A lot of hiring managers have a warped sense of entitlement when it comes to hiring.
And many of them can be quite demanding – sometimes unreasonably so.
Some of them view the job brief meeting as when they get to tell the recruiter what the “ideal candidate” looks like – sometimes right down to what companies they’ve worked for, where they went to university and their personality type – none of which are (on their own) reliable predictors of future job performance.
I’ve rarely gone to market with a job vacancy that’s had more than 3 ‘must have’ or ‘non-negotiable’ candidate requirements. And those 3 candidate requirements are always related to a particular skill and/or a knowledge of something. They are never soft skills.
And do you know how I get that information?
I simply ask the hiring manager “What are the 2 or 3 must have/non-negotiable criteria this person will need to be able to do this job?”
And they nearly always answer the same way – by telling me what those 2 or 3 essential criteria are.
And that’s what goes in the job ad and guides the research for the marketing emails and messages.
When a job ad lists vague sentences like “must have great communication skills” and “must have the ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple projects simultaneously” as essential qualifications, it’s practically begging for the wrong people to apply.
If you would like more thoughts and musings on recruitment, you might want to download Mitch’s free book “On Recruitment”.
