Hello John:

I agree with your premise about the recruiter's
apparent need, generally speaking, to label
and pigeon-hole people to an absurd degree.

Yes, certain highly-technical jobs do require
the person to have that specialized expertise.

But otherwise, I prefer to reverse the so-called
"square-peg-in-a-round-hole" theory.

I by far prefer a generalist, a well-rounded person,
who will fit easily into a square-hole position.

They will in fact enlarge the space and probably
will reshape it in significantly-valuable ways,
through the cross-fertilization of ideas which they
bring to the role.

Cheers! Frank

posted 5 months ago

John, I have noticed the same thing in the job market. Employers are demanding that candidates meet EXREMELY narrow requirements in their job postings. This has been going on for about the last ten years, but it has become worse than ever since the economy fell in the tank. It's to the point of being rediculous now.

I think what we are seeing is a result of employers not wanting to spend any time or money getting new hires up to speed. They want them to "hit the ground running," to use a worn out cliche often seen in job postings. Employers know that there is a glut of unemployed and underemployed people in the job market right now, so they are willing to wait until Mr. or Ms. Perfect comes along to meet each and every one of the requirements.

In my opinion, this trend is damaging because:

1. The longer an employer waits to fill a job, the more money they stand to lose. For example, if they wait to find the perfect engineer they could lose out to a competitor because their products aren't being developed quickly enough to meet marketing goals. If they just hire someone with a reasonable level of skill and experience, then the cost of getting that person up to speed would probably be insignificant compared to the losses incurred by waiting too long to fill the job with the perfect candidate.

2. By focusing only on candidates who meet extremely narrow requirements, employers exclude candidates with skills and experience that could be extremely valuable to their organizations in other ways. For example an engineering candidate hired into medical device manufacturing from the automotive industry could bring in a fresh perspective and be unbiased by industry convention to create amazing innovations.

posted 5 months ago

John, I am very biased considering that I definitely fit the 'Renaissance Man' model and wouldn't have it any other way. Given that, I do run across this dichotomous conundrum of specialist vs. generalist in today's job market. As a fellow learning professional I have found this, at times, to be frustrating because ADDIE is ADDIE, coaching (non-directive counseling) is coaching, needs analysis is needs analysis, etc. If a person has these skill sets it should not matter (much) as to whether it is in banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, and so forth. This type of skill base is ultimately transferrable.

However with 4 million people looking for work, organizations have the luxury of selecting among highly specialized folks because the labor pool is such that someone has likely done that exact job in the past. Should they look for the "best" candidate even if that person has the general professional profile? Perhaps (that is a different argument) but the temptation to cherry pick a person that almost perfectly aligns with the requisition is so tempting that the recruiter can hardly be blamed for not taking off the blinders.

You mention StrengthFinder...I have always argued that organizations should observe their "rock star" performers and benchmark them using some sort of psychometric instrument (StrengthFinder, DiSC, MBTI, Profiles Int'l). I have always favored DiSC, but any can be used for the purpose of profiling "top" people. Once all correlaries have been analyzed, then companies should hire "clones" of their best people in a particular role.

Any financial prospectus will provide the caveat that "Past performance is not an indicator for future success", yet I want to hire people that match my best people in the job, not the people that best match the job description. I'm not discounting the importance of KSA's within a given field, but I am of the firm belief that (in general) "organizational fit" is WAAAAAY more important than job fit. If more organizations took this viewpoint, then retention, employee satisfaction, and (financially speaking) that Return-On-Equity would be much more favorable than what they are likely experiencing today in their talent management model.

posted 5 months ago

John:

Kate makes an excellent point. Employers have always hired to meet very specific needs. People who say "I can do anything" generally didn't get hired because companies want folks who can do what they (the firm) needs done.

There is the Bill Gates concept (I am paraphrasing here). Mr. Gates said Microsoft couldn't hire people "up to speed" on technology because if they didn't already work there they had to be behind. He wanted smart, hard-working, dedicated people who could be effective. Then Microsoft could teach them what they needed to know about the technology.

Back to Kate's excellent point: It is up to the candidate to show the "cross over" can work. I've made a living for over two decades in many aspects of commercial (income property) real estate finance.

The basics of the business are the same - what changes is which side of the desk you happen to sit at.

