| May
/ June 2006
Wanted:
The “perfect candidate”
—
BUT, LIKE THE PERFECT SPOUSE, DOES HE OR SHE EXIST?
DURING THE BOOM
YEARS of the 1990s, information technology recruiters used
to describe their clients’ insatiable desire for the
“purple squirrel” – a creature whose coloration,
of course, does not exist in nature.
It’s
only human nature, though, to crave an unattainable
combination of qualities in everyone from friends to spouses,
and from bosses to new hires.
At home, who wouldn’t
want that perfect companion who combines brains with beauty,
strength with tenderness, assertiveness with deference, etc.
– and who adores you, cares for you and can’t
get enough of you except when you want to be left alone? At
work, who wouldn’t want that perfect employee who is
just like oneself – only not quite as clever and good-looking?
Real life, it
almost goes without saying, does not often work that way.
The man who sets his sights on marrying a cheerleader from
the University of Michigan ends up falling for a film-maker
from NYU. And the woman who visualizes marrying the heir to
a great fortune tumbles head over heels for a starving poet.
How empty our lives would be if we disqualified everyone who
was not a cheerleader from Michigan, or the heir to a great
fortune.
Yet,
day after day and time after time, hiring managers set out
to find the job candidate with a combination of academic background,
professional skills and personal attributes found often on
job descriptions, but rarely if ever in nature. Having described
the perfect purple squirrel, they reject all those of different
colorations. (Whether true or apocryphal, there’s a
story about the company, six months after Java script was
introduced, that wanted a Java programmer with ten years’
experience. Arguments to the contrary fell on deaf ears.)
Since setting
unrealistic expectations is an easy path to constant disappointment,
why do so many hiring authorities take it?
The
causes of wishful thinking are many and varied
SHE’S LIKE
A RAINBOW,” sang the Rolling Stones in their 1967 psychedelic
love song. Also like a rainbow are the multi-hued causes of
unrealistic requirements for job candidates. For example:
Let’s
Run It up the Flagpole – One school of
thought in hiring is “nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Perhaps there really might be a Harvard MBA out there who
is willing to join the company for only $60K a year. If we
don’t try, how can we know we weren’t right?
We
Don’t Really Want to Hire – In some
corporate environments these days, making no decision at all
is far safer than making the wrong decision. And the best
way to avoid a hiring decision is never to find the right
candidate for the job. Setting unattainable expectations helps
ensure that the hiring process remains exclusionary.
No
One Other than I Will Do – Go ahead and
take credit for it: you are unique. Therefore, no one else
in the universe will have your precise background, experience
and qualifications. You can delay the search process indefinitely
by insisting on your exact replica. The unanswered question
is whether your organization will benefit the most from another
you.
HR
Can Fill in All the Blanks – In this age
of multi-tasking, lots of balls in the air, too many IMs on
the Blackberry and too few hours in the day, what hiring manager
has the time to sit down and carefully think about the needs
of the job? Better to send a requisition over to Human Resources
and let them figure out what matters in the new job. They’ll
know, won’t they?
We
Mistake Job Descriptions for People Descriptions
– The typical job description does a mighty fine job
of describing the job – e.g., manages a department of
17, determines marketing strategy for existing and new products,
prepares the annual departmental plan and budget, makes regular
reports to the Management Committee, works closely with Product
Development and Manufacturing, etc. Unfortunately, that same
job description does a lousy job of describing the incumbent
or the skills he or she will need for success on the job.
Yet what do companies most often send to search consultants?
Job descriptions, of course.
The
Applicant Tracking System Works Best from Key Words
– We weren’t born yesterday and understand that
most management-level positions depend for their success on
leadership and other “soft skills,” which generally
cannot be identified from résumés and instead
require careful probing. But we also weren’t born the
day before yesterday and recognize that top management wants
everyone to use the six-figure applicant-tracking system that
the CIO purchased, which does key-word searches of candidate
data files for specific skill sets, job titles and educational
degrees. Therein lies the rub.
We
Pay for a Search Firm’s Help but Don’t Seek Its
Input – Companies pay search consultants
for essentially two things – their time and their expertise
– but are more apt to make use of the first than the
second. Because most professional recruiters specialize by
industry and/or occupation, they often have found scores if
not hundreds of people for similar jobs. They know the marketplace
and what’s available for the price. If you want the
proverbial champagne on a beer budget, a knowledgeable search
consultant can help you decide between beer and a bigger budget.
Human
nature being what it is, when push comes to shove, the job
will go not to the mythical perfect candidate – but
rather to the individual with whom the hiring manager falls
in love. (We speak figuratively, of course.) The trick is
to maximize the pool of candidates likely to produce a match.
Focus
on what counts, not what impresses
FORGET
THE IMPRESSIVE PEDIGREE for a moment, concentrating instead
on what truly counts in performing the job. And if truth be
told, the job likely doesn’t care if it’s filled
by a Harvard grad or not.
The “what
counts” list may well include some specific skills (a
mastery of accounting is a good requirement for the corporate
controller), but it also will document the past experience
and soft skills that help make a difference at the end of
the day. Don’t get bogged down in minutiae.
Let’s
pretend, for a hypothetical position, that there are six high-priority
“what counts” factors. With the counsel of a trusted
search consultant, take a deep breath and rank them from most
to least important. Yes, all may be important, but …
If you had to sacrifice one of the bottom factors to get one
of the top, nobody being perfect, which would be the least
harmful to give up?
High on the list
may be a soft skill – e.g., the ability to re-energize
a demoralized department or de-sensitize labor / management
strife. An experienced recruiter often can be invaluable in
steering a hiring manager to individuals who are both right
for the job and affordable.
No candidate is
likely to possess every characteristic you desire, nor may
the best qualified (on paper) of three or four finalists prove
to be the best fit for your organization. Ultimately, we hire
those whom we like – and the more inclusive we can be
at the beginning of the search, the more exclusive we can
be at the end.
—
George Snider
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