Hiring You for an ICT4D Job is High Risk

Imagine if you had to choose a spouse the way we hire staff. You put an ad online that says who you are and what you want, but without photos or talking about age, gender, race, or other protected categories.

You have 3-4 job interviews with them, none of which are anything like actually living with them, and then after calling around to a few of their ex’s, you have to get married to one of the candidates.

Would you be happy with that process? Probably not.

Yet that’s the way we hire people today, and depending on the job, you may actually spend more awake time each workday with your co-workers than your spouse.

How to Make Hiring Better

With such a convoluted hiring process, mistakes happen, and they happen often. Hence unhappy workplaces, job hopping, and the popularity of The Office.

So what can we do about it?

First, do your homework. Know what and who you really want to work with, and invest time and effort into meeting with many people at many organizations to find the fit that would make you happy when you change jobs.

Hence my constant push for informational interviews.

At the same time, you should be doing informational interviews – meeting with others to make sure that when an opening happens on your team that you know who you want to encourage to apply. No job announcement should be published without a preferred candidate in mind.

Now the preferred candidate may not win the job, but at least you’ll have a solid benchmark that will help you know when you’ve found the right candidate.

Good Luck to All

Regardless if you’re reading this looking for a job or staff, know that everyone feels your pain.

The modern way we hire is hard, high risk, and prone to failure. Do you best to find the right fit, and if it doesn’t work out, be honest with everyone and seek a better outcome.

Thankfully, we can all move on to new jobs, or even get divorced – I’ve done both! And it’s not a disgrace. It’s life.