Give us a couple of minutes to explain our take on finding talent and how we put this to practice.
Sorry dolphins, this piece is focused mostly at companies. But feel free to read on – it might help you in the your future hiring endeavours.
We believe that we have a different take on what others would call recruiting or head hunting. We see ourselves as an extension of a company’s in-house talent acquisition function. Or even more so, we believe we can be that part of talent acquisition that always turns out to be so hard for companies to put in to practice.
We believe in continuous recruiting. The odds are against you when you only start looking for the best talent when you have a vacancy – you bet on the best candidate to be looking for you at the exact same time. Read our other post on this topic (and the book that inspired us).
The funny thing is that a lot of companies and managers get this. But continous recruiting right takes a significant part of your time and there is just so much other stuff to do.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should not only measure a candidate against the hard requirements of a specific job, but also focus on cultural fit and development potential. The ones that excel on that front are the ones that will benefit your company in the long run. This is a great read from the Harvard Business Review on a great example of hiring on potential.
And when you have found that gem, you need to be able to keep it. First thing is honesty – don’t BS a candidate into your job. Don’t oversell or make promises you can’t keep. That already starts with creating a realistic job profile (have a look at Spielwork for instance).
We worked at firms where the trick was to get five resumes on your desk within a day. Then the trick was to make the least bad one look the best. Pure shock and awe. We saw companies hiring two hundred people a year in order to grow their team by only a hundred. Just because of the mis-hires and the good talent that left disappointed.
Stop. Allowing. That.