Black wanted to get their current system under control. After a year of this controversy, Black fired the computer manager and started looking for a replacement.
After six weeks of aggressive recruiting, Black's personnel manager (a good recruiter) had referred only two candidates to her, and they were both poor ones.
One day Black stormed into the personnel manager's office. In addition to an already busy workload, she was getting many of the computer problems dumped in her lap. Black was ready to hire almost anyone. The personnel manager showed Black a file of more than 100 resumes of candidates for the job. At the personnel manager's urging, Black decided to take them home to select candidates she wanted to interview. As she was leaving, the personnel manager predicted, "I'll bet you'll be back in here tomorrow morning and tell me you don't want to interview any of them." Sure enough, the prediction was exactly on target.
Years later, in retrospect, Black observed that probably 30 percent of these candidates were technically qualified. However, the best candidates' resumes all emphasized accomplishments in expanding installations and upgrading equipment. Little, if any, emphasis was put on improving the day-to-day management of the department. Because of her previous experience. Black had a bias against this type of candidate. She saw that these applicants had the same approach to the job as her former computer manager. Black's view as controller was not unique. She belonged to two trade associations of senior financial executives. When the subject of computers came up at meetings, they all expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the mismanagement of their data-processing installations.
A key to being an effective job hunter is to understand the major things that employers are likely to be looking for in your field of expertise.
One of your abilities may be the narrowness of your view concerning the variety of jobs in your field and their requirements. Your view is probably colored by your experience with your former organization and by your former boss's view of the job.
This narrowness of outlook may be well fixed if you have worked in the same company for a long time. It may prompt you to overlook suitable job opportunities, or to block yourself out by targeting your resume to jobs similar to your old one. So you should design your resume to show a wide range of skills in your field.
Employers have problems too
Ask most job hunters how their campaign is going and they will reply, "Good jobs are hard to find." Ask most employers how their hiring is going, and they will reply, "Good people are hard to find." A surprisingly high percentage of jobs advertised in The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are still unfilled three months after the ads run. This isn't because there are no qualified candidates.
Sorting out the candidates, evaluating the best, getting agreement on selection, and negotiating terms of employment can be a complex and slow process - and good people are hard to find.
Employers have recruitment problems because they demand high standards and the hiring process is complicated. Develop the ability to look at yourself as a candidate in the same way an employer would. To do this, try to recall some of the recruitments you have made in the past. Why did certain candidates impress you? Why did others fail? Undoubtedly part of this failure was due to problems in your own recruitment practices, for example, unrealistic or vague specifications, ineffective sources of people, and so on. But part of it was due to the ineffective ways that candidates presented themselves. Were they completely self-oriented? Were they adequately prepared? Was some way off target in presenting their experience relative to your needs? Answers to these questions can be helpful in your preparation and interviews. When it comes to a final candidate selection, an employer makes a judgment on three bases:
- Does the job hunter have strong (not always the best) technical qualifications compared to other candidates?
- Is the individual likely to fit in with the basic style of the boss and the organization ("Is he or she our kind of person?")?
- Does the applicant have the motivation to solve the job's most important problems?
