By Rich Thompson
I believe in the value of statistics. From athletics, I certainly know how much stats sheets tell us about a player’s contribution to a team. But it doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t tell how a player hustled down court every time to keep the pace of the game in their favor. It doesn’t show the hard work and determination in the weight room that motivated the entire team. And it definitely doesn’t represent the influence on culture due to his or her attitude in the locker room – especially when that impact to culture can make or break a team.
While I value certain criteria, I know there is much more to what makes people winners that shouldn’t be overlooked.
My team of recruiters at our sister company, XPG Recruit, often encounters obstacles to placing highly qualified candidates, some of whom are game-changing talent. One of the most common obstacles they encounter when searching for a candidate for an open role in a client company is when their hiring managers tell them they need someone with a certain number of years of very specific experience before they will consider them.
I respectfully disagree. Here’s why.
I worked for one of the three largest HR companies in the world. For more than 20 years, I watched hundreds of employees succeed (and a number fail) but almost never due to experience – or lack of it – in a specific industry.
Success in most jobs comes from the intangibles: the things you don’t see on a resume but that make all the difference on the job. The ability to make connections quickly. High energy. Persistence. Great communication. Organization skills. All critical to a career, and none of them directly correlate to industry experience.
When you focus on specific experience instead of qualities and skills, you limit your talent pool. You might be overlooking candidates who can shine once they get the chance. Most people who are winners are not only capable of winning in one thing. I find that the qualities that make them winners are transferrable to other areas. It doesn’t apply to everything – it definitely doesn’t mean they are going to be a successful brain surgeon because they were good at lacrosse – but if you can find the right fit that requires similar soft skills or related experience, you can train for the other needed areas.
Herb Kelleher, one of the founders of Southwest Airlines, is credited with being the first to say, “Hire for attitude, train for skill.” Many companies attribute their success to finding the right people first and training them to do the job, rather than looking for people who can do the job and trying to make them into the right people. Michael Homula, Director of Talent Acquisition for Quicken Loans, said, “We can teach people about finance. We can’t teach passion, urgency and a willingness to go the extra mile.”
Companies that don’t focus on attitude may find it hard to overcome self-imposed barriers. It’s possible that they don’t really understand the qualities that make someone successful in their company or industry. It takes time to learn what your superstar team members have in common (although there are plenty of assessments that can help.) It also takes courage to declare that hiring is not about finding people with the right experience. It’s about finding people with the right mindset.
It’s harder to measure soft skills than it is to measure years of experience, so many hiring managers default to the easy way to select candidates. They’ll need training and support to learn new skills like behavioral interviewing. They’ll need to learn that looking for the right fit doesn’t mean just trusting your gut; it should be a rigorous part of the hiring process.
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. It sounds elementary, but people don’t really change over time. They won’t suddenly become extroverts if they’ve been introverted since they were kids. One way to get to know a candidate quickly is to ask a question they’ve probably not heard before in an interview. Without a pre-rehearsed answer at hand, you’ll get the chance to see their minds work through their response. It’s the theory behind the questions consulting companies made famous: unanswerable problems that were designed to reveal a candidate’s problem-solving style. “How many gas stations are in Chicago?” or “Why are manhole covers round?”
If you value independent thinking, try asking about the last time a candidate broke the rules. If you value creativity, ask about their superpower. Trader Joe’s is famous for asking, “What do you think of garden gnomes?” If a candidate doesn’t enjoy the weirdness and irreverence of the question, they’re probably not a great fit for Trader Joe’s culture. Once you find a great fit, management and training become much easier throughout the course of a worker’s career.
“The overarching idea is that you hire hard and then manage easy,” says Alan Davidson, an industrial psychologist in San Diego. “That means doing a lot of work up front.”
I respectfully agree with that. Because when you have high level talent, your possibilities are endless.
Rich Thompson is CEO of Podium X and XPG Recruit. He is a former professional placekicker and expert on human resources, career development, training and leadership. See Rich’s Podium