Risky Hires: Wall Street Journal Circa 1997

Wall Street Journal

I saved this article for 12 years, and who knows how much longer I’ll hang onto it. But I remember my dad giving this to me, or rather snail mailing it to me (I was probably just starting my job at Lilly). We all had inboxes growing up, from a very young age.

In fact, at birth we were all assigned a designation for inboxes. I was R3. It has to do with birth order. My Dad was R1. Mom R2. You get it? A little odd, even quirky…Perhaps. But fun. In a quirky way, of course. But it set us forth on a lifelong course of reading and study, in some ways.

Anyways, my Dad sent me (again, R3 for those who aren’t quite yet following along) this great article over a decade ago. I loved it, because it represented redemption.

And second chances.

Which represent stories that I love, because no matter who you are, what you’ve accomplished, or who you know the fact remains that we’ve all needed a second chance here or there. As you’ve heard me say before, it’s one of the amazing things that I love about the Direct Selling industry, but there are many other applications to this throughout life as well.

So, here it is: A story of second chances. From many years ago. From a Company that took a really unconventional approach, and won big. Not just in results, but in the redemption it provided to people who were without, for a period of time, any hope at all.

When Ruth Tinney started looking for a job last December, she didn’t have much of a résumé: The 30-year-old mother of two had no recent employment at all and had been on the welfare rolls for about three years.
Nonetheless, Microboard Processing Inc., an electronics assembler in Seymour, Conn., offered Ms. Tinney a two-week employment trial. Now she has a regular assembly-line job at MPI, and she recently got her first raise.
Close to 30 percent of MPI’s new hires could be considered high-risk employees, from former welfare recipients with little job experience to felons and former drug addicts, says Marilyn A. Burke, the company’s production manager. Chief Executive Craig T. Hoekenga says MPI makes sure that at least 10 percent of its new hires every year are in these categories.

Click here to read the full story.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 11:32 pm. It is filed under Business, Featured, Leadership and tagged with , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

One Response to “Risky Hires: Wall Street Journal Circa 1997”

  1. Charles Bradford says:
    August 6, 2009 at 7:25 pm

    I understand this article completely! At age 72 there is not much out there for us seniors. I refuse to work for Walmart, not that it is below my standards but because I have higher standards for myself. That is one of the main reasons that direct selling, MLM’s and networking marketing is ideal for those in my position. Not only does Univera fill this need, but it gives us dignity and recognition that we are not out of the work force.

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