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It is simple. We all learn better and we all perform better at doing specific tasks. An intelligent person may be lacking in social or interpersonal development. In fact, the more intelligent you are the more likely you are to commit suicide, have depression problems and develop addictions. Someone who is very well developed socially may be the dumbest person you'll ever meet.
Trying to find a person who is a jack of all those skills, good luck! We simply develop differently, have different personalities, and enjoy different things. As a result, specific skills sets get developed more than others in fact, A LOT more than others. Which explains why you are looking for highly skilled people who end up lacking social skills. If you want skilled people, why not hire based on, well, skills? What you are doing is saying you want xyz skills and then judge them based on other skills they suck at. That is like saying you want to hire a public speaker and then giving him a math test. Makes absolutely no sense.
The best option is to learn to live with people the way they are and instead of trying to change that person you should learn to utilize their best talents and skills. Specialization is what creates the best product, not jack of all trades. Modern day interviewing only attracts the best salesman (unless of course the interview is very intensive with skills tests etc).
I'm not surprised nobody replied to this post. I just wanted to give a good rep. to the post. Recently on Jerry Seinfeld George was asked if he was a team player. His reply was sad but true. He equated 'team player' with conformity.
Although I agree in part, I still believe that people need to have at least, a basic minimum dose of social skill, good manners, and basic day-to-day judgement. Sure we all know examples of the "quirky IT guy" or the "eccentric accountant" and they might do their jobs exceptionally well. But when I'm hiring people, I'm fine with quirky/creative/eccentric so long as they have the working judgement to dress appropriately for the interview, to say please and thank you, to respond to questions with somewhat coherent and meaningful answers, and to construct a simple grammatically correct sentence.
I think what most of us are saying is that we meet interviewees who are grossly outside of expectations.
And though I love Mr. Costanza, being able to work effectively on a team is far different from being a conformist automaton.
I work in Human Resources and much of my day is spent looking at resumes, calling applicants and talking to people in screening interviews. At the company I work for most of our openings are for highly skilled positions. We hire financial people, management analysts, IT Professionals, and Engineers. Most jobs require a college degree and years of experience.
What really shocks me is how poor the majority of applicants resume and cover letter is. These documents come to us full of spelling errors, terrible grammar, punctuation, confusing layout and full of needless information. My own writing skills could be improved but I get my husband, the English teacher, to help me with workplace communication.
The interviewing skills of the typical applicant is not so good either. Many do not understand that the key to business is personal relationships and many people are going to be hired partially on their personality. They are rude to the receptionist and never smile during the interview. They also do not understand that they need to develop talking points to explain their background and prepare for common questions.
Why are so many highly skilled and educated workers so poor when it comes to job hunting skills?
Because they spend their time doing engineering, programming, finance, etc. *Not* worrying about presentation BS.
This is the typical "engineering mindset". Function over form.
In fact, most of them, if they were to speak confidentially would say the HR people are the idiots, because they don't understand a thing about the realities of the jobs they are recruiting for.
HR people are at best, seen from that perspective, as a necessary evil. A pain in the rear to have to deal with before getting to the real hiring manager that might actually know something.
Wow! I can't believe there are that many errors in paperwork turned in for jobs. My husband is a Sr. Level IT Manager and he is absolutely anal about how it flows and looks and is spelled. How can you miss when you have spell check?
What he has been challenged with....and maybe you can share some thoughts....is he has a strong resume with over 25 years of experience, both in perm positions and in consulting. When drawing up a resume or re-editing a resume for the millionth time, it is hard to convey to a HR person exactly what all he has had experience with. In fact, in alot of cases when he talks with HR people he is amazed how many don't even understand all the different positions within an IT department and don't really understand what he does. When he is interviewing he spends alot of time bringing the person up to speed on what his expertise is.
His challenge, being IT and not Marketing is HOW to convey his many talents and experience, his strengths in a resume so at first glance people know what he can do. He is told he has a strong resume but I know he is torn alot on how to re-market or re-write his resume to show he is ready for the next or bigger challenge.
