Finding a New Job

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By Kevin Drum, Mother Jones

Andrew Sullivan posts a letter today from a reader in England who was laid off a year ago and hasn't had much luck finding a job since. Here's the concluding paragraph:

Several things I've learned: You can't apply for jobs well under what your previous job was; you won't be taken seriously and will be considered over-qualifed. You must fall completely to the bottom and get the occasional minimum wage, temporary job. No one will commit to any training for a new position.

If you've done exactly the job advertised before, you'll be considered. But you'll be considered incapable of learning anything new.

General experience will not be considered. Stuff learned on your own will be denigrated or discounted. University degree qualification doesn't matter. Age discrimination is alive and well.

Italics mine. This is a surprisingly widespread attitude, even in the white collar sector. Back when I had a real job and frequently hired new staff members, I always looked for people who had the right general background (product management, say, or tech writing) but I didn't worry too much about whether their background precisely matched what they'd be doing for me. This was, however, decidedly not the attitude of most of my peers. Many of my job candidates were interviewed by a few others in the company as well as by me, and I was always surprised by the number of people who would say "But he only has a hardware background" (we were a software company) or "she's never worked in document imaging" (we were a document imaging company). And the folks who said this were consistent when they were hiring for their own departments: they were really meticulous about looking only for people who had exactly the background they needed, whether that meant selling high-volume scanning software (for a sales job) or knowing the precise set of technologies we used to build our software (for a programming job).

This attitude wasn't universal, but it was surprisingly common. And it betrays a real laziness. Sure, someone with exactly the right background can be a plus sometimes, but most of the time all it gets you is a slightly faster learning curve for the first month or two. After that, the more talented person will be better no matter what their background was. (Within reason, of course.) A good product manager can learn a new product line and a good programmer can learn a new set of tools.

Of course, I've always wondered if I was wrong about this. Maybe I overestimated the ability of most people to learn new things. Maybe my department (marketing) was more forgiving of long learning curves than others. Maybe even good programmers struggle with new tools for a long time unless they've previously used something pretty similar. Maybe things are entirely different when you take a step down from the knowledge-intensive jobs that I'm most familiar with. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about something. What say you, readers who are also hiring managers? How close a fit do you usually look for in new hires?

http://motherjones.c...finding-new-job

[spookyturtle 9,466]

Would you hire Marc?

[Tahoma 2,292]

^^^ No chance of that.

[TBoneTX 45,468]

The OP's question is thought-provoking indeed, and the quoted paragraph nails things precisely.

No offense intended, but I've always perceived (from MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE) that most Human Resources personnel are literal-minded, not very bright, and -- to put it bluntly -- often the dregs of the organization. It is they who apply the "must be an exact match" criterion when applications are screened. When I had an administrative position that involved hiring (chiefly of secretarial sorts), I considered whether people had the basic skills necessary for survival (the ability to type and spell, for example). Beyond that, it mattered not a whit whether someone's exact experience matched the "salad" of qualifications in the position description. More important factors were intelligence, motivation, collegiality, and solid references (whom I learned to grill very thoroughly).

Hiring Managers who insist on a literally "exact" fit either have tunnel vision (perhaps benignly so, but tunnel nevertheless), or they're operating under a "cover my tail" philosophy to minimize blame if the new hire washes out. Few if any managers really receive in-depth training on how to hire (beyond, perhaps, dealing with the mechanics of the paperwork), and certainly not on how to make a GOOD hire. Unless a manager has read GOOD books on the topic, or has had a GOOD mentor, or has incredibly perceptive insight and people-reading instincts, hiring and even the interviewing process end up being a crapshoot. The default position of "safety," especially with so many potential uncertainties in a manager's own employment security, is "let's hire the candidate who most exactly matches the position description."

The slicing and dicing of above, however, is always subject to "Someone can look great on paper, but you never really know until you get him out into the field."

Edited June 6, 2010 by TBoneTX

[mendeleev 68]

I hired based not on specific skills but on my assessment of potential. I've done this a lot at the B.S. and Ph.D. level. A few times I've been disappointed. (I've never known a hiring manager that was right 100% of the time, though.) But, by and large, my group and groups around me did better with my hiring strategy. In fact, in one company I worked for, I was the main hiring manager for many years in a rather large department because new hires would work with me for a year or two, then transfer to another group and I'd have to repeat the process. Other folks, trying to hire in, often looking very narrowly at what they wanted, did rather poorly and management above us would route the new open positions instead to me.

I was lucky, HR folks respected me and did not get in my way, though. Not all organizations have similar blessings.

Critical in the hiring process is the interview. I have always worked in R&D and product development; that requires both a high level of technical competence and creativity. During the interview process, we always made a point to get the candidate out of his comfort zone scientifically, pose questions whose answers were still unknown, and assess both the ability to withstand stress (critical in an industrial environment) and to think on one's feet. It worked pretty well. But this approach in interviewing doesn't seem to be common practice.

Edited June 6, 2010 by novotul

[TBoneTX 45,468]

I was lucky, HR folks respected me and did not get in my way, though. Not all organizations have similar blessings.

This is a key factor that raises some food for thought: When heads butt, who will win... both immediately and in the long term?

[mendeleev 68]

This is a key factor that raises some food for thought: When heads butt, who will win... both immediately and in the long term?

TBoneTX does raise an interesting issue I confront now: in the past, for all organizations I worked in before my current company, the hiring manager had the first say and the last say in hiring decisions. A model I work with in my current company is that the hiring manager has, at most, a veto.

This company will fail soon, though, so I was hoping when I saw this topic for ideas on how to actually Find That New Job ....

[TBoneTX 45,468]

Sorry to hear it, si man. I wryly wonder whether the "hiring model" is one reason for the imminent failure...

[evli1966 88]

The company I work for has set standards to meet to be hired.

Be Fast

Be Friendly

Be Professional

We are in the Fast Food Industry.

We Hire slow and Fire quickly

Although past experience is important in the field it isn't as important as how you percieve and present your successes in the past and why your are looking again.

also keep in mind it does not matter how educated you are or how many books you read the hiring process is always a ####### shoot; these tools only give you a better guess at who to hire. Every smart applicant goes into sales mode to sell themselves; some people go into con mode. It is the Conartist you have to watch out for and be ready to give them the boot if they get hired.

OT- To be honest image is important in this industry and most others in the view of the public wether people believe this or not,

Someone that is all tatted out in the face, arms, hand etc or has piercings through our their face and head are people making a statement wether positive or negative.

It does not mean they are less capable but they have limited themselves by doing this to themselves.

Edited June 6, 2010 by evli1966