"But are you the best fit?"

Happy May!  This month I am writing a letter that will be distributed to both professionals and corporate partners because I feel like the topic is pertinent to both sides and perhaps by opening up the topic to both sides we can seek to understand why things happen the way that they do.

Have you ever been in a position where you had to hire someone?  If so, does this sound familiar: you run an ad and you get hundreds of responses, of which, only 1/3 (at best) are actually a fit for the job you are trying to fill?  It is very frustrating, time consuming and a big reason many companies come to Part-Time Pros because they simply do not want to deal with this.  During the vetting process you find yourself getting very frustrated with the applicants who have obviously not taken the time to read the job description in its entirety and understand the requirements.  Sound familiar?    

I have a corporate culture in place at PTP and TMP that is transparent so I ask my recruiters to "call them out" when candidates do this.  One reason is to educate job seekers about how this can be viewed as disrespectful to recruiters, HR professionals or hiring managers.  The second reason is to seek to understand why they felt like they were a fit.  Some professionals truly do have a diverse enough background where 3-4 different jobs might be a fit.  However, someone being a fit for a CFO position as well as a Part-Time administrative assistant position is a far stretch.   We run into it a lot with our part-time or full-time jobs.   

With this said, let me explain what we do.  My husband Brett likes to equate PTP to the"e-harmony's" or "match.com's" of the world.   In a lot of ways he is right on!  We are a match making service for professionals and companies.  It is our job to find the best long term match for our clients and professionals.  We lose money if we do not do this well because of the cost of turnover and our reputation.  When a corporate partner comes to us, they have specific needs and it is our job to find the best person for that position.  We don't want someone who will come in that will be let go because they are not appropriate for the role or that they will leave because they are not happy in the role.  We do the very best we can during our sales/marketing meetings to ascertain the culture of our corporate partners.  And, we do the very best we can during our interviewing process to determine the personality and the skills of the person interviewing.  However, during both of these processes we rely on honesty.  We are only as good as the information we have.  We never underestimate the power of listening but we need information.

If a corporate partner is not honest about their management style, needs, budget etc. we will not be successful in finding a perfect candidate as we do not have all the information.  On the flip side, if a candidate is not honest about what they need- pay rate, part/full-time, skills, why they left past employers etc. we will not be successful placing them.    I recently posted on our social media accounts:  "what is the point of climbing the ladder of success if it is leaning against the wrong wall?"  Our job is to find the right wall for our candidates and to help our corporate partners determine what they need so that we can make recommendations as to who would fit best on that ladder. 

I would love to hear feedback from companies and professionals as to your thoughts about this topic.  To our corporate partners, is this a frustration you experience?  What have you done to help reduce it?  I think it is important that our job seekers hear this message from someone other than me.  To our job seekers, do you read the job descriptions in full and what are your thoughts as to why some people continue to apply to multiple jobs?

If I could leave you with 2 lessons they would be as follows:

Corporate Partners- Have solid job descriptions in place to help you find the right fit.  These provide a check list of minimum criteria you should expect from a hire.  Know what you need and what you would expect out of an employee.   We can help you write these!

Candidates - know what you need and what you are good at and only apply to positions that you are a fit for.  Don't be the professional to continue to apply for every open position.  Show that you are a professional and that you know what you are good at and go after those positions. I have heard of companies banning applicants because s/he applies to everything - don't be this person!

I hope you have a beautiful month of May.  Thank you for your continued support of Part-Time Pros and Tulsa Med Pros, I look forward to getting feedback from you!

 All our best,

Carey