Throw Out Lofty Credentials, Academic Pedigrees When Hiring for the Digital Transformation

Written by Brian Buntz
October 23, 2019

Many businesses prioritize candidates with long tenures at previous companies. But they're scaring off good candidates.

These days, most organizations are in the midst of a metamorphosis. And the execs who lead them are frequently open to the idea that their organization’s culture must be redefined to remain competitive. Large organizations often want to become nimbler and startup-like, while startups seek to scale their business and grow more mature. Digital transformation is a common theme across the board.

Whatever the impetus, the push for a given organization to transform tends to have a degree of urgency. And as a result, in the quest to future-proof their business, many organizations look for digital veterans. They seek experts who can help do everything from strategizing, churn out code, engineer “smart products” or digitally enable existing operations.

Ironically, in the push to future-proof their operations, many companies become exceptionally focused on the present. They tend to want candidates with lofty credentials, whether those are technical certifications, academic pedigree or years of experience with niche software. There is often less emphasis on grooming talent.

While it is a commendable aspiration to have a team of certified geniuses, the focus on employees’ credentials can dissuade many talented candidates from applying for open positions.

The most common reason applicants don’t apply for an open job is because they felt they didn’t meet all of the qualifications, according to a 2014 article in the Harvard Business Review. That reason by itself leads 41% of women and 46% of men to not apply for a job. For women, fear of failing at a job for not meeting the requirements in addition to the desire to follow job application guidelines was cited by an additional 37% of would-be applicants as reasons not to apply for an open position.

The article concludes: “All three of these barriers, which together account for 78% of women’s reasons for not applying, have to do with believing that the job qualifications are real requirements, and seeing the hiring process as more by the book and true to the on paper guidelines than it really is.”

Sheila Ronning, chief executive officer and founder of Women in the Boardroom, expressed a similar sentiment: Frequently preaching a message of confidence to the senior-level executive women members of her organization, Ronning said a number of her members continue to ask, “Am I qualified?” (Ronning is speaking on a related subject at IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona later this month.)

Women in the Boardroom’s Sheila Ronning

The fact is, many digital transformation leaders had humble beginnings. The book “Alpha Girls” profiles female leaders for whom this is true: For instance, there’s Magdalena Yeşil, a Turkish immigrant who arrived in the United States with $43 in her pocket and later went on to become an investor and board member at Salesforce. And years before Theresia Guow became a highly successful venture capitalist, she had a job flipping burgers in Middleport, New York. The two other women profiled in the book, M.J. Elmore and Sonja Perkins, have similarly relatable backgrounds before they became Silicon Valley leaders.

In any event, organizations with unrealistic requirements are dissuading talented individuals with significant potential from applying in the first place. This fact is especially evident for many organizations looking to find talent with extensive experience in hot areas such as data science and cybersecurity. Earlier this year, Forrester Principal Analyst Jeff Pollard joked in a podcast titled, Let’s Reverse Cybersecurity’s Self-Inflicted Staffing Shortage: “We found a lot of cybersecurity leaders who wanted to hire MacGyver but paid like McDonald’s.”

A recent Forrester survey commissioned by ServiceMax found focusing on the service organizations found that 97% of 675 global digital transformation leaders struggled to find qualified talent. In the security industry, Cybersecurity Ventures estimates there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021. When it comes to artificial intelligence, a survey from the firm SnapLogic found more than nine out of 10 firms in the U.S. and U.K. made …