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Recruitment

The Right Fit

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“Stars Want to Work with Other Stars” – Mark Tatum, NBA COO & Deputy Commissioner Let’s face it, your inaction is eroding your team’s success. Mark recently sat down with Senior Writer at Forbes, Jabari Young. When asked to discuss his greatest failure, this is what Mark had to say: “I’m not sure I would say that there was one event. What I would say is my biggest learning was a pattern of waiting too long to make difficult decisions on people. So early on in my career, I would know that someone wasn’t right for the role, but I would keep giving them an opportunity. I would always coach them and give them feedback, but there were times when I just needed to make tougher decisions on people sooner because what happens if you don’t is other people see it, other people get impacted by it; it starts affecting the team. Stars want to work with other stars. And if it’s clear that someone is not pulling their weight, earlier on in my career, I would sort of hope and give them that one more opportunity that maybe things will change. That wasn’t serving them well. It wasn’t serving the organization well. It’s better to have an open honest dialogue with them, tell them they’re not in the right role, and put them in a right role. In some cases, if they must move on, they will. And I’ve seen that time and time again where someone wasn’t necessarily a right fit in the role, but then they go on, and they thrive in a different role outside.” It’s been said that nothing upsets a good performer more than watching a leader within the organization tolerate a bad one. Caring dictates that you act and good leadership positions people for success. Thank you, Mark!

The Cost of Wasted Time

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You will fill that position, but how long will it take and at what cost? The time it takes to fill that important role is everything. Here’s why making a hire in under 30 days matters: Pressure On Your Existing Team Members: The mandate for that unfilled position becomes everyone’s burden until a hire is made. Employee Perception: Your best people are quietly evaluating whether the key decision-makers can find the right people. Market Perception: The best in your marketplace will question why that role went unfilled for that length of time. Takeaway: Don’t fear the cost to hire. Count the cost of a disgruntled workforce, frustrated customers, compromised projects, and a weakened image of your company in your market. Fear is counterproductive to growth, and time is your greatest asset.

How Market Perception Transforms Your Recruitment Strategy

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An example of a good business decision and a hidden recruitment benefit from the world of professional basketball: After acquiring Jaylen Brown through a trade with the Boston Celtics, The Philadelphia 76ers immediately positioned themselves as a destination of choice for other elite performers. Not long thereafter, LeBron James decided to join the organization. Many more will undoubtedly follow suit, this year and in the years to come. The 76ers are now entertaining interest from players that were never on their radar prior to these acquisitions. A good business decision (trading for Jaylen Brown) forced an elite performer (LeBron James) to seek the organization out. Overnight, the 76ers recruitment efforts went from a desperate chase to a strong magnet. How your organization is perceived in the marketplace directly correlates to the soundness of your decisions. This inevitably influences your ability to attract the best your marketplace has to offer. Hiring the right people is a good business decision. Don’t focus on the cost to hire and don’t be afraid to take risks. Shifting your focus to the ROI that star talent could bring to your organization is what’s best for your business. Key Takeaways: Market perception: Good choices impact how the marketplace views your company Recruitment revamp: A strong reputation attracts talent organically Business focus: Smart risks and top talent equal a high ROI

Technical Assessments

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The goal of administering a technical assessment as a first step is to screen candidates and filter out unqualified applicants. The irony is that this approach simultaneously repels the top talent you want to attract. Assessments should complement your hiring process, not act as a gatekeeper. I recommend using them on a case-by-case basis, and only after meaningful conversations have taken place. Relying solely on a test to make critical hiring decisions is risky, as it is rarely an accurate measurement of intelligence, capability, or future success. You’re essentially asking Michael Jordan in his prime to prove he can dribble a ball. My Alternative: Present a technical scenario during an in-person meeting with the applicant as a last step in the hiring process. Provide them with 30 minutes to prepare their solution and have them present it to you on the spot. This feels less transactional, more engaging, and provides real insight into their reasoning, & how well they critically-think under pressure. Your assessment doesn’t need to be eliminated; it just needs to be repositioned in the process with a clearly articulated purpose.

The Meeting

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How many of you have hired a general contractor to do major repair work on your home without meeting them first? That would be a recipe for disaster, yet, many decision makers within organizations are consistently enlisting the services of recruiters under such circumstances and wonder why the results are what they are… You are handing positions that can change the trajectory of your organization over to partners you’ve never met. They’ve never walked through your office or plant, and they don’t know the key stakeholders involved in the hiring process… You are speed dating through talent acquisition, and you’ve normalized this behaviour. How can any recruiter truly act as an extension of the company they are representing if they haven’t spent time getting to know the problems, preferences, culture, and context related to that position… So, why would a recruiter avoid such an important aspect of the hiring process? And why would a decision maker engage without insisting that both sides meet? Accountability. …neither side wants to be accountable to the other. It’s easy to walk away from (ghost) you if we don’t have a real relationship that was established through a formal meeting at your facility… Logistics is often a barrier to such in-person meetings, and reasonable accommodations can be made in those cases. A virtual call for instance can bridge the gap, but should never replace the authenticity of sitting across from a future client or candidate… Recruiters have designed and promoted their own irrelevancy… Having an “out” in case things don’t materialize favourably with a client or candidate is now the secret sauce driving the industry… Let’s get back to the grassroots of what made recruitment a viable service and respected by organizations. Like a General Contractor, a Recruiter takes your vision and brings it to life.

