Kenya’s job market has increasingly become aggressively competitive in the last decade.
Hiring has evolved from single-day interviews to complex multiple-stage processes, and the use of artificial intelligence in the selection is now used across sectors. With AI, specialised algorithms are used to filter applicants and retain candidates whose attributes align with the recruiter’s preferences.
Multiple-stage interviews can take place over durations, ranging from a day to weeks or even months. In such interviews, a candidate selected through algorithmic filters or aptitude tests proceeds to several preliminary interviews before the final interview and eventual meeting with the manager or the CEO for the formal job offer. This enables the organisation to acquire the best candidate for the job. However, these processes can be frustrating for candidates and exploitative for a number of reasons.
To begin with, there is no policy requiring companies to publish or list salaries for open vacancies. Recruiters are also not willing to provide that information to potential candidates. That is because they want to acquire and retain the best skills in the job market with the least expense to their organisations.
It is taboo to ask about salaries before interviews. Applicants to such vacancies often Google salary ranges for similar positions but the information is obviously not specific to the company they are applying to. Except for new entrants in the job market, experienced employees will mostly change jobs in search of better remuneration, among other factors. Such experienced candidates are often picked for multi-stage interviews. Their hope is that the hiring company will offer better pay than their current employer. This is, however, not often true.
It is frustrating for an interview finalist to be offered a salary lesser than their current earnings and benefits after such a rigorous process. If such a candidate turns down the offer, it’s his or her loss. The company will hire the next person in their ranking. Such organisations are simply gambling for the cheapest best candidate.
Second, multi-stage hiring involves complex exercises that form a core part of the hiring process. These tasks differ depending on the type of job one is applying for. Some positions will require an employee to provide outputs in the form of proposals, data analyses and presentations, reports, budgets for grant applications, research designs, strategic plans and such.
It has become common practice for hiring organisations, especially consultancy firms and NGOs, to ask candidates to undertake tasks and provide one of these or similar outputs. The tasks sound genuine to a candidate who wants to prove his skills to a potential employer. However, most of these organisations are preying on desperate applicants to complete or gather information for their on-going projects.
It is common to hear candidates complaining that the proposal they submitted to an NGO during recruitment was actualised and implemented yet they were never hired. Consultancy firms are notorious in asking candidates to analyse data sets, design surveys or draft a strategic plan. Desperate applicants end up offering free consultancy services and do not get the jobs.
Third, while I agree that job hunting must be accompanied with costs, the expenses incurred by candidates in multi-stage recruitment should not be enormous to the extent they dent the applicant’s financial status. Take for instance the time that one has to spend when drafting a proposal or designing a research tool. A candidate will spend the same time he or she would spend to do similar work for a paying client. One cannot submit a shoddy proposal to a potential employer.
Other costs incurred include transport to several interviews, where the recruiter schedules face-to-face interviews. There is also an unseen mental toll felt by the long wait for interview results.
However, there are genuine companies and recruiters who are simply looking for the best candidate. Such recruiters will only ask for previous samples of work. For instance, they will ask for a sample of a website a web designer has completed, a writing sample, a previous report or a previous proposal. Such recruiters will also most likely provide salary information in the job advertisement. They are less likely to engage an applicant in time-consuming exercises and they communicate with the candidates on the progress of their applications at the end of every stage.
I agree that candidates must prove their skills to potential employers, the metrics used to measure sufficient proof of experience or capability must not be exploitative.
To protect job seekers from exploitative predators, several policy changes should be made. It should be mandatory for institutions to provide salary information either on their adverts or on their websites. This is mostly the case in European countries.
In a proposed legislation published by the European Commission in March 2021, job adverts will now include information on salary or salary range. If not provided in the advert, the recruiter is required to inform the candidate on expected salary before the interviews begin. With that information, a candidate can avoid the frustration of completing complex interviews only to be offered peanuts compared to his or her current earnings.
Also, there should be a policy outlawing the requirement by companies, government agencies and hiring agencies for applicants to provide salary history. The question on salary expectation should no longer be used as a deciding factor when hiring candidates. We must emulate what is happening in other countries. For instance, in the US, 19 states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut and Georgia prohibit recruiters from asking for applicant’s salary information. This provides such institutions with a basis to discriminate against certain applicants. While most cases involve outright rejection of candidates seeking higher remuneration than the company is willing to pay, the opposite is also true.
Finally, a candidate must assess the requirements of a job and decide how to approach it. If a job requires one to complete tasks such as writing codes, proposals or a policy paper, the applicant can complete the tasks then publish the work online after submitting the same to the recruiter.
It may sound as an extreme measure but if need be, a candidate can also patent an idea , a design or a method before submitting it as part of a proposal to the recruiter. The availability of a publication or a patent can be used as evidence to prosecute rogue organisations for theft of information, use of knowledge without permission and recognition of the original developer or innovator of methods, designs and similar works .
Maina Munuhe is a policy consultant
