A Report on Reports

Having used Jasper Reports in the past with the NetBeans(NB) plugin I though I'd try to use it to create a Resume. I found the current TIBCO JasperSoft Studio to be slightly more difficult to use than the NB plugin I used over 6 years ago. Well I suppose the reason is that it better understood my projects structure. Also because resumes have a rather nested structure, at least two levels of sub reports are needed. For several reasons including licensing, and being more developer friendly I've decided to switch to XML-FO using Apache FOP. Given this SO question it seems I'm not alone: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7355025/create-pdf-with-java

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.

Recruiting is Messy Business

Recruiting is messy. In business there are all kinds of middlemen filling sales and service roles. These businesses manage assets whether physical or intellectual, in recruitment our assets possess free-will.

The messiness comes from unknowns, communications failures, and well people. Regarding the communications failures, very few IT recruiters have an IT background. So in the magic telephone game the client tells us one thing, our managers who primarily deal with the clients may be the only one hear the request first hand. They pass on their interpretation to the recruiter and then the recruiter passes on the information to the candidate.

In vetting the candidate, lets say a Java developer, the recruiter may ask "Do you have over three years of experience with JSPs?" they then listen to the candidate filtering out what in general sounds like star-trek speak, looking for affirmation or negation (for which the candidate confirmed they did indeed meet this requirement). Then the recruiter asks their next question "Yes, and our client requires over three years of Java experience. Do you have over three years of Java experience?". I can feel the candidates mind melting, from across the room, though the phone line, on the other side of the country.

Recruiting is messing, not just for the recruiter but also for the candidate as well as the client.