We are interviewing for a new staff position at work and have gotten a better batch of applicants than we have in the past. I think it might be in part due the fact that I rewrote the job description that was being printed up on some industry job sites to be easier to read than the 40 sentence sans paragraph breaks monstrosity that the computer software generates.

I still had to link to the monstrosity but I think my summary of the job and specific mention about what point in one’s career the position was suited made the process more welcoming and easier to understand. Given that the official job title, recategorized for reasons of “efficiency” some years ago, bears no hint of the performing arts, I am guessing my alterations helped catch the eye of people who might actually be qualified for the job.

Participating in this search process has illuminated some unpleasant facts about being a person looking for a new job.

Since I work for a state institution there are hoops people have to jump through that it wouldn’t occur to most search committees to erect. From the applications we received, I imagine that it didn’t occur to most of the candidates that they were supposed to explicitly jump through them. For example, one of the minimum qualifications (MQ) for the job is willingness to work nights and weekends. Most people in the performing arts would take it as a given that if they listed working on 30 performances annually on their resume, they were showing that they were willing to work nights and weekends.

Unfortunately, Human Resource people having no experience in the performing arts and even some committee members who do have the background look for specific reference to a willingness to work at these times before crediting that MQ.

One of the rules about resumes and cover letters is that they should tell a story about your experience. Naturally, the story you tell about yourself should be one that matches the requirements of the position. If you are highly educated and are applying for a position where you will be working with highly educated people, you may try to talk about your experience in a sophisticated manner. By this, I mean that you might reference how you were personally involved in the logistical arrangements necessary to transport equipment to various venues throughout the community before and immediately at the completion of an event.

You might feel this answers whether you can drive and are willing to work evenings and weekends. From the last 4-5 search committees I have served on, I hate to say that making awkward but explicit statements that you have a license and will work evenings and weekends may be best. Some of the committees I have been on haven’t be in my field or a state institution and I have spent more trying to convince people that all questions have been answered implicitly via the available information than I care to count.

In light of my experience on these search committees I wonder if I might have better served in my own job searches by writing, “I have a driver’s license; I work nights and weekends; I am detail oriented enough to transport the correct equipment for performances to remote venue we don’t own”, instead of trying to signal these things with the sort of example I used two paragraphs ago.

This sort of thing sounds hackneyed and grates against my pride in my writing ability. I wonder how many jobs I might have lost refusing to sacrifice the flow of my prose. (Which is not to say it can’t always use more work.)

I hate to say it, but search committees seem to use picayune points to disqualify applications because they don’t want to do the work of evaluating all of them. The more applications there are, the pickier people seem to get about things like Ph.Ds not listing where they went to high school.

The high school itself never emerges as a criteria for job selection. The person is eliminated because “if they can’t be bothered to fill in all the blanks, how good can they be?” Frankly, when faced with a form from an office supply store that asks what my high school major, minor and degree was and if I have a CDL license for a job that doesn’t require driving, I have to wonder if an employer can’t be bothered to create an application form that is pertinent to the position, how good a work environment can it be? (Happily, the form I had to fill out for my current job was both short and pertinent to the position.)

I should note again that I am not only referring to state institutions in these examples. There are a couple non-profit committees I have sat on that operated similarly. If a creative economy is indeed upon us, I have to think that the only way creativity is going to bloom in companies that use such rigid hiring criteria is going to emerge in spite of these practices. I understand that fear of lawsuits informs decisions to reduce subjectivity in the interview process. But it seems that some people use the structure to abdicate the responsibility to do a thorough job vetting the candidates and finding the best person to fill the position rather than the person best at filling out forms.