To think that transferable skills barely matter anymore, it’s “have you done the exact job before or not?”

[ByAdaptableKoala]

I was talking with a colleague and she was saying that five years ago, if you had transferable skills and the right mindset, you’d be considered for the job. But that now, if you haven’t done that job for at least a year, you’ve got no chance.

I’m staring to agree. I’ve seen more and more roles (even mid-level ones) where the hiring seems so rigid - as if potential and adaptability don’t count anymore.

AIBU to think the job market’s lost its imagination a bit?

Totally agree, companies seem to want such specific experience that half the time I think they could only possibly employ the person currently doing the job already!

This has been my experience too. Extremely frustrating!!

Employers seem to want years of education & experience for a starting salary!

I've certainly bean told with 2 rejections, "while you've got ten years experience canning butter beans, I'm afraid we're going to hire someone with a kidney bean canning background".

I think this has come about because instead of when someone leaves, an internal candidate just gets promoted into the job, they now have to advertise even though they know they’re going to give the job to someone internal. So as they’ve got someone lined up, they may as well be really rigid.

Such a waste of time for everyone external applying for it.

This analogy made me laugh - thank you! 🤣

It's probably very job specific. In lower down jobs, the hiring doesn't make sense at all. There's often no experience and they often don't have to do what they are paid to do.

This is entirely due to the expansion of the HR industry - who seek to commodify and rigidify everything.

My best employee (in finance) came from a background in manual labour.

Thankfully, HR were not overly involved in that choice.

It’s in part due to years of companies paring headcount to the bone.

Remove management layers (always proposed as an efficiency) and suddenly a manager has 20 direct reports instead of 10. They no longer have capacity to support or develop them. They need individuals who can just get on with it with minimal manager (or peer - that 10 will be doing more with less) input.

We unfortunately are very prescriptive with recruitment for this reason.

yanbu
it is so unfair
in the nhs, if you already work in the nhs, you have a chance,
anyone outside of the nhs, very small chance
it is so close minded in my opinion

Topcat- not in our case. We control recruitment for our team and HR act according to our instructions. We interview, sift and choose, not HR.

I'm waiting to hear about an internal role and have been through three rounds of interviews. Been told it's between two of us. I definitely do not have the exact experience and the hiring manager actually said in the first interview that he was open to hiring for mindset and could see how the skills I use in my current role would transfer across.

The process started with me asking if someone would talk to me about whether it would be a realistic move in the future. I hadn't necessarily intended to apply for the role right now. The senior manager in the third interview said that they thought more people should do what I had done and put themselves forward and show curiosity.

But perhaps that approach is something companies are more open to with an internal applicant.

although we do give people a chance, one was absolutely rubbish, lazy, and useless, and difficult
and one, totally out of her comfort zone, and left to go back to her previous very different role
in the interview process they get more points for experience and you really have to fiddle to get transferrable skills to lead the way

It's also because the job market is so competitive and so many people are applying for each role. I've been down to the final round of quite a few jobs recently and when I got rejected it was some paper-thin difference the other person was chosen for. One of the tiny desirable experiences the other person had that I didn't. So frustrating.

I think this is often accurate.

In my workplace we fairly often have an opening with internal applicants, and it's a workplace with really limited options for moving up or increasing pay, so I really do like to try and make sure people I already have are given some priority for any jobs, be they a move up or, more often, a lateral move.

But the rules we have means we almost always need to interview. I also find that the managers the next level up from me aren't all that creative in their thinking even when we are hiring from outside. But again, part of that is because we are supposed to ask every person the exact same questions, so not much chance to follow up on things that come up unexpectedly.

I found this when I was job hunting recently. I was finding it really frustrating. I also found that you need the certifications and experience.

I was lucky and found a company willing to give me a chance working with a technology I'd never even heard of and one I was vaguely familiar with, but it took months and many rejections from jobs I was more than capable of because I didn't have experience of X, even though I had experience of Y which is an alsmot identical technology or because while I did have experience I didn't have the certification or vice versa.

I'm glad I didn't get all the other jobs now because I'm really enjoying the job I have but at the time it was really frustrating and disheartening being turned down for jobs I was more than qualified for because I had experience in, for example, administrating on prem servers but not servers hosted in the cloud or working with Aruba networks but not Cisco.

Yes. And of course if someone’s been doing really well in the organisation, they should be given that role. Mad to think they shouldn’t. Isn’t that basic CPD?

I suspect it's the job market. There's so many applicants for each position that they can afford to be picky. Plus what @Decisionsdecisions1 said about cuts in headcount.

I think so. And I always do end up giving that person the role, but I feel really badly interviewing people who I am 99% sure I don't intend to hire. I've tried in the past to send good outside candidates to other teams, or suggest other openings for them, when i can. But often I know they are coming in with almost no chance.