Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 466: Pre-employment Testing

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In today’s day and age most people go through some type of pre-employment tests before being offered a job. These can be from the very informal quizzing around certain job duties to very sophisticated and in-depth analysis of values, principles, decision-making, people treatment, etc. Tens of thousands of dollars can be spent on one individual to ensure that what the company is seeing on the surface of the individual is actually what is down deep inside of the them. It has always been debatable as to the predictability and accuracy of these tests, but in today’s corporate world where risk is managed carefully, the fact that the testing is done, versus not, brings some validity to the process. What is most important in the outcome of the testing is that there is a valid accounting of what you see is what you get in a person. Sometimes more is learned but if that simple validation provides that there is a consistency between what the candidate has expressed in the interviews and what references have confirmed, then the tests have achieved something. Not that we aren’t all tested each and every day once we are on the job too. We are. If you read in Matthew Chapter 4, we see how the devil tested Jesus just before the ministry of Jesus was to begin. Satan gave Jesus the opportunity to be someone else when under fire and make decisions that would run counter to who Jesus claimed to be. At the end of the “pre-employment testing” Jesus was consistently Jesus and was on His way to begin what He was called to do. You may not be undergoing any pre-employment testing today, but you are going to be tested. We all are under fire and being tested for our consistency and values and principles, each and every day. How we come through the other side of the tests and how we either reflect accurately who we are or not, will determine in the minds of others how reputable and accurate are the words and positions we espouse for our lives. Be ready for the testing. It is always there and today could be another opportunity to prove out exactly who you really are.

Reference: Matthew Chapter 4 (New Living Testament)