In lieu of the Chick-fil-A religion uproar, which was blown far out of proportion and followed with the company’s PR chief suffering a lethal heart attack, I thought I’d share this one…
A hopeful intern candidate sent me his resume last week with a cover letter that closed with “And God Bless”.
In all my years of reviewing resumes of job candidates, I’ve never experienced this before.
I couldn’t tell if this person was being sarcastic, seeking a chuckle, or attempting to express genuine religious blessings. I was confused.
Nonetheless, poor writing skills and a hollow resume eliminated this candidate at the start.
But it made me think…
I am supportive of God (or your religion or your lack of one). Faith is a very personal matter, and I’m tolerant and respectful of people’s choices. I think religious diversity is a good thing.
And by the way, I patronize Chick-fil-A whenever I visit Atlanta. In New York, I frequently patronize Muslim street vendors who not only sell lamb gyros, but kneel on the street to pray right in front of me. I also frequent Thai restaurants, many owned by Buddhists and they’re not shy about decorating their establishments accordingly.
But if applying for a job, interacting for the first time with an organization with no stated religious affiliation, when is the right time to introduce God into the conversation?
What do you think?
Unless the position is in a religious organization, one’s religious beliefs (or lack of them) are totally irrelevant to the job. So there is never a right time to bring religion into the hiring conversation.
I don’t care what people believe as long as they don’t try to convince me they are the only ones who are right and that I’m wrong because I haven’t drank their particular flavor of KoolAid.
On one’s own part, tolerance and acceptance is key. But for better or worse, faith is a deeply personal matter, and therefore is complex. Because of that complexity and mixed norms and expectations, it probably is best to keep business focused on business. Because if business isn’t doing well, you’ll soon be out of business.