What's your worth in a dysfunctional job market?
Computerworld's Paul Glen questions whether experience is really all that it's cracked up to be. Paul argues that common perceptions, like "experience implies knowledge," or "experience implies rigidity," are not based on reality. True enough.
As I read his article, though, it occurred to me that today's economy has resulted in a dysfunctional job market--in which experience has little (if any) value.
For example, how does a hiring manager reconcile her own perceptions of reality when interviewing a job candidate? How does the experienced job candidate (i.e., "old" in IT terms) demonstrate his value? "It's a judgment call" is the answer to both. However, the current economy has skewed the thinking process of how judgment calls are made. In fact, a "gut feeling" can't even be trusted.
Hiring companies feel as if they have the upper-hand because they are the buyer in a buyer's market. Therefore, even if a candidate is "a fit," the company will continue the search process--just to see what else is out there. Or the company will change the job specs to incorporate the attributes that made the candidate "a fit." In a buyer's market, the likelihood is that the "fit" candidate will still be available should the company not find anything better. Job candidates are commodities.
In turn, candidates are in constant state of reinventing themselves in hopes of becoming the elusive "fit." Experienced candidates that are creative and innovative (earned through their experience) are in a quandary. What attributes should they highlight to demonstrate that they are "a fit" when the definition of "fit" keeps changing?
No one wins in such a dysfunctional loop. Today's dysfunctional job market loop is exasperating a dysfunctional economy. Both companies and job candidates need to understand that the "rules of the game" have changed.
However, I believe that the inflated abundance of job candidates will burst. The buyer's market will level back to normalcy. I'll tell you how I think this will happen in another post. Social media will have a supporting role.