A little peek behind the curtain from Natalie: staffing companies also have a hard time hiring sometimes.
After taking a few new team members out to dinner, we ended up sitting at the bar, and our celebratory evening eventually turned into a conversation about hiring. More specifically, our hiring
I’ve been leading the search for business development team members for our new markets. While we’ve talked to some really good people we’ve also had plenty of applicants where I’ve looked at the resume, thought about what we needed and decided, for one reason or another, that I’m not interested in a conversation. So I was talking through the search challenges with Austin and mentioned some of the people I had passed on.
Austin: “Why don’t I take a look? Some of these people sound like they could be pretty good.”
Natalie: “That sounds great. Let’s do that tomorrow.”
Austin’s wife was with us, and later she sent us something called “Problem Hill or Fix-It Road.” It was a concept she had used when she worked as a speech-language pathologist helping kids with social communication. And, as is true of an alarming number of things we teach children, it turns out adults could probably stand to hear it too. The idea is pretty simple.
You start heading up Problem Hill. Something isn’t working. Somewhere along the climb, you get the opportunity to take Fix-It Road, to recognize what isn’t working, change something and keep moving. Or you can continue trudging uphill.
People have a tendency to keep investing in a decision or course of action even when we’re getting information that suggests it might not be working. Changing your mind can feel a little bit like admitting you were wrong. I could have responded with an impassioned defense of why I had already ruled them out. Pulling up resumes to prove my point. Saying, you don’t understand, I have spent HOURS sourcing and looking at applicants. But what would be the point? I’m not trying to prove that I’m good at reviewing candidates. I’m trying to hire great people for our team.
Maybe I was right about every single person I passed on. Maybe I wasn’t. Who cares? If we go back through the pile and find someone fantastic, I will not be sitting at their one-year anniversary, watching them crush it, thinking: I still maintain I was right about your resume. And that’s the part of Fix-It Road I like most. Taking it doesn’t necessarily mean the first decision was bad. It just means you got more information, another perspective, or a reason to look at the problem differently, and you were willing to do it. That can mean another set of eyes on the candidates. Changing the qualifications. Realizing your compensation isn’t competitive, your interview process is taking too long or the person you pictured when you opened the role isn’t actually the person you need.
Good hiring teams are going to end up on Problem Hill. The trick is not becoming so concerned with proving you chose the right path from the start that you miss the exit.
Until next time,
Your Spherion WI & Northern IL team