The most pressing challenge for any organization that wishes to remain competitive is access to the right talent with skills and experiences critical to achieving aggressive goals. The cost of a poor hiring decision can be significant—sometimes even exceeding the compensation for the role. This is part of why companies have become increasingly cautious (and bureaucratic and byzantine) in their hiring decisions. I speak with hundreds of people who sit on both sides of the hiring desk in my work. What I can say without hesitation is that there is an enormous disconnect between candidate and hiring company expectations. One of the most frequent complaints from candidates is that the hiring process is broken. Simultaneously, the most frequent complaint of hiring managers is the “skills gap”—a fundamental mismatch between the skills that employers rely upon in their employees and the skills that job seekers possess….