Lack of opportunity or lack of competency?

"Ma'am, hiring po kami. I-try niyo po." (Ma'am, we're hiring. You may want to give it a try.")
"Ma'am, call center job po."
"Hiring po, ma'am."
"Try niyo lang po." ("Just give it a try.")

Those were the words of four different recruiters who approached me separately along different streets today. They were hunting for call center agents. I politely smiled and shook my head to all of them. They reminded me of my previous encounters with recruiters like them years ago. Back then, few of the recruiters would even attempt to have you for few minutes at the start of their screening process. They were desperate to get candidates for their performance rating. Years have passed and there are still these recruiters along the street. I keep thinking why is it so hard to find the right talents from a very wide pool of workforce like in the Philippines? If you ask those who are unemployed or underemployed, the general answer is that there are not enough opportunities in the country. Is it?

I myself have experienced the challenges of both being the job applicant and the hiring manager. As the applicant, I can not count the rejections I've been through since I started my corporate career. I have seen job campaigns which I applied to but are just being kept refreshed for several months. That tells me I did not make the cut and the company is having hard time finding the right candidate.

As the hiring manager, I've been frustrated countless times when we kept on running job campaigns for months on different channels but we are still not able to on-board a qualified candidate. There are millions of Filipinos looking for jobs out there and yet we can not hire for only few positions. Where's the gap?

While I agree that there is a big gap on the ratio of opportunities versus job seekers, I have been privileged to be on the other side of the table as the interviewer and see the challenge of finding the right talent. It lies on the qualifications of the candidates. In trying to understand why it is taking us so long to hire people, I regularly check endorsements from our HR department. That is when I realized that there were many candidates but majority of them haven't got the chance to reach their final interview with me. There were those who do not make it to the first paper screening because of poorly written resume. Others do not pass the technical and aptitude exam while others do not make it through the first interview due to falling short of different soft skills like communication, comprehension and relationship building, among others. This is the same case that I hear for job vacancies not just under mine in IT operations but also in other departments like HR and application development. When candidates finally come to a discussion with me, those who fail are the ones "with attitude."

For as long as there are job campaigns out there, I can not say that we lack employment opportunities. As a job hunter, you should assess yourself if you have the right qualification to compete in the workforce market. Accelerate self development if you find yourself wanting. Before you claim that there is no job opportunity for you, be sure to first have a "yes" answer to the question: do you have what it takes?

Whichever side you are, good luck on your job hunting or hiring!