I won’t discuss the hiring process at the kiosk, because I don’t have enough information about the business, the owner, or the cashier.  I can say, however,  that in the IT world I have seen similar situations where people are hired to perform a job only because they know how to execute a specific task, but they don’t understand the concepts behind it.

It’s interesting that some recruiters are always looking for the perfect candidate who knows the tools to be used inside out; they forget that tools are simply enablers to perform a task in a more efficient way, and sometimes it’s more important to know what the tool is able to accomplish rather than simply knowing which button to press.

Once I had an interview when I applied for a database administrator role; this interview was with the Information Services Manager and he spent all the time asking me about the specific syntax to write certain queries in MSSQL instead of verifying my knowledge of the topic: for example, what those queries meant.  Obviously, I didn’t get the job because my skill was not to have good memory, my skill was to know the ins and outs of how databases work and how data can be manipulated efficiently.  In my opinion syntax can be found in a reference manual or searching the web, but knowing when to use the specific commands might require more than good memory.

So, when looking for somebody to work with your team, should you look for the candidate that can repeat a task because he or she knows the sequence of actions to follow, or should you rather look for somebody that might be able to do the job even if the specific actions cannot be performed as expected?

I know it’s impossible to always have the perfect candidate, as there are many other pieces to the puzzle; usually budget is the piece that somehow defines the profile  to consider. The more you pay, the more you get isn’t necessarily always the case.

The fact is that giving priority to a certain skill set might be difficult when searching for a candidate, but I would rather have somebody who may not know how to use a tool or system but understands what needs to be done; this person will always be successful in learning to use the provided resources to perform the job.