Time for hiring managers to exit the comfort zone!

As we all know there is a problem in the employment system today. No I am not speaking about the 9.6% out of work, but rather the fact that even with unemployment that high, companies can't find qualified people to do the job. I was speaking with a recruiter friend of mine recently and was told that many hiring managers are being so exact and so picky that it is making the job of finding a qualified candidate nearly impossible. Case in point, let's assume that the hiring manager wants a corp. comm person who has 5 to 7 years of experience in health care and someone comes along who has 8 in tech. Nearly every time that person will be rejected, despite the fact that the skills are there.

Similarly, managers can often hire someone and not fully fleshed out their position. I have a rule of them that when ever I am reading a job description if it is one paragraph or less, I keep looking. Granted there may be a gem in there but the fact is that if a company only describes a position in one paragraph then they haven't really invested the time in seeking the long term potential for the position and whomever ends up with it will most likely be going crazy in a very short amount of time!

Let me be clear on one thing, I do believe companies have a right and, to be honest, an obligation to construct a job description that works as much for the internal audience as for external candidates seeking to join. But that should be an ideal and not a straight jacked which prevents the hiring of a qualified individual for the role. While I can't claim to be an expert on other fields, I can be sure that a qualified and capable marketing or communications person has a set of skills which are capable of being used in any field. Speaking as someone who has worked in various industries I can testify that if you are a good marketing communications person for a software company, your skills will be equally useful in hospital setting.

The other too that hiring managers must remember is that we do not always get everything we want. When we were young children we wrote out lists to Santa every year. Now if you were a young boy like me, you weren't really happy when you saw clothes in what you unwrapped Christmas morning but what you may not remember is how those clothes were put to good use. The same hold true for hiring a candidate. Someone may not be an exact match for what you want but if they have the skills, and have experience comparable to what you seek then you should find the best way to make them fit. Your industry can be learned a lot quicker than the skill set necessary to do the job can be taught!

I may be preaching to the choir here but I do think we need to have organizations realize that by adhering strictly to a pre-defined list of qualifications they may be missing out on some individuals who have amazing skills and who can bring fresh perspective and make a strong, positive impact on the organization. I don't recall the exact story but I remember hearing that in either Chinese or Japanese the characters for risk and opportunity were nearly identical? Well even if the story is wrong, the sentiment is dead on. Look at the candidate who can contribute the most to the organization, not the one who can simply fit the bill of what you're looking for!