Leadership: "Can I go to the Super Bowl with this Candidate?"

DALLAS, TX - Direct marketing consultant Ted Grigg had an excellent comment on my recent marketing post, Interviewing Tips: "What ELSE are you applying for?".  You can read Ted's comments here, but the gist of Ted's concern is that ...

"Today's work world is is job driven rather than talent driven. So the only way to win now requires highly targeted resumes, focused elevator speeches and personal branding. That is all good, except that it can narrow the individual's true scope."

I agree, and most of the world would agree, too.  There is a considerable groundswell of ill will towards recruiters, resumes, and all of the traditional manifestations of what has become a very broken talent acquisition model.  I get that.

Job Descriptions are Imperfect

Peter Drucker once said that companies do not acquire talent -- "they rent behaviors."  So my first question is, "What behaviors is my client renting?"  Specifically.

Often, the job description is often the ONLY thing a politically fractured hiring committee can agree on.  Job descriptions are imperfect -- but in many cases, it's all the recruiting team has to go on.

So recruiters are left with only one option:  Find a candidate whose background closely matches what's on the job description.  At first, this can be less about the person applying than the underlying resume.  But it gets personal very quickly, as my employee discovered:  Candidates can and DO keyword stuff their resumes, it's up to recruiters to quickly separate the wheat from the chaff on the telephone.

My staff treats all candidates with dignity, but as my dad used to say about hiring inexperienced people, "I don't owe anyone an opportunity to fail."

Certainly, if our clients wanted inexperienced people, they wouldn't be using a third party recruiter at 20%.  We get paid to attract established A-players with a proven track record of success in the functional areas specked out on the job description.

I realize this makes me sound hard-nosed, but again to quote my dad:

"To build a successful company, you want to manage the organization as nature would -- with neither malice nor pity.  Always ask yourself: "Can we go to the Super Bowl with this candidate?"  Then hire accordingly."

It's all about Topgrading the client's organization -- and that starts with a close match in the functional areas of the job description.