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When Your Field of Expertise Is Hard to Explain - Or, the Curse of Undefinable Talents
I wish there was a simple answer to this, but I definitely feel the same and often feel like I'm the only one that thinks similarly to the article.
I think the issue is complex, but will provide my.02.
I've been searching for new work for a little bit and continually run into the "HR Issue". These are people that don't have the expertise, in my experience, to even sort through and identify unique candidates that have a variety of skills that could help the org. What they are good at is matching word-for-word or using automated systems that do this. As the article stated we could parse ourselves out to fill these other roles, but we/I refuse to be cut up. Our talents exist as the whole of our skills.
Some would argue that "why don't you just tailor your resume to fit that job req" and then get into the company first. Wouldn't that be the "smart" thing to do. I can only speak for myself, but that feels like selling a false bill of goods because then when you come into that new role and start to try and contribute in other ways our outside the job description it typically raises questions amongst the hiring manager. And it reduces us down to one or maybe two of our pieces, instead of valuing the "whole".
I've tried to combat this by asking the HR person, if I even get to talk to them, if I could have the opportunity to walk people through my story and show them specific examples of how I can solve problems. This rarely happens. The odd occasion that it does happen it's always well received, but I often get "you have a lot of great skills and experience, but we don't know where to put you in the org". I think this issue is a whole other problem. This seems to me, to be the lack of vision within an individual. The lack the skills to envision all of the ways a product designers skills and design thinking skills could apply to a variety of places across the org. I think this is a hard problem to solve. Most hiring managers that I've run into in Sr. roles seem to be MBA's or "product managers. I use those terms loosely. Meaning, that they lack the background around the creative space to figure out how to utilize this set of talents. So perhaps they just fall back on the boiler plate job requirements.
I think a video is and has been an option, but you still have to get the person to watch the video. Remember, these typically land in HR and most of the things I've read lately is that they have very little time to read cover letter, let alone watch videos.
In the end I believe the hiring of creatives can be improved by leaps and bounds because the new creatives/product designers/ etc (I still don't know how to classify myself) is going to be a tough battle.
My thoughts.
Jason
I'm not talking about a person sitting on a stool in front of a camera. I'm talking about showing us the nitty gritty of why YOU are so special that you have to send in a video in addition to your paper resume. Get those creative juices flowing and make a vid the interview won't be able to ignore.