Jobseekers duped into getting face tattoos
October 17, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, That's how they do it in ______
Warning to HR: If any of your hiring managers are practical jokers, you might want to suggest they keep their tricks to themselves when interviewing applicants.
A village chief in Indonesia tricked two job seekers into getting full-face tattoos. The chief told them the tattoos were necessary for the two men to become intelligence officers.
Village chief Sawiyono claimed he’d received a text message from a government official offering the two men work but saying they would need to get dragon tattoos across their faces, the Antara state news agency reported.
Sawiyono realized he’d been tricked after checking with a government official who told him there was no such requirement.
But by then, it was too late — the men had already been tattooed.
“I am fully responsible,” Sawiyono said, “and I will do my best to help the men remove their tattoos.”
The men have complained to police.
The tattoos weren’t small. You can see a photo here.
Tags: job seekers, practical jokers, tattoo
October 24th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
WTF does this have to do with HR? I’m quite certain that if any of my hiring managers did anything EVEN REMOTELY SIMILARHosler, you’re running out of material
October 24th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Editor’s response: Well, the article does have to do with job seekers.
HR Blunders has, and will continue to have, a broad interpretation on what is appropriate for the Web site because of its intended nature: This is our HR site that chronicles “the worst mistakes, catastrophes and near misses” in the work world that might be highly or just barely related to HR. Our main intent is to elicit this sort of response: Can you believe what happened at that company? And, if there’s some take-home for HR pros included, that’s great, but not required.
If you’re looking for something different, you’ll find our list of five other Web sites on the right hand side of the Web page. But just a warning: Even HR Morning has fun, “lighter side of HR” posts every once in a while.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Fred, I would like to say thank you for posting the “lighter side” of things. I deal with some pretty amazing issues in HR and I am glad to see it can always be worse somewhere else!
October 27th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I agree w/ Melonie - I thank you Fred and all the HR websites for the lighter side - sometimes we all need a laugh.