According to Thomas L. Friedman in last week’s New York Times, employers are beginning to have less consideration for qualifications and are more inclined to discover whether you can add value.
In the article, Friedman says that it’s not about what you know, but rather about what you can do with what you know. This has meant the development of companies like HireArt, which help employers by designing job-specific online tests that candidates have to undertake before they reach the interview stage.
This process is beneficial in many ways. Employers gain the time that would have been spent trudging through hundreds of applications. With job seekers often tending to apply for any and every job, HireArt culls those ones and then minimize the group again through the written or video tests.
It may seem like a lot of effort, but in a time where roles evolve and change so quickly I think that it seems fair enough. A degree makes for a great basis - but when the tools you’re working with may have changed by the time you’re employed, you’re going to need a bit of entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to evolve. Even in my full-time job, the processes I face must have changed a bit at least every fortnight since I started.
The job market has become a bit about being flexible and able to reinvent the way things are done, especially in industries like media and marketing. It can be frustrating, considering the amount of time, money and study that goes into earning a degree. What do you think? Should more consideration be given to qualifications, or are systems like HireArt the way to go?