Hired for Your Ideas, Not Your Resume?! Really?!
There’s a lot of talk out there – on the blogosphere – that Gen Y should be hired for their ideas, rather than for their resume. While I understand that the main premise and motivation for this is that many Gen Y-ers have limited experience and a more difficult time landing a job, I am not entirely sure that this is the best and most effective way to develop young talent.
When I was in college, which was a mere 2.5 yrs ago, I had to hustle. I worked really hard during my 2nd and 3rd years to find internships in industries I was interested in. I networked really hard and volunteered at Faculty Career Fairs to help me land interviews for internships. I knew that the corporate world was becoming more competitive each year and that the talent pool was getting larger, so I needed to gather the experience and credentials I would need to be one step ahead of everyone else when it came time to graduate. I took ownership of my future and make sure that I did everything I needed to do to secure myself a job upon graduation.
Now, when I think of this new trend touting the need to change the hiring methods to look at someone’s ideas over their track record I really worry. I worry that all the hard work of previous young professionals has all been done in vain. Why couldn’t we sit back and simply write about our ideas and share them with others and hope that because they were great we could land our dream job? The answer is simple. Because the best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour! Ideas, without action are just that…ideas. You need to know that someone is capable of harnessing their creativity, identifying an opportunity or idea and formulating a plan to execute it for successful results. Scratch that. Positive results aren’t as important as the courage and ability to execute.
Instead of encouraging soon-to-be grads and young professionals to simply become great thinkers…which I will be the first to admit is important…we should be focusing our energy on encouraging them to become great executors. In reality, success is simply the result of great execution of good ideas.
The key is highlighting the importance of actual experience over mere idea generating. Why don’t you show me that you have ideas and you know how to do something about them? Show me that you can develop an idea from conception to development!!
Careerists know this. Careerists know that to get ahead, you need more than just ideas…you need gumption. And that’s what a recent grad or young professional’s resume should demonstrate; it should show that the student was diligent and persistent enough to do what s/he had to do to get the work experience needed. Recruiters and Human Resources professionals are aware that experience is minimal at this level. Education, activities and projects tend to be the largest factors that determine candidacy for entry-level positions. What recruiters want to see is how you perform during different experiences. Unfortunately, someone’s ideas aren’t sufficient to evaluate a candidate’s future potential and success. It will always come back to someone’s communications skills and how they interact with others in different situations. It’s about behaviour. It’s about gumption.
I think it’s troubling that we are misdirecting the younger generation of careerists with an ideaology that unfortunately does not reflect reality. Rather, we should be focusing on creating opportunities for student and young professionals to gain experience. We should be establishing the appropriate mentoring networks within academic institutions to promote professional development early on as well as creating academic programs that support co-ops and internships.
It seems by being idea-focused we are somehow lifting the onus on the individual to take control of their professional development. We are also undermining the efforts of those that are motivated enough to create their own opportunities and hustle for experience to prepare them for the transition from academia to industry.
What are your thoughts on this new school of thought advertising idea-driven hiring over experience-based recruitment?
I would like to point you to Dan Kegel’s essay, “How To Get Hired”
http://www.kegel.com/academy/getting-hired.html
Exactly! You need to show people that you take initiative and aren’t just sitting on your laurels philosoph-ising your way to your next job. You need to get up and do something…whatever that may be. Take a class to advance yourself, work on a personal project related to your field, work on a project for someone else – even on a volunteer basis. This behavior demonstrates hunger to go after what you want and to take your career into your own hands, passion to pursue what interests you and opportunism to create the opportunities for yourself!
Another unfortunate thing is that educational institutions are too disconnected from the industry.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html
“As an employer, I’ve seen that the 100% Java schools have started churning out quite a few CS graduates who are simply not smart enough to work as programmers on anything more sophisticated than Yet Another Java Accounting Application, although they did manage to squeak through the newly-dumbed-down coursework.”
And so are the HR’s:
“The recruiters-who-use-grep, by the way, are ridiculed here, and for good reason. I have never met anyone who can do Scheme, Haskell, and C pointers who can’t pick up Java in two days, and create better Java code than people with five years of experience in Java, but try explaining that to the average HR drone.”
Many of my friends and profs were asking me if I was going to do master’s. And here is another article that may explain why:
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2010/1/55760-what-should-we-teach-new-software-developers-why/fulltext
Famous CS professor (proudly): “We don’t teach programming; we teach computer science.”
Industrial manager: “They can’t program their way out of a paper bag.”
…
Another CS professor: “I never code.”
Another industrial manager: “We don’t hire CS graduates; it’s easier to teach a physicist to program than to teach a CS graduate physics.”
…
CS professor (about a student): “He accepted a job in industry.”
Another CS professor: “Sad; he showed so much promise.”
You know, I find there is a huge discrepancy between what organizations need and who they hire. And maybe it’s because everything is happening so quickly that there is always an immediate need to hire RIGHT NOW. If organizations took their time in recruiting and developed a robust and multi-dimensional recruitment/interview plan, then maybe there would be higher expectations of candidates as well!
I believe a lot of the problem also stems from a sensationalized culture. We’re all infatuated with the latest fads and trends that old, tried and true is generally looked over for something more creative, risky and interesting. But when push comes to shove, generally the risky and fly off the seat of your pants new idea doesn’t pan out…and that translates to prospective employees…sometimes great ideas aren’t enough…you need the brass and experience to execute and that seems to be becoming obsolete. Again, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior, so new recruits need to show us what they got and what they can do…not merely bombard us with ideas…
You know it is really odd that you talk about this subject, since it is exactly what I heard from my employer today. He said “We needed someone new to expand our business, because my colleague and I cannot do this on our own. We needed someone who would make us realize our plans, otherwise they are just ideas…”
This post is particularly interesting, since it is what I have devoted myself to do in the past 2 years. Not just in my career, but also in many aspects in my life. Unfortunately, I have stumbled upon people who are unwilling to change or who just procastinate… And as Bruce Lee would say (even though he was a movie star…) : ” Knowing is not enough, you must apply; willing is not enough, you must do.” I don’t like to prove myself to anyone, but unfortunately when we start it must be done. And this cannot be accomplished by selling silly ideas instead of your own experience as limited as it may be.
Also now that I think about it, I have been told time and time again that you must demostrate passion. Nothing is better for an employer than employee who loves his job. Selling ideas doesn’t show that you will be loving what you do… Let’s face it, most historical figures suceeded because they were passionate, persistant and risk takers. My favorite being Caeser Augustus, who before being the greatest roman emperor of all time was Octavian. And he was passionate with only one goal, taking the throne. He was a hot head and had alot to prove (like myself), since by roman standards he was considered almost a child and unable to lead an army; but you know he learned from his mistakes and he defeated Marc-Anthony who was by far a better general. This being said, he would never have accomplished this by only writting about what he could do in a papyrus.