Last Updated on February 28, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev
One cannot argue that landing your dream job can be difficult and take a lot of time. But there are also a significant amount of highly educated people who have difficulties finding a job. What is the reason for that?
Why finding a job is so difficult?
There are a lot of problems in the recruiting industry. The biggest problem is that unskilled people are in charge of the hiring process and decision making. Since these people know nothing about business, hiring or anything else for that matter, they use the wrong hiring principles and make bad decisions.
It’s easy to become a recruiter nowadays, and many of them are just clearly being employed at the wrong job. It’s quite often that the recruiter does not understand the job description of the job for which he is searching candidates. This creates very frustrating situations for job seekers when the recruiter lacks knowledge and cannot make correct decisions. Some recruiters also have terrible people skills and literally cannot tell the difference between a skilled and unskilled candidate.
Often, recruiters ask general cliche questions that have no connection to the actual job and blindly follow corporate guidelines on what candidate must include in their CV and say at the interview. The whole interview becomes a” ticking the box” game, which is the worse thing recruiter can do to the interviewee as he treats the candidate as a utility rather than a human being. It’s kind of a paradox since companies usually want to hire creative people who will think outside of the box, but when applying, they need to fit themselves in a tight box of requirements.
Right Recognition of Skills
We are facing a huge problem. There is a shortage of skilled employees, and at the same time, there are a lot of qualified employees who cannot find a job. The reason for this dilemma is that most recruiters are unable to identify skilled candidates. If companies paid recruiters more, more qualified people would apply for those jobs. HR is the worst place to save money.
There has been some progress in the recruiting industry with headhunter agencies’ help, but they don’t really focus on the real problem. Headhunting agencies can find suitable candidates, but the actual problem is decision making. Finding good people is relatively easy, especially if you are a reputable company. Still, the difficulty is in the right decision-making, which companies should consider to outsource if they don’t know what they are doing.
Another concerning discovery is that, for some reason, average candidates are the most wanted ones. If you are too smart, you will most likely not get the job. It indeed looks like many recruiters and hiring managers are afraid to hire a person more intelligent than they are. Somehow recruiters feel inferior compared to them and threatened by them like they could overstep them later or even steal their job.
Important skills a recruiter needs to have
The most important skill is the ability to read people. Sadly this is very rare among recruiter and hiring managers. This can be a born talent, or you can also train it by studying psychology to understand how the human mind works. For instance, I could tell what kind of person someone is after having a short conversation with them, sometimes even without seeing the person. Many had not believed me but were later surprised when the person turned out to be exactly as I described him.
You need this skill in order to understand what kind of person the candidate is. People are not sets of skills – they are individuals. They can learn new trades, but their personalities will not change. The worst decision a company can make is to hire a wrong individual who will make constant mistakes and harm the company without even realising it.
The type of people that succeed at finding a job
The ones who succeed are the salespeople. They are good at performing, promoting themselves and convincing others. The sad thing is that these candidates often get the opportunity over better candidates who are just not that good at selling themselves. Virtually you can have no other skills than excellent sales skills and land almost any job unless it requires some technical knowledge. This shows that recruiters have no tools of their own to reveal better people and only get influenced by their performance.
Strangely hiring managers think it’s solely a candidate’s job to present themselves in the best possible way. If the candidate fails at the interview, hiring managers usually reject the candidate instantly. However, it is essential to realise that the company’s best interest is to hire the best candidates who can perform at their job even if that candidate has failed at the interview.
Tip for people looking to get hired
I find it funny that most guides about employment are concentrating on fixing mistakes that candidates make, while most mistakes are made by recruiters and hiring managers. Today many candidates that are smart, skilled and experienced still have difficulties in finding a job. You cannot blame them as they are specialists in their own field. If you are a perfect candidate, but the recruiter does not see it even when it’s clearly mentioned in your professionally written CV, you cannot blame yourself for that.
Surely you can advise them to learn the art of selling themselves, but for many, it would be like asking a fish to learn how to run. Not all people are born as salespersons, and they don’t need to be. All people have strengths of their own and are great at something. It’s the recruiters and hiring managers who fail to see that and treat people like tools.
However, if you get rejected, I would recommend contacting any of the company’s top managers and telling them that you are the perfect candidate for this position, but the recruiter overlooked that. If you succeed in convincing him, it usually helps to get another interview.
Tips for hiring managers
Give people a chance. If you are not sure about the candidate, then give him an opportunity to convince you. Also, try to hire extraordinary people and help them rise, take a little risk with them. That’s how you find great people who will take your company to the next level.
