Articles

Job Hopper
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Question:
Our current customer service supervisor burnt out after five years and we recently advertised for a replacement. We received more than thirty applications; but most of them were over or under-qualified. Worse, the four applicants who had the right qualifications all seemed to be job hoppers, having held their former jobs for less than one to two years.
We don't want to hire someone who'll use our company as a stepping-stone to a larger or more prestigious company. It will take at least six months for us to train our new hire and then if they leave in one to two years we'll lose that investment. Also, most of our customer service employees have been with us at least three years and we don't want to damage their morale by subjecting them to a string of short-term supervisors with different styles.

We'd promote from within if we could but none of our customer service employees really show they have what it takes to be a supervisor. Most of them use every day of their sick leave, take personal calls at work and waste time chatting. For this reason, we need a qualified supervisor to stay on top of things and really manage. Can you help us?

Answer:
First, you can't evaluate applicants by simply reading their resumes. Potentially half the applicants you view as over-qualified provided you "inflated" resumes in an effort to secure an interview. Further, because many of the best possible hires rarely seek jobs, some of those you view as under-qualified may actually possess the work ethic and good people and supervisory skills you seek yet not know how to present themselves effectively through a resume.

Second, although all of us value long-term employees, job mobility has become a fact of life. According to a recent study cited in Workforce, the average 32-year-old has held 8.6 jobs. Assuming most employees start their careers between ages 18 and 22, this means these employees changed their first seven jobs every 1.3 years.

This means you need to hone your interviewing skills so you can weed out the chronic job hoppers from those who simply haven't yet found their niche. Questions such as, "If you took this job, thinking it was an "A," job, what would tell you in six to eight months that it was only an "A-" or a "B+" job?", "What could your current employer do to keep you?"; "What would lead you to leave this job?" and "Assume we hire you and you work here for 2 to 3 years, where would you want your next job to be?" can help you sort those who may leave you regardless of what you offer from those who might stay - if you meet their needs.
Third, take a fresh look at the resumes of those you consider overqualified. Over the years, our clients and our company have had tremendous success when hiring apparently "overqualified" applicants. Each of these applicants applied for a less responsible job than their past qualified them for out of choice - either they wanted to change careers or had made a decision to step off a more intense career ladder. In every case, they won and so did the employers willing to see past the "over-qualified" myth.

Fourth, I urge you to revisit the possibility that you may have the best possible applicant already in your own company. What keeps you from telling your current employees the behaviors they need to change to become promoted? Have you considered interviewing the best of your current employees, telling each one the qualities you need in a supervisor and listening to how they might commit to giving it to you?
If you tell your current employees the truth about what currently holds them back, you lose little yet potentially gain much. First, you and one of your current employees might create a win-win situation in which you can promote someone who already knows your company, customers and employee team. Second, you can start to turn around some employee behaviors that, left unchecked, may burn out your new hire.
Thus, while you could rewrite your ad and sift through a new crop of applicants, you might get better results by making a list of the qualities most important to you in a customer service supervisor and conducting brief phone screening interviews with the best external applicants and having honest conversations with the best of your current employees.
Finally, if you want to turn this challenge into the ultimate win-win situation, apply the same scrutiny to your company you plan to apply to your applicants and employees. By your own report, you "burnt out" a supervisor and employ workers who use every day of sick leave, take personal calls and waste time. If you use this opportunity to examine what you need to change as an employer, you can make every ounce of your current hiring frustration pay positive dividends.