It's a Two-Way Street
When Candidates Are Required to Prove They Are Qualified,
Who Determines Whether the Organization Is Qualified for Them?
By Nichole SingletonVision Architect | Workforce Intelligence Strategist
We have spent a great deal of time teaching people how to become qualified for employment.
Get the degree.
Gain the experience.
Develop the skills.
Build the résumé.
Prepare for the interview.
Learn how to communicate your value.
Dress appropriately.
Research the company.
Demonstrate professionalism.
Show leadership.
Prove that you can perform the work.
And after doing all of that, the candidate enters an employment process designed largely around one central question: Are you qualified for us? I believe there is another question that deserves equal consideration: Are you qualified for me?
Employment is a two-way street
Yet somewhere along the way, we created a system in which the candidate is extensively examined while the organization doing the examining is often assumed to be capable simply because it has a position available to fill.
I challenge that assumption.
A Degree Has Value—But What Does It Prove?
Having a degree does not automatically make someone capable. That does not mean degrees do not carry weight. They absolutely do.
Education provides access to bodies of knowledge that have been developed, examined, challenged, refined, and taught across disciplines. Within those disciplines are principles, sciences, arts, theories, methodologies, logic, standards, and practices that provide a foundation for how a graduate may understand and eventually operate within the world. That foundation matters.
Knowledge can allow a person to operate more effectively because they are not required to discover everything solely through trial and error. They enter their experiences possessing concepts, language, principles, and intellectual tools through which those experiences can be understood.
But education and experience do not perform the same function. Education provides knowledge through which experience can be understood, applied, examined, and strengthened. Experience provides the conditions through which that knowledge is tested.
A degree, therefore, is not a substitute for experience. And neither should experience automatically be treated as a substitute for knowledge. The question is what happens when the two meet in the individual.
Can you function? (Keyword: Function. Beyond the match).
Can you take what you know and apply it?
Can you recognize what is happening when circumstances no longer resemble the textbook?
Can you make decisions?
Can you solve problems?
Can you adapt?
Can you produce the outcome the role requires?
That is where we begin moving beyond credentials and toward capability.
The Credential Is Not the Human Being
I have degrees. I also have experience. My professional experience has allowed me to demonstrate my capability as both a recruiter and a leader. Yet my own experiences in the employment market have caused me to question how organizations determine who is worthy of employment.
I have encountered remarkable individuals without degrees whose professional capability was undeniable. I have also encountered individuals with degrees whose ability to function made me question why we place so much automatic weight on the credential. And yes, I have encountered people who possess both: the educational foundation and the demonstrated capability to apply it.
That distinction matters.
Because if we confuse educational attainment with workforce capability, we can reject capable people because they do not possess the preferred paper while simultaneously advancing credentialed people who cannot effectively perform the function. The degree tells me something important about you. It simply does not tell me everything I need to know.
Now Turn the Interview Around
Here is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable. Organizations ask candidates to prove themselves constantly.
What is your experience?
What are your strengths?
Tell us about a time you handled conflict.
How do you lead?
How do you prioritize?
How do you communicate?
Can you meet deadlines?
Can you work under pressure?
Why should we hire you?
Fair questions.
But imagine the candidate conducting an equally serious examination.
How effective is your leadership?
How efficient are your operations?
Is this role clearly defined?
Are the expectations attached to this position actually aligned with its authority and resources?
Does leadership know how to utilize the capability it is attempting to hire?
Are your systems functional?
Is the culture you described during recruitment the culture I will actually experience after accepting the position?
And perhaps most importantly: Why should I work for you?
Now we have a two-way street.
Hiring Someone Does Not Mean You Are Prepared for Them
I recently watched someone accept a position under expectations that did not reflect the operational reality he encountered once inside the organization.
The person had been examined.
His experience had been considered.
His ability to perform the position had been evaluated.
He got the job.
But once he entered the organization, he encountered a different problem: disorganization and leadership conditions that affected his ability to function within the role as expected. That raises a Workforce Intelligence question that organizations should not ignore:
Was the organization prepared to receive the capability it hired?
We talk extensively about bad hires. We talk considerably less about what happens when a capable hire enters a dysfunctional system.
If operations are ineffective and inefficient,
If leadership lacks clarity,
If responsibilities are poorly structured, and
If expectations and authority are misaligned, or if the environment prevents a capable individual from effectively performing the function for which they were hired, the employee cannot be the only part of the system placed under examination.
The organization must enter the looking glass too.
Qualification Must Become Reciprocal
This is where I believe employment must evolve.
Candidate qualification matters.
Education matters.
Experience matters.
Capability matters.
Organizational qualification matters too.
The candidate should be examining the organization while the organization examines the candidate.
1. The organization is determining:
a. Can this person function effectively within what we are building?
2. The candidate should be determining:
a. Can this organization effectively utilize what I bring?
Those are not competing interests.
They are two sides of the same employment relationship. Because hiring should not merely result in someone occupying a position. The purpose should be alignment between human capability, professional functionality, organizational requirements, leadership, and the work that must actually be accomplished. When that examination only travels in one direction, organizations may continue asking why they cannot find the “right people,” while capable people continue asking why they cannot find the right organizations.
Maybe both sides have been standing on the same street waiting for the other one to prove they belong. It is time we recognize that the street runs both ways.
The employer is evaluating the candidate.
The candidate must be empowered to evaluate the employer.
And perhaps our employment decisions will become more intelligent when we finally require both sides to demonstrate that they are capable of what they say they are.
About Nichole Singleton
Nichole Singleton is a Vision Architect and Workforce Intelligence Strategist who examines human capability, professional functionality, leadership, workforce conditions, and organizational requirements to identify what helps—or prevents—people and organizations from operating effectively and efficiently.
Through Workforce Intelligence Strategy™, Nichole works with candidates and businesses to move beyond titles, credentials, and surface-level qualifications to examine capability, alignment, FIT™, and Organizational Value.
Her work challenges both individuals and organizations to examine the whole before separating the pieces—because the person seeking the opportunity is not the only side of the employment relationship that should be examined.
Explore Workforce Intelligence Strategy™:https://nicholewithanh.kit.com/workforce-intelligence-strategy
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