Why are good people rejected during a skills shortage?

‘Employ good people and get the hell out of their way’  That was the secret to success as told to me by an old guy from the US that had successfully built a famous business from the ground up over decades.

I was early in my career at the time and his words stuck with me because I knew that one day I wanted to start a business.

Often I hear from very skilled and experienced people that are frustrated about being turned down for jobs because they are ‘over qualified’ or that have lost their job during a ‘workforce skills crisis’ – to quote some rural media headlines.

So what is really going on here?

Recently I had a conversation with the owner of a successful up-and-coming food company at an industry function that shocked me.

He was in the process of interviewing people for a part-time sales and marketing position and had just completed another ‘frustrating’ interview that afternoon.  He was offering good money for 2 days a week.

“I can tell you now we won’t be employing this one – he’s overqualified” he recounted.

“What do you mean by overqualified?” I asked.

“Well, I can’t understand why this person bothered to apply to work for us”.  The owner went on to explain that the applicant had high-level food wholesale and retail sales and marketing experience in Australia; and had also previously held high-level food sales and marketing category roles with one of the UK’s leading retailers.  The applicant was a treasure chest of knowledge, experience and skills for selling food products to retailers.

Suspecting the owners perception of this applicant was that they wouldn’t hang-around; I asked if he thought the applicant to be genuine.  “Did you ask what attracted him to apply for the position?”

The applicant had explained during the interview that after a number of years working in high-level roles around the world, he had returned to Adelaide with a young family and was looking to apply his ‘know-how’ locally on a part-time basis for some work/lifestyle balance.  

I could see the owner was still unsure why this applicant was willing to accept such ‘low’ money in a ‘low’ job and therefore what future risks did this present his business.  Was the owner low-balling the position?

“Gee” I said “Why don’t you just exploit him” half-jokingly. 

 

Maybe the owner actually didn’t want someone that knew more than him.  I felt the owner might have been interested but maybe wanting to self-talk his way out of it.

“Have you ever thought about approaching this situation from a different angle in order to engage this person’s skills in way that would make you more comfortable?” I said.  “It would be a shame to push this applicant away”.

After a bit of discussion about such things as flexibility, reducing recruitment costs and interim contracts with specific outcomes, the owner finished by saying “We won’t consider other options – we want someone for ourselves”.

I started to get the impression that perhaps the position wasn’t available – if deep-down the owner wanted to keep control of thiings.

I think I finished things up by commenting “I have to say, if it was my business I would find a way for this person to work for me and not my opposition”.  No answer.

During my one-and-a-half hour drive home that evening, all I could think about was why this employer would not recruit the skills and experience of the applicant.  I was very frustrated.  He would probably end up with a lessor person that wouldn’t deliver in the position; and complain that due to the skills shortage good people can’t be found.

This situation reminded me of a book written by Wharton Management Professor Peter Cappelli called ‘Why good people can’t get jobs: Chasing after the Purple Squirrel’.  It caused quite a stir when it was released.  http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=3027