postings, titles inaccurate in tight labor market

Employers are pulling out all the stops in job postings and interviews as they jostle to stand out amid a near-record 7.4 million openings and attract a dwindling pool of qualified candidates.

While some businesses glamorize routine jobs with over-the-top titles, others oversell the level of responsibility and opportunity for promotion or soft-pedal the amount of hours and dreary tasks required.

Many workers, in turn, are griping that the positions they took don’t reflect the job descriptions or interviews that got them in the door.

“There seems to be a disconnect between what employers are saying they’re looking for and what the job turns out to be,” says Ian Siegel, CEO of ZipRecruiter, a leading job board.

Complaints that jobs aren’t as billed aren’t new. But, Siegel says, “In a market where employers are in a dogfight for talent, they are more than ever trying to dress up their job listings.”

Just 47% of workers believe job descriptions reflect actual responsibilities, according to a recent survey by recruiting and software company Jobvite. And a ZipRecruiter poll conducted in June for USA TODAY found that 58% of job-seekers have applied for a position based on an inaccurate description.

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About 30% of workers report leaving a job within the first 90 days, with nearly half saying the day-to-day role wasn’t what they expected, the Jobvite survey shows. Such mismatches are more prevalent in industries struggling to find skilled workers, such as technology and health care, staffing firms say.

Late last year, Tori Moore, 24, accepted a job advertised as social media/marketing coordinator for a nutrition company, focused on content creation, digital marketing and contact with “influencers.” She even got flexible hours and the freedom to work from home in New York City, where she had planned to move from Oklahoma.

“It was like a dream,” she says. “It’s what every millennial wants.”

But when she started in January, initially from Oklahoma, Moore was given starkly different duties-- answering calls and emails, handling shipping orders and human resources, and some sales. When she inquired about the social media responsibilities she was promised, she was initially strung along and then told a higher-level manager likely would be hired for that role. She also learned she would have to move to San Francisco, not New York.

“I’m like -- what is going on?” says Moore, who quit within three months to take an actual social media job in Los Angeles. “I definitely feel misled. I feel I was being taken advantage of.”

The vast majority of recruiters aren’t intentionally pulling bait-and-switches, staffing officials say. “I honestly don’t think employers are trying to deceive,” says Vicki Salemi, a career expert for job board Monster.

If a new hire bolts, the costs and hassles – in restarting the hiring process and lost productivity – can be in the thousand of dollars. “If you’re not being transparent, there is a cost in turnover,” says Peg Buchenroth, director of human resources at Addison Group, a staffing firm.

Sometimes jobs don’t pan out as expected because of innocent mistakes. “There has been a shortening of the entire hiring process” as employers try to snag candidates with lots of choices before they go elsewhere, Buchenroth says. That leaves less time for businesses and candidates to communicate with other, she says.

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In other instances, job responsibilities can change after a candidate is hired but before he or she starts, Salemi says.

Some employers, meanwhile, may be putting the most positive spin on job openings in a highly competitive environment in which the 3.6% unemployment rate – a 50-year low -- forces them to filch workers from each other. When unemployment hit 10% during the Great Recession of 2007-09, the tables were turned and job candidates were similarly accused of stretching the truth or papering over gaps in their resumes.

One red flag for job-seekers: Overheated job titles that provide few details.  “Let’s say you’re (hired) as a spreadsheet guru,” Siegel says. “Once you get in the job, you’re an accountant.”

Overly broad and fluffy job descriptions represent another warning sign says Scott Dobroski, senior director of corporate communications for Glassdoor, the job posting and review site. A post for a real estate sales job in Falls Church, Virginia, seeks “superstars only” who “have a burning desire to succeed, are extremely client oriented….never say die… and communicate with piercing persuasiveness.”

Yet job-seekers also should be wary of excessively detailed postings that specify how each day will unfold, Dobroski says. “It’s safe to assume no two days are like,” he says.

Other new hires, he says, may find themselves toiling more hours with fewer opportunities to telecommute than they anticipated.  

A job titled chief human resource officer for an Arizona-based nonprofit and touted as a chance to think strategically about the workforce turned out to be a nuts-and-bolts HR job centered on making payroll, says Kathleen Duffy Ybarra, CEO of Duffy Group, a recruiting firm. Two executives took the position but left within a year.

“It was never really articulated how much of the role” would involve mundane tasks, Ybarrra says.

Buchenroth advises job-hunters to ask probing questions in interviews, including about the percentage of the job devoted to each of the duties outlined in postings.

Envision Tees, which prints and embroiders T-shirts, has always kept its customer service job postings simple, in part to attract candidates in a hot market dominated by larger firms that offer higher pay and more benefits, says CEO Tom Rauen. The job description cites duties such as answering calls and emails, processing orders and updating customer records.

Sometimes, however, representatives are also asked to fold and stack shirts if there’s a flurry of orders.

“We’re a small business and we need people to be resilient and pitch in,” Rauen says of the 40-employee firm based in Dubuque, Iowa.

Yet many new customer service hires don’t expect to be pulled into production, leading two to quit the past few months. So Envision has revised the job description, adding that staffers will “assist coworkers as needed.” He’s also explicit about the requirement during interviews.

“Now, we’re very upfront,” Rauen says.

Source: USA Today

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