Karl Katzke

Seth Godin, who I otherwise regard as damned smart, wrote a blog entry about hiring today that he entitled what are you hiring for?

There’s tjree things that all of those hoops — the ability to write a “clever” cover letter, the desire to come for an interview, the clarity of purpose of their career as described on their CV or Resume — describe about a potential employee.
The first is their willingness to spend the time to do something right. To dress the right way, to have researched the company a bit… in general, to have prepared. Being prepared is just as important if you’re a janitor, a programmer, or a salesperson. It means the person enough to have done the job right.
The second is their communication ability. It’s easy to write a coverletter. Anyone who’s passed a high-school-level english course in any state besides California (where they’re still teaching functional illiterates to read — in their native language, of course — in 9th grade) can write a coverletter and resume. But did the person have the communication skills to express themselves clearly? How will those communication skills affect your business when the person’s communicating with a project lead and can’t communicate well enough to either understand the work they’re required to do, or to ask questions about that work that make sense and clarify points for them? Those are essential communication skills that are required in today’s workforce but are sorely lacking in the pool of job applicants.
Third, and potentially most important these days, is the person’s level of attention to detail. I’m a computer programmer. My attention to detail is pretty damned good. I still occasionally misplace a punctuation mark or something … I recently spent two days untangling a mess caused by a greater than sign instead of a less-than sign. How many two day delays can your business take? If a person doesn’t have enough attention to detail to notice that their name is misspelled on their resume (something I’ve encountered more than once!) how many delays are they going to cause your business or your suppliers or customers by their lack of attention to detail?
The reason that these hoops have existed for hundreds of years in almost unchanged form is that they impose a certain level of due process when hiring someone. Hiring employees is expensive. And even if she’s got size DD cups, if you’re hiring her for a programming job and she can’t spell her name right, that’s a bad sign. That, Seth, is why those skills apply to most jobs.