Hiring in the Modern World, Job Hunting in the Modern World or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb

I’m currently active in the talent market, looking for professional opportunity, opportunity to use my skills for the benefit of society, and the opportunity to feed the family.

As part of this, every day I see in my feeds that says something to the effect of “Job hunting is an awful experience”. From experience, I wholeheartedly agree. And yet, every day I see a post somewhere in my feeds from my senior peers saying something to the effect of “I can’t find good talent”. From experience, I wholeheartedly agree.

Both groups are right, and the market for talent is completely broken, and has been for decades.

It’s because no one fixes their part of the problem.

TLDR: Companies make their own hiring problems

They don’t have bench depth, and hire reactively to a need
So they imagine a perfect unicorn candidate, and hire to the role spec they’ve written down.
And because they can’t find that fictional candidate easily, they blast for reach on the internet.
This creates too-much quantity of too-low quality, so they select an applicant tracking system to manage the workload.
And then they use bad service design to shift work (and pain) to the candidate pool, wasting people’s time.
And those ATS’ make it easy for HR teams to avoid the hard human work that would improve things.

Problem 1: Companies run too lean and act reactively.

We have a need. But we don’t have the team/people to fill that need, so let’s hire. “But what type of hire? Let’s sit down and have a team planning exercise.”" “But what about budget?”" “I really think X should weigh in”".

I really wish we had hired both of those developers we met last year – we sure could use them now.
XYZ has just decided to leave to a competitor because of low challenge and no growth prospects in her role. I guess we need to start hiring a replacement.

Six months later: The need is still unmet, but the team has developed a callous around it, so why worry?

Problem 2: Companies judge candidates against fiction

Companies become really clear about what they think they want, despite not ever being really clear about what they need.

They predesign the perfect candidate in their head, write some of it on a Job Description as “must/could/should requirements”, copy and paste some boilerplate culture content from a previous JD, and load it into a tick-box hiring system.

They keep the rest in their head because it’s unknown at the time of posting, or because they don’t know what they actually need, or because they think the role might change, or because what they want might be perceived as biased / prejudicial. (Age, race, class, nationality, religion, demographic, region, accent.) This is often where “team fit” becomes a wooly criteria.

And so they keep searching, because they just can’t find the perfect candidate to tick the boxes.

I’m looking for a man in finance, trust-fund, 6'5, blue-eyes

Problem 3: Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs!

So because they’ve not found the ideal, then they publish online, on job ad sites, or social networks, or the company site. They push awareness using social push or direct marketing, email newsletters, algorithms, viral videos.

All this effort generates a huge pool of applicants, but without any kind of candidate qualification. As an applicant, you’re applying into a sea of flotsam. Real candidates get lost in a pile of AI-generated applications, bots, competitive research, tyre-kickers.

Problem 4: Applicant Tracking Systems solidify (bad) practice

Big companies use rigid ERP systems that need to undergo strict and slow change control to be sure the don’t expose these firms to risk in the marketplace (cyber, legal, PR, etc).

Small companies use inexpensive SaaS systems that don’t iterate quickly enough because once they’ve been procured and integrated, there’s not a lot of impetus to switch to the next and better service, and so therefore not a lot of continuous improvement.

Neither group iterates quickly enough, because to the business leadership they’re at the bottom of the stack for urgency behind a lot more pressing business systems (despite their obvious importance).

Problem 5: Bad service design shifts digital work to the user

Companies don’t care about your time. Hiring managers don’t care about your time. Hiring HR execs don’t care about your time. No one cares about your time, only theirs.

So in their digital process, they ask for a ton more data than they need, and a ton of questions that don’t answer anything, and you fill in the blanks as time / passion dictates.

Question: “Why do you want to work at this role at our company?”
Answer: “Because I’m passionately interested in the reduction of unnecessary customer churn in the online pet food industry? I’ve been studying the topic for fifteen years and work on it in my spare time.”
Truthful answer: “Because I’ve recently done a similar role for an adjacent company, and I have a mortgage payment due in three weeks.”
Actual truth: “I’m not actually sure I want to work at your company, but I have a mortgage payment due in three weeks and yours looks achievable given where I am in my search. I’ll probably move on after six months, but I’m reasonably confident I can deliver some value to you in that time.” Chat GPT Answer: [1]
I mean, why even ask, if you’re not going to be in a position to be able to trust the answer?

