Archives for 2016-02-09

When I was 7 years old, I wanted to be a veterinary scientist. That lasted a year.

When I was 8 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut. That lasted 8ish years until I got to NASA and found out I couldn’t go into space.

I then had no idea what I wanted to do, so I just decided not to decide and just *live.*

That’s been working out for me pretty well for the last 20 years.

Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/When-did-you-realize-what-you-want-to-do-for-a-living

Originally Posted On: 2016-04-03

How fast you are hired depends (and always has) on the position, the industry/sector it is in, and the circumstances surrounding the need for the hire in the first place.

If a company puts out an executive search for a C-Level position, that will often be an open-ended search until they find the right hire. They will screen selected candidates for a long period of time – in some cases, it can take years.

Likewise, if a company find themselves in a position where they are suddenly without a critical employee, and operationally they are at a standstill until they find a replacement, they will move quickly to fill that position – be it with a series of temporary hires or with someone who happened to be at the right place, right time.

The closest analogy to this is the chorus girl who gets her big break when the diva breaks her leg and can’t perform one night.

While both of those are not new scenarios, and have been happening as long as people have been hiring, they are also the extremes. Most people aren’t being hired for CEO positions, or have these “once in a lifetime” opportunities to jump on.

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So what about everything else? Has it gotten slower?

That would depend on a lot of variables.

One could argue that because there are so many more people on the planet than there used to be, then obviously there’s more people to compete with for jobs…

…but they would be wrong, because, job growth (at least in the US), (despite the scary headline, and ignoring that glaring dip during the recession) is just about keeping up with our population:

So, if there’s theoretically enough jobs out there for everyone, then why are people having trouble finding them?

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The issue is that while there are enough people to fill the jobs, the jobs don’t match up with the skills or desires of the people. Because of that big dip, a lot of people who had jobs before in one industry found themselves suddenly unskilled for the new industries that popped up later. They now find themselves with the desire and ambition to work, but without the ability and specific experience to do it.

You have a lot of people who are extremely overqualified in one niche area that are unable to adapt to the new roles that are available.

Those that can adapt are finding new positions readily – and quickly.

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Using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) makes the process extremely efficient. Here’s the basic roadmap for how I do it:

Internally, a company will determine that a role needs to be filled.

They will then request approval for the role to be allotted and posted. (This can take a few minutes, days, weeks – it may even need to wait for the next board meeting, depending on how the company is set up for budgeting/justification).

Once the role has been budgeted and it has been approved for posting, it will be posted (often internally first, for a certain time prior to posting externally).

Applicants will be run on a first pass through the ATS – filtered by minimum requirements (generally if you don’t meet them, you’re automatically out, unless you’re an internal referral.)

Second pass will be by the assigned recruiter for a screening interview before sending you to the assigned hiring committee. If you get passed the screening interview, then you will have a series of interviews (I generally have 3 people on a committee) with different people to evaluate your skills/team fit/etc.

Final decision on a candidate would usually be made within 2 weeks of the committee interview process – if you’re definitely not a fit you’ll know sooner.

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This whole process is basically the same one I’ve been doing my entire career, even when I was still in high school and applying for work at Six Flags. People who have experience with HR systems for longer could comment on differences there, but I’d say its been pretty much the same.

So, I don’t believe it is any slower. I believe it feels slower because we’re used to instant communication now.

Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-job-application-and-the-hiring-process-become-slower-nowadays-compared-to-the-past

Originally Posted On: 2016-01-15