Off-topic: Tobacco Industry Recruitment

I want to take a few minutes to comment on a topic that I've never really addressed in this blog: tobacco industry recruitment. A friend of mine recently accepted a job at Altria. Stylishly ambiguous in name, "Altria" did not ring any bells with me when I first heard the good news, so I Google'd it. As I skimmed the search results, I was overcome with anger at the realization that my friend had been recruited by one of the world's largest tobacco corporations.

Out of respect to my friend, I won't divulge any details, but I was appalled at what Altria offered in terms of compensation, benefits and other perks. This is not to say that my friend is under-qualified, but that the company clearly recognizes the need to influence what many would consider to be a moral dilemma in working for them.

To the credit of Altria and its largest subsidiary, Philip Morris USA, there is plenty of information and news about the perils of tobacco use and secondhand smoke on their corporate websites. It's not like Altria is trying to be completely deceitful in its hiring practices. With that being said, the company does its best to mask the nature of its business on its recruiting website, www.cantbeattheexperience.com.

After watching a few of the recruitment videos, I noticed that none of the testimonials mentioned the purpose of their business--it's all about the "experience" at Altria, which is what much of their audience is most interested in anyway: gaining work experience after college. They are proud of how many jobs they've had within the company, the quality of people with whom they work, and the many perks provided by their employer. The testimonials lacked substance; none of the people could say something remotely to the effect of, "I love working for Altria because the tobacco industry does so many great things for people"--and justifiably so. Perhaps I'm biased because I work for an organization with a clear-cut mission that is among the easiest to embrace. Regardless, I think it's a shame that recent college graduates can easily get sucked into an industry so far devoid of a noble purpose that it becomes difficult to find passion in their work. But hey, a job is a job in this awful economy, so at least they're making good money, right?

I'm still unclear as to what exactly the website URL, www.cantbeattheexperience.com, is supposed to mean. Is Altria claiming that the employment experience that, say, a college graduate would gain at one of their companies is superior with regard to the transferability of skills that he or she can gain for any career? Or, is Altria claiming that the employment experience with Altria, in general, cannot be beaten? Although I have never worked for Altria and therefore cannot truthfully speak to this claim, the fact that Altria has invested so much in these guileful recruiting practices suggests that it cannot be the latter; clearly, the applicant pool isn't exactly overflowing, ostensibly because few people want to be associated with such an infamous industry.

But perhaps I'm wrong, and the experience truly cannot be beaten. After all, there is no other work experience (that I can think of) for which you can get paid bountifully to promote products that are widely known to kill their customers and people around them.