Companies are wrong to hire “entry-level” candidates with YOE and I can explain why

I am on the other side of this (hiring, not job seeker) and the recruiters keep sending me people with 2-10 YOE for an entry-level position. When I’m looking for an entry-level coordinator or analyst, I don’t want someone who has been working as a coordinator or analyst for a few years. I can explain why, although the recruiters don’t seem to get it.

* I want someone who is fresh out of school so they don’t have previous conceptions about how the work should be done. For example, one time I hired a developer who had to write a lot of code. He wouldn’t follow my preferred style because he “already knew” how to write code.

Versus when I met a coordinator who told me she was curious about coding and wanted to learn, I set her up and said “I do it like this, I’d prefer if you also did it this way,” and she was happy I was teaching her so she just said “ok.”

* After 2 years in an entry level role is the time (ideally) to get promoted. I realize it doesn’t always work out this way, but looking at some of these resumes I can tell the candidates haven’t really done anything in their role to advance the business. Which is fine but I really need those out-of-the-box thinkers on my team. Those people aren’t going to sit around (if the business is good) they’re going to get promoted internally or grabbed by other departments. Then they’re not looking for entry level anymore.

Asking for YOE is literally a filter AGAINST the most innovative and hard-working people.

Recruiters do NOT seem to understand that I would rather have someone with 0 YOE but a really ambitious and passionate personality over someone with 10 YOE who has been copying and pasting data inside the same Excel spreadsheet without figuring out how to use Find+Replace.

* Recruiters are low key racist and ableist. Let me just say I have had to make a habit of reviewing “the discard pile” because the recruiters throw out perfectly good candidates for the wildest of reasons. “John Chang doesn’t seem like a cultural fit.” He’s a bit shy. “Xochi Jimenez had poor communication skills.” Has an accent.

Anyway, a rescue from the discard pile starts tomorrow! Hang in there, because we are looking for you.