Survey: HR Hiring Officials Overlooking Qualified Job Seekers

Despite working through a period where qualified candidates seem hard to come by, a recent Beyond.com survey supports the idea that poor communication is contributing to hiring managers and HR officials overlooking potentially qualified candidates. Rich Milgram, CEO of Beyond.com, thinks job descriptions are frequently either vague or overly specific and that HR staff may overlook otherwise qualified applicants due to uncertainty over what hiring managers want. Part of the failure in communications are between HR and corporate recruiters who may miss the more nuanced aspects of a job search or ignore applicants who would fit well but lack a complete list of potentially unnecessary requirements.

According to Beyond.com, a second problem is the use of overly-specific keyword searches by employers who are screening out quality candidates. And one of its recent online surveys showed that 25 percent of a sample pool of 1,700 job seekers said job descriptions were too limited and that recruiters were too uninformed of job requirements.

Milgram puts some of the blame on the rising number of layoffs in HR departments nationwide. The consequence has been overworked recruiters who lack familiarity with many of their clients.

Staffing firm Adecco’s Senior Vice President Kathy Kane said, “Fewer HR people have the time to ask questions of hiring managers to get all the intricate details.” But the bigger culprits are a skills gap and over selectivity of employers.