Book Review why Good People cannot get Jobs by Peter Capelli
The title,Why Good People Can’t Get Jobs, in itself attracts attention. There are far too many out there who are not simply looking for work but who feel unjustly deprived of this fundamental right. As professor of Management at Wharton University, Pennsylvania, Peter Cappelli felt compelled to try and seek out the reasons why, although the economy is on a slow recovery, the unemployed continue to grow.
He points out in his book that one of themain reasonsfor the high unemployment is the companies themselves. Companies complain that there are not enough skilled workers to fill the vacant positions yet they are the ones who tend to embellish job descriptions with an unrealistic number of requirements. In fact, it is quite often the case that the requirements are such that only someone who has done the precise job before can fit the bill.
Another problem is modern technology. That is to say that when applications are not read by qualified personnel in the company which is hiring but are screened by a computer, it condemns those candidates who have not used the exact words the computer will pick up as cues for the ‘go ahead’. This aggregates the problem as a perfectly capable workforce is excluded. In other words, potential employers are not only seeking the impractical but are perhaps depriving themselves of worthy, worthwhile and willing employees.
Oftentimes in large organizations there is a gap between what is actually the case and what the employers think it is. Similarly, the top human-resource employee can have the wrong impression of what the situation actually is. The reason for this is the automated ways of work which does not allow for the human feel of things.
Mr. Cappelli’s book is significant in pointing out to companies their drawbacks and pinpointing the obvious: that young graduates cannot already have experience in a particular job if they have not been given the opportunity to work yet; previous experience being one of the requirements which future employers insist on. The book is quite clear in explaining that the unemployment rate is not due to unskilled workers, but what next?
Cappelli suggests that companies alter their hiring methods. Instead of seeking to put together the perfect employee much like in Frankenstein’s bride, they ought to put forward apprenticeships and offer training programs that will involve learning specified skills. This way companies will strike two birds with one stone; they will have their employee who will develop to their precise requirements. Much like tailor-made clothes. Finally, in an interview Mr. Cappelli sums it up by stating the following:
“The better thing would be to have some expert in human resources cook these job descriptions up. That's how it used to work. They're reality testers. They ask: Do you really need a Ph.D. to do this job?”
