Once upon a time, applying for a job was as simple as walking into a company and presenting a resume. Often, people could schedule an interview that same day. When I was first starting out, my father gave me a lot of advise concerning job hunting. Most of which was centered around making personal connections. It actually worked...at first. It wasn't long after I entered the workforce that our entire society stepped into the digital age. The technological progress has been amazing, but there have been a few growing pains that need to be addressed, especially in the realm of human resources and corporate recruiting.
The ability to post and apply for jobs online has opened up a floodgate that can never be shut. Employers' candidate pool is no longer limited to the readers of their local news paper. Conversely, job seekers are no longer subjected to hours of mind-numbing searches through want ads. With a few button clicks, employers can post specific job details or job seekers can narrow their search to specify what they're looking for.
So what's the problem? Why aren't the two connecting? First and foremost is the lack of human connection. Nearly everything my father taught me was about building rapport. It's not possible to build rapport with a sorting algorithm. And this is where everything begins to completely unravel.
Most people who are searching for a job realize that their resume is only a key to the door of
getting a job. The only way to truly land a dream job is to connect with whoever controls that door...usually the interviewer. To get access to the interviewer, people need to get past the sorting algorithm and get an interview. Over the years, people have found many creative ways to spice up their resume to slide it past the computer and into the hands of real people.
Companies try to combat this because with hundreds (sometimes thousands for some roles) of applications coming in from all over the world, there isn't enough time or manpower to sort through all of them manually. Naturally, companies up the requirements for everything in an
effort to thin the stack of resumes they have to actually look at. The end result is absolutely ridiculous; "entry-level" positions now require at least 2 years of experience and everyone is padding their resume just to be able to get a job. *
This has become a sort of "one-up" game. Job hunters find ways to outsmart the sorting algorithm and get their resume in front of the interviewers. The companies create increased and more obscure requirements for the positions to "weed out" so-called unqualified candidates. There is no interpersonal interaction. There is no connection. There is no rapport. Just a strange and impersonal one-upmanship that has ground the corporate recruitment gears to a near halt.
So, what can be done? What needs to happen is honesty in all aspects of the recruiting process. Companies need to advertise the actual requirements for the positions they are trying to fill. Companies also need to be honest about which positions they are trying to fill. In other words, if your Product Owner position requires coding, you're not looking for a Product Owner, you're looking for a Developer. On the flip side of that, job hunters need to be honest. A high school acceptance speech is not expert presentation skills. Being a realist, I understand that this will probably never happen, so be prepared for even more one-upmanship, crazier job requirements, lower pay for more work, even more people without jobs and unable to find work while companies whine and complain on Twitter that nobody wants to work.
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