Job search secrets: Seek out the hiring manager, and skip HR

Dear Bob …

I live in a large metro area that has a fairly high unemployment rate. I have been looking for work for over a year now. My resume seems to be well done, as I get contacted two to three times a week about job openings. I have a wide range of skills, and I can claim the following:

• I have genuinely good references.
• I am willing and able to learn new skills.
• I am willing to relocate.
• I am willing to take a lower salary than what I made before.

[ Also on InfoWorld.com: Learn how to play the numbers game when looking for a job. | Keep up on career advice with Bob Lewis’s Advice Line newsletter. ]

Time after time, I have had what seemed like good interviews but was told that I didn’t possess exactly what they were looking for. In several cases, I checked and the positions were genuinely still open months later. My feeling is that employers are being overly cautious about filling postions and making sure that everyone they hire exactly matches their skills criteria.

Of course, some of it could be they don’t like me, or it could be that at the age of 54 they may consider me too old, or it could be other things — but a lot of it appears to be hesitant employers who know it is a buyers’ marketplace.

What do you think?

– Hunting

Dear Farming …

I know of plenty of employers who go for the perfect skill-to-task match. It’s a terrible idea — it’s a great way to hire coasters (people who have learned everything they’re going to learned and plan to coast to their retirement) — but that says nothing about its popularity.

That you’re getting contacted suggests you’re relying on Monster and CareerBuilder. They’re a low-percentage game — less than 10 percent of all jobs are hired through all of these services combined, according to the numbers I’ve seen. As you’re being contacted through these services (assuming my inference is correct), your first conversation with the hiring firms is with HR.

There are companies with enlightened HR organizations that understand the difference between a perfect skill-to-task match and a great potential hire. I wouldn’t describe them as common, but they certainly exist.

Most go the skill-to-task-match route, though, because (1) it’s easier to do; (2) it’s more “objective” (less reliable but more objective); and (3) it prevents lawsuits from unhappy applicants who didn’t get the job.

Contrast that with the hiring manager’s thought process. Hiring managers have problems they need solved without having to invest a lot of their time in hand-holding. They aren’t looking for the perfect match of skills to requirements. They’re looking for employees who know how to acquire the requisite skills as needed so that they can deal with whatever comes up.

Put simply: When HR gets involved, its goal is to play it safe, so it insists on a level playing field and a fair process. Hiring managers want to invest as little time as they have to, while still ending up with a great hire.

Most positions are filled through personal referrals, not through the “standard process,” which means your resume is less important than you’d think. Your personal connections will likely tell the story. Interestingly, I’ve read that the single most important online resource for companies looking for qualified applicants is LinkedIn — which strongly suggests companies are starting to recognize the importance of personal referrals as a more reliable source of good applicants.

It’s hard to comment without knowing how you’re going about your job search. All I can say is do everything you can to contact the person at the potential employer whose problems you propose to solve. Otherwise, you’re handicapping yourself.

– Bob

This story, “Job search secrets: Seek out the hiring manager, and skip HR,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Bob Lewis’s Advice Line blog on InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.