Source: Forbes

Author: Liz Ryan

Feb 20

I have been reading job ads for thirty years, and during that time they’ve gotten worse and worse. It is only a matter of time before I see a job ad that says “In addition to the qualifications listed above, the Selected Candidate will show proficiency in tap-dancing, hold a current taxi driver’s license, speak Ancient Greek and see through walls.”

Hiring managers have become more delusional in their requirements over the years, and sadly, too many HR people have turned into doormats. They take a crazy job spec from a hiring manager and instead of saying “What are you, on drugs?” they publish it and hope for the best.

How can we complain about talent shortages when we limit our candidate pool to two or three living people in a planet with seven billion inhabitants? Job ads are so specific today that it’s a wonder we get any candidates at all.

The average  job ad contains sixteen bullet points of Essential Qualifications, and they are garbage. Let me spend a day in your organization and see what people actually on the job, and we’ll get those bullet points down to two or three.

We create our own hiring problems by writing job specs that almost no one can qualify for. It’s a kind of mental illness, if we are honest. “Maybe if I write down exactly what I hope to find in a candidate in my wildest dreams, that person will show up at my door.” Not only that, they’ll show up dying to work for you and willing to do it for pennies!

It is strange, because we wouldn’t allow our Purchasing folks to create RFPs for raw materials that don’t exist. We don’t say to them “Go ahead and survey the landscape just in case somebody has invented a desk chair that flies and sings lullabies and costs nine cents.”

We tell them to snap out of it and only purchase items that really exist. Why is it different in recruiting?

One reason is that HR people have been bullied and silenced for so long that a lot of them have lost their juice. One reason I write columns is to remind HR people of their critical role in their organizations. They are Ministers of Culture.

Their job is not to stay silent in the face of inanity or insanity, or both. Their job is to say “Wait a second — this job ad has too many requirements. We have to get rid of some of them, or no one will apply for the job.”

I didn’t know not to speak my mind when I got a job spec, back when I was a baby  HR person. I was raised by wolves in HR. I didn’t know that some people considered HR a step below the “business” jobs in their companies. I didn’t know that I was expected to bow and scrape. All I knew was that I had a lot of jobs to fill, and so I was able to truthfully tell hiring managers that the more crazy their job ad was, the less time I would be able to give their position opening.

“Look,” I said, “if I get a job for a Customer Service rep and I can run the ad and have fifteen people to interview tomorrow, I’m going to spend my energy there. That’s how process improvement works, right? When the energy is flowing fast, we follow it.

“When the energy is blocked, it takes a lot of time and energy to remove the blockage, so your goofy-ass job spec will not be my priority. If you want to pull the needle out of your arm and get rid of half these Essential Requirements, I’ll be very happy to run the ad and interview candidates for you.”

If you’re a job-seeker, I advise you to ignore at least fifty percent of the requirements on any job ad you read. Go ahead and apply for the job anyway! Don’t apply through the Black Hole recruiting portal. That process is all about keyword-searching. You have to go through the side door, and write to your hiring manager directly at his or her desk.

If you’re an HR person, take a hard look at the job ads you’re running right now. If you aren’t getting at least a dozen qualified applicants responding to your job ads within one week after they are posted,  your requirements are out of whack.

Your job itself may be off-putting and unfriendly, as well, and that is another big problem. People read a lot into job ads, and I don’t blame them. I think it’s a good idea for them to do that. If the language in your job ad signals “You are dogmeat, and you’d be very lucky to get an interview with us,” why should anyone with normal self-esteem apply for the job?

No one likes to be treated like dirt.

It is time for every employer to put a human voice in its job ads and talk to its audience the same friendly way we talk to our customers. Here’s an example:

Office Manager, Angry Chocolates

Here at Angry Chocolates we’ve been growing fast. We are a specialty chocolate manufacturer based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We work in a great space in a historic loft building. We have sixty employees now, and a super-busy and sometimes chaotic environment. We’re  looking for a friendly, go-with-the-flow and very organized person to be our first Office Manager.

You’ll be the air traffic controller for meetings and events in our company, our CEO’s right hand and the clearinghouse for employee communications. It’s going to be a fun job with constant new adventures.

If you like to work with project schedules and confidential data, handle our customers and employees with kid gloves and keep a hundred balls in the air working with smart and curious people, we hope you’ll write to us to learn more!

The job pays between $65K and $70K and includes three weeks of vacation per year, a terrific health plan and no dress code. This job doesn’t allow for a ton of flexibility in the working hours, but our HR folks will be your backup so you don’t need to worry that when you take a day off, you’ll be swamped when you get back.

If you like chocolate, we have lots of that around!

If you’re interested in learning more, please write to our Director of HR, John Cena, with a 350-word mini-essay that explains why this job could be a great fit for you. In your message, please tell John one thing that you think Angry Chocolates could be doing better, based on your observations, and tell us a quick story about a time when things were crashing and burning around you and you kept your cool. Thanks!

The folks at Angry Chocolates know that life is long. They don’t want to turn anybody off, even people who apply for the job and don’t get it. They want to make friends with everyone they meet, and job candidates are no exception.

You can put a human voice in your jobs ads, too. You can mention the salary range so that people don’t waste their time applying for the job if their salary range is different from yours. You can tell job-seekers why someone would want to work for them, rather than droning on and on about the qualities that applicants need to bring to the job.

It’s a new day. Talent rules, and why not? People are the most creative force on earth!