Hunting Unicorns
Overview
The hiring process has gotten so
complex that it has begun to overwhelm what should be a basic, straightforward
activity – hiring a new employee. Couple that complexity with the desire to
hire the “right” candidate, the absolutely “perfect” candidate (or in other
words, what is known as a “Unicorn”), and what should be a relatively simple
process has now become unwieldy.
Is it any wonder that the hiring
process is now getting longer and longer and…
What Once Was
It used to be that hiring a new
employee was a fairly simple process. You’d write a brief job description, post
it somewhere, collect the applications and resumes you received, go through
them, pull out the ones of interest, bring them in, interview them, eliminate
the obvious ones who wouldn’t fit, bring the others back in for a second round,
gather feedback, rate and rank the remaining candidates, maybe do a quick final
round of interviews, then make a decision and make an offer. Sure, it used to
take a few weeks, but it was still fairly straightforward.
No longer though.
Today, the hiring process at best
can take several weeks, while at worst it can take several months! The hiring process now includes not only online
applications, but also screening calls, phone interviews, panel interviews, in-person
interviews, aptitude testing, skills testing, quantitative and qualitative
testing, personality testing, psychological profiling, and more. Each day it
seems as if a new test has been developed that must be administered to a candidate. Just in case…
It’s gotten so ridiculous that
the average college student preparing for an SAT or GMAT has less to study for
than the average candidate applying for a job.
And why is that?
It’s because HR departments, recruiters,
personnel managers and hiring managers are scared.
Scared?
Yes, scared. They’re scared of
making a mistake – the mistake being that, Gasp!,
they’re going to miss hiring the perfect employee if they don’t review or
interview every living, breathing human being who even looks at or considers
applying for their open position. Scared that they won’t hire the absolutely
perfect candidate! Scared that they won’t find
the Unicorn!
Really?
Sadly, it’s true.
Dum, dum, dum, Daaah!!!!! (think
dark, heavy music, Beethoven’s Fifth, here)
Now It’s Process Before People
Because those people involved in
the hiring process are so scared, they’ve lost sight of the goal of the hiring
process, which is simply to hire the best
person who can do the job to help the business.
In other words, they’ve let
process take priority over people.
Unfortunately, that process takes
the form of CYA in many instances. So rather than making a decision with a
candidate and moving forward, they continue hunting Unicorns.
Again, just in case…
Note that nowhere in a typical
job description does it say that the person hired has to be perfect. The person
doesn’t have to be able to perform each and every aspect of the job function on
the first day of hire. They simply need to be able to learn and grow and do the
job once they’re hired.
But process has apparently now taken
over and common sense no longer applies. Because of this, the hunt for Unicorns
continues to get more and more complex, which in turn causes the hiring process
to spiral more and more out of control.
The reality is that every
employer, regardless of industry, regardless of sector, regardless of size,
location or technology, has their own way of doing things. Even if a business
hires a person away from a direct competitor, the new employee still has to be
on-boarded and then learn their new employer’s way of working and doing things.
This means that the employee is not going to be perfect on Day One.
Gasp! What!?!
You mean the newly hired person won’t
be the Second Coming of Jack Welch? The new employee doesn’t walk on water? He
may actually have to learn something? He’s
not a Unicorn?
Oh woe is me! What shall we do???
To quote an old TV commercial
from the Sixties, “Sorry, Charlie.”
That’s just how it is when you hire a new employee. It takes time to come up to
speed, regardless of who you are or how qualified you are.
Delays in Hiring Costs Money
The hiring process is complicated
enough as it is. With all of the steps that are involved, why should it take
even longer? The longer it takes, the worse it becomes for the business.
Why?
First, because the longer it
takes to go through the interview process, the more it costs. The hiring process
requires lots of coordination, logistics and scheduling of people, both
internal and external. All of that takes time, which in turn costs money.
Second, the longer it takes to
hire a new employee, the longer it takes for the business to accomplish what
needs to be done by the person they need to hire. The business therefore pays
the price and suffers from delays in the hiring process. These delays may even cause
the business to lose a competitive edge or fall behind in the marketplace. In
other words, it costs the business money!
Finally, as it becomes known that
your business is not looking for qualified candidates, but instead is just
hunting Unicorns, the pool of qualified potential candidates may actually
shrink. Candidates quickly get tired of the interviewing game and the associated
delays and take themselves out of consideration. Or they may be hired by
another company that moves faster and realizes that there is no such thing as a
Unicorn. By moving too slowly, not only is a Unicorn never found, the best
candidate may be lost as well. This causes the hiring process to drag on even
longer.
When that happens, it means the
hunt for a new employee has to start all
over again!
Guess what? That costs money!
Let me say it again.
For each day lost in the search
for a Unicorn, the business loses money!
Hunting Unicorns Costs Money
When we were all in about the 5th
or 6th grade, we began learning a bit more advanced math. One of the
mathematical properties that we learned was known as the Transitive Property.
The transitive property proved that:
If A=B, and B=C, then A=C
The same thing holds true today for
hunting for Unicorns:
A) If hunting Unicorns is extremely time consuming compared to hiring a qualified candidate
B) And the more time the hiring process takes, the more money it costs
C) Then hunting Unicorns costs more money than finding and hiring a qualified candidate
Summary
Let me put it in simple terms:
1) In the search for a new employee there is no such thing as a Unicorn
2) Hunting for Unicorns causes delays that impact the business
3) Those delays cost the business money
4) There are lots of qualified candidates that can do the job
5) Hire one of those candidates!
It’s simple.
© Richard Hatheway, Catalyst Strategic Marketing
All rights reserved
