Why hiring is paradoxically harder in a downturn

1 Comment

Comment by Irina Shamaeva on April 12, 2009 at 10:39am

The article has some very good points. It talks about numbers of A-, B- and C- players who apply for jobs and about the proportions and numbers of those types of candidates. I think talking about A-players vs. C-players who "could have similar resumes" is a bit charged and also doesn't apply to all jobs out there. It would be more relevant to talk about candidates who match the job description, i.e. are A- candidates (vs B-candidates). A B-candidate could be an A-player or not, but the candidate is just not a match for this particular job.

So, to turn the thought around a bit, I would say that:
1) There are many more candidates that are not a match who apply for any particular job, so, as the article puts it, this creates much more "noise".
2) There's much stricter criteria about who is a match and who is not in a bad economy. Companies are not taking risks, are not in a hurry and select candidates who meet their criteria exactly. (I remember the dot-com times when I was a candidate and recruiters were submitting me to dozens of jobs, many of them requiring experience I didn't have; that was appropriate and welcome back then; during a job search I had onsite interviews every day for three weeks in a row.)

Now, if we are talking about filling positions like the ones mentioned in the article ("those reliant on innovation such as those in the tech space") I would argue that this shouldn't be THAT hard. There are online appearances of talented technical people everywhere. A good sourcer should be able to locate A-talent for those jobs. In order to attract the candidate, the hiring company needs to be an attractive place to be for that talent. But that's probably true in any economy.

Add a Comment