Show where your proven skills and abilities can get the job done. Where the range of experience you bring is a positive.

BTW: Particularly in banking, time after time I've seen people become more and more specialized as their careers progressed. Then one day they discovered they were stuck in a dead end...

posted 5 months ago

John,

I've hit this wall myself many times. I have even commented in this forum on several occasions about this self-destructive practice. Job candidates are often disqualified automatically and electronically because they do not fit a particular profile. In my current job search I look for jobs that align with my passions and interests. Many times these are very diverse. My whole working life has been a mix of roles and industries. A very high percentage of the opportunities that I may have direct or ancillary experience in and cause me to think "I'd love to do that!" will have some qualification that I do not meet. Often I do not apply and if I do, the online, non-personal, profile questioning leads me to believe that I have no chance.

This practice of filtering out candidates that do not match a profile without actually having a conversation may be easy and efficient on the HR department but there are many great candidates and leaders out there that go overlooked. As you stated there are times when a company simply needs a specific skill (like a C# developer). But, people are not simple and singular in their desires and interests. If you just need specific skills then hire a contractor. If you want a long term satisfied employee who is producing great ideas and contributing to innovation then look for passion and creativity. This comes from diversity of experience and boldness of thought.

I VERY HIGHLY recommend to all a book written by Frans Johansson titled "The Medici Effect". This short 207 page book covers this topic in great detail. Mainly about creating ideas and innovation, the author provides real practical, common sense solutions to this issue.

It is my belief that the problems of specialization and profiling will not go away. Businesses today are governed by fear and controlled by planned predictability. Only those companies that are willing to step outside of these constraints will actually be able to build the creative and innovative engine within their organization that our current economic situation needs.

Here are a few quotes from the book:

"The act of moving between, or switching, fields through different jobs, projects, or hobbies can be an effective way to generate unplanned, unique insights"

"It makes sense, then, to spend time on a variety of projects in different fields if you wish to generate intersectional ideas"

"...if you wish to develop fresh, groundbreaking ideas, highly varied experiences are critical."

"When you connect two seperate fields, you also set off an exponential increase of unique concept combinations, a veritable explosion of ideas."

"You must take risks. All creativity lies in the unknown, not in the known."

I'm available to assist anyone if you need a fresh perspective, an idea, or just a totally different set of experiences to weigh in on your problems.

Jeff

Links:

• http://www.amazon.com/Medici-Effect-Elephants-Epidemics-Innovation/dp/14221...

posted 5 months ago

I so greatly value people like you who have such a broad perspective. Let's take a look at things here:

*What they are telling you is you can't be a good person to do a particular task. That is reality. It is what it is.
*So what are people with your broad perceptions good for? For leading. For being the director, not the lighting technician.

It's like with outsourcing: People are taking away our boring redundant jobs and leaving us only with creative professions! Poor us!

The main problem is letting others define us. Basically we should be free-agents seeking the best for us while diligently serving our current employer. So what we need to do is take a look at the current landscape and decide what role we want to play, that is realistic, instead of waiting for whatever morsels happen to fall in our lap. We need to treat ourselves like a business. I ran across a quote that made it into my favorites: "Life is a balance of necessity and possibility."--Anthony Robbins.

See, many of us including you and I and your friend would not be content to work in an auto shop and be the best transmission mechanic. We would want to understand the whole car. So ultimately we would not get hired as a transmission mechanic. We would have to wait a little longer but would eventually get hired to manage the customer service or repair departments.

Ideal for a person such as this is the position of project manager, creative director, trainer, business owner, or a similar big-picture profession. We have to be realistic about matching the value we wish to provide with the value that is needed, but I am sure there is a match in a much more versatile profession than that of such limited scope.

Links:

• http://www.totalsuccessteams.com

posted 5 months ago

Your observation is 100% correct John. Hiring managers and HR folks are looking for the specific fit for what they believe they need and there's some hard realities associated with that.

1. They can get exactly what they need! there's a lot of people to choose from, in any economy but especially now.

2. As intellectually disheartening and as humiliating as it might feel, you do have to dumb down your background and "narrow" the story to what the position specifically seeks.

3. As much as one might hear otherwise, companies aren't in the business of "growing" people and providing them with challenges so they can grow. They're in the business of business. A few guys thinking and a lot of guys working!!

