Why don’t more hiring managers and recruiters demand that potential executive candidates provide videos of their conference presentations? Of impromptu media interviews? Of social media pieces? Of examples of their own personal copywriting, scripts, presentation decks and storyboards to back it all up?

Or how about demanding basic video editing skills? You know, right underneath the line that requires basic competence in “Microsoft Office”?

We live in an era where innovation teams must move at blistering fast speeds to succeed. They must interface with clients, partners and journalists all the time, far from the “safety” of tediously plotted media events. Project leaders must be out there in-the-wild live and unscripted. We also live in era where video content of your employees, products and experiences will be produced extemporaneously with zero prep, published immediately with global distribution and will never disappear.

And yet we live in a world where some senior leaders are so technically incompetent they can barely start Zoom; where marketing and PR managers dogmatically cling to the belief they “control their brand” and that they can “media train” employees before interviews; and where some sales leaders are helpless if they can’t gladhand a client face-to-face.

Last year when I was looking for a new role, it became obvious that despite the massive effort I’d invested over the years in delivering dozens of keynotes and writing, developing and distributing a tremendous range of thought leadership across both traditional and social media — that recruiters couldn’t have cared less.

Most job descriptions — even for senior positions which routinely demand pages of haughty job requirements and 10+ years of highly arcane experience and blah blah blah buzzwords — fail to require even the most basic demonstrated ability to not embarrass yourself, your company and your customers given the contemporary realities of global social media. Much more to be an active developer of thought leadership or an effective participant driving the conversations happening about your brand.