When Jordi Galceran came up with the Grönholm Method, he didn’t realize that by accident he touched the issue which is close for executive search consultants. This film presents the aspect of a lost humanity in a corporatist rat race, involving the selection of appropriate people for high job positions in which professional experience as well as different skills are required. Marco Pineyro’s minimalist film presents the moving picture of a soulless corporation, which accompanies immemorial question: to be or to have?
In this film we see seven applicants, who are applying for a job in a prestige corporation, to which they have been applying many times. During the untypical Assessment Center, which is the final step in recruitment, they have to do many tasks that they are asked for. At the same time, they battle against each other and make an unanimous decision to remove one applicant from the procedure. Moreover, they also have to find a ‘HR mole’ in the group, who is a fake applicant. At first sight, the given method that they are involved in, looks the same as in a popular reality show in which the participants are living together in a confined environment. The audience can watch their behavior and the way they eliminate each other. Apart from that the applicants also have the opportunity to leave the room in every moment they want, thereby refusing participation in the recruitment process.
It’s terrifying when we see people who are emotionless and want to follow a career path at the cost of others, doing some mean tricks. They do not stop at nothing, they play a game in which they think that no holds barred. The picture of corporation which can be compared to a industrial complex is shocking as well. Some questions arise, whether it is an appropriate path in big corporations and is it possible to bring the film characters back to be humans. The answers to these questions are not obvious and they make you think. You can see them in the last part of the film.
In this film there are also some questions that concern the executive search consultants’ work. Which candidate will be appropriate, which personality traits will be more valuable than experience, what let us think that our candidate will be better and how we suppose to notice it. To get a valuable person, let us look for new methods of recruitment and selection process, which will be as good as the executive search method, the most effective one. In spite of the fact that the Grönholm Method is drastic and brutal, the ironic undertone of the film gives us the opportunity to see a little bit of humor. The picture of this branch of business and its changes make us think that we should not use this method in real life.
Photo by: imdb.com
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