|
Some of my comments below might anger some people. Please keep in mind these are generalizations based upon 25 years of experience in recruiting. The only truism I know is that there are exceptions to every generalization. These are not the laws of physics. In explaining how companies and recruiters sometimes stereotype people, I want to help people understand the employment process better. With understanding comes power. If a dress for success book tells you to wear white shirts on interviews and you wear polka dots, it’s your choice.
One of the most frustrating things candidates experience when they apply for a job is getting screened out for reasons that they don’t understand. I’ve run into that occasionally with candidates who call me after submitting a resume for an advertised job. They feel they are perfect for a job, based on the description, and are sometimes angry when they find out the match is not as good as they thought. An exploration of job specs that are more intangible than plain skill set criteria may help candidates understand the nuances of hiring decisions better
The most common gap is education. Some clients require BS degrees in specific disciplines for certain jobs. Some don’t but most at least prefer them. An example might be a company requiring a BSME for a mechanical design job. A non-degreed candidate may have all the right experience and not get interviewed. Often, the conversation goes like this: "Jeff, I have 15 years experience doing injection molding design and your job requires 15 years experience. Do you mean your client is not going to consider my vast experience?"
My answer in that situation is pretty basic. First, the company has the right to require a BS degree. More important than that is the simple fact that the non-degreed person with 15 years experience is probably competing with BS educated candidates with 15 years experience. If the experience levels are equal the education can be considered a "tie breaker". This may not sound fair but it’s the way companies think. I had a heated argument with a candidate once about this. He was non-degreed and my client had 5 resumes on their desk from degreed candidates with similar experience. The candidate wanted me to take his word that he was better than anyone else. I remember being amazed that he could be so sure of his competitions’ inferior skills without even knowing who they were. In some instances, a recruiter will go out on a limb for a candidate and we can discuss that in our next Newsletter. In this instance it made no sense.
One big reason for my reluctance, in that situation, to push the non-degreed candidate was my knowledge of the manager. He had a BS/MS and his first question about candidates was always about where they went to school and GPA. He was sending his son to Penn to the tune of $50,000/year. Rightly or wrongly, he values education highly. To challenge that belief would be to challenge a key personal value that he held. That is a no-win proposition.
There are other education related issues that are often hidden from candidates in the hiring process. Sometimes, it is not just having a BS degree; it’s the quality of the BS degree. This is has always been a problem. How do you tell someone that a company did not want someone with a BS from their school? Maybe they hired someone from that school a few years ago and found them fundamentally unsound. Maybe they did some research into curriculum and found that their specific technical needs were not well addressed at that school. Who knows? Whatever the reason, there are great schools, good schools and bad schools. Sure, a person can rise to the occasion at a bad school and force an excellent education out of a bad program, but, once again, you need to look at the competition. All things being equal companies will make the safe hire. If Drexel grads have all done well at ABC Manufacturing someone applying from Podunk College of Technology (graduating class of 15 students) will be at a disadvantage.
This is becoming more of a problem with Internet BS degrees. There are companies, and lots of them, that don’t consider a degree like that as good as a degree from a mortar and bricks school. I don’t know whether they are right or wrong. There is not enough data yet to see how well those degrees stack up during a career against people who have gone the more traditional route. A non-traditional degree puts a candidate on the defensive immediately. Remember, companies make the safe hire. Sorry.
The next intangible hiring criteria is often the most difficult to explain. It is the grade of the company in which the candidate has worked. Yep, recruiters grade companies and in doing so, grade the people who work there. When I first entered this business in 1979, a Senior Recruiter explained to me that there are 3 types of companies, Grade A, B and C. Grade A is the top of the line. There are also 3 types of candidates, Grade A, B and C. One of the jobs of a recruiter, he said, was to recognize the difference. When scheduling interviews, he said, don’t send an A candidate to a C company or he will never speak to you again. Don’t send a C candidate to an A company or the company will never speak to you again. It’s hard to explain the difference. It’s a combination of size, culture and resources.
