This article perfectly describes why organizations are having difficulties hiring new people. One can notice how formality and process prevail over purpose and objectives. While the business environment changes and is more dynamic, HR's way of thinking and approaches remain frozen for decades. Let's look at each reason a bit deeper.
"Irrelevant experience". In my practice, the most common job ad is the one that has a title and a body that describes a different position. Sometimes two, three, or even more jobs are mixed together. We should ask instead if the job ad and description indeed match the vacancy and need.
People always have skills and experience. Both they can obtain in work. And also in some work unrelated activity – hobby, raising children, traveling, some random activity, etc. Many skills are interchangeable and applicable in many jobs and professions. Into this mix, we will bring an HR manager, a person with usually small or no education, and often with some semi-idealistic world view, to match people with positions. It may result in an user experience guru getting rejected because UX is what they are searching for.
But there are also special circumstances. If your profession is A, and there is only a limited number of companies offering such jobs, it can quickly happen that you get rejected from all of them. Then you apply for a job B, which a similar to A. And then for a job C, which is less similar but still ok. And then at some point, if e.g. crisis or some disruption occurs, you just apply to any job. There are also living situations when people prioritize different reasons than career or best-paid job prospects. It is because suddenly living priority is to get a job in a particular place (taking care of a dependable person) or in a particular timeslot (copy the schedule of children in school). The motive can be also relocation from a place where there are no possibilities to grow or make a meaningful living. You apply for an irrelevant job, because there is not many other options.
That is why I have started to organize the Agile Recruiter course https://bit.ly/3qY2mTA. I want to help HR recruiters understand what is their role about. And equip them with some tricks and ideas to play with when they create their new approaches.
