Experienced tech consultant and enterprise architecture PhD, Eetu Niemi, explores the importance of setting and meeting realistic expectations in the IT job market - both for employers and employees.
- Every organization wants to profile itself as modern, innovative, financially solid, a forerunner in diversity - and generally the best place to work. Naturally, not just anyone can work in such a great place, so also the positions have matching requirements. Nothing less than a world-renowned expert will do. You must have 20 years of relevant work experience, proficiency in all the technologies the recruiter can think of, a doctorate - and of course, be less than 30 years old.
- To have a chance of being picked, potential employees must do even better. They must take every achievement in their resume to at least the power of ten. “Implementing a SalesForce SaaS solution” turns into “leading strategic transformation on the enterprise level.” If their work history has unexplainable gaps, they need to invent “jobs” to fill them. Acting as a board member in your in-law’s startup or a neighborhood nonprofit will do nicely.
As a result, we arrive at a match made in hell. New employees will get fed up when they discover the truth behind clever employer branding. Still, they will need to suffer in a stressful or tedious job long enough not to ruin their resume. Employers will get disappointed when new employees cannot deliver to the standards they led the employer to expect. There is a thing called a probationary period - and it works both ways.
Still, you can be different! Let’s take a look at an alternative approach:
