The rocky edition is at the bottom of the post!
Unicorn job specs are getting more and more common, where unreasonable demands such as:
You can’t be more than 20, you need an MBA or a computer science degree with 15 years experience in a professional setting, and you also need to match our corporate tech stack perfectly, as if you were a previous employee, which you, by the way, can’t be, Never mind understanding and matching our corporate culture (that you have never seen or experienced)…
Then hearing leaders and recruiters complain about “there’s no candidates” after AI matching and removing any candidate that doesn’t fit these job specs, which almost guarantees 100% removal of any viable person.
I wonder why that is.
In practical reality, there is a few things that really matters.
If you see someone matching the basics, has the basic fundamental knowledge and seems to be the possible match, have a quick 10-minute call with them and figure out the rest, because that quick call will tell you who they are, their attitude and a bit of their pesonality.
Use the pre-scanning to sort out the chaff from the weeds, as in those applied, but do not have the industry experience or basic capabilities versus those who actually has it, because not everything is listed in the CV, but only told through their voice.
When hiring, you are NOT looking for a replacement of someone you never had, impossible combinations or someone to replace your previous employee.
What you are REALLY looking for, is a person that can solve problems, not just in a a specific tech stack, but genericly, one that can bring new fresh ideas, expand your business, their adapability, their general ability to solve problems and come up with new ideas, and most importantly, the right attitude, as this is the one thing that bridges them all and can work wonders, where the wrong one…
Anything else, is unicorn dreams.
There is no real shortage of people, just an extreme abundance of bad recruitment and unrealistic demands for combinations in job specs, that does not exist in real life.
The ones who looks beyond, is the ones who lands the good people.
Lyrics:
Unicorn Job Spec
Verse 1
Recruiter’s got a clipboard,
And a sparkle in their eye,
“Must be twenty, senior-level,
With a decade on the sly.”
They want startup grit and corporate polish,
MBA and code,
Five frameworks, three dead languages,
And “good vibes” on the road.
Pre-Chorus
They say, “We just need culture fit,”
Which sounds suspiciously like,
“Can you read our minds by Tuesday
And pretend you own a bike?”
Chorus
Stop chasing unicorns, darling,
They’re not hiding in the stack,
You want fifteen years’ experience
On a baby’s lower back.
Perfect match, exact same tooling,
Never needs to be shown,
But the real ones learn, adapt, solve fast,
And don’t cry when left alone.
Verse 2
The CV says “GoLang, Docker,”
But the job says “also React,”
Then Kubernetes, sales support,
And “light finance” as a fact.
“Must thrive under pressure,”
“Must be humble, must be keen,”
Translation: “We are chaos
In a Patagonia fleece.”
Pre-Chorus
You can scan a hundred résumés,
And still not spot the spark,
But a ten-minute intro call
Can light the bloody dark.
Chorus
Stop chasing unicorns, darling,
They’re not grazing by your desk,
You want plug-and-play perfection
With a halo and no stress.
Perfect match, same stack, same habits,
Same weird office tea,
But give me grit, a brain, some humour,
And the nerve to disagree.
Bridge
There’s no talent shortage,
Just a fantasy buffet,
Where every job spec’s drunk at midnight
Writing filth in HR grey.
“Rockstar ninja wizard wanted,”
With compliance and a smile,
Paying junior money proudly,
For a full-stack demigod profile.
Final Chorus
Stop chasing unicorns, darling,
Put the fairy dust away,
Skills can grow and stacks can change,
But attitude will stay.
You can’t hire perfect from a keyword,
You can’t filter out the soul,
So pick the ones who learn, solve, laugh,
And drag the mess towards the goal.
Outro
So here’s to the awkward intro call,
The CV that undersells,
The clever sod with no buzzwords,
Who can fix your burning hells.
The unicorn is fiction,
The job spec needs a drink,
Hire humans, not hallucinations,
And maybe learn to think.