4. Finally, being a generalist myself, I can tell you that an organization needs a very small number of generalists and a large number of specialists. And, if we are honest, we ourselves, all behave the same way... I mean, when you take your Audi for service, a Fiat mechanic may be able to do a great job but you still pass him by and go to the guy who specializes in Audi, even though he may not even be as good of a mechanic.

Your second question is more philosophical and it comes down to happiness I think. In a perfect world, we would give everyone a test and we would know exactly what would make them happy. But, that may not be what they believe will make them happy an there's the rub.

The relative value to society is that we need generalists to be generalists and we need specialists to be specialists... but today we have these two groups wearing each others team colors.

-Chris

posted 5 months ago

When I graduated in 1979, my electric typewriter and I struggled long to identify prospective employment opportunities.

I saw an ad for a Career Fair, a cattle call where candidates queued up to try to impress potential interviewers, kind of like the Gong Show in a motel reception hall.

A major engineering firm sought mechanical engineers for piping and instrumentation diagrams. I got to the front and the interviewer's face set like concrete.

"I'm sorry," he said in the aggrieved tones of one who had provided simple, clear instructions I evidently could not follow, "I can only interview mechanical engineers. You are a chemical engineer."

With nothing to lose (and the speed of wit that killed burlesque), I replied, "Yes, you move the 'ch' to the middle and the 'm' to the front, you have 'mechanical."

His mouth involuntarily smiled, then the rest of his face reluctantly followed suit.

"80% of our core curriculum is identical, we do P&IDs. We just take more chemistry courses, it doesn't make us bad people." I got a handsome job offer in the then-promising pre- Three Mile Island world of nuclear engineering.

I think any aspect of a whole person can be matched against the nominal requirements of a possible position, with varying degrees of correspondence.

Competence in an area might be undermined by an anxious demeanor, proficiency could be compromised by perceived arrogance.

Staking all on a single presentation may reflect an insufficient conditioning of expectations against irrational exuberance.

Being the best engineer I can be does not mean I am any good at regulatory compliance, nor competent in the execution of projects.

Do credentials and interview experiences convey that a candidate is the right candidate? Does the candidate possess sufficient self-awareness, judgment, self-actualization to articulate a professional approach to the required work and to Life Itself?

I read once the definition of a gentleman as one who knows how to play the bagpipes, but doesn't.

Often, candidates or incumbents expect that their work speaks for itself; it can't. A portfolio is a lifeless collection of word- or actual pictures, easily faked. Past performance is no indication of the future.

I believe that the best candidates demonstrate ability to balance specialization and generalization. I've found people who are good at one are not slouches at the other.

My perception is that the current job market is not much tougher than previous ones, that screening is no less vital to the process of staffing than it was thirty years ago. Indeed, in 1979 I had to buy gasoline and postage and fancy bond paper; today, a dead chicken could click once on Monster and apply for nearly any position.

Human Resources, back in the day, could sort through dozens of résumés while smoking a pack of Luckies and still have time for a three-martini lunch.

Today, recruiters are sometimes retained just to help sort through the thousands of ridiculously unqualified or dangerously overqualified candidates.

When specific training tailored toward technical sales or business development, it may be unduly optimistic to presume that the best trainer and presenter going can just wing it.

The professional entrusted with the enterprise's very life blood ought, in my opinion, to have more than an academic or first-principles knowledge of this key aspect of the organization.

No individual is indispensable to the well-being of the corporation, no department can be so insulated or far removed from its welfare where its effectiveness might be indefinitely sustained until its newest member can eventually come up to speed.

I feel breadth cannot effectively overshadow depth, and height must also be acknowledged as a real dimension. So, too, should we balance a prospective candidate's fitness on more than two dimensions and avoid the temptation to overlook an important one.

Best of luck

Links:

• http://home.att.net/~essays/generalists_and_specialists.pdf
• http://www.thebusinessedition.com/the-generalist-vs-the-specialist-684/
• http://thetesteye.com/blog/2009/03/the-generalist-vs-specialist-paradox/

posted 5 months ago

I always try to drill down to the fundamental cause of an effect. John you've stated some effects, I'm shooting for the most fundamental cause (singular).

