Previous Education and Job Experiences
Typically, when a director of personnel or human resource management officer looks at accumulated information regarding a job applicant, she focuses on the areas in which the applicant’s past jobs and educational experiences match with the needs of the job the applicant is seeking. The guiding principle is to find a person who has most of the requisite SKAs, but still will find the job to be a challenge. The Person/Job overlap, as it is often called, should be no more than 60-70%. A 90-100% person/job overlap tends to produce high initial performance levels. The new job occupant has little to learn about the job, having performed many of these functions in a previous job or having received extensive training in this specific function.
However, this employee may soon grow tired or bored, having little to challenge him on the job. Consequently, he may simply perform the job in a perfunctory manner and will be unlikely to adjust readily to any change. While the employee who prefers little challenge and maximum routine may have been desirable in the more stable times of modern life, she is rarely appropriate in rapidly changing organizations that are continually faced with unpredictability and turbulence. The other extreme is also undesirable. A low person/job overlap (of less than 40%) produces prolonged on-the-job learning curves or the need for extensive training and supervision. The employee is likely to feel overwhelmed in the job, with challenge far exceeding appropriate support.
This assessment of person/job overlap is not the only way in which to make use of the resume, job interview(s) and reference checks. An appreciative perspective suggests that attention be given to two areas. Obviously, attention should be given to areas in which the job applicant, now hired as a new employee, overlaps with the current job requirements. This is the standard person/job overlap analysis. Attention should also be given, however, to the skills, knowledge and aptitudes that will not be used on this first job. This second area of assessment is fundamental to the building of an appreciative organization.
In recent years, with our worldwide economic challenges, there has been not only widespread unemployment, but also widespread underemployment. Men and women accept jobs that make little use of the skills, knowledge and aptitudes they have acquired in the classroom or in previous jobs. Employers are now requiring Associate of Arts or Bachelors degrees for jobs that were performed in a satisfactory manner, ten to twenty years ago, by men and women with high school degrees. Increased education has not led to upward job mobility; rather, in most instances, it has led to more demanding job qualifications.
What about this over-education, over-qualified man or woman who just accepted a job in a 21st Century organization? How will all the skills, knowledge and aptitudes they have acquired be acknowledged and eventually used by their organization? Employees who have been doing work for many years that is far below either their youthful expectation or their preparation are likely to become demoralized, depressed and nonproductive. Despite all of their education and training, these under-employed workers do not feel fully appreciated. The extensive education and training they have received actually exacerbates the problem.