A Remix To The Traditional Job Description

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Conventional job descriptions don’t work, yet we keep branding them in the marketplace. Your positions go unfilled for months and the quality of candidates is far below your expectations. We’ve been marketing the wrong information. A Project Manager knows what they do. They do not need to be reminded with a list of responsibilities. We follow this up by telling them that they must have 5-10 years of experience, thereby excluding those who have 4 or 11 years of experience. We are creating a robotic marketplace of prospects who think in terms of requirements and tasks. We’re selling the position and this has not worked in an evolving marketplace that values more than what they will be doing from 8 to 4. You have failed to capture the intrinsic motivators that would compel a top performer to leave their current position and join yours. Instead of describing the perfect candidate, companies should be focused on clearly outlining what makes them an ideal destination for a top performer. It’s a shift from “what you can do for us” to “what we can do for you.” Let’s explore this deeper… The Career Brochure (Sample Profile Below) Building vehicles is what we do. Cultivating high performing professionals in a friendly environment is our passion and vision. Over the last 20 years, we’ve gone through a major organizational shift by making tangible investments in our greatest assets. We shut our doors the last Friday of every month to give our staff a well-deserved opportunity to rest and spend time with their families. Our last 17 hires have been promoted over the last 5 years which has allowed us to stay competitive and keep them motivated. We host our very own awards ceremony to honor our people with recent winners being awarded the following: “Comeback Employee Of the Year”, It’s Not My Job, But I did It Anyway”, & “Leader Of The Year.” One of the prizes was an all-inclusive trip to a resort of their choice for 5 days. We’ve established our own University to make sure our employees receive proper training and ongoing support. This is a fully paid for benefit and offered to everyone. Through this program, we’ve seen a 50% increase in productivity & retention, and a 70% reduction in product defects, representing a major increase in quality & turnaround time across our fleet. We offer “Mental Wellness Days” instead of “Sick Days”. Meaning, you are allotted (3) days a month for the entire year to take care of yourself. We want you to enjoy time away from the office while you’re healthy, not sick (this is in addition to your vacation time) Oh yeah, we also build cool vehicles! As part of that mandate, you’ll work individually and collectively with your team to accomplish the following goals over the next 2 years: Wrap Up Note that there is no mention of requirements or duties, and the goals were mentioned after conveying major company milestones & perks. Let’s stop promoting what the person will do and let’s create profiles that convey an understanding of the needs of the marketplace. This is the only way to create a winning organization that is a talent magnet. If you disagree or if you’re already doing something similar, please let me know below.

Many Executives Are Playing Jenga With Their Talent

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Executive leaders are crying out for predictability and structure, yet they continue to engage in the same risky behaviour that has driven them to frustration. Our approach to talent acquisition is structurally weak, and one bad decision can bring down everything you’ve worked hard to build. Now is not the time to cut corners when it comes to the most important function of your business, talent. Given the tightness of the marketplace & resistance from top talent to engage in the career exploration, finding the right people and keeping them beyond a year is proving to be a challenge. We are okay to have multiple recruiters working on a given search at the same time, yet we employ the services of one mechanic if our car needs an oil change or one law firm if we are being sued. I’ve never heard anyone say that they were going to use multiple surgeons to remove an organ to increase the chances of a successful operation. Despite the poor results and longer wait times to fill positions, decision makers are okay to stick with the status quo, and this has somehow translated to be what’s best for business. It’s like repeatedly hitting your head against the wall and complaining about your headache. What’s worse is that recruiters are complicit in this tragedy of a recruitment process. We’ve done a poor job of communicating our value proposition, partly because most recruiters don’t know what that value proposition really is beyond just supplying resumes. When you understand your value, you don’t need to negotiate, and you can comfortably walk away from something with no regrets.

