Be Careful, Targeting = Disqualifying, not Qualifying
October 20, 2009
According to Labor Department statistics, there are currently about 6.3 unemployed workers for every job opening in the United States, on average. To put that in perspective, there were 1.7 unemployed workers for every job opening as of December, 2007.
This is certainly good news for employers. The opportunity to find great talent hasn’t been better in a long time – at least since the last time unemployment was this high in 1982.
It is certainly easy, when faced with the overwhelming task of trying to find the best employee for your organization, to forget the simple but powerful truth that no one is better positioned than you to qualify the top candidates for your employment opportunity. The danger that comes with losing sight of that simple fact – that you are the best at qualifying and offering jobs to great people – is that you will settle for someone who is not the best, or settle for hiring one person when there are many great candidates out there.
Recognizing the difference between the two and the benefits of disqualifying, first to increase your productivity by investing less time and fewer resources into the hiring process, and then spending that time and using those resources to qualify those who have the best odds of being successful based on your expertise, is the most beneficial and simple way to get the greatest return to your company.
Disqualifying must not be mistaken for qualifying. Disqualifying candidates means focusing your search on only those with the greatest odds of being a stellar addition to your organization. Qualifying is finding the best of that group. Searching only among those with experience in your particular business, or within your geographic area often seems like an easy start to disqualifying, but is just as often a mistake since the best person might not come from that background (unless you work in a very specialized industry needing particular qualifications).
The fact remains that you probably don’t have the time or resources to look through hundreds of resumes for every opening – let alone calling and interviewing all of the candidates. Targeting is a simple solution to this dilemma. Targeting is the act of filtering out those who have an extremely low probability of being your ideal candidate. An easy example would be to disqualify those who don’t have a law degree if you are looking for a lawyer. On the other hand, a decision (which seems rationale on the surface) to disqualify those who do not work for a law firm could mean you miss out on a talented lawyer who is working for a large company in their legal department and is interested in making a change.
Targeting helps you start your search by disengaging those who aren’t qualified for your position. Great employees are everywhere – more so now than in the past 30 year – so you don’t want to miss out on them by confusing qualifying with disqualifying.
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