Definitions - Leadership is what you do to develop the people that you will be proud to work for. You grow the ability of the org chart below you to become the org chart above you. You maximize achieving ingenuity for competitive advantage. Management is what you do to organize people to execute tasks. You control the human resources of the org chart below you to specialize them solely for the tasks below you. You maximize achieving efficient execution.

A Human Resources department that fulfills the needs of a business dominated by managers would operate as many of these posts have described. An HR department of a business dominated by leaders doesn't do hiring because they're the indispensable tool for leaders developing the value proposition of the minds and hearts of people.

So why are there more HR departments for managers? Because management easily translates to financials. Management is quantitative, it is spreadsheet compatible, it is a measurement of performance within the reporting timeframes of the business. It can accurately reflect what has been accomplished within the defined timeframes and thus is trusted to predict future performance.

Leadership lacks these abilities. It is forward development not historical measurement. It is a belief that developing the hearts and minds of people creates more valuable hands. Any quantitative assessment will take much more time than management and be more difficult to prove.

The most dangerous competitor to leadership is management. The most important partner to leadership is management. Which of these two statements is the foundation of the organization depends on which the top of the org chart chooses and enforces throughout the org chart. Also, it has been my experience that in times of difficulty leadership takes a back seat to management.

The top of the org chart will determine whether the organization leads by rule and manages by exception or manages by rule and thus will never lead. This will determine the demand of the job market. This will determine the relative market value between the breadth of your knowledge and the narrowness of your specialization.

posted 5 months ago

1) How does my "rant" fit with your perception of the current job market?

That it was ever thus; it's just more apparently so now. Bad companies tend to put on ever more narrow blinkers when under stress. Good companies tend to take off any remaining blinkers when under stress.

2) What are your thoughts about the relative value of specialization versus generalized knowledge as a job qualification?

That a generalist isn't necessarily or automatically the same thing as a renaissance person. Let's recall the etymology: renaissance essentially means re-birth - in other words the phrase points out an involved person of an era when there is rebirth and rediscovery of some kind or other going on, someone who may actively be participating in and encouraging such phenomenon.

In the very loosest sense, a generalist is someone who has oversight and capability [and interest] across at least two specialist areas. The more areas a generalist can bring to bear upon their work, the more general they become, and also the more powerful they [potentially] become as a resource for others to use.

Renaissance people may actually be [and probably are] just what is needed right now to help and encourage change, especially if they also happen to be good generalists.

The wider problem of the generalist seeking work is finding those with sufficient [specialist] vision to deploy them _as_ generalists. Which in turn means finding good companies rather than bad.

Being really really loose about this, specialism _can_ be a mask for mediocrity, just as generalism can be a mask for incapability.
Specialist people who know enough to know they don't know enough are relatively rare, just as good generalists are rare.

I've known myself to be a generalist since school days - I have interests professional experience and qualifications across both arts and sciences. I'm also generally unemployable in most conventional roles, which in my experience is a not uncommon failing among generalists.
.
However as a generalist I have a good strategic oversight across all sorts of arenas with a depth and breadth of perspective that's [mostly] only common to other generalists; this makes me, and many other generalists, ideal consultants.

posted 5 months ago

I wonder if this is going to lead to tunnel vision and no diversity.
Sounds like it could be its own worst nightmare long term?

People who have a lot of background and show an ability to adapt and get up to speed quickly may be a better hire than someone who has that tunnel vision for one main skill within the organization.

posted 5 months ago

I (almost) always hire for aptitude and attitude over skill and experience. The trick is, how do you filter for such.

I've found a way. Cast a broad net... then test... and in many cases, train before hiring.

I wrote it up for Science magazine. See link.

Brooke

Links:

• http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_issues/art...

posted 5 months ago

I'm surprised at how specific many of the job ads I read are. At the same time however, I read quite a few that are incredibly vague, or over-use those nonsense marketing hype words like "increase dynamic scalability with emphasize on creating a synergistic network."

I’ve found this person’s Twitter is helpful in getting a chuckle out of the more rediculas postings http://twitter.com/jobsearchfail.

