Strangely this juxtaposed position of candidates and recruiters in the hiring process has experience at its core because experience is valued hugely by both...but it is validated quite differently by the two parties.
Whereas the recruiter ideally wants a risk free hire - been there seen it done it got the T shirt - the candidate frequently wants a new challenge - why change jobs or careers otherwise; and they see their total work-skills experience as portable, employability collateral. And there are many ‘tick box' assumptions about experience; the main one being that because a candidate has done a job for x many years, they will do the job that is being hired for and that they will do it well. The other assumption is that; it is impossible to fulfil ‘y' role satisfactorily without ‘x' years of ‘z' experience because the role is so special.
The good news is that Age Positive recruitment is all about measurement of ‘experience' and not measurement of ‘time service'.
Starting by deconstructing experience we can understand what it is better and therefore measure it...
Experience - what a candidate has done that is appropriate to work (though not necessarily at work) is an overlap of:
- knowledge (quantified by: skills, qualifications, industry and institutional knowledge) and
- ability (qualified by: personality including; motivational drivers, attitude and work preferences)
Fortunately when it comes down to writing a job description you don't have to be a psychologist or Einstein to work out what's important in terms of knowledge and ability. And employers don't necessarily need to invest in bespoke psychometric questionnaires to assess a candidate's goodness of ‘fit' with a role and an organisation.
Careful use of language in the job description that details skills with appropriate levels (competent or advanced) and desired knowledge and attributes will get hiring managers closer to the right candidate and is Age Positive compliant. Including a person specification helps candidates to select or de-select themselves into the role - based on ability, competence and work preferences. This gets people closer to thinking about how they would do the job as opposed to whether or not they should apply for in the job at all.
Basic job ad copy rules still apply, for example a job description that includes town or postcode level location information on totaljobs.com will get 3 times more response than a job ad that is posted to a regional level. The more branded a job is, including company logo, keyword matching with appropriate job searches and listing in a minimum of two sectors the bigger volume of ‘higher quality' response it gets; because candidates are able to match with the job on so many levels.
Avoiding descriptions that include time periods - will negate discriminating against employees that haven't had a perfectly structured and chronological career path. That would be the majority of the UK's 29m working population; as consultant neurologists and fighter pilots make up a teeny proportion of it.
When it comes to short listing candidates for interview (traditionally done with a printed CV and a highlighter) this method can be automated and reversed out by creating a keyword list based on skills, industry experience, roles etc. The list can be used to search for suitable candidates; either via a recruitment website's CV database or registered user emailable database. By contacting suitable candidates directly the recruiter shows their knowledge of the role/sector and also it's a show of candidate ‘experience' appreciation or respect. Most importantly this recruiter-led communication is an effective way, once more, of controlling and increasing the quality of the response that is generated.
comes down to writing a job description you don’t have to be a psychologist or Einstein to work out what’s important in terms of knowledge
and ability
At the interview stage some old fashioned selection methods such as telephone interviews can separate the ‘can dos' from the ‘wanabees'; as it's hard to fake competence or knowledge over the phone. A phone interview is great for testing skills, ability or knowledge of systems and also checking the accuracy of claimed ‘experience' in a CV. If the interview is a face-to-face one practicals or scenario-based interviews can test a candidate's ability to ‘do' the role in a robust fashion. In keeping with Age positive recruitment consideration could be given to the age of the interviewers, a range of ages creates a more welcoming or inclusive impression.
Finally it's worth mentioning which groups experience disproportionate levels of age discrimination:
1. Return to workers or returners - in the UK the female part time working population alone numbers 6m (just under 25% of the total working population)
2. Seniors - judging by the emails I get late forties onwards
3. And young people school or college leavers and graduates
4. In order to combat this employers are looking at job sharing or part time options for varied positions - in some cases changing the taxonomy of part time into ‘key' time (often part timer employees cover the ‘busiest' periods).
Seniors are having pension rights extended beyond 65 years of age and flexible working options made available to them - this despite the belief held by one recruitment consultant that pensions can be drawn at 45 years of age (the candidate emailed me as the Career Doctor).
Young people should be encouraged to compare life skills - for example of communication, time management, budget control, team leadership - to work skills when applying for jobs. This is the careers advice that is given to totaljobs.com Graduate Zone visitors and registered users.
And all jobseekers would be well-advised to leave out their; date of birth, marital status, full work history and domestic arrangements, from their CV focusing instead on achievements or projects completed appropriate to the role in question. Because whether or not a candidate can do the job is all that matters.
www.totaljobs.com [1]