Understanding Job Descriptions

Being a longtime fan and user of LinkedIn, I value and truly appreciate the benefits of a good professional network. Over the course of years, my network has expanded with academics, human resource folk, technical people (which I fondly embrace as tech weenies and geeks… these are loving terms). Going through two doctoral programs of business and management, I have to say this is much more of my mental focus. Not only that, but I have been on the management side of business for a good 20-30 years (have to account for the occasional role that is not strictly management). This much of the article intro is intended to illustrate that I personally bridge many different types of groups and employee types.

Not that I profess to be an expert, but I am often helping folk with their resume, helping people interpret job listings, and even engaged in writing some of those job listings. One things I see often is people that undersell themselves, and of course I see people that oversell (like the secretary that boasted about knowing all about using Microsoft Word, but was clueless about the purely basic functions of Word… after we hired her). So, here I am trying to help folk conceptualize properly, so their resume looks a lot better, but there is another problem that totally throws me for a loop…

Headhunters that do not understand the jobs they are screening for.

Let us not bash headhunters over this, because I literally have a ton of headhunter friends, and this is by no means intended to bash headhunters. Honestly, I would probably be one if I had an interest to do so, but I leave that to the folk that desire it far more than I. The concept of not understanding a job description is actually not uncommon. Consider that most headhunters, if not all of them, will often come up with a job description that they do not fully understand. Seriously, no matter how worldly you might be, there just simply will be jobs that they just will not understand. It is kind of like talking to an accountant about restaurant food preparation, or talking about airplane manufacturing to a gym coach. If you have not done a job yourself, then how would it be possible for you understand all the nuances and special terminologies of that job. However, when we plop a job description down in front of our HR people and job screeners, they are expect to find us the best candidates they can, and they seriously may have no real idea of what type of person will make the best fit.

Keywords

Keywords play a very big role in finding candidates. Think about it… if you did not know what type of person would be the best fit, you would be dependent on keyword terminology supplied to you by someone that knew what the company is looking for. Unfortunately, the screeners may have zero understanding of the role, so they become extra dependent on those key terms they have been provided. 

Adding a little dimension to the subject… I know someone that completed the police academy back on the west coast. She told me a concept that she learned, and I honest use this concept often now myself, but she described it as interpreting laws as letter of the law, and spirit of the law. Most of us consider that when laws are written, that it is cut and dry as to what they mean. However, people write the laws, and people interpret things differently, so the letter of the law, and the intent of the law might not match. Having a security background, I see governance nowadays for what it says, and what was intended. Just understanding the difference alone can facilitate better answers and better approaches to solving problems.

Now, if we consider some of the more elaborate job descriptions… simply settling on keywords alone might mean HR and screener folk might not be bringing you the best candidates, because they do not fully understand the intent. Even if we consider language as an issue, do we not see many things that can be said or interpreted differently by language alone? Sure we do!

An issue that I was made aware of recently was in the use of the word “outsourcing.” There have been TV shows, and even movies, addressing the subject of outsourcing. Probably in the strictest sense of the word, we might easily think of jobs being sent to other countries, but in this case it was not the intent. I read through the person’s job description that was forwarded to me, and taking the whole thing into perspective, it was clear to me that the company was looking to have someone manage how additional functionality would be added to the company’s repertoire, but without actually adding people to do those functions. If you consider how government contracts work, and how subcontractors are added to contracts to bring more capabilities and functionality to a bigger contract, this was more of the outsourcing that the company was looking for. The company had been on a cost containment campaign and so certain functions were being eliminated, but the functionality still was needed for the contracts they were bidding, so there was a definite need to outsource the capabilities (it also helps that I knew more about the company from friends working there, but unfortunately they had not shared any of those insights with the headhunter). The person that had applied to the company’s opportunity, had managed subcontracts, supply chains, and so on, and would have been an awesome fit. Unfortunately, the headhunter responded to that applicant that they just did not see “outsourcing” in his resume.

Who gets the blame here?

Again, do not beat up the headhunters over something like this. This is not the headhunter’s fault. Yes, this sort of situation does indeed shortchange the company from getting top notch people because they are falling short of keyword terminology. However, I would point the finger of blame at the folk coming up with the job needs. They need to talk to the HR folk and screeners if the concepts of the keywords are not crystal clear. Maybe a good practice would be to mandate a discussion about the positions, so that the poor headhunter is not at as much of a disadvantage for not really knowing the role.

If it is important, make it crystal clear!

Seriously, if a role is important to your company, and you want to get the best types of people for a given position, then by golly invest the time to make sure your headhunters and screeners really understand the type of people the company is looking for. If you do not spend the time to make it clear, then you deserve to get all the possible mismatches (or even a lack of candidates), that your lack of attention to this detail might cause. Think about it. The effort could be the difference between a stellar candidate and a mediocre one.