Links:

• http://twitter.com/jobsearchfail

posted 5 months ago

John:
I think the disconnect comes within the HR arena, when recruiters impose their percection of the need on the actual assignment. A forty year old recruiter is tempted to assign his own expectation of continued service on the need. i.e. "we should be lloking for someone that can contribute for 20-25 years.
Now when he reviews your resume, he immediately discounts it since you should be looking at retiring in less than ten years.So if you don't have the skill set and experience to hit the ground running, you just don't meet their need a9in the recruiters opinion. All to often, the assignment does not include an analysis of the ramp up time available for optimum performer. Specifically, despite your ability to perform and deliver information in a teaching or training environment, unless you can demonstrate the scars form years of "no thankyou" that a salesperson receives, it is difficult for anyone to believe that you can establish the credibility necessary to train and motivate salespeople. I have always been able to overcome the "experience resistance" with my interpretation of Edward Demmings customer/supplier illustration. Everyone is a customer and everyone is a supplier in the relationships surrounding the workplace. Knowing how to improve your suppliers as a customer and knowing how to illicit critical information from your customer when a supplier increases your value as both and output that you or your position can have...and the impact on the overall performance of the organization.

Thinking outside the box, and expressing your ability to do so is a great way to bridge the specific experience bridge...And acknowledging the time line of service expectations may minimize the natural percieved age need that the recruiter may have.

posted 5 months ago

I do see more and more specialization going on and part of that is the "soft" job market we are in with many very qualified unemployed individuals.

Recently I met with a young man in his 30's who wants to make a career move from sports management to finance. In order to work in lending it is necessary to have credit training -- so he would need to probably sacrifice income in order to take that training to be qualified for this field. In other words, be willing to take a step backward in order to go forward.

I believe it would be good for your friend to identify the area he is interested in and then seek the training for that area. Even though he might be beyond an entry level job -- take one a be a big success and the promotions etc. will come in time.

When I found myself to be unemployed in my mid 50's, I had to step backward also to be able to move forward. I was glad that someone gave me the opportunity to do that. In time I did receive the promotions to put me back at the level that I had left.

I don't believe these are great times for a generalist. My answer would be that it is necessary to focus and to be willing to go in as a trainee in order to get where you want to be. The biggest problem people usually have is identifying what they really want to do. The idea that one can do anything might be great from a philosophical viewpoint, but the real world is demanding something different.

posted 5 months ago

John, I know exactly what you mean. I have lived with the term Rennaisace man since university days!

I think that what you describe is accurate. There is a lot of rhetoric about the workplace today, but it doesn't match reality. Today we have generalised shopping but specialised work.

My own successes have come from personal links, or agencies that made those for me, not once from a job application. Applying that nowadays means having to find those organisations that have a "easy relationship" with hiring laws!

The majority of job applicants are "weeded" out by a machine/dogsbody in HR. Noone even gets to sniff at them. The best fit given by the best person for the job is always assured. Sadly for all concerned neither the job nor the person is finite and so such a thing is simply an absurdity. What is delivered is never what was expected in both directions of the deal.

So my advice is extremely general: find ways to meet, on a personal level, managers or Diectors who have the power to hire DESPITE the best efforts of their HR personnel to thwart them. OK there's a buzz phrase in this: think Personal Not Personnel!!

Business is about human beings and the major obstacle to any project is people. The senior members of every company not headed for the scrapheap know these things as inescapable facts.

Hope that helps. Good luck and keep the faith.

sincerely
robin
http://phoenixchange.com
skype/twitter: phoenixchange

posted 5 months ago

I would have to agree with you that there has been a slowly progressing trend, during the past 20 years, toward "acute specialists" vs. generalists with multiple specialities.

We could probably come up with quite a few reasons why this has occurred - but from the broadest perspective I would say that this trend finds its basis in a generational shift amid a technology oriented globalized economy.

Without getting into outrageous detail and sparing everyone from a boring recital, one area that I think has impacted the climate, in this vein, can be traced back to ISO certification requirements.

Think back to ISO 1994 versus ISO 2000 - in the latter "process management" became the subject of standard bearing... quality assurance was no longer a product issue and globalized standards began infiltrating an organization's internal processes -- which in turn would include the qualifications of the people the organization hired to manage their processes. So.... what was 'on paper' became material evidence of compliance, regardless of practice. The need to document requirements became a fixation and with the simultaneous growth of power that Human Resources departments began leveraging during this same period -- I think we can easily begin to see how much easier it was to document position requirements to the hilt. Additionally, during this same period the availability of a now 'global' workforce provided more choice and eventually an employer could begin asking for a more finely tuned set of specific skills in a specific industry because chances were that someone out there "in the whole world" could fill the bill.

