-scientific aids in the decisional process (besides just mediums and fortune tellers). They note that according to Swiss law, using a fortune teller in the recruitment process without informing the candidate can potentially constitute a misdemeanor — an inappropriate use of the candidate’s personal information. The relevant statutes are part of the Federal laws on data protection and privacy protection. They stipulate that evaluation methods must furnish results that are objective and reliable.
As elsewhere, the surveys show that there is a discrepancy between the legal expectations and common practices; there are as yet no known cases of companies being sanctioned for having recourse to supernatural indices in their recruitment process.
