Devils advocate: you hire a friend or relative first because you know them better and feel you can trust them and know exactly what they bring to the table. Trust is also a job qualification. More than that, who the heck are you to tell someone what qualities they should look for in their applicants? Why is it any of your business?
The main point is that hiring should be done based upon your job qualifications, NOT upon who you are in ways which have nothing to do with the job (which includes who you know, your race, gender, and all of those things).
Trust is part of a job, but when you hire someone, you build that trust over time at the actual job.
I'm not trying to tell someone what qualifications they should look for - I'm simply saying they should be looking for those qualifications, not looking to hire someone just because they know them.
It is my business if it affects me in any way, and these practices can and have done so in the past and probably will continue to affect me in the future. I've been flat out told I was the best candidate for a job but because my skin wasn't the right color I wasn't hired. I've also been told I wasn't hired because I wasn't the right gender to meet their quotas. Those are the times I know about. I'm sure I've lost jobs because of those things other times, and I'm also sure I've lost jobs where I was most qualified to some fool who knew the right person or had the right connections.
All of it is wrong, no matter if it happens to me or someone else.
tbird,
I wasn't specifically speaking of baby boomers, but you do raise a couple of interesting points.
Not all of the baby boomers were so easy to fool by some things. My father is a baby boomer and yet he lost more than one job himself to the same programs which remain in effect today costing me jobs many years later, and he didn't like it any better than I do.
Still, I do resent how so many things in America are geared toward the baby boomer generation simply because of their numbers and the influence of that plus they are the right age where people care about their issues more than those of other ages.
In my expereince with baby boomers and those similar to that age group, I've determined that despite the fact they have children (I am the child of a baby boomer as I mentioned) and even grandchildren, most of them do not show much care for the future generations. By that I mean, they only care if social security and medicare and other programs are available for them and do not give a second thought to the fact these programs and other means to care for future generations may not be around or may be compromised because of their actions now.
To put it straight: I see the baby boomers as selfishly sucking the systems that support older people dry, dying off and leaving nothing for their children and grandchildren, and very few of them care as long as they get to retire and lead the lifestyle they want. This is coming from someone whose parents are baby boomers.
I know that opinion is not going to be well received, probably by baby boomers on here and others, but it's how I feel.