Job Description

A candidate goes to an IT company for a interview. For the first round he is given written test what he was able to answer in less than the time he was allotted. Then he goes for his personal round of interview and he answers all the questions up to the satisfaction of the panelists. The final round of interview happens with HR and they tell him that they will inform him the outcome of the interview after taking the consent of all the stakeholders.

After several days of waiting, the candidate calls up the HR to know about the outcome of the interview. HR replies that he was not been selected and the reason was given that he was over qualified. He was amused and could not understand what is called overqualified when the position requires a person to be matching to the job description and clearing successfully all the skill tests whatever is required out of him.

Somehow, he gets hold on to a panelist to know as to how they felt that he was overqualified for the position. After the panelist went round about several times repeating same dialogues from the recalled memory, he understood why he was over qualified.

He was able to clear the test with high score where his panelists wanted him to struggle and score 40 -50%. He was able to answer all their questions and they didn’t have any more questions to ask. In fact they wanted him to know less than them. Why so? None of the bosses want to be challenged by his subordinates in terms of knowledge, skills or management. Otherwise their existence will be at stake.

Therefore, they always select a person who will be less knowledgeable, less skilled and dumb headed who will carry out their orders. And do not reason out, never ask any questions and will always say “Yes Boss”.

This is the story of most of the work place where two intelligent person and 500 donkeys slough every day. Job descriptions are actually a filter mechanism to filter out most eligible person and keep them aside. If you are adjudged by HR as match with job description by 100% and get a call for the interviews, be assured you get the ego of the panelists.

Frankly speaking, your job search today is a hit or a miss. Sometimes, you land up in an interview and you feel that interviewer does not know the requirement of the profile. Many a times, they look for a person who knows everything to an expert level. Many a times they look for a multi skilled person whether they have such requirement or not. Many a times they look for a follower. However, the job description remains the same for everything.

Morale of the story is, never believe in Job Description. Even the person who writes the Job description, he or she, also might not know for whom they are writing. Several times it’s just copied and pasted without checking the relevance. After many years of working, I have not come to know a fool proof way to land up in a job of your choice.  Rightly so, because it’s the job, for which you are employed and not the one, which you would like to be in. These are two different things. Often, we forget and mix them.