23 Feb 2006

Database Tool Helps Companies Find Right Person for the Job

Will a database search by someone you've never heard of be the key to your next promotion? It could, according to a recent Wall Street Journal Online article. The article relates the use of internal "skills databases" to fill positions. For some companies, it works. At others, results have been disappointing. Problems stem from employees – eager for promotions – overstating their skills, or managers, nervous about losing valued staff, keeping the talents of ace workers up their sleeves.

If anyone wonders whether this is a viable way to fill positions, then consider Monster.com's runaway success. Job seekers with hot skills know just how busy their email and cell phones can get when given the opportunity to broadcast their abilities to a wide circle of employers.

As with all databases, the quality of data input determines just how useful they are. As noted in the Journal article, internal skills databases contain information on employees' technical expertise, training, education, leadership abilities, geographic experience, and languages. They also contain information on things like an individual's previous jobs and his or her career aspirations.

In addition to filling open positions, databases are used to track trends, such as upcoming human resource shortages due to baby-boomer retirements. Projections of skills shortages signal the need to provide training so that companies can keep up with demand.

So, what do you think? Like anyone else who has ever built a database, I know how frustrating it can be to establish categories and set parameters for data. Is an item blue-green or is it bluish green? Even more challenging is the fact that human skills are not machine skills. We are definitely more than the sum total of our skills, even when employers do their dogged best to define and quantify our interpersonal qualities, like leadership, assertiveness, and tenacity. A person might have great leadership on an exciting project, but can they do the same when it comes to widgets?

Companies that will do best with skills databases will be the ones most committed to defining from the outset how they will be used, and getting managers and employees to provide accurate, unbiased data.

For employees, internal skills databases offer the promise of breaking glass ceilings imposed by the subjective judgments of managers. Owing to your skills, and not your office politics, you might see some great opportunities from such a system. Or, owing to an aggregate lack of skills among your peers, you might just see opportunities for career growth through corporate-sponsored training.

While the article mentioned the frustration and disbandment of skills databases at some workplaces, it's unlikely that this will thwart the trend. Others are finding success, and are likely to pave the way for companies eager to manage and develop human resources at hand.

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