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This is pertaining to job descriptions and the hiring process used in any of engineering, science, research, development, medicine, or any other technical/professional fields as these are the areas I am familiar with. However, it might pertain much more widely. I don’t read all job descriptions or try to be hired in all fields of course.
Anyone who has been around can see that today the job descriptions and the actual hiring process has become stifling for technical and scientific professionals, this includes PhD, MS or BS (in engineering or science), MD and pretty much all the technical and scientific professionals. I’d say it is definitely hurting potential employment of these professionals but also the companies and centers involved may not realize how negative the process has become, or perhaps they do for various motives in some cases. It has made some of the best talent out there look to other options for employment. I have seen this many times over in really top notch scientists and engineers taking other positions (non technical or scientific) or even positions overseas in a few that I know personally.
Job descriptions are often drawn out into endless wordiness with specificity that seems highly unusual. Interviews are rarely about finding accomplished professional skilled people who want to do the job and are who are directly interested in the exact topic of work that seems needed by the description.
I have worked for a runner up to the Nobel prize in medicine in developing one of a kind hardware/software routines for medical research, to start-up companies hiring their initial technical staff and not having any sources of revenue just yet. In one I ended up a vital key in their success plus hiring hundreds. In my life I have avoided much of the ridiculousness in the hiring we see today. At the start I did this since when I graduated most of this job hiring ridiculousness was just not in place. A good and interested person was considered an asset. Then I learned to be very handy when searching for work. The system is getting hard to avoid and go around and it is getting obviously weirder and weirder when you read some of the position announcements you can tell they are real fishy.
Only if interested in this topic, I’d like to see others thoughts on why this is the case plus what you do about it. I see many posts of people following up to things where they clearly have no interest in this kind of topic. Basically they post just to argue with people. I am not seeking negative focused argumentation. Mostly interested in what you do about it.
Again this is about technical fields, which is what I know. Wishing a good, happy, and enjoyable work environment to others…..
Is it that HR departments are no longer really HR departments (HR departments used to specialize in bringing in good people)?
Is it ever growing management separation from technical work and expertise, then somehow trying to make up for that with these unusual job listings we see today?
Is it the rise of too many MBA’s running things instead of experienced staff like we had in the past?
Is it having the totally non-technical trying to run (bully?) the technically oriented way more than ever?
Are companies being over-managed or micro-managed by distant headquarters even if they have some local actual technical expertise?
Is it attempts at justifying a companies need for visa waivers, or need to move the entire operations overseas so they can hire cheap labor, with all environmental and labor abuses ignored?
Is it that they hire external companies/search systems to bring them employees and these companies/search systems really don’t know what they are doing basically at all?
Is it for computerized job matching algorithms, which don’t seem to work at all sometimes (anyone getting job search agent emails knows how far off the algorithms are, and are even laughable at times)?
Is it government requirements?
Is it a need to run advertisements for positions that actually are not real position openings (such as promotion of somebody internal)?
Is it lack of a solid local operations plan, such as having good potential future products that are well thought out and just need the technical and scientific development?
Others…..
I think your first few answer 90% of the problem. And they're related. It's micromanagement by non technical MBAs who have no clue about the technical side of things. Up until about 15 years ago my bosses were technical people who had come up through the ranks and proven themselves as both technically and managerially astute. Then about 2000 that started changing to more and more non technical people being promoted to management. These folks are just clueless but unwilling to admit it. They don't trust the technical people under them so they demand more and more paper and never ending lists of everything. They have it stuck in their heads that if they just demand enough PowerPoint's and spreadsheets then everything will happen automatically without them having to think.
I think your first few answer 90% of the problem. And they're related. It's micromanagement by non technical MBAs who have no clue about the technical side of things. Up until about 15 years ago my bosses were technical people who had come up through the ranks and proven themselves as both technically and managerially astute. Then about 2000 that started changing to more and more non technical people being promoted to management. These folks are just clueless but unwilling to admit it. They don't trust the technical people under them so they demand more and more paper and never ending lists of everything. They have it stuck in their heads that if they just demand enough PowerPoint's and spreadsheets then everything will happen automatically without them having to think.
Thanks tnff. There seems to be no way we can get around it anymore. Hopefully the economy will lead companies, research centers, and everywhere away from this model so they can go back to being successful. It really harms particularly R&D, killing everything when it is like this. Not much I can do as an individual I guess.
Blame scientists and engineers! Some of the most anal types on the planet, because the people who do the hiring are or probably were scientists and engineers themselves.
Blame scientists and engineers! Some of the most anal types on the planet, because the people who do the hiring are or probably were scientists and engineers themselves.
