| From our desk, it looks like many of you are either in a hiring mode or are considering adding to your staff. Our market perspective at Right Recruiting has always been broader than most people on your side of the desk. We see more hiring situations and have more data. In this newsletter we will touch on a controversial subject. It’s time to talk about candidate age and how it affects the hiring decision.
Traditionally, the prime candidate for most professional level jobs has been someone making their first job change. The first job changers (FJC’s) are best defined as people with 3-8 years experience in a particular field. The reasons for their attractiveness have little or nothing to do with age. It’s primarily money. Simply put, you get more bang for the buck. They’ve been trained by someone else yet their salaries are often not excessive. For most managers, the FJC is the most attractive candidate because they fit into the budget easier than a more senior person while requiring less overall training than a more junior person.
Going back to when I first got into this field, the desire for the FJC was so prevalent that companies actually ran ads asking for YSA (young, sharp, aggressive) candidates. Of course, this was when you were allowed to do that, more years ago than I would like to admit. The desire for the FJC (or YSA) still exists but it is not as publicly stated. I remember running ads with the header -"YSA BSME Wanted". Can’t do that now, nor would I want to
Here is the problem. Years ago, the FJC was the baby boomer. If there is one common thing about baby boomers, there are lots of them. For the record, I am one too. In other words, the supply of FJC candidates from 1965 to 1990 was plentiful and met the demand. However, it is becoming clear that in today’s population the FJC demographic is less numerous. There are less people coming out of college and less people in their 20’s, which translates to fewer and fewer people in that coveted FJC category. What hasn’t changed is business’s desire to identify and find people that fit the FJC category. In other words, you are all looking for the same person.
Predictably, as everyone begins to hire again, many of the specs we are seeing are for the 3-8 year level candidate and salaries are pegged to attract that person. That’s normal. However, we are beginning to see a disconnect in the market between the scarcity of 3-8 year people and an abundance of more senior people with 20+ years experience. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. The 20+ year experienced person is the baby boomer in their 40’s and 50’s. While there are more of them on the market, the market is still looking for the FJC, first job changer. Of course, this is now a bigger problem for the more senior candidates than for the hiring companies. However, the scarcity of more junior FJC candidates will soon create a crisis for companies unless priorities are re-evaluated.
Speaking frankly, the reasons many of the more senior candidates are not considered for some jobs vary. The most fundamental reason is salary. As we mentioned earlier, the assumption is that the 4 year experienced person will be more affordable than the person with 20 years. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Salaries have flattened on the high end yet have continued to increase modestly on the lower end. Fresh grad salaries have crept up and the FJC candidate often still expects a premium to change jobs. I am reminded about a call I got 6 months ago from a engineer with 1 year of experience working for GE in Chicago. He was interested in moving to Philly and wanted to send me a resume. His current salary, with one year of experience, was $60,000 and he was told by friends that he should get at least 10% more to change jobs. It was a short conversation. Relative to salaries, I think that the extra bang for the buck that the more junior FJC candidate will bring is already starting to evaporate and will continue to do so. While salaries will always be higher for people with more experience, the differential will lessen.
What other obstacles exist for the more senior candidates seeking individual contributor positions? I think one is normal managerial reluctance to hire someone with more experience than they themselves have. This is human nature. The 34-year-old manager is hesitant to consider the 52-year-old employee when faced with a more junior alternative. There are a few reasons for this. Sometimes, the candidate with more experience is perceived as threatening to a manager’s status. Perhaps the manager is not personally comfortable with the idea they will have to motivate, discipline or review someone their fathers age. Maybe it’s harder for the manager to evaluate the personal attributes of someone so far from their age group. Sometimes, it’s a corporate culture where everyone needs to be ambitious and ready to move to the next level. In those cultures, the person with more experience who is willing to take a individual contributors job is not considered as "their type of person". The best example I can state is the HR Manager at a Fortune 100 company who once told me that they did not want to consider interviewing a more senior candidate because they felt that at that level of experience, the person in question should have gone farther in their life than they did. Maybe they were right. Maybe they were wrong. But they never found out for sure.
If market demographics will soon require companies to expand the boundaries of what they consider the prime candidate pool, how best to implement this change? There are two sides to this, companies/managers must change and the senior candidate must change as well.
On the company side, managers should challenge themselves to consider a wider array of candidates. That doesn’t mean forcing a manager to do the equivalent of an EEO audit before hiring someone. It does mean to look at yourself, your hiring preferences and the candidate with a fresh eye. In other words, don’t prejudge. Explore the motivation of a candidate within your salary range who has more experience than you thought the job would warrant. Does he/she live 5 miles from your facility, making this a quality of life issue? Are their children gone and out of college, leaving personal financial needs secondary to a strong interest in the work done by your company? You get the idea. Of course, the possibility still exists that the candidate, just like any candidate, may be weak on skills. Years of experience is not a direct correlation to skill. I think managerial reviews will soon include rewards for being able to identify and blend together diverse teams into a cohesive unit and the 35-year-old manager will get corporate recognition by successfully managing professionals 20 years older then them.
On the candidate side, what should the more senior candidate do as the market shifts? Stop trying to be a mentor to your junior boss. Recognize the role you have and recognize your boss is your boss, not someone to whom you should give unwarranted advice. Your job is not to mold your manager because you have more life experience. Your job is to do the job for which you were hired. If you don’t want a younger manager to think about his or her father when he interviews you, don’t treat them like your son or daughter when you work for him/her.
The world is changing, as we all know. Successful hiring means understanding the market in which you are operating. Being ahead of the curve is a good thing.
Thanks for your time. As ever, don’t hesitate to email or call with comments. And please, remember Right Recruiting for your staffing needs. Jeff
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