Connect with your passion

In a previous post, I went through a scenario to show why many job seekers and hiring managers end up with poor outcomes. In fact there is data to suggest that this is widely true. Online recruiting typically results in an 11% yield - a classic outcome of the scattershot approach to finding the right opportunity and the right candidate. And even if placements rates were higher, there is very little information about placement success - i.e. the longevity and performance of the candidate in the position post-hire. Did they like their job? Were they successful?

Here's what I think the missing link is: job requirements have become harder to state explicitly while job matching techniques have remained stuck in the "keyword matching" phase. Job requirements have become more subjective for a number of reasons, among them increased globalization, an emphasis on collaboration, individual empowerment and hands-off management styles. Job matching still largely consists of keywords searches on online databases, or quickly reading through a resume (which also amounts to a keyword search).

What's needed is for matching techniques to catch up to the increased complexity of job requirements. Can you really communicate in a resume or a set of keywords what you really want to be, what excites you, what your hopes and dreams are? We need a way to connect people with their passion. I recently met a talented entrepreneur - Siamak Salimpour - who is trying to do exactly that at CareerSpice. In some ways, CareerSpice is attempting to do for the job placement market what eHarmony claimed to do for the personals market - i.e. a better job of matching people based on a much deeper analysis of the relevant attributes. He's still in the early stages of his product launch, but I wish him every success - we need more ways of connecting people to what they really want to do.