Skills Mismatch
I see this sort of thing fairly often when looking for jobs on Craigslist and other sites.
A firm will post an add looking for an entry to intermediate level attorney. The add will mention some low levels of experience. Usually anywhere between zero to three years. The job description also seems to match a low-level of experience.
A few days or a week later the same firm will post the same ad with the same requirements.
I’ve seen this go on for weeks at time every now and then. It is very frustrating and dispiriting to people like me who have been freelancing for many years and are trying not to.
I have some random thoughts on why this happens:
1. The employer was hoping for someone at the upper-end of entry level or intermediate and did not get any or enough applications.
2. They still are using the recession mindset and are hoping to catch someone with significantly more experience for entry or intermediate play.
3. The skills I’ve gotten from a few years of freelancing are still not good enough for entry level. I’ve done more than document review but have yet to take depositions or make significant court appearances.
4. There is a suspicion about people who graduated from law school during the height of the law school crisis or have too much project and freelancing work on their resume. I can’t confirm this but I’ve often wondered if three years of freelance and contract work is suspicious looking. Why can’t Saul land a permanent position as a question instead of here is a guy who managed to work as a lawyer for three years while many of his contemporaries took on non-legal assignments!
5. Other things or some combination of any and all of the above.
There are lots of people my age out there who are suffering similar fates as we hear more and more about the gig economy and embracing freelance but it is clear that people are starting to hire again as well but positions stay open for a while. There are also lots of stories about clueless HR departments asking for someone to have 10 years of experience with a program or code that has only been on the market for 3-5 years. This is not something unique to the legal market.
The issue is that no one seems to have a solution to the problem. The obvious solution is for everyone to be a bit more reasonable but that is easy to write and hard to get people to do.
On the Employer side, it means realizing that if you are posting a position that is entry level, the candidate is not going to be super-skilled and they might need training. On the Employee side, it means hustling a bit to get your skills up.
Any other thoughts?
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Consider two people trying to fill a job. One of them needs a person right away, or reasonably quickly. He’s looking to balance experience and credentials with availability – in other words, hire the best person he can reasonably expect to find. He’s willing to trust his judgment during an interview. The second person is looking to fill a slot he doesn’t have to. He’s willing to wait it out to get the best candidate imaginable.
Everyone who’s hiring is the first person. Everyone in an HR department is the second person. The HR guy has to worry about the company being sued if they hire one candidate who appears less qualified than another in any quantifiable way, so he’ll always push the qualifications as high as he can, and never allow anyone through who has a less-than-100% resume.Report
If it was software, I’d say the add was placed solely for legal purposes, with all applicants being rejected (for one reason or another) and then used as proof that no American worker fit the job, ergo a visa worker can be used. A cheaper visa worker.Report
Or that you already had someone in mind and sent out the opening solely for form’s sake, to allow that person to come in through the standard application-and-hire process.Report
Morat’s Right:
The other caveat is often jobs get posted with applicant already interviewed and decided upon. HR won’t let you get away with saying “But I LIKE Jim, and he’s available, and he’s Cheap!” So you wind up interviewing a lot of people.
I’ve been in interviews where 5 minutes in, the guy has totally tuned me out. “So totally not going to hire you.”Report
It doesn’t have to be a position being held for offshoring, though. State agencies often have to post a job for a period before hiring from within by law. Companies often have a policy of doing so.Report
…Maybe that’s basically what you meant, Kim, sorry. 😉Report
Specifically to law firms, don’t take that ad reposting as a rejection.
A lot of firms who need to hire one person want to start with a huge pool (say, 30+ applicants with a non-disqualifying resume), so they do that first including via multiple ads over time. Then, when the pool is assembled, they start interviewing/culling. That takes time while the position is “open” but isn’t a skills mismatch.
That said, the real problem is that firms tend to hire one at a time, so it’s just an idiosyncratic process.Report
This sounds about right to me. Along these lines, it may also be a firm with high turnover in those positions (which is quite common for that level of hire) that, as a result, likes to keep a stockpile of resumes. It may be looking for a particular type of profile for that stockpile as well.
Also, a lot of times these ads are placed by agencies who, for obvious reasons, are looking to build a stockpile of resumes that they can immediately turn to whenever a client has an opening.Report
I don’t know about other sites, but on Craig’s List, when I’ve posted items for sale on there, I regularly repost the same (or a slightly edited ad) to keep it near the top of search results.Report
Also, it could be a company doing “salary research”. Looking to find out what types of folks are out there with these skills, what the resume’s look like (in terms of actual experience vs minimum stated in the add) and what the applicant’s salary requirements are vs the pay stated in the add, if any.Report