Although it depends on whether there are enough applicants for positions.  If you have enough suitable applicants, you don't need to change your methodology.  But if you are finding you just don't have enough "suitable applicants", it is much better to make the best with what you've got, and if that means having trial periods for particular selected applicants, then you really need to bite the bullet and give that a few decent tries.

i agree with boxxi... most people are just greatful to get the job... they will show up and do their job.

give people a chance brad.....

have you heard of job probation?

in australia its a huge thing.

a factory might hire 3 people, they are given a 3 month probation to see how they perform, do they show up everday? are they hard workers?

do they keep proper lunch breaks and smokos? do they work well with others? ect. its a good way to weed out the people who will fit into your

working environment and make your workplace a productive one.

and of course, after the 3 month probation, you decide who stays and who goes (of your new employees)

on another note.. and this is something for you to think about too...

at one time, i was signed up with a job agency and i was contacted for a job in a meat processing factory..

wow i was excited. that night 20 women including myself turned up, all brand new on the job.

well, i worked my ass off, didnt talk to anyone, unless i was spoken too and i think, did a good job.

most of the other women talked and laughed and basically didnt work so hard, they were more interested

in making friends with all the other new women.

out of those 20 women, the next day only 6 women were called back. i was one of them.

see? when given a chance, the ones who really want the job stand out.

think about it. 

Of course....I'd always choose the one who was 'grateful' over the one who was 'greatful' ..... but that's just me....

And there-in lies one of the problems of the modern age... illiteracy.

17 k1Nd4 74kEZ MOre 7h4n JU57 8E1N9 48le 7o 8E YoUn9 4ND 7reNdy 7o 9e7 4nYWheRe 1n 7H1z woRLD. 4 EDuC471On HelPz proV1DEd 17 1z 4L5O U5ed.

Yo, dude.

I was 19 when I started full-time work .... 2 years into my Architecture course .... and learned more in the first week working than in all of those 2 years.  38 years later the only thing that's changed is I now have 2 full-time jobs.  [and strange hours]...

I think there is a difference between someone who is out there actively looking for work, but unfortunately can't find it, and someone who just doesn't do anything at all.

Oddness fills the world. What can I say? I could say, give newcomers a chance. But hey, who am I to say that? I'm 32 now, I've stared washing dishes till 2 o clock at night when I was 14 or 15... summer jobs, planting leeks and helping with rose-farming... supermarket from 18 to 20, and am now 32, work as Oracle database engineer and am having a blast.

When I want someone to notice me before I even send in a resume and letter, I pick up the phone and ask for information. And its not just a little talk... every word I say is weighed on a silver scale before it comes out of my mouth to make sure I give off the right impression in the 3 minutes I have on the phone.

If you can't find a job, go build websites or something. Start something of your own. Or do some free courses on the 'net. If its between a 24 year old with education and nothing else or a 24 year old with education and a load of courses, free or not, and something to show for his effort, most employers will go for the 2nd one.

This exists most places, including the US.  In some states, you pretty much are pernamently "on probation".

PS She´s NOT illiterate DS

But what can you say if you've been actively looking for work and everyone has said no, do you say "I'm sorry, I've been looking for work for ages, but no-one has offered me a job."  Doesn't make you look very good does it?  Even if you have tried you darndest to get a job.  The fact is job-hunting is an unequal game.  Nearly all the cards are with the employer, and some prospective employees just get sick of being handed the Joker all the time.  The bigger the bar to clear, the less people will get over it - one, because raising the height reduces the number of people who can clear it successfully, and for those who might be able to clear the bar, there may be a lot who get disillusioned after the fiftieth rejection and just give up looking, even if they *may* have got a job on the fifty-first try.  And how would they know that the next try is going to be any better?  Isn't the USA in recession or even depression at the moment?

I agree that for those that never try it's different, but you can't always tell whether they have seriously tried if they have no previous "on-the-job experience".

It's easy to verbally bash young people and imply they are lazy, but if it happens on a massive scale, it's not massive laziness, it's massive and chronic problems with the system.  I firmly believe most people would try their heart out to impress an employer even if only offered a three-month trial.  What percentage of people get the chance?  And why are so many people in China and other countries putting up with such dreadful conditions and getting paid so little and what may only very marginally reduce poverty rather than providing what they really need?  It just goes to show that if you're desperate, you'll accept any job offer you get.  But if you both try people out by providing 3-month trials *AND* provide positive working conditions and renumeration in a poor job market, you just may get some of your hardest working and loyal employees that it is possible to get.

In reply to Barrynor, I totally agree, but that doesn't mean that people who keep trying in the conventional market, but get disillusioned after years, are lazy.  Just that they don't look that good with employers.

The original post has one obvious fallacy. If you never accept people without experience, how the hell are they gonna get some? I know a lot of motivated, knowledgeable students, and I have met CEOs and senior executives who knew little besides internal intrigue, playing golf with the right people and stabbing their betters in the back. 

Oh yes, we need to rationalize and justify interns - we have a crisis, every free position has several candidates, so let'em work for free. Free workforce is always nice - for the employer. Would you be willing to work for free yourself? Of course not. You are a different case, an experienced, knowledgeable, motivated, senior employee. 

There used to be a nice site - fuckthatjob.com - full of similar ads offering to work for free. Too bad it's down now. I enjoyed the reading.

And one more thing - if more people start thinking the same, and refuse to employ young, educated, but inexperienced people, the society will create a lost generation. A generation of disillusioned and educated people who were promised their share of the "american dream", but were let down. The same kind of people who initiated the series of unrests called the Arab Spring. 

It was an example.

Stop whining.

If it was presented that way, then sure.  Interns very often are not hired on full time and that's perfectly normal.  Or that said, if I was interviewing someone, I'd simply ask them about their experience in the internship at X location. 

Forgive me, but I'm inclined to disagree - somewhat.

I'm a dual major, physics/philosophy. And an average day, for me, involves at least 6 hours sitting at my lab desk writing a program, doing homework, or reading for class. On Monday I was there from 11am to 11pm, doing research.

The problem is not a lack of a job, the problem is work ethic. You do not need a job to have a good work ethic. I pour hours into problems, devise how to better my research for a conference I'm attending in a month and a half, writing papers...I work, as an undergrad, more than a number of people I know with jobs and degrees.

I'm up at the same time every morning, in class (only missing when I am legitimately ill and the doctor on campus tells me outright to not go) and after class doing all the work. Have I had a job? To a degree - I was a volunteer in several places in my home town for several years, simply because no one wanted to hire a teenager who goes to school.

I'm working on internships now. While I wish I had more paid job experience, it isn't everything - people get paid to do the dumbest things, and rake in a salary for doing a fraction of the work I do on a daily basis. And at the end of the day, I'm the one going to bed at 2am and up at 7am every day of the week.

~Nathikal

English speakers can't get a job in McDonalds anyway.