Purple Squirrels
Purple Squirrels, Image Credit: Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
Purple squirrels are the ‘Perfect Job Candidate’ – the rarest of people that have the:
💎 Skills
💎 Education
💎 Experience that meets all the potential Employers key requirements
💎 Fit the workplace culture
💎 Have good soft skills
💎 In short they meet all the criteria
Is this a Sensible Strategy?
- One can certainly understand the thinking behind trying to get the most talented job candidates possible but where many employers and recruiters fall down is on delivery of this.
- You see it time and time again, the same job from the same company doing the rounds.
- The Job Hokey Cokey, where a company spends a huge amount of money in order to land the perfect candidate.
- Surprise, surprise they don’t find anyone that matches up to their unrealistic expectations.
- The job ends up not being offered to anyone, is re-advertised and the whole crazy saga starts again.
Unintended Consequences
Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
- The job remains unfilled
- More of the Recruitment Budget has been blown.
- The clock is ticking and your team is under ever increasing pressure, as they cover this unfilled position, between them.
- Disillusioned Job Candidates, who’ve been rejected are dismayed to see the same job re-advertised within days
Solutions
PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
How about if Recruiters and Employers did this instead:
✅ Hiring someone that meets most of their key requirements, which can really pay large dividends and is more of a win-win for everyone concerned.
✅ Get someone with the Skills, Education and Experience that meets most instead of all your key requirements (which is more realistic).
✅ Fit the workplace culture
✅ Have good soft skills
✅ Train candidates to pick up job-specific skills
In Conclusion
The strategy of strictly enforcing a policy of looking for ‘Purple Squirrels’ is a great idea in practice but without flexibility the results tend to be poor.
There are no clear winners as employers tend to screen out too many good job candidates.
Job candidates become frustrated with seeing the same job being advertised over and over again.
As we look to the future smarter employers and recruiters are already embracing the idea of helping and supporting job candidates.
This means they are attracting the best talent and the best people to develop.
Is there anything I’ve missed or you would like to add?
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Author
Jeff Parnell
✦ Founder of Garniche Jobs UK
✦ Founder of Garniche Jobs London
✦ Founder of the LinkedIn Group: Jobseeker Talk
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