Is It The Right Candidate?

A friend of mine is an author and writes for various sources. He has told me on multiple occasions that writing is a lot of fun, a lot of work, and there are two steps that take up the bulk of his time: 1) getting started and 2) feeling confident that it is complete and ready to submit. Knowing the project is complete and ready to publish is a nerve-racking experience. He always feels that he needs to add more.

When I have these conversations with my friend I can’t help but relate his stress to that of a hiring manager. I recently began working with a new client, his business was growing and he was starting to expand into targeting a new customer type. We were connected because I have experience recruiting for this type of sales professional and this very smart President wanted to make sure that he had done a proper search, turned over every stone, but he needed this done in a timely manner. He had stared at a blank page and done a phenomenal job of putting together a job description. Now, he needed to believe he was making the right hire.

The first step to solving this problem is simple: hard work. An important facet of providing a recruiting service is to demonstrate how many people you’ve targeted, engaged with, where they came from, why they are/aren’t interested, and what their qualifications are. It can seem as though there are always more candidates and this can often lead to drawing out the interview process, candidates dropping out, and frustration mounting for all parties. However, just gathering this information isn’t enough. That is what can lead to paralysis by analysis. The recruiter must be ready to explore a great deal of data but also to simplify it to what matters most. Relate the information back to the key decision makers in terms of how it relates to what they are looking for so they are confident in making their decision that will lead to the right hire.