- What I see is a systemic problem. HR folks and recruiters put square pegs in square holes. They don't really understand specific job skills in most cases. They understand word matches. This problem gets amplified in today's world of web applications and database sorts for candidates. Many of the very best candidates are "left out" because the game of job hunting has changed drastically in the last few years. It seems to me that unless you have "keywords" of the day in your resume, your resume is never seen. And then it must look right. HR and recruiters alike don't spend the time to understand a resume. Most don't even read them. They look at a couple of lines or a list of jobs and make a synopsis of the candidate—whether it is real or imagined. Who can blame them? They get hundreds of responses to those Web postings that somehow reproduce and multiply across dozens of different sites. I suggest two remedies—HR and recruiters need to educate themselves to be able to "see" qualified, talented candidates by actually understanding skills and qualifications, regardless of how they are worded.
- Corporate America needs to stop using Web-based responses and e-mail to receive resumes. It makes it too easy for unqualified individuals to respond and inundates them with responses. If they put an address or a fax number to respond to, it might deter the unqualified. I can tell you, I don't waste my time setting up "profiles" of myself on every Web site that I get bounced to when responding to a job post. I simply go on to the next ad, knowing that my resume will likely never be seen, regardless.
- I have been a software developer for more than 25 years and an independent consultant for the last 11 of those years. I have found that the majority of headhunters who call me with silly low offers don't know jack about the skill sets required or even what some of the buzz-words mean, and they have not read my Web site that clearly states my rates. So they have missed doing their homework on a least these two points. I have been highly amused be the companies who need a skill set belonging to maybe 20 of us in the country, but they will shoot the search out to every headhunter in the region and expect to pay rates lower than what I got when I was a freshman employee and they want you to pay your own travel expenses to be onsite. No surprise that their projects start very late and are generally poorly staffed. They should have just paid the going rate for the right resources and gotten their projects done quickly and right the first time.
Read More Feedback on the IT Talent Crisis
• Frustrated Hiring Managers
• Disappointed Job Seekers
• Undervalued Salespeople
• Trouble with Training
• Laughably Low Pay & Salaries
