Staff Writer 
By Memory Nguwi
MOST hiring problems do not start at the interview stage. They start much earlier, when organisations define the job and advertise it.
A poorly written job profile or advert eliminates the right candidates before they even apply. It narrows your talent pool, attracts the wrong people, and sets you up for poor hiring decisions.
If you get this part wrong, everything that follows becomes a struggle.
You will complain about the quality of applicants, blame the labour market, or say “good people are hard to find.” In many cases, the real issue is self-inflicted.
One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is inflating the qualifications and experience requirements. Job adverts are filled with demands that have little to do with actual job performance.
You see roles asking for ten years of experience when the work itself does not justify it.
You see degree inflation where jobs that can be done perfectly well without advanced qualifications suddenly require a Master’s degree or an MBA.
Hiring should be based on minimum requirements, not an idealized version of a candidate that does not exist. The question you must ask is simple: what does someone need to do this job well from day one or within a reasonable learning period? That is your baseline.
Anything beyond that is useless.
Very few roles genuinely require more than five years of experience in a similar position. What matters more is whether the person has done similar work, solved similar problems, and demonstrated the ability to perform at the required level.
Years of experience are often a poor proxy for capability. Someone can spend ten years doing the same basic tasks without growing.
Another person can reach a high level of competence in three years by being exposed to more complex work.
When you inflate experience requirements, you do not improve quality.
You simply reduce your pool, increasing the risk of missing capable people. Another common problem is a lack of clarity about the type of experience required. Many job adverts simply state “minimum of five years’ experience” without explaining what kind of experience matters. This is meaningless.
Five years doing what? At what level? In what context?
You must be specific. Do you want experience in a similar role, such as someone who has already been a Finance Manager? Do you want experience at a similar level of decision making, even if the job title was different? Or are you looking for exposure to certain tasks, such as managing budgets, leading teams, or handling regulatory compliance?
Total work experience adds no value.
It tells you nothing about whether the person can perform in the role. What matters is relevant experience. If you cannot clearly define what relevant means for your role, then your hiring process is already on weak ground.
Another practice that weakens job adverts is the use of vague phrases like “added advantage.”
This is one of the most useless statements you can include.
Advantage to whom, and for what? It tells the candidate nothing meaningful, and it does not help you select better applicants. If something is important for the role, make it a mandatory requirement. If it is not critical, leave it out.
When you say “MBA is an advantage” or “knowledge of a certain system is an advantage,” what you are really doing is creating unnecessary filters. Strong candidates who do not have these extras may decide not to apply, even though they are fully capable of doing the job.
At the same time, you may attract candidates who have these “advantages” but lack the core capability required for performance.
The result is predictable. You reduce the number of strong applicants and increase the number of unsuitable ones. Then you complain about the quality of the talent pool.
Industry experience is another area where organisations get it wrong.
There is a strong tendency to insist on candidates from the same industry. You see requirements like “FMCG experience is an added advantage” or “must have banking experience.” In many cases, this is unnecessary.
Most roles are transferable across industries. Finance is finance. Human resources is human resources.
Marketing principles do not change simply because the product is different. What matters is whether the person understands the core work and can apply their knowledge in a new context.
By insisting on industry experience, you narrow your pool for no good reason.
You also miss out on fresh perspectives that can improve how your organisation operates. People from different industries often bring new ideas, better practices, and a different way of thinking.
That is how organisations improve.
There are, of course, roles where industry knowledge is critical. Highly technical or regulated environments may require specific experience.
But these are exceptions, not the rule.
Most of the time, the insistence on industry experience is driven by personal interest of those in charge of hiring.
Another mistake is failing to link job requirements to actual performance.
Many job profiles read like wish lists rather than practical descriptions of what success looks like in the role. They list qualifications, years of experience, and generic competencies, but they do not clearly define what the person will be accountable for.
A strong job profile starts with the work. What are the key outputs expected from this role? What problems must the person solve?
What decisions will they make? What results will they be held accountable for? Once you are clear on this, you can define the requirements directly linked to delivering those outcomes. Everything else should be removed.
When you focus on performance, your hiring becomes focused. You stop chasing credentials and start looking for capability. You ask better questions during interviews.
You design better assessments. You make better decisions. On the other hand, when your job profile is cluttered with irrelevant requirements, your entire hiring process becomes unfocused. You end up relying on superficial indicators like qualifications and years of experience because you have not defined what really matters.
Organisations that get hiring right are disciplined about this. They are clear about the work, clear about the minimum requirements, and ruthless about removing anything that does not contribute to performance.
Nguwi is an occupational psychologist, data scientist, speaker and managing consultant at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, a management and human resources consulting firm.
