I was introduced to this great video clip by Malcolm Gladwell the other day. Malcolm Gladwell is the best-selling author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”. In this talk, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce.
As I watched it, I realized not only what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce but also what recruiters can learn from spaghetti sauce.
A core message (amongst many) in his presentation is the concept of “embracing the diversity of human beings”.
He shares how back in the 70’s, spaghetti manufacturers like Ragu and Presto were all trying to make the “perfect spaghetti sauce”. What they failed to understand is that there is no “perfect spaghetti sauce” because all of us have different tastes, likes, etc.
This core message applies to candidates. I think all too often organizations spend too much time and money trying to come up with a core brand image or theme of why individuals should work for their organization. They are trying to create “the perfect image” which will entice everyone to want to work for their organization which as Malcom illustrates . . . is not possible.
With that said, I find most recruiters spent way too little time embracing the diversity of candidates and identifying and understanding what is truly important to a specific candidate and then communicating how their organization can (or cannot) meet those objectives/needs.
Outlined below are some simple questions you can ask (we embed these in our Candidate Pre-screen/Interview process) to help identify a candidates true motives, needs, wants, concerns, etc.
What is the biggest concern you have in your position right now in relation to your future?
- On scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you in your current position? What would have to change to make it a 10?
- Have you spoken to your manager about making these changes?
- What are going to be your 3 most important criteria you will use in your decision to accept or not accept a position?
- (Depending on the answers above) What would a new position have to offer you that would get you to leave your current one?
The information gathered by asking these questions is critical for:
- Developing rapport with your candidate
- Ensuring your organization (as well as the position) is a great match for their needs
- Gathering the intelligence critical to successfully “closing the candidate”
If you are not spending at least 5-10 minutes understanding “what type of spaghetti sauce they want or like”, your probability of luring top talent to your organization is greatly diminished.
The other point I believe recruiters can take from this video is that people (and in this case, hiring managers) often don’t know exactly what they want. Malcolm made this point by revealing that when interrogated about their spaghetti preferences, no one ever said “Extra Chunky” and yet, what do you think is the most popular type of spaghetti sauce? That’s right – Extra Chunky! Often we, as recruiters and HR Managers, expect the hiring manager to tell us what type of candidate they’re seeking for a certain position. The truth is, most hiring managers don’t know! The better question to ask is, “What needs to get done?”
We all know that people with different sets of skills and different backgrounds can be successful in the same types of jobs, yet we continuously try to narrow the scope of candidates we review to the point that we are certainly passing up people who could be excellent. Too often the discussions between recruiter /HR manager and hiring manager focus on personality traits or soft skills instead of the business problems to be solved with the hiring of this new individual. The hiring manager will spend a lot of time talking about the fact that they want someone who is energetic, driven, dedicated, etc., etc…..sometimes to the point that they say, “I’ll know it when I see it!” While personality traits are certainly part of the hiring process, in the end it’s all about results. Our job as recruiters/hr managers is to guide the hiring manager through their thought process to determine the necessary experience/skills the candidate needs in order to get the job done and then quantify each aspect so that we understand the level of expertise needed for each. Some sample questions we like to ask hiring managers include:
- What isn’t getting done currently because this position hasn’t been filled? (i.e., what precipitated the need for the position?)
- How will you know if the candidate has the right level of experience with… (I ask this question regarding every skill or type of experience the hiring manager states as a requirement. They often haven’t thought through this yet and this is a wonderful question to help them start formulating the questions they’ll want to ask in the interview. I also ask them for sample questions I can use in my screening to make sure I’m able to gauge whether or not the candidate has the right level of expertise in each area.) I follow this question with, “And how will the individual be using this skill/experience in the job?”
- We all know that you can have two candidates with the same number of years of experience and one is very good while the other isn’t. What will the right candidate need to have accomplished in their past position(s) to give you the confidence they can succeed in this position?
Working through these questions with the hiring manager helps all involved to get away from envisioning just one type of candidate (spaghetti sauce!) that can fill the position and be open to the fact that there may be several candidates from a variety of backgrounds who can get the job done (and maybe even bring some new perspective to the company!)
While the video of Malcolm is a little lengthy (18 minutes), I think it is a great one to watch!
I hope you had a nice holiday weekend!
EMBRACE THE DIVERSITY OF HUMAN BEINGS!