There is an increasing groundswell of talented, experience, well qualified people who are losing their jobs and finding it difficult to find suitable alternatives. This is something that our political leaders seem to have issues understanding. There is constant talk of the rise in levels of unemployment masking the increase in the number of jobs available and that this discrepancy needs to be addressed. There is also a lot of spin around the idea that people are not prepared to take jobs which they consider beneath them. This, to me, is far more about blame shifting than any real phenomena of significance. I am one of those who are in this position. A previous high flyer with a strong sales career I had to take a career break to nurse my father through terminal cancer. Unfortunately this is something which is frowned upon within the corporate World but that’s another story, the upshot being that I am left at thirty nine years of age pretty much unemployable.
To some of you that may sound like an odd statement or a defeatist attitude but let me give you a little of the feedback that I get from the many interviews that I attend. Bear in mind as I do this that I manage to secure on average three interviews a week from an average of thirty two job applications. Can you tell that I like organised figures? These figures tell you one thing straight away. The powers that be are correct, there are job vacancies out there. In sufficient numbers that some weeks I can apply for fifty jobs that I am suitably qualified for. The number of vacancies is not the issue. The issue is that I am not alone in applying for those jobs. I had a chat with a recruiter for a pretty mundane sort of job. A telesales role for a finance company. She had had in excess of two hundred and fifty applicants for the role and was interviewing the top thirty. Pretty stiff competition.
I use this particular vacancy as an example because it highlights the root of the problem as I experience it. Bear in mind that I have fifteen years of solid, verifiable sales experience. I have managed and trained telesales teams. I have written successful telesales scripts. In short I could do this job standing on my head, and yet I didn’t get it. The reason, and being a salesman I’m pretty good at drawing out of people what they are actually thinking, was that the recruiter felt that I would be bored in the role and would move on after six months thereby wasting any time they invested in training me. They went with an eighteen year old straight out of school. Now the recruiter was at least partially correct, the job would not have presented a significant challenge to mje and so could perhaps have been described as boring, but this fails to take into account my professionalism which would mean that no matter how mundane the job I do it to the best of my ability.
The story is the same wherever I go. I am too experienced, too qualified, too high powered, whatever the reason the consequence is the same. Thank, but no thanks. This is the first time that I have been out of work. I don’t like it. I’m happy to take on any role from floor sweeper to managing director and I’m equally qualified to do either role having started me working life sweeping up on stable yards and having at various points in my career run departments and categories taking high level strategic decisions. So, I know from my own experience that there is a discrepancy between the idea of large sections of the unemployed being too picky, and recruiters with vacancies looking for the youngest, cheapest and easiest to dominate employees. Perhaps this will change as I am convinced that companies are missing out on a vast pool of talent that is available at a price point that has never been seen before. There are a lot of desperate people out there who are a bit older, a bit wiser and will work harder and smarter than you might think if you just give us a chance….
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