It is extremely common for recruiting organisations to require skills in certain key proprietary technologies. This makes sense…these are the productivity tools that allow the organisation to achieve its corporate outcomes.
But there is a double-edged sword here. Lets say I am proficient in Microsoft Word. This means that I have taken on and internalised the logic and interface of a piece of Microsoft software…I have adapted myself to that software. Once I am proficient at using a particular tool, I will try and adapt my approach to solving problems to use the skill that I have (when you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail).
So me being proficient in using Microsoft Word will sometimes be completely aligned with the interests of my employer (getting a certain outcome to the highest quality with the lowest cost) but often it will be only partially aligned…there will be a better way to solve the problem, but I will default to Word because I have already invested in that particular skill.
But guess who always benefits from me being proficient in Word?
Microsoft.
Because I know how to use Microsoft Word, I will prefer to use Word, which means software license revenue to Microsoft.
This is one reason why, as far as possible, you really want to avoid having specific proprietary software as a top requirement in your job descriptions. Because when someone is particularly proficient in a specific technology, you may be paying their salary, but to some degree they are also working for the technology owner.
I think often proprietary technology terms usually appear in job descriptions, even for non-software jobs, because it is easy. They are easy skills to identify and name. They are easy to keyword search for. But you want to be optimising your selection strategy based on your organisational outcomes, not by how well your new hire can use someone else’s software.
To go to the next level in your skills journey you need to identify the outcomes you are looking to achieve with that software, and the associated skills that are required to acheive those outcomes defined on your terms. Then you avoid your skills taxonomy becoming one more element which is locking you in to a particular technology vendor. We can work with you to identify the skills that are most closely linked to your organisational outcomes…those are the skills that should determine who goes into the top of your selection funnel.