Re: errors.....we are anal about it in our house, even our teen who is going to college is...so I am not sure where the problem comes in, except for lack of training and expectation in high school and college. Maybe if that was reinforced in our educational system and our bar was raised then the younger generation would be more professional with their presentation.
Please let me know if you have any input that you could share.
Thanks!
Anal, that about says it all.
When half the IT folks I've met can't remember to wash their hands in the men's room or keep their filthy shoes of the desk, spelling on their resume strikes me as a far secondary consideration to having to work with them every day, LOL!
Competence or even excellence in one's chosen field does not necessarily translate into job getting know how. From my perspective the desirable employee is the one who takes the time to prepare for the job hunt at least as well as he or she prepared for a chosen profession.
You can't lay the problems solely at the doorstep of the younger workers. I've seen horrific resumes from as many professionals with years of experience as I have from entry level candidates. And don't get me started on interviewing stories. I should have kept a journal all these years I could probably turn into a best seller. :0)
Like you, Job-Seekers-Edge, I believe I could write a book about job candidates I interviewed over the years. These were office, from clerical to technical to supervisory. It was a large corporation, and our HR people would review the applications, and the ones who looked promising and met all of the written qualifications would be called to interview with the department they'd be placed in, if hired.
For professional, "white collar" jobs, people would show up in really inappropriate clothing (see-through sleeved party dresses, stained t-shirts and ratty jeans, etc.). I would be amazed, though try not to react, at the people who wore baseball hats throughout the interview, answered their cell phones (one guy held up his finger in a "just a second" motion to me as I was talking, to answer his phone and carry on a "Yo, what's up?" conversation while I sat there.)
After one lengthy discussion of an open position, where I went over the duties and responsibilities and tried to describe the day-to-day operations and what she would be expected to do, the applicant just sort of sat there, blank faced. I asked her if she had any questions and she said "Yes, how soon do we get sick days?"
Like you, Job-Seekers-Edge, I believe I could write a book about job candidates I interviewed over the years. These were office, from clerical to technical to supervisory. It was a large corporation, and our HR people would review the applications, and the ones who looked promising and met all of the written qualifications would be called to interview with the department they'd be placed in, if hired.
For professional, "white collar" jobs, people would show up in really inappropriate clothing (see-through sleeved party dresses, stained t-shirts and ratty jeans, etc.). I would be amazed, though try not to react, at the people who wore baseball hats throughout the interview, answered their cell phones (one guy held up his finger in a "just a second" motion to me as I was talking, to answer his phone and carry on a "Yo, what's up?" conversation while I sat there.)
After one lengthy discussion of an open position, where I went over the duties and responsibilities and tried to describe the day-to-day operations and what she would be expected to do, the applicant just sort of sat there, blank faced. I asked her if she had any questions and she said "Yes, how soon do we get sick days?"
Have to admit, I do miss the era of "dress for success". This "Dude your gettin' a Dell" era is BS, IMHO. I can recall working at one large blue Infotech company where some of the other analysts (about 15 years my juniors) were playing with a superball in the office. Geezus, how lame.
Granted there's too much of a good thing. Having to do full on "Dry Clean Only" every day is a bit much as well.
Seems that any sort of adult consideration or sophistication or aspirations thereof have been replaced with some sort of "I wanna be a teenager forever" syndrome.
The fighter pilots I started my corporate career under would have never tolerated that BS, LOL! Nor would any of us even have considered it, LOL!
In any event, there's some happy medium between fake and childish, seems to me.
For professional, "white collar" jobs, people would show up in really inappropriate clothing (see-through sleeved party dresses, stained t-shirts and ratty jeans, etc.). I would be amazed, though try not to react, at the people who wore baseball hats throughout the interview, answered their cell phones (one guy held up his finger in a "just a second" motion to me as I was talking, to answer his phone and carry on a "Yo, what's up?" conversation while I sat there.)
I think the most depressing thing about that is that, most likely, they may have managed to get a white-collar "professional" job in the first place, while I - a college graduate who's obsessive about doing things the right way - can't get hired anywhere.
I think the most depressing thing about that is that, most likely, they may have managed to get a white-collar "professional" job in the first place, while I - a college graduate who's obsessive about doing things the right way - can't get hired anywhere.
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