In the early spring of this year, the flowers were blooming, birds were singing, and I began to plan my summer garden. The previous year was a complete bust for my container garden. Poor location coupled with an unusually cool and cloudy summer doomed my basil and tomatoes from the outset, and my peppers didn’t fare much better. Relocating the container garden to my back yard would afford it better sunshine (if there was sunshine to be had) and a location that would make it easier to water and keep track of the 2008 Crop of Goodness (I am optimistic this year!).

One complication that quickly arose this year, as it did last year, was the wholesale thievery, destruction of herb beds, and general mischievousness of our local brown squirrel population. Holes were dug, fledgling basil plants were trampled (I’m Italian, you may as well trample my heart if you’re going to trample my basil), and it became obvious that action would have to be taken if my garden was going to survive and thrive.

I tend to look for simple solutions to problems. Why make things more complicated than necessary? Especially for a garden that would only be active for a few months, it seemed that there had to be a neat little solution to my marauding squirrel dilemma. And there was. Black netting.

This black netting is light, cheap, virtually invisible when unfolded, and functions perfectly as a squirrel repellent. It doesn’t harm the squirrels; it protects my plants. Everybody’s happy!! Everybody, that is, except my dogs.

First, here’s the visual on my garden. There are two picnic benches tucked back in a corner on the lawn. On these picnic benches are the frames and contents of my spring / summer container garden. Okay – I should ‘fess up here. My “lawn” is what I usually refer to as “The Poo Patch”, because it is a rather crabgrassy area whose main purpose is to act as toilet to my two papillon dogs. Papillons are adorable and extremely smart little dogs and each of them weighs about five pounds. The Poo Patch really earned its name when my larger mixed breed dog roamed the area with her 75 pounds of bulk, relieving herself and digging up areas here and there. During her reign was when I really learned to be ambivalent to the actual look of the “lawn” because of its practical use and because of the joy she derived from digging little holes, burying her nose in the hole, and then scurrying clockwise on the ground, Three Stooges Style, in the summer sun.

These elevated containers on the Poo Patch were now being protected by the nearly-invisible black netting that went up over the back, down the front, and hung all the way to the grass on all sides except the very back.

One morning while taking my little guys out for a potty break, I stood, steaming mug of coffee in hand, watching them go through their paces and was surprised to not only see one of them go under the garden, but also walk forward into the netting, faceplant himself sideways, and, trying to free himself, get further entangled. A look of panic entered his eyes as he struggled against the netting, hooking his little legs up in the fabric, and imprinting the checkerboard net pattern into his fine fur. I crossed the lawn and extricated him from the netting as quickly as possible and took him, traumatized, into the house. A routine morning ritual had turned into quite a harrowing experience for him!

Working with a hiring company later in the day, I thought this was the perfect analogy to their hiring process. What started as a normal hiring process ie my networking and identifying qualified candidates, interviewing them for skill fit and interest, obtaining current information, submitting this information to client, etc., soon devolved into an exercise in frustration as this company threw up a little black net of their own: a personality/workstyle test which, if you didn’t fit exactly into the center of the three intersecting skill/interest “circles”, you were OUT. They could love your background and have an excellent phone interview with you, but if your test result didn’t exactly match the extremely narrow workstyle parameters they identified, you would be hung up in the rigging, discarded and left hanging. I would be left with the task of cutting down these discarded candidates, making explanations, and showing them the door.

Whether it’s overly narrow expectations from an on-line assessment tool, group interviews that require a unanimous “thumbs-up” before an offer is made, repeated phone interviews and seemingly never-ending in-person interviews, or any other type of “black netting” process that hangs up your candidates, it would behoove hiring managers to really take a step back and objectively review their hiring process. Is there a certain stage that unnecessarily and prematurely filters out or discourages strong candidates? Is this process valid? Is it current? Is it necessary?

Evaluation and re-evaluation is key when it comes to attracting, identifying, and retaining top talent. Don’t let an antiquated or unnecessary process faceplant your candidate and leave them feeling dazed or the end result may be what happened with my dog: he recognizes the hazard when he sees it, he keeps clear, and he’ll advise his friends to do the same.