Likewise, during this period, HR managers became the primary source for recruitment in many organizations and often hiring managers actually were provided far less leverage in hiring choices than at any other time in industrialized history -- I have worked for several organizations where the HR department had far more power in the 90's than it ever would have had in the 70's or 80's -- by the mid 2000's, among various organizations I consulted for -- it became obvious that with the exception of front line sales and retail levels, that organizational level HR managers/recruiters were actually dictating hiring choices to management vs. the more traditional course (e.g., the other way around:)

{John: see my note for additional comments}

posted 5 months ago

As an executive recruiter, I saw both sides of the equation. Given the mobility of today's current workforce, some employers are hesitant to expend the time/resources necessary to integrate an employee into a new industry. People who have experience in the same industry / same position have the necessary connections, resources and background to "hit the road running." Someone from outside the industry could take years to ramp up.

posted 5 months ago

Back in 2001 and 2002, two things happened that caused the IT job market to implode. The dot com bubble burst, and terrorists attacked the US on 9/11.

In the months and years that followed, employers found themselves in the unusual position of having very few open positions, and multitudes of candidates applying for them. They became very selective because they could be. Previously, if you had a pulse, and had some inkling of a particular skill on your resume, you were hired. However, as the economy tanked, I saw network engineers indignantly fuming about the fact that employers would only hire them to work in tech support call centers, or walk around swapping out hard drives and replacing old monitors.

What you're seeing right now is no different. It's a supply and demand issue. Think about it this way. Let's say you're a hiring manager with an open position for a trainer. You work in the widget making industry, and training people to sell widgets has become very complicated over the years. In the old days, widgets were far less complex, but these are super delux automated widgets, and if someone hasn't worked with them and sold them before, your past experience tells you that there's about a 12 month ramp-up time before the sales trainer is fully up to speed. On the other hand, if you get someone who has sold for your competitor before, it only takes about a month to get such a candidate fully up to speed.

You run an ad, and the recruiter comes to you in a panic. "I made the mistake of putting my email address in the ad, and how I have 5,000 emails about that open position. Half of them are from other countries, about a third of them are from recruiters ... I haven't even been able to sit down and really dig through all the others. There are a bunch who could probably do the job, but how do I even begin to start screening them all?"

You (the hiring manager) have a little light bulb appear over the top of your head. "What if we say that to be qualified for this position, you have to have worked in the same type of position for Acme Widgets, MegaWidgets, or UberWidgets Inc?"

The corporate recruiter agrees, and runs a new ad. This time he runs a blind ad so he doesn't get spammed. They still get hundreds of responses through their corporate website, but because they have a cool search tool, they can limit the resumes to only applicants from those 3 companies. ... After several more steps, they eventually hire the VP of Sales from UberWidgets, which happens to be going out of business, and has laid off its entire sales force.

Granted, this story is a fictitious, but it's essentially what has happened again in the past year or so as companies have laid off thousands of workers, and employers have reduced their hiring to a fraction of what it used to be. If the economy were booming right now, and unemployment were low, then your transferable skills would be in high demand. ... And you might actually have the opportunity to prove yourself the best person for the job, by getting hired and outperforming all the other folks who had industry experience. However, in a job market in which the hiring manager can afford to be picky, and needs someone who can hit the ground running, it's very hard to make a compelling enough case that will get you hired.

I experience a similar outcome about a year or so ago. A local employer who will remain nameless had an opening for a recruiter. The economy had begun to talk, and the agency I was working for was beginning to struggle financially. (Keep in mind that I'm the recruiter that corporate recruiters come to when they can't fill positions on their own.) I sat down and met with the company's recruiting manager, and she told me, "You have been working for an agency for a number of years now. We want someone who has recent experience working in a large corporate environment." (More in the clarification.)

posted 5 months ago

Hi John,

You've raised an interested issue. Thanks for that. Transferable skills let anyone survive better than a knowledge base, but how does one demonstrate for the people who do the hiring that they want those transferable skills?

