“Always hire talent, even if you don’t have the perfect spot for them yet”. That quote is from an article on The Top 5 Hiring Lessons from the Nation’s Best Execs and while a lot of us would like to believe it’s true we know that it is in fact just the opposite.
Americans’ confidence in the economy faded further in July, according to a monthly survey released Tuesday, amid job worries and skimpy wage growth. That’s at odds with Wall Street’s recent rally fueled by upbeat earnings reports from big businesses such as chemical maker DuPont Co. and equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. That’s because the pumped-up profits are being fueled by cost cuts like layoffs and overseas sales. In fact, big companies have shown few signs they’re ready to hire and even more are not willing to hire talented people.
While I enjoy consulting I have been looking to find a great interactive marketing position with progressive company that values talented people. One of the other suggestions that the author on the top 5 hiring lessons makes is that executives should ask questions that require candidates to tell stories about their experience. I have always tried to do this but after just a few words I have noticed that the interviewer is not really listening to my answer.
Another lesson is that culture always trumps strategy. Basically what they are saying here is that the candidate has to share the company values but what happens when those values are not really enforced and are just words on paper ?
Let’s be honest here. Most hiring managers do not want to hire talented people because they see these people as a threat to their job security. They want someone who will “fit in” someone who is the opposite of a Linchpin. They want doers who can check boxes and push things through the system without using too much thought.
American companies are only going to be able to generate so much profits from eliminating jobs. Eventually the incompetent people are going to stand naked because they are out of ideas on how to generate more business in an era of empowered consumers who are changing marketing. Smart executives should always hire someone smarter and more talented than themselves because a person like that will an excellent reflection on the hiring manager the brand and company. Those who are afraid of talented people are the managers who are managers because that’s where they can do the least amount of damage to the company (Dilbert Principle).
The problem is that your suggestions are logical but most decisions are based on emotion. Very few people are able to see past illogical emotion to make logical decisions. This is true not just in America but also globally, because that is the nature of humans, although I do think that the nature of the illogical emotions probably does vary some depending on the culture and upbringing.