Size matters. Big companies like to hire from big companies. Small companies usually like to hire from small companies. There are reasons for this. More than any other company, a "big company" manager will want to make the safe hire. If they go out on a limb and make a mistake, there are lots of fingers at a big company to point their way. Everything I’ve ever learned about company dynamics is that politics are more prevalent at a big company. A manager at Humongous Chemicals, faced with a decision between someone at Gigantic Chemicals and someone else from Miniscule Chemicals, will feel safer and have more in common with the person from Gigantic. This is often not arbitrary on the manager’s part. Big companies operate differently than small companies. Different pace, more organizational structure, etc. Someone who has worked in a similar environment has an easier transition.
Astute managers at small firms also recognize the difference and will take that into account. Generally the difference can be the level of resources available. This was brought home to me early in my career. My client was a very small electronics firm looking for a VP Ops. I had 4 people for them, one was from IBM. I was sure the IBM guy would get hired. IBM was the premier company back then and I figured the guy was a cinch.
He came in dead last. My client’s President explained it like this: "Jeff, if Joe IBM needs to hire a technician his secretary fills out a form and sends it to the HR Manager’s secretary and a week later they have a technician. Here, he will have to write and place an ad himself, look at resumes and call people himself. Joe IBM is used to a large structure around him and the IBM name is important to his vendors. He won’t have that here and will have to personally do things here that he hasn’t done in years."
A few months ago I had a client looking for Senior Quality Engineer. They wanted someone from a small to mid-sized firm because of similar concerns. I had a candidate from one of the regions largest electronics plants. He worked there 20 years and had just gotten laid off. I was skeptical when I first spoke to him but I did talk to my client about his background. They did not want to interview him.
I attempted to explain to the candidate the rational behind this and why he might run into this again and, if he does, how he can handle it and maybe overcome it. Before I got into an explanation he exploded and told me how stupid my client must be. I will remember this for a long time. He said, "I helped a company grow to $13,000,000,000 in sales as an engineer and they can learn a lot from me but it’s there loss, not mine."
That’s the second reason smaller firms are cautious about large companies. They don’t want to hear stories about how "we used to do things at Gigantic Chemicals". The engineer mentioned above had about as much to do with the $13,000,000,000 in sales as my tax return does in balancing the national budget. People from large companies sometimes carry a sense of superiority into a smaller company. It is never appreciated. There is a difference between the two types of firms. Recognizing that difference goes a long way towards bridging it.
There is another criteria used to rank companies, and, in doing so, rank the people who have worked in them. It’s the most difficult to explain. I’ll put it simply. There are some lousy companies out there. These are the Grade D firms and working in a Grade D firm or hopping from one Grade D firm to another is a career killer. You become your company’s success and you become your company’s failure.
What’s a Grade D Firm? Maybe it’s a company that makes a lousy product. Maybe it’s a company that has made the same product for 30 years. Maybe it’s a company that is badly run and is continuously close to closing. It’s just like education as a criteria. If a Grade A firm has hired someone from XYZ Electronics a few years ago and found them terrible, they will draw a conclusion about others from that firm. I know that doesn’t sound fair but if you don’t like a book from one author you aren’t likely to go out and buy another, are you?
I spoke to a fellow in August. He has a 20-year career with 10 different companies, the last 4 as a manager. The last 4 have also either laid him off or gone out of business. I would classify each one as a Grade D company. How can I consider him as someone who has good judgment and will strive for excellence? At some point your life choices become a body of work just like your skills and resume.
Maybe the best way to put it is like this. Grade A and B companies generally want upwardly mobile people. Grade C companies want people who can perform a specific task adequately. Grade D companies want the cheapest person they can find. Look around you and decide where you are and what you want to be. The earlier in your career you recognize it the easier it is to change. Thanks for your time. Jeff
|
