They come in all shapes, colors and sizes. They abound in Human Resources and in the minds of the most traditionalist hiring managers . And in Latin America especially.
Even in organizations that pride themselves on having the best practices in terms of human capital, in Latin America (a concept that I will return to shortly) we encounter resistance when it comes to hiring people who do not exactly meet the imagined «ideal».
So those of us who act as recruiters find ourselves, for example, with candidates who exceed the required skills in many cases, but who for some reason are out of the labor market. When we look at their resumes, we find that they have been unemployed for some time (for whatever reason), that they are in an age range that many fear (over 40 for example), that they have an extraordinary education and yet they have not held extraordinary positions or worked in extraordinary companies (?).
That if he is of a certain age and has a lot of experience, why would he work here as an analyst? Why did he decide to dedicate himself to his children? That I don’t believe him that he was not dismissed. That he must be «out of training», that he must be unaware of the latest trends in the area. That if he joins, he will stay a few months and then leave the company. That he is too young and his generation does not like to work too much. That he has children and will be absent frequently, etc…
All these objections are easily refuted or even irrelevant if we focus on the here and now of the candidate. On her knowledge, skills, desire and need to work and face new challenges.
Let’s go back to a concrete example: if we have a woman with small children, separated, as a candidate for a position that requires frequent travel, am I – the recruiter – really responsible for determining that she will not be able to travel and therefore I have the right to rule her out of the process? Even if she is unemployed?
Or is it my responsibility to let her know all the variables and requirements at play in the job profile, tell her exactly what percentage of travel she will have on a monthly basis and discuss with her if this is a challenge she could meet?
Why does this strategy work in North America and not in Latin America?
We know of countless cases in which Latin American management takes precautions in cases like this, and when the candidate in question faces the final interviews with the line in the USA, for example, she gets through them without any problems.
The great advantage of recruiting in the USA or in American companies is that they are not allowed to inquire about the personal life of the candidates. I would like to ask HR Managers in these types of organizations if they have really had problems with employees whose personal lives have been disregarded when hiring them. I doubt it.
Fellow recruiters: let’s stop asking questions that don’t interest us, that make candidates uncomfortable, that only show insecurity about the comfort our company can give our employees, that they are going to be around for a while and «leave us in the cold».
Let’s also give the candidate the possibility to choose us; we have to know how to sell ourselves, sell the organization we represent and provide them with transparency about the process and the challenge we offer them.
If, as much as we claim to be, we really are a company that caters to the professional and personal needs of its employees, we shouldn’t worry about the fact that they might leave soon, should we?