As far as job descriptions go I have no doubt in some cases an outgoing employee is told to Nth degree the job description they do such they can hire new employees. Instead of asking the current employee what kind of background is capable, courses taken, and other general concepts they make them write these ridiculous descriptions up for employment. They are leaving probably underpaid, underappreciated, seeing not great management and they just doing what they are told as they leave. As far as stereotypes, can't say that has a place.
I applied (and landed) a job last year where the job posting was bonkers. Loads of seemingly unusual or unlikely skills or experience for one person to have. A **** ton of potential responsibilities and a job title that almost suggested something else. I actually hit 8-90% of the criteria (thanks in part to job hopping to survive the recession) but was worried someone would think I BSed my resume. A good friend who has been bumped up to managing a large office in the industry gave me a very good piece of advice- you often throw everything and the kitchen sink into the posting for two reasons. If you are too specific you can box yourself into hiring someone who an obvious poor fit but would most closely adhere to the posting. And the other reason is that if there is ever any hint that this person might have to do a task that is related but not entirely in their job description they can decline if they bring it up with HR. So he has to put plenty of administrative type phrases and tangential tasks in a posting to cover his rear when someone says they weren't hired to organize a report or lead a committee for one specific job event though both are directly related or almost expected for their position.
This is in an engineering/architecture/PM/construction/capital finance related department. After starting the job I learned they have had issues with some employees in the past who did not want work across disciplines or even really collaborate. It turned out to be the best job I've had because those are my strengths and I've already bounced through multiple roles at other employers.
I think a lot of it goes to the HR profession. It has become a laughing stock excuse of a pseudoprofession that does nothing but embrace junk science and then sticks their nose into hiring for positions they do not understand and inflict whatever quackery is trendy in HR circles on the candidates. We've seen an explosion of use of these absolutely laughably stupid psychometric tests, all kinds of degrading interviewing gimicks, terrible performance review systems etc.
When I graduated and started going on professional interveiws I was just dumbstruck by the retardedness of the hiring process. Instead of having productive discussions about science and the value I could bring I'd get put through crap psychobabble and irrelecant and stupid questions. No wonder companies complain about having trouble finding talent! I actually started withdrawing apps when the HR dipsticks really got off their leash and started giving essays and other assignments or started laying their psyche crap on too thick. As someone who does real science and analysis and deals with people's crazy misinformed beliefs all the time in the food industry I have an extreme irritation to people forcing their quackery on others. I especially hold the field of psychology in very low regard and have gone out of my way to avoid it. I have no desire to deal with it.
At the other end of the spectra I'd end up with absolute @holes that would interrogate me like I was a perp and just tear me apart and make me glad to be out of there. I'm sure the interviewers just patted themself on the back with self-delusion that they are doing a great job saving the company from bad hires but really they were simply acting like total sociopaths.
Until companies go back to posting reasonable qualifications, picking the best qualified candidates, and interviewing them to see that they can comport themself as a professional I have no sympathy for their moaning about talent shortages. I haven't accepted an interview in several years as I'd rather have a painful or humiliating dental or medical procedure than go through this HR circus freak show again.
Blame scientists and engineers! Some of the most anal types on the planet, because the people who do the hiring are or probably were scientists and engineers themselves.
Naah. Mostly what happens is management throws every thing they can think of into one job description for a couple of reasons. First, they like to minimize different documents so they try to make things the same just so they can use the same document to hire a physicist or a mechanical engineer. Second, like someone else mentioned you can't come back and say "Not in my job description" because everything is in the job description.
We also get management that just assumes all fields of STEM are the same so they don't understand that the requirements differ between a physicist and a ME. But then turn around and require experience in software products that are unique to business so they don't have to train you. The old "you need 10 years experience in something that only Betty who worked here for 30 years uses" requirement.
Blame scientists and engineers! Some of the most anal types on the planet, because the people who do the hiring are or probably were scientists and engineers themselves.
And yet, people will cry and complain if their iPhone and its apps don't work perfectly every time they use them.
So, you can blame scientists and engineers for being meticulous (or anal, as you choose to phrase it).
I got my science degree as a very non-trad student. BS Geology, minor in GIS. After I graduated I had a decent GIS job for a few years but got laid off when projects disappeared due to the oil/gas downturn.
I've done some short term contract work since, but any real jobs I've applied for I've either been overqualified or underqualified. Entry level science jobs are asking for way more experience than I have. The jobs look to have tasks that I could easily learn though. Non-science jobs won't hire me because I have a science degree.
The hope of getting a decent job ever again seems like a distant dream. I'm also in the age bracket of age discrimination.
Fortunately I have no student loans (thank you tax payers for the grants and scholarships!!) and a very simple and inexpensive lifestyle, so I can get along ok with dribbles of income.
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