What Job Seekers Really Want – The Meaning of Meaningful

In spite of the headline indicating a close look into a job seeker’s wants and needs, this could also be an article on employee retention. Another thing you won’t find in the recruiter’s job description is undue concern over the length of time a new hire stays with a company. Even if through some twisted logic the resignation of an employee could be blamed on the recruiter that found and cultivated that hire, most corporate hiring metrics are so shallow that it could never be proved. Quality of hire is difficult to measure so most of the time it is ignored.

How do we offer meaningful work to external job seekers? There are consequences of choosing the wrong job so it is important for this dialog to work. Unfortunately, this means different things to different people.

If I had not gone into Monty Python, I probably would have stuck to my original plan to graduate and become a chartered accountant, perhaps a barrister lawyer, and gotten a nice house in the suburbs, with a nice wife and kids, and gotten a country club membership, and then I would have killed myself. – John Cleese

There are huge differences in applying the same skills to various possible roles. People need to feel that they are productive and that they are not only using their acquired skills, but taking them to a new level. The same basic skills necessary for designing systems, programs, and devices are also necessary to maintain those things. The exception is that the thrill of adventure necessary for so many is missing from a routine daily grind. Each candidate for employment must be matched not only to the requirements of the immediate opening, but also evaluated for future potential. That future will be short lived if rote daily tasks mean stifling individual initiative and creativity.

Long before there were reality TV shows like Hotel Impossible in which an expert shows up to fix a horribly managed hotel there were experts that did exactly that. Calvin Brown (1915 – 1995) knew the hospitality business inside and out. He could have managed any hotel successfully for an entire lifetime, retired gracefully, and lived happily ever after. Life would have been low stress except for the fact that he would have probably John-Cleesed himself out of boredom. Prominent hotel chains hired him because of his ability to take charge and turn around many failing properties. His reputation was unparalleled… probably because no slick talking recruiter ever tried to make him settle down in one place.

One difficulty in getting the truth about a job seeker’s real need is that they lie. This is not a malicious act to do something dishonest, but an act of self preservation. Even when presented with the most boring aspects of a job they will never hint that this is not exactly what they have always been dying to do. It takes maturity on someone’s part to look past the immediate tasks and honestly state, “I can do that, but I am also looking to do more.” Past performance is an indication of future performance so plotting that imaginary graph of personal growth in previous jobs gives some indication of their potential and their real needs.

 
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