ASK HR: Why would a recruiter ask me to list my dream jobs?
What puzzled me was that the recruiter was seeking a receptionist, yet one of the requirements was that interested applicants list their dream jobs. PHOTO | NATION
What you need to know:
- The organisation might want to establish how ambitious a candidate is.
- It might also want to establish whether it can provide a conducive environment to enable a candidate draw closer to their career dreams.
- Recruiters aim to identify the most suitable candidates for positions they require to fill in their organisations.
- In the pursuit of this objective, they need to obtain the clearest possible picture of likely candidates.
Q. Someone posted a job advert in a WhatsApp group I am in a few weeks ago. What puzzled me was that the recruiter was seeking a receptionist, yet one of the requirements was that interested applicants list their dream jobs.
Could you shed light on why a recruiter would want this kind of information?
Organisations may differ remarkably in their recruitment approaches, driven by their objectives. One could only therefore at best speculate the reasons why the said organisation requires candidates to indicate their dream jobs as they apply for the position of a receptionist.
The organisation might want to establish how ambitious a candidate is. It might also want to establish whether it can provide a conducive environment to enable a candidate draw closer to their career dreams.
Recruiters aim to identify the most suitable candidates for positions they require to fill in their organisations. In the pursuit of this objective, they need to obtain the clearest possible picture of likely candidates.
The information requested from applicants helps recruiters to sift and narrow in on candidates befitting further assessment.
Unless a candidate’s answer to the question concerning their dream job is unequivocally bizarre, it is unlikely that an organisation will select the successful candidate solely based on the response to that question. In the end, the right attitude, qualifications and experience may influence the recruiters’ decisions much more.
Several permutations, rather than a particular series of roles, could lead one to a dream job. It is however important that such roles present opportunities for cumulative growth.
Jobs are akin to sections of a journey, with each helping one get closer to their destination. There are no ordained roles from which one must rise to the top of their aspirations.
It would therefore be ill-advised to scorn humble beginnings. To quote Charles Spurgeon, the late British preacher, “It is a very great folly to despise ‘the day of small things’; we see it every day, for the first dawn of light is but feeble, and yet by and by, it grows into the full noontide heat and glory”.
