February 8, 2012 in Blog by Amanda Sheckman

Jobs Hope

More good news has arrived on the jobs front. Of course, these developments are still graded on a curve. Given the economic trauma of the past three years, and given the enduring misery suffered by those among the under- and unemployed, celebrations should be muted and hope should be conditional.

Still, the creation of more than 200,000 net jobs (seasonally adjusted) last month has brought the official unemployment rate to 8.3 percent, back where it was at the end of 2008. Massive unknowns loom—oil supplies from the Middle East are threatened, the epochal European debt realignment is tenuous, wars are being unwound, and some unanticipated disaster of the man-made or natural variety is always around the corner. And they loom particularly large given the demonstrable fragility of our socio-economic order. But employment and growth have not looked this promising in a long time.

Which presents workforce leaders with a new challenge. The dynamic was captured in September by the “Job Preparedness Index,” a new annual survey conducted by the Career Advisory Board. Some 500-plus hiring managers and 700-plus job seekers were polled.

According to the survey, hiring managers place the highest value on the following skills: strategic perspective, high integrity, global outlook, strong work ethic, dependability, and accountability. Makes sense. Now, 56 percent of job seekers expressed confidence that they know what qualifications are required for employment, and 72 percent of job seekers are confident they know how to present their skills during an interview. Yet only 14 percent of hiring managers reported that “most” or “nearly all” job candidates, over the past three years, have had the skills their company looks for in a potential employee.

But here’s the worst finding. Experience” trumps “eagerness to learn.” Only nine percent of hiring managers reported they would be “extremely” or “very likely” to hire a managerial candidate who lacked the necessary skills but appeared eager to learn those skills on the job. And just 30 percent of job seekers ranked prior experience as the top factor in leading to a desirable job.

This is a major problem. And I fault the supply side (employers) more than the demand side (seekers). I’ve coached a lot of sports teams in my day, and when it came to tryouts and drafting a team, it was always a principle among my fellow coaches that we’d pick athleticism first. Why? Because to the extent the kid in question demonstrated strength or speed or coordination or field savvy, we figured it was our job to channel that raw ability into what we needed on the field.

Our social and commercial order used to work this way, too. Job training programs, apprenticeships, G.I. bills, and the like helped create a path for inexperienced talent to grow into jobs. Now, all I hear is complaints about how the emergent workforce is unskilled or feels entitled or suffers from some sort of collective attention deficit disorder wrought by video-gamed childhoods.

Sorry, it’s not that easy. We need to reforge the social contract on jobs, and that starts with employers. Invest in a longer term proposition. The landscape is shifting fast. Hire accordingly.

We’ll be exploring this and parallel ideas when HRO Today convenes its annual forum—April 30 through May 1 in Washington, D.C. Our Workforce Congress and other sessions will wrestle with the “Job Skills Gap” and how to navigate it. Have a question or idea for the program? Post it below.