Why the Job Matrix?

In public contract roles the matrix (requirements qualification form) more often than not makes its unwelcome appearance. 

The qualification form naturally serves a valuable purpose. In civilized society, we have safe guards in place to discourage cronyism, nepotism, and all those things that lead to unfair and corrupt practices in government (and to growing extent in large corporations). If one creates an independent procurement group, which is removed from the group who requires the resource, cheating the system becomes harder. This solution however obvious has some serious implementation problems.

First, with regards to consultants which generally fill specialist roles, it is hopefully a straight forward task for the project team to determine if the resource is a fit. If they need a developer they are the best suited to determine fit on their own team. Since procurement is now the first line of selection, you have to carefully spell out your requirements, in a way which the candidates can be effectively scored. The most straight forward system is to allocate a score based on the amount of time spent meeting some requirement which can be clearly supported by their experience (resume).

Second, these forms are a terrible nuisance. There is a disproportionate amount of effort between asking a question and answering said question. One clients matrix had over 60 questions! Each question required that each job for which the candidate met the requirement be cited and that there be a clear supporting point under each role.

Despite their significant time costs they do encourage fairer process but they are a bitter medicine.