I've noticed over the years that a winning application doesn't need to be a perfect fit for an advertised job. In fact, it probably won't look like a match on the surface. For example, you mentioned having skills that you would be interested in using in a new environment ~ a friendly listener for this is a hiring professional who is familiar with relocation and being multicultural. Showing adaptability to new-to-you environments in addition to the other skills you bring will get attention, and the only reason why I offer the analogy of multiculturalism is because so many people travel that we have a common vocabulary. But what if you haven't traveled much? Then there is probably another way to present your experience adapting to new environments.

With respect to the current job market, you've no doubt heard that several leaders are expecting economic growth in the fourth quarter.

All the best,
Jennifer

posted 5 months ago

1) I agree there is too much listing specific alphabet soup you must know for certain computer jobs. Maybe I believe it even more than you, since you already understand that certain jobs require certain prior experience.

2) Generalized knowledge can be very valuable, or not, it is hard to predict. Lack of specialized knowledge should be corrected after a month or two. At least if what you need to know is a new programming language.

In the past, I've had jobs which required me to be an all-round person. I did office work and gave the office help with their computers. It helped a lot that I was also doing the office work, so I had a clue what they were trying to do when they had a question. Plus I learned C and Visual Basic for some projects. And repaired computers, and assembled some from parts of old computers for people. By now I'm "out of touch" on those skills in recruiter's minds. But they shouldn't complain how hard it is to find people, I've learned any job assigned to me in the computer field quickly. But I don't want to spend my savings on certification tests, which are of debatable value anyway, when I need that money to pay my bills for a month or more.

Being picky over certain things at the expense of others will deprive employers of certain people who think they would be an excellent choice. I may be thinking specific skills vs other specific skills here. (i.e. Hire a professional programmer and tell him the requirements your job, and ask for several redos when he didn't understand. Or the boss could let one of the staff who knows what the program needs to do, and is interested in computers, learn programming. A book on programming is cheap, but the task may take a little longer with the learning curve. Or not, since the contracted programmer also has a different learning curve to overcome.)

posted 5 months ago

John:
Some people want to find an exact match for an ill defined job.
That's a problem, but not a new one.

The classic recruiting process is based on the assumption that recruiting can be done by a junior clerk who does not understand the organization's vision, mission and objectives, and may not even care either.

That kind of HR specialist wants to have it easy, and he uses a process that turns around a complete description of the job that has to be done.
Emphasis on complete.

By complete job description, he means a form filled with the kind of data that Frederick Winslow Taylor used to work with:
How many steps are there from coal pile to loading platform?
What's the maximum cutting speed a turning tool will stand before overheating?
Does the job require lifting boxes from the floor?
Is the job holder under frequent stressful situations?

Remember Charlot in Modern Times? You get the picture.

He's looking for a square peg to fit a square hole.

Happily, there are other HR specialists who understand that jobs are not round or square holes anymore and people are not preformatted pegs.
They still need to know if you fit the culture and the task at hand, but they want to know if you are ready to learn new tricks and how can you add value.

Fungus

posted 5 months ago

I agree that this is happening, but I do believe that it is a disconnect between HR and the rubber on the road. A little reading on the way a large number of HR Depts get their job done will turn on the light bulb. They use books and software that takes a living breathing adaptable, creative position and translates it into "job bites" This also enables them to get a computer to scan thousands of resume's for "key words." You may have noticed the increasing number of HR Depts that no longer accept paper, only electronically sent resume's and face sheets. The result is what the Mona Lisa or the statue of David would look like if you had to write a description of that a computer could correctly classify it as a "painting" or a marble statue. How cubical and dry those words would sound if you read them while standing next to these magnificant works.
This automation does the same thing to job descriptions. Professional resume' coaches guide applicants to write to the "mother board," just like the screwy result of a good idea, "No Child left behind, has resulted in teaching to the test not the intelect. Before computer scaning, clerks sat for hours with lists of words which they checked if your resume' luckly mentioned that exact word or phrase. When you get enough checks, you are put in the probable candidate file. The affirmative action laws have added to this mechanization so that a company can prove that they treated everyone equally. The result is what a storehouse full of Cambell Soup Cans looks like: the lowest point where everyone qualifies. HR stands for Human Relations, a public relations term which leads people to think that they are warm and fuzzy and humane. Their actual job is defined by their result, keep 98% of all applicants out, and do it fast. Even HR people have been mislead by this name, just like the rest of us forget what state you have to be in when you get your Life Insurance; DEAD.
Managers and CEO's on the other hand, are always burdened with the job of finding really good people. So they really want to know you if you are a really good worker. Both the boss and the job hunter have the same problem; HR. How do you live with them without killing them!
There in lies the key, find a creative way to connect with the person who has the power to hire you. Focus on that, and feed HR the stuff that the policy says you have to, but only when the man or woman who can hire you takes a copy and asks you if you have your stuff in to HR. If a boss asks for a specific resume' HR will see that it gets on their desk....NO matter what score the "automated screener," gave you.
Good hunting
Jim

