What Hiring Managers Can Learn from Hugh Jackman

Not a fit. I've heard it a million times from hiring managers over the years when giving me feedback on a candidate they interviewed. Not a fit for any number of reasons. Didn't have this skill, or that experience. Most of the time their expectations of the right fit are based on the experience and skill-set of the incumbent in the role or rigidly sticking to a job description (Also based on the incumbent's skills and experience and nothing more than a wish list).

14 years ago someone took a chance on a relatively unknown actor from Australia to take on the role of one of Marvel's most legendary characters. Hugh Jackman was not the right fit to play the part of Wolverine. He's too tall, not ugly enough, too clean cut and probably too skinny. He doesn't fit the job description at all!

Since the first X-Men movie came out in 2000 he's played the role of Wolverine 7 times across all of the films (by my count). He's done such a great job and become so identified with the character that it's become impossible to picture anyone else in the role. He's probably the only actor from the series that has the presence and popularity to succeed in stand alone films based on their character. He's made the part his own and is now the standard bearer for the next person to play the role. Someone else will eventually take it on.

Imagine what might have happened if they had tried to stick with the job description. How big is the candidate pool for 5'3" actors with the right look, build, attitude and charisma? Maybe bigger than I think, but how long would it have taken to find them and could they have made the same mark on the part over the years? I don't think so.

The same dilemma will be faced the next time the part is cast. Now we have a new job description based on Jackman's skills and experience.

What's my point? Finding the right person is a lot more about the qualities and energy they bring to the job than comparing them to the person who did it before. They need the chance to bring something different to the job and put their own stamp on it. It's also worth mentioning that I've never come across ANYONE who was an absolute perfect fit for a job, but I've seen plenty of imperfect fits do great things!

Someone is Ahead of You

The rage in Recruiting right now is leveraging social media. Leveraging it to find people, to attract people and to engage people. To create your own brand and your own following. This is important, but it's not new. Every day I hear about people in the recruiting business "thinking about trying LinkedIn" and "trying to learn more about Twitter". If you're one of these people, you're behind. Actually, you're way behind. Actually, you're ridiculously behind. Actually, you might as well quit.

While you're pondering these resources, others are using them. Others are taking their recruiting to other levels you haven't even thought of yet (and probably won't adopt) with different tools, different techniques, etc. Keep thinking of trying something new. While you're thinking, others are doing and beating you every day.

You won't notice it for a while. Your old honey pots are slowly drying up and the returns on your effort are diminishing. Someone is ahead of you right now. They'll be further ahead of you tomorrow. Several other people will be ahead of you the next day. Are you ok with that? You shouldn't be.

Learning is a Skill

Did you know people learn? Yes, you heard it right here! People, even grown ups, have the ability to learn new things. Isn't that exciting?

Being in Recruiting for a third of my life, I've worked with thousands of candidates on thousands of open jobs with thousands of customers. Some jobs are easy to fill. Some candidates are easy to place. Sometimes the stars align and an easy to fill job is filled with an easy to place candidate. Everyone wins!

What about the other side of things? Specifically, jobs that are hard to fill. Hard to fill jobs are hard to fill for a lot of different reasons. They can range from difficulty of skill set to how attractive the job and/or customer are to people with said skill set and a lot of things in between. The short of it is, any hard to fill job can be tied back to customer expectations and their ability to flex with the market. Much of this has to do with setting expectations early and the customer's willingness to be flexible. A job description, after all, is nothing but a wishlist.

Too often in Recruiting we spend months trying to fill a job, sinking valuable time and resources into trying to please a customer that isn't flexible. The longer this takes, the more obvious it is to you that someone with lesser skill and experience could have filled the job and learned what they needed to be successful. People are awesome like that!

The point is, have some guts. It's in everyone's best interest to fill the job quickly with a great candidate. The earlier in the process we can educate the customer on market conditions, skill-set availability and their attractiveness to potential candidates, the sooner we can work towards finding a candidate who can not only do the job, but will see it as an exciting opportunity to learn and grow. Who wouldn't want that?

Prioritizing is Juggling.....With a Twist

We all have a lot of balls in the air. You've heard it said in business, you've probably even said it yourself. We're essentially comparing ourselves to jugglers. Someone who juggles is skilled. Someone who can juggle a lot of things is very skilled. Not to take away from the skill and coordination of a juggler, but to compare our business priorities to a juggling act really oversimplifies how complex and challenging it is to keep them in the air. To make it apples to apples, I've never seen a juggler (maybe you have) juggling any items of any number that weren't all nearly identical in size and weight. Learning to juggle is a matter of hand-eye coordination and muscle memory. The more you do it the better you'll be.

Business priorities are like juggling a vase, a feather, a chainsaw, a rubber ball and an anvil. No amount of practice, strength or coordination will make you great at juggling this combination of items. Your best bet is to know which are the most important, which you can handle and which shouldn't be priorities.

The best advice I've received on the topic: "Know which priorities are glass and which are rubber. Don't break the glass".

You Will Never Regret Making a Phone Call

Do you remember the phone? In the words of one of my mentors, "It's that dusty thing on the corner of your desk." I don't want this to be the millionth blog you've read that points out how surrounded we are by technology. Instead I want to focus on what that technology has led to, which is an erosion of conversational skill.

Having the ability to reach out to an endless amount of people almost instantly has made it so easy for us to only engage in conversations with the very small minority of people who reply positively that everyone else gets ignored. How many of those in the silent majority could we engage in a conversation if we would have just picked up the phone? What if they don't want to speak?

In 10 years of business I've never picked up the phone to call someone I don't know without butterflies in my stomach. The butterflies are perfectly normal and should indicate that you 1) care about what you're doing and want to do it right and 2) are doing something challenging and difficult. It's supposed to be difficult. You're about to call someone you don't know and have no idea how you'll be received. You probably have one shot at learning just enough about them to earn a deeper conversation or a future conversation. You'll fail, you'll be rejected and hung up on, but so what? You'll also establish rapport with some great business contacts that will hopefully become strong business relationships. In the process, you'll become skilled in listening, seeing opportunities and overcoming objections. The only way to gain these skills is to make yourself pick up the phone.

Can you even think of a phone call you regretted making? I can't.
Can you think of times you wish you would have picked up the phone? YEP.