The Trouble with the Job Market:

Your Job Sucks!

[martinibuster]

Came across a job listing. This is what they wanted:

Experience Required:
• E-commerce Operations/Marketing background
• Online Store Production, Design and Maintenance - new products, updates, etc
• Search Engine Optimization; Internet Marketing - Affiliate, Rev-share, pay-per click, etc.
• Experience with managing and developing affiliate strategy/programs
•
Required Skills:
• XML, PHP, ASP, CSS
• Databse Skills: SQL, MySQL
• HTML/Javascript
• Design: Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash
• Excellent Written English
• Knowledge of online Affiliate Marketing/Sales (Overture, Google, CJ)
• Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Outlook, Access

Desired Skills - Other
• Product photography
• Merchandising skills (licensed apparel preferable)
• Product Description and Editing
• E-commerce platform experience - Yahoo! Store experience a plus
• 3 years e-commerce experience
• E-mail/newsletter marketing
• Languages: Spanish bilingual a plus

Pretty much everything except the ability to pick own coffee beans from the bush and hand roast them in a brick oven.

If I could do all that, I'd be selling my own products online- not hustling theirs.

[edited by: martinibuster at 10:12 pm (utc) on Aug. 6, 2003]

[pageoneresults]

Hehehe, I'll assume that this was a job/career in the 6 digit (USD) salary range? Very few people with those types of credentials hanging about.

[edit_g]

The money had better be good...

[JasonHamilton]

I match everything there and more, except I don't do ASP and I don't speak anything but English....

Well, I took Spanish for 3 years. I came out of it with a D grade, and the ability to say "no hablan espanol"

Funny, cause I was out of work for a year and couldn't get a job.

[jatar_k]

job postings are pretty much a ridiculous event.

Everyone wants to pay one person to do the job of 5 pros. I hate those ads and the people that post them, sorry. I feel badly being so harsh but it gets me really riled.

If I could do all those things I would be the master of none.

[BlobFisk]

One of my former clients was a recruitment consultancy and in conversation the owner told me that in the vast majority of vacancy notices like this, the employer is looking for ~33 - 50% of what is mentioned.

Things may be different in these times of the "depressed market", but I doubt it!

[richardb]

Could be that they have "already" appointed internally but have to go through the politically correct methods (including advertising) before actually appointing.

Rich

So they over speck to cut down on apps.

[rogerd]

Along the lines of what BlobFisk said, these kinds of ads are really wish lists. Depending on the market and how attractive the position sounds, they may get a few candidates who match up with 75% of their bullets, or even the best candidates may match barely half.

I don't see anything wrong with this kind of ad, though if there are a few non-negotiable criteria I'd flag them as such to cut down the number of instant reject applicants.

[martinibuster]

The ad says that this is their "second" time since June that they are looking for someone.

We did not find a suitable candidate, and are looking again. If you submitted a resume for that position, please submit again.

I have a theory that the employers don't have a clue about what the alphabet soup of requirements mean- thus, they are certain to underappreciate any person that tries to fill that position.

I've seen ads where employers mix and match disciplines from the IT field with those of the graphic design field (must be able to administer Unix servers and create brochures in Quark). These kinds of people simply have no clue.

It is very telling that they ran this ad in the San Francisco Bay Area- known for it's high concentration of monster geeks- and still cannot attract a "suitable candidate."

[topr8]

>>If I could do all that, I'd be selling my own products online- not hustling theirs.

LOL, i can't do half that and i'm selling my own products online!

[Shak]

Could be that they have "already" appointed internally but have to go through the politically correct methods (including advertising) before actually appointing.
Rich

So they over speck to cut down on apps.

Thats what i was thinking.

Shak

[dragonlady7]

The problem with that is that they make a wish list, and turn it over to HR. HR then fills the jobs by running automated searches on the resumes that come in, and if they don't have all the letters they don't even bother.
So, you get nobody qualified except someone who put all the letters and keywords on their resume.
And that's not the most qualified person that applied; it's simply the one that fits the keyword searches.

So, combine stupid with inattentive, make that your hiring policy. and you get no good new hires, and wonder why.

[Solta]

It's an employer's market these days so they are really expecting a lot for the relatively small salary they are willing to pay. Employees will have their day again.

It's too bad that they overdo these ads. I believe that a lot of very talented people would be able to do the work but hesitate to apply because of the excessive requirements.

[chadandrew]

This is a prime example of how Human Resource departments have become the dearth of Corporate America.

With the marketplace saturated with unemployed job seekers, lazy hiring managers have placed an extreme amount of control in the hands of HR departments to weed out the overabundance of resumes. In the process, corporations are now hiring even less appropriately matched available talent, compared to when the employment market was strapped.

The bad part is companies haven't figured it out yet. When they do, Human Resource departments, as we know them today, will no longer exist. The basic HR functions that are still required, will be recognized as non-core functions, and outsourced to third-party entities focused on payroll, benefits administration, etc.

At least that's what will happen at the more efficient and successful corporations, and much sooner than later.

Death to HR! And yes I’m bitter; it’s like having to get past the equivalent of your high school counselor to get the right the position these days.

[RobbieD]

Yahoo! Store experience a plus

If they are just running a Yahoo! Store I don't know why they would need that much experience?

[cyril kearney]

All the computer screening processes I have seen are poor. The person making the job order creates a wishlist that often bears no real relationship to the job. Is the person to be a coder, designer or an implementor with broader experience? Why should a person need 5 different skills in graphics and design and at the same time need to be savvy in marketing and sales?

Now when anyone responds, a HR-type will take a yellow marker and highlight each of matching buzzwords on the resume and check off the requirements. If they aren't all filled the resume will go into the reject file. The remaining resumes will then be read and by intuition applicants will be interviewed.

However, just as there is SEO going on, there is resume optimization going on. Desperate, out of work people tune and retune their resumes so that they can make the HR cut.

In the end enough fatigue sets in and someone gets hired with a much smaller set of required skills or the project will be put on hold.

I'll bet that Spanish language skills are an absolute requirement and that ASP skills are only a nice to have. This shop is clearly a PHP/mySQL shop aimed at retailing to a multi-cultured marketplace. The photography skills are nonsense and are in there because the last guy once had a problem (in 1999) with stills.

[rogerd]

You are probably right on the money, Cyril. I think a lot of tech managers do the resume screening themselves just because HR can't effectively filter the best candidates from the also-rans. Unless HR has a skilled technical recruiter, using them to select finalists is hopeless for the reasons you describe.

[Hawkgirl]

It's an employer's market these days so they are really expecting a lot for the relatively small salary they are willing to pay.

This is what I see happening a lot. Right now a lot of companies can get really experienced people for peanuts. They won't have happy employees in the long run ... but in the short run, it works for the companies.

[Die_Hard]

Some companies shoot really high, too. They do this 'cause there is a lot at stake. Online operations are, in some cases, outdoing their brick and mortar operations they initially started with. I think hr staff are representing what their bosses think they need - someone who really knows what they are doing. If you think about it, especially from an individual with all that skill, that is a lot responsibility considering the entire hr dept., and office could be laid off next week by one mistake. Also, imo, I think the hr department could land a firm, or company that does have the staff/team that could do all that. That would be a more practical approach. Of course that means more spending, but that's the price you have to pay - as it has been said...

If you are going dancing and drinking you better be willing to pay the cover charge