A recent CNN article discusses how there are many open positions languishing unfilled due to lack of qualified candidates. Despite record numbers of unemployed numbers, employers are unable to find what they determine to be “qualified candidates.” You can read the article in its entirety here.
Despite the recession, more than half of employers recently surveyed by the Human Capital Institute and TheLadders said “quality of candidates” and “availability of candidates” are their greatest challenges (from article).
I understand that there are a lot of job openings concentrated within specialized industries like health care and energy and that there may be a shortage of workers within this industry. I also believe that in general, HR departments are having a more difficult job with the inundation of severely unqualified candidates looking to pepper the job market with their resumes in the hopes of one or two call-backs. So, I agree with the article to this point: It is harder to find a great candidate in a pile of crap (To all of you doing this: STOP! You’re making it harder for employers to find qualified resumes like mine, which is amazing and full of awesome skills and sweet formatting (my use of bulleting, bold and italics is to be envied)).
The article goes on to talk about Mary Willoughby, a HR director in Rochester, struggling to hire registered nurses for $30,000-$45,000. She says she gets loads of resumes, but not from highly qualified candidates. In this instance, Mary is defining a “highly-qualified” candidate as a RN with 2-years of experience.
I imagine Mary has to sift through loads of resumes from people with no health care experience that think they should be considered because they are really caring and have seen every episode of Grey’s Anatomy and House ever. I agree this is annoying and makes her job harder. However, I am not in agreement if Mary is also dismissing newly graduated nurses short on experience, but capable. In professions with quick learning curves and robust opportunities for mentorship, such as nursing, I would give a recently-graduated nurse a chance. Especially at a salary of $30,000-$45,000, I do not think that is a very competitive salary for a nurse with several years of experience. I could be wrong, but I’d expect a higher base pay if I was considered “highly experienced.”
Further, Mary recently added a bounty on the position. She is offering $5,000 to any person responsible for bringing in a new qualified hire. I would think Mary’s job would be easier if she put that bounty onto the salary itself, increasing it by over 10%. Highly qualified employees may be more likely to apply if the base were raised substantially.
The article goes through other examples involving higher salaried, more experienced positions in other industries and how hard it is to find the perfect candidate for these positions.
My challenge is this: In this economic climate, with talented, intelligent and capable people aggressively looking for an opportunity, why not take a chance? The unemployed are eager. They are motivated to work hard and prove their worth. They are humble and would be very grateful for an opportunity to perform. They will do whatever is necessary to succeed once given the chance.
I am not saying employers should consider everyone that applies. But they should consider “close enough to job description,” “almost enough experience” and place extra value on education and strong foundational skills necessary to perform the job (quantitative abilities, communication skills, detail-oriented, etc). I bet that hiring based on this model will result in more successful hires than failures.
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