Loosen up for better job fit

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As the economy hopefully picks up, employers may have a harder time finding the candidates they want. But Lincoln Crawley, managing director for ManpowerGroup of Australia and New Zealand, says tools such as "employability profiles" can help.

"The employers that will have the best competitive advantage around attracting people will be the ones that utilise these sorts of tools."

One-dimensional job descriptions and applicant CVs are not enough to pinpoint talent in today's workforce, says ManpowerGroup.

It recommends using detailed competency requirements to implement a framework for how a candidate can succeed in any given role.

But far from making the job application process more onerous for candidates, Crawley says employability profiles help employers and employees collaborate.

"We're not talking about employers focusing in on a 100 per cent fit for a specific role. In fact, we're saying that's not what they should be doing," he says.

Crawley says employers should define a success profile for a role which has enough flexibility to incorporate the hard and soft skills of candidates.

"It will be physically impossible for organisations to stay with that 100 per cent skills and style fit."

Hard skills are defined for a particular time and space because they can generally be taught, but soft skills may be harder to come by. The soft skill which a 2011 ManpowerGroup survey showed was missing most in the New Zealand workforce was "working collaboratively".

About 44 per cent of local employers said they experienced difficulty in filling critical positions last year. As employers learned to do more with less during the economic downturn, they held back on hiring candidates who they perceived as lacking the right qualifications.

With the rapidly changing demands on workers, employers are requiring a willingness to up-skill and adapt as much as they are looking for past accomplishments and skill sets.

This is where an "employability profile" can help. Candidates can use this as a personal sales tool and not just as a list of past achievements. They can show how their skills can help employers overcome the challenges they face.

Employers will need to learn to forgo a perfect skill match and look at what they can teach the candidate to help them fit into the organisation.

Employers are also looking for past achievements to align with the organisation's needs and goals.

Employers can use an employee's employability profile (or "job success profile") to ensure a candidate is compatible with the organisation. This goes beyond the basic information on a CV to determine what makes a job-seeker tick, what their values are, what their leadership potential is and if they can be relied upon to execute a wide range of responsibilities.

Crawley admits that the use of employability profiles will generally mean that recent graduates are even more disadvantaged.

"There is an absolute misalignment between what it is employers need today and what it is that educators are providing," Crawley says. "At the moment, we're not arming teachers, we're not arming career counsellors and we're not arming parents with the right visibility of what ... job functions and sectors are going to be growing to enable them to help guide their children into making the right choices."

Recent graduates as well as mature candidates should take control of their own personal development, Crawley says, even though up-skilling might be centred around an organisation. Workers should be focused on finding organisations which can guide them to enhance their skills.

He says workers should not pigeonhole themselves with online media such as LinkedIn, as it can paint a picture of inflexibility.

"Candidates need to be careful about how much information they put up and how specific the information is that they put on LinkedIn."

Crawley says a good social-media profile provides just enough information for a potential employer to want to ask a question of the candidate.

At a time when training budgets are stretched, Crawley admits that it's a bit of a catch-22 situation to need to up-skill a workforce. Employers complain that high turnover means they're just training people up for their competitors or to move on to different roles. But up-skilling the workforce should be seen as a retention tool.

Crawley says that using tools such as job success or employability profiles helps employers guide a worker's career path and focus them on moving up within the organisation. One form of up-skilling is what he calls "stretch projects".

These are assignments which stretch a worker's capability in the hard and soft skill areas. Stretch projects need a planned approach which ensures that the projects are achievable without burning people out.

"Individuals with flexible mindsets and agile skills and competencies are essential for leading and operating a business that must adapt to new market conditions daily."www.DavidMaida.com