OpEd: Employment
A recent CNN news story reported that a growing amount of business professionals claim that they “have a shortage of qualified candidates” for open employment positions. I would like to take a moment and dispute this claim.
As many of you know, or don’t know, I have been looking for work for over a year now. My resume listed everywhere – employers have contacted me on very few occasions. When I contact employers directly about open positions, or about finding a position, I’m told to leave my resume and someone will contact me. No one ever contacts me. If I call the prospective employer, the receptionist screening the calls nearly always assures me that “they are busy and someone will likely contact you if they have an opening.”
Now, I won’t argue that I’m the right candidate for every position, or that I have the right qualifications for every position. It appears to me, however, that prospective employers are so overly picky these days that a shortage of qualified candidates could be claimed for something as trivial as a difference of 5 wpm in typing speed.
So, the inevitable question is: what constitutes “qualified candidates?” Without a doubt a Fry Cook at McDonalds would not qualify as an Executive Assistant at a Fortune 500 company; however, an Administrative Assistant should definitely be considered. Moreover, anyone with administrative skills should be considered.
The problem with the economy today is NOT a shortage of qualified candidates. The problem today is a shortage of vision. During the 90’s a janitor who showed a degree of intelligence and capacity would have been trained and promoted as high as his competence took him.
Today managers and human resource professionals find any reason at all to disqualify otherwise qualified candidates. “We know that this position isn’t your dream job, so we’re looking for another candidate,” I was told recently. The message, of course, is that they did not trust that I have integrity, and assumed I would jump ship as soon as I found my “dream job.” The answer for them is that the candidate they seek aspires to mediocrity; if the position was for an Administrative Assistant, then that person should never want to be an Office Manager or anything more than an AA. In fact, there is little incentive for that AA to learn anything new in order to contribute to, or enhance, a company’s bottom-line. Why should they? Zero aspiration equals zero motivation.
Previously, the focus of hiring was not on the bottom-line, but on possibility. The janitor, as mentioned earlier, was thought capable of adding to an area of the company and was trained to provide that needed ‘umph.’ Did he know he was capable? Did management know he was capable? Did he have any kind of record?
Today the point is the bottom-line. Business professionals want people with a “proven track record,” even if that record is for emptying the trash. “Yes, at my previous job I was able to empty twenty-four garbage cans in one hour.” In fact, they will undoubtedly list the position that way in the classifieds, “Fortune 500 company in need of experienced Janitor. Must have 3-5 years experience and ability to empty twenty-four garbage cans in one hour minimum.” Otherwise competent janitors would apply for this position, or would be considered for this position, but today they are “not qualified.”
Now, I’m sure people would argue that limits must be set, and standards adhered to, to properly limit the pool of potential job candidates. There is a certain degree of validity to this argument, depending upon the potential position of the aspiring candidate. If one was hiring for a Telecom Technician, obviously the proper candidate must have Telecom experience – likewise for a business manager. However, when hiring for that same position, one cannot rule out telecom technicians because they lack experience with one or two pieces of telecom equipment, or fall short in the years of experience category. As any Industrial-Organization Psychologist would tell you, ‘previous experience is no guarantor of future success. One cannot gauge the motivations of potential candidates based on their current abilities.’
When it comes down to the bottom-line, this talk about “lack of qualified candidates” sounds like whining. What happened to the managers of years past who had the ability to gather a group of disparate people, unite them in a common vision, and inspire them to succeed? What happened to the HR professionals who had the ability to see that diamond-in-the-ruff capable of enhancing the company’s potential? A real “lack of qualified candidates” should suggest that businesses are investing in education and training programs – however, I shudder to think of what the reality is. Has the greatness passed?