The Question That Has Confused Humanity Since The Dawn Of Time

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The compensation topic has been a point of contention between recruiters/HR and candidates since the dawn of civilization. The compensation conversation typically plays out like this: Recruiter: How much are you presently making? Candidate: How much can your client pay? Recruiter: It’s flexible depending on… Recruiter: What are your salary expectations? Candidate: How much can they pay? Recruiter: Can you provide a range? Candidate: $100,000 to – $200,000 annually Recruiter: Would you take $100,000? Candidate: No …and the game of ‘show me your hand’ continues until both sides are worn out and frustrated with each other… The foundation of this conversation is a lack of trust. Recruiters want the best available talent at the cheapest cost; candidates want the highest number from the available range; hiring managers want to pay the lowest salary and expect candidates to produce to the level of the top end of the range. My approach to this topic is evolving and will continue to evolve until I officially retire. It’s for certain that compensation continues to be the primary motivator for a career change. Instead of haggling and wasting precious time, wouldn’t it be far better for candidates to disclose what they need in order to make the career move? NEED and WANT are distinct and should be treated as such in this context. Hiring managers would be far more receptive if they were told what a candidate NEEDS to earn versus what they WANT to earn. When a company hears “want”, they associate that with greed or an unrealistic demand, and that typically creates unnecessary hurdles to the end goal. “What do you need to earn” bleeds empathy & compassion. For years, we’ve heard executives talk about their budgets, what they’d prefer to pay, or what they think a person is worth, and recruiters often manipulate this to their own advantage. Let’s replay the same scenario above, this time framing the question a new way: Recruiter: What do you need to earn? Candidate: What? Recruiter: What do you need to earn to make this career move? Candidate: Well, I’m currently making…(Recruiter Interrupts)… Recruiter: Irrelevant. You’re not looking for something new. You’re a high performer in your current role, and I contacted you about this opportunity. What do you need to earn to justify the move to yourself and your family; leave the seniority that you’ve built up with your present company; drive an extra 25 minutes which will make you 25 minutes late for dinner time every night & start over with a new company in a role that could be considered a gamble? What do you need to earn? Candidate: I never thought of it like that. Recruiter: Think about it and get back to me. The result of this is a sober & honest answer to this question that a recruiter would then communicate to their client with all the relevant context. Approaching the salary question in this way will eliminate negotiations, put the onus on the customer to meet the expectations, and put pressure on the candidate to deliver. Try this and let me know if it works for you.

Accountability

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Good leaders hold themselves accountable. Sweeping things under the rug does not magically make issues go away, and moving dirt to another location is not real cleaning… Thankfully, I have a Wife who will call me out if I’m wrong, and I appreciate her for that… The problem can’t always be your followers… If they’re leaving, it could be that you failed to provide the direction and safety they needed… Rather than directly addressing their concerns, they were villainized for raising their concerns to begin with… This is hardly the foundation for sustainable growth that can foster future leadership… People should be taken care of at all times and your message should align to your behaviour… Any misalignment will jeopardize the integrity of your stance as a leader and create more confusion in the environment… This is precisely why recruitment cannot afford to operate transactionally… Its purpose is too important to the health of the corporation… Too many in the profession see turnover as an opportunity to backfill and cash a cheque, reducing themselves to scavengers who prey on dead corporations with terrible cultures… Recruiting for a good leader is far better than recruiting for a bad leader… I owe it to the people’s lives that I’m temporarily disrupting, and leading to what I’m selling as a “land flowing with milk & honey”, to make sure that the environment is one where they can see a progression of their career… This all starts with good leaders who create the policies, systems, and culture that facilitates career development… Anything less than this means that we’ve missed the mark and have done those in our care a disservice.

Recruitment Was Not Designed To Help People

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My understanding of the recruitment industry has evolved… There is a lot circulating in the marketplace about the state of recruitment… A common misconception being that recruiters help people – WRONG! Recruiters serve the corporate entity by finding talent for them. Recruiters have confused these two things, have sold this message to the marketplace, and are getting exposed when their actions don’t align with “helping people”… People are hurting and rightfully so… As noble as helping people is, and this is certainly a people driven business, there is more to this… It’s in every recruiter’s best interest to treat people well, but stop lying to yourself and misleading people in the process… Physicians help people. Recruiters help the corporation and drive economic growth… The disconnect started when recruiters thought they had a runway to success that absolved them of their humanity. We forgot that people respond favourably when they are treated with respect… Historical thought dictates that once you get the business, the candidates will come! No. Secure the business, treat people well, and you’ll enjoy success and longevity in this industry… Recruiters for years have built with one hand and torn down with the other… There is a trail of scarred job seekers and passive candidates along the way, yet we have the nerve to boast about advancements in technology and how that will improve our service… We’ve made the service offering more sophisticated without addressing the character flaws within our ranks… The key question that every recruiter must answer is, how do you want to be remembered? If your aim is to be successful in this industry, then you cannot build sustainability on the backs of the most vulnerable in the market… Recruitments value is far greater and has global impact… Matching talent to great companies is how you get paid; treating people well is how your legacy is created.