Hiring by Chemistry

By Steve McKinney
President, McKinney Consulting, Inc.

Selling Your Company to the Talent Pool! Part II.

In the new guerrilla war for talent the request and receive model is being replaced with a new a multi-directional approach. A new set of tactics is required to address the changing landscape and win this battle for talent. Previously, we discussed in, “Open up. Be Real.” how candidates sometimes make the wrong choice by not being able to truly see what a company is all about. We concluded that this is because companies are not really open with them.

The converse is true also; companies often hire the wrong person because they don’t know what a candidate is truly like either. Candidates have resumes. Companies have recruiting materials like films and brochures. But are the things written on these materials really the whole truth? What might these things look like if they were really open and honest?

When companies look at resumes, they are looking at a person’s life in very broad strokes. Only the big categories are visible, only the major milestones. What isn’t visible is often more important. What is neither written in black, nor readable between the lines is how this candidate will function in that company’s organization. So interviewers and hirers don’t address that from the resume. They wait until the interview. Then in the interview, they ask questions, listen to answers, squint their eyes, try various tricks to tease out the truth, and finally make a judgment about the candidate that largely amounts to, “I like this guy.” Or “I don’t like her.” Or most often, “I don’t know.” 

WHAT COMPANIES WISH YOU’D PUT ON YOUR RESUME

• Great sales success if able to get in front of the client. Old company limited access to clients.
• I like to travel so much that I will often arrange business trips just to get the chance to travel.
• Give me a team to manage and I can do wonders, but micro-manage me and I will leave.
• I hate cold calls and I don't sell well if I don't believe in the product.
• I work best between 4 pm and 9 pm.  I'm slow as heck between 9 am and 1 pm.
• Don't ask me to come in on weekends. I want a life and will bust my chops during the week.
• My credentials have earned me some respect. I judge my colleagues based upon their educational back ground and performance.

And they don’t know, because the factors of success that are often more important than education, experience, and skills are not included in a resume. Nor are they easy to tease out in an interview. Interview questions are often driven largely by what the interviewer sees on the paper. The resume is grist for the question mill.  If we want to get at some of the human things that are really important we’re going to need a different resume. What human things am I talking about? You know them, because they are both the reason you get up in the morning and the things you think about last every night before you shut your eyes – desires, fears, hopes, pet peeves, ambitions, and pride.

What if those things were written on a resume? And companies, don’t get a pass here. Even though they aren’t human, they are run by humans and inherit the hopes, desires, and fears of those humans. What kinds of things do candidates wish were written in a company’s hiring materials? How different a company’s materials might look if written by ex-employees! It might look like a different company altogether.

WHAT CANDIDATES WISH WAS IN YOUR HIRING MATERIALS

• You'll get all the face time you need inside and outside the organization. However, you won't be allowed to meet clients alone. We always send support   with you.
• We prefer minimizing sales costs, and use a lot of phone and video conferencing.
• Managers are expected to be hands on. They’re expected to manage and do work directly themselves. There's no such thing as a pure manager at our    company.
• We hate cold calls so we will never ask you to do one.
• If you don't believe in the product we expect you to step up and help fix it.
• Office hours are when our clients are working. We expect our employees to be flexible.
• No one works on weekends unless they choose to.
• We hire based on ability. Credentials get you an interview, after that promotion and compensation are based on performance.
• We don't like prima donnas. If you are better than other people, great. But the team rules here.

So, what should we do? First, admit that those other things exist and are important. You know the other things I’m talking about – the other things that matter when two or more humans come together for any reason. Of course they are important. We know that by the simple fact that after all that talk about hard skills, abilities, and experience, we base the hiring decision on whether or not we like the person!

These human emotions are the principles and properties that determine organizational success in so many cases. The hard skills are a given these days. Everyone thinks about those, prepares for those, and plans to succeed on those, while nearly neglecting the need to match up the intangibles when making a hiring decision.

Second, we need to acknowledge that we are never truly going to get to the whole truth about the hopes, fears, and desires, of the other party. We can try all manner of questioning and probing, but in the end, we’re just going to have to trust that we know the other party. What we can do, however, is open up our side. That, right there, will kill 50% of the potential mismatches that might occur.  We can be honest ourselves in saying what we want, what we fear, what we like and dislike. We can say what is difficult, what is easy, and describe our ambitions. It isn’t easy to do in the beginning, but with practice (and a few bad decisions) it gets easier.

The bonus in all this is that honesty begets honesty.  How impressed candidates are when a company comes right out and says what the challenges are! How amazed a company is when candidates come right out and explain the environment they work best in and the situations that they don’t do so well in. This is just the beginning of a mutually beneficial relationship.

Steven B. McKinney is the founder and president of McKinney Consulting Inc., who has over 12 years of experience as an Executive Search Consultant & is a Certified Master Coach. He serves on several boards including the American Chamber of Commerce-Korea and was bestowed Honorary Citizen of Seoul in 2007. Prior to the establishment of McKinney Consulting he had over 10 years of senior leadership experience in athletic footwear company giants, Adidas, Reebok and Converse etc.

About McKinney Consulting: McKinney Consulting is an executive search firm (sometimes simplified as executive recruiters or headhunters) which has placed hundreds of bi-lingual middle-senior level executives for multinational companies in Korea & Asia and was established in 2001. McKinney Consulting is a member of the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC). In addition, McKinney Consulting provides behavioral-based coaching services with scientifically developed tools in coaching executives and businesses to excellence and success. McKinney Consulting coaches are members of the International Coaching Council. Also, McKinney offers Talent Management services such as the outsourcing of candidates and payroll services etc.