Or another oldie and goodie: “Please upload your CV. Also, please re-type your CV into our custom system.”

Problem 6: Using ATS’ allow HR to avoid doing hard work.

Avoiding the awkward rejection conversation with a hopeful job hunter by using the “let them down easy” automatic mass-email button.
No need to give any personalised feedback or quantity of data – I mean, why do anything to help the candidate figure out where they need to change their approach? “Due to the volume of applications we are processing, we are unable to offer personalized feedback on your application at this stage.” [Don’t mention the American system spelling]
Data? That requires effort. “Imagine: “We had 1372 applicants and we assessed you in the top 200, but not top 50. e.g. somewhere between 50-200”. Your answer to question C “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet” was where you underperformed compared to other candidates answering that same question. We’ve decided to take the top 14 (1%) candidates to the next interview stage.”

And finally, a solution

What people usually think will solve the problem:

More systems
More interview questions
More systems to filter applicants or CVs based on their answers to more questions

What will actually solve the problem:

Fewer, better systems, and one better, continually improving service - use service design to be sure that where systems are used, they’re fit for purpose. For example, undertake a question protocol on the application process, and then again in the specific interview funnel. Who has accountability for the qualification process for your firm? How about a metric on “how much pain” does our hiring process create in the world? (“We are proud that this stage of our job application process has cost 1720 people 20 minutes of their time each, and therefore wasted 15 human-work-weeks of productivity.”)
A deep bench – when you have a need, you should go to your bench. That bench has (a) pre-interviewed people who you would hire, and (b) people you could engage quickly on part-time, interim, project or fractional basis to deliver outcomes. Keep that bench fresh by keeping your company network active, continuously hiring and interviewing, and making sure your team has the same built into their OKRs. The bench doesn’t even have to have a bunch of on-staff people – just a list of people who can meet a series of needs for you if called upon, although at a certain size you want to make sure you have retained service providers on it.
Prequalification – advertise to prequalified pools for the roles, rather than to the entire world. (if you’re looking for a mid-level data person, go through the specialists who know about that role. Don’t put it out into the public web, because then you’ll have to deal with fake applicants, ChatGPT CVs and other pain.)
Flexible job descriptions – make sure you’re not codifying yourself into a tiny pool of candidates by being too prescriptive. [2]

I’m thinking about how to establish a better approach to these pre-qual pools – right now they underpin the expensive payment-on-success executive search industry, when they should be significantly easier to access. Let me know if you want to get into the conversation.

[1] Chat GPT writes great text, but uselessly

I am very excited about the opportunity to work at InnovateTech because I deeply admire the company’s commitment to pioneering technological advancements in sustainable energy. InnovateTech’s mission to create eco-friendly solutions aligns perfectly with my passion for environmental sustainability and innovative engineering.
One of the key reasons I want to join InnovateTech is the company’s dedication to research and development in renewable energy. I have been following InnovateTech’s breakthroughs in solar and wind energy technologies, and I am inspired by how the company is making significant strides in reducing carbon footprints globally. This resonates with my belief in the importance of sustainable development and green technology.
My background in mechanical engineering has equipped me with skills in energy systems design and project management, which I believe can significantly contribute to InnovateTech’s goals. For instance, my experience with developing efficient energy storage solutions has prepared me to tackle challenges in optimizing renewable energy systems. I am particularly impressed with InnovateTech’s recent launch of the XYZ Solar Panel, and I am eager to bring my expertise in energy efficiency to help drive its success.
Furthermore, I am looking for a company that not only challenges me professionally but also supports my growth and development. InnovateTech’s reputation for fostering an inclusive and dynamic work culture makes it an ideal place for me to thrive and continue advancing my skills.
In summary, I am drawn to InnovateTech because of its innovative work in sustainable energy, its values of environmental stewardship and technological advancement, and the opportunity to contribute to a team that is at the forefront of the renewable energy industry. I am excited about the possibility of bringing my skills and experiences to InnovateTech and being part of its ongoing success story.

[2] In 2016 I saw a job description looking for fifteen years of experience in blockchain technology, with the requirement highlighted as a “must” for interview. At the time, the technology was about 7 years old, and this one line made the role completely unfillable (no one credible would have applied, and everyone who did apply would have been a liar anyway)