posted 5 months ago

Sometimes I think the job description was fluffed by the last person who held it to value his particular attributes and justify a salary increase.

I value generalized knowledge and the ability to think and learn. Then the specialized skills can be acquired quickly.

I really can't speak as to what the employers want because what they advertise for and what they ultimately hire may not be the same.

posted 5 months ago

Hi John,

I think that some companies feel more secure o hire someone experience and don't want to take the risk and the cost of hiring someone by other than that. the way of companies and corporations are different one to another...
my personal experience will not go for for those whom seems to be highly qualified for a job but will depend very much on how the interview goes and what kind of qualities I see in a candidate more than in his experience, I will look more into what someone can bring and improved that the real requirement because eventually they will learn the job and adquire the knowledge with the add ons that they will bring.

keep well

Alfredo

posted 5 months ago

A really interesting question John and some very interesting responses. I don't agree with everyone who thinks they see a trend because it is just not possible to draw that conclusion unless you have the data available. What I would say is that in economic downturns, you do see a return to specific hiring because of a number of reasons. Firstly, and I am speaking very generally, a large percentage of employers do not want to take risks in hiring so therefore will not look laterally at potential hires and will stick to specifically what they need in terms of skills and experience. ie: someone who is doing the role well at a competitor for example. Secondly, managers on the whole do not want to take the risk on hiring someone who needs to transition into the role from another background as they don't want to to be seen to be making a bad hire in a downtime in case they are shown up. Thirdly, taking someone from another industry and transitioning them into a new one in many cases is a difficult thing to do. Yes it does happen very often but in essence it is not as simple as it sounds. But in saying that, when times are good and there is a lack of depth in the candidate pool, that is when you are more likely to see lateral hiring occuring. As mentioned, you also need to lack at the calibre of the hiring manage and see if they have the desire and ability to transition someone. In terms of your question, I think your rant is fair but you need to take into account that the current job market probably doesn't lend itself to taking risks and you need a little luck to be in a position whereby the hiring manager has the vision, expertise and desire to transition someone. Secondly, in terms of specialisation versus generalised knowledge, in my eyes it really depends on the situation, role, company, and the people involved. If the person is a very good 'all-rounder', the role is broad and their is additional potential to buildout the role to encompass other areas then I would definitely look laterally in order to acquire some extra experience and skills. If the candidate has good experience generally in whatever they have chosen to do up to now in their career, strong personal and communication skills, a commercial approach, an ability and proven track record in taking on different tasks and doing well then for sure I would explore the opportunity with them. But I make no apologies of the fact that when looking at a potential candidate of this nature, then you need to be very accurate in your thinking as to whether the person has the ability because too often you can make a mistake in thinking they can. cheers

posted 5 months ago

Through lack of vision and for purposes of expediency, I suspect a lot of these job descriptions are written by the persons currently holding these positions or are based on their specific capabilties and responsibilities. The requirements therefore tend to be more narrowly defined than they ought to be. That's the problem we job seekers are encountering when we apply to these blind ads. Those who network themselves into these jobs stamd a better chance of having the job tailored to fit their profiles. In other words, it's a bum's game.

posted 5 months ago

Question of expertize knowledge related with Time, Quality, Result and Highest Performance.

Usually in current recession situation you will get the experts easily rather than breaking your head on training, trial and testing.

Experts deliver the best results with highest performance with his knowledge, experience and skills in shortest time. Hence smart recruiters goes with experts.

Regards.

posted 5 months ago