talent

The talent you need is all around you

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Keen observers will know that I have a particular dislike for the made up, “Great Resignation”. I’d go as far to say that it put up a good challenge to “The War for Talent”, “The New Normal” and anything involving the word, “Disruption” to be the most vacuous phrase that has ever dribbled out of the side of a mouth. And whilst the context is different, the commonality between all of these soundbites is the lack of understanding and analysis that goes with their use. They’re just repeated mindlessly by the mindless.

There is no doubt that the labour market has been through a period of change. It was dormant for nearly two years, so it should come as no surprise that when it started up again it would behave in a less balanced way than before the pandemic. And there is no doubt that people have made different decisions over the last couple of years based on their experience during the pandemic period. That said, I have little time for anyone bemoaning the lack of talent.

Almost three quarters of a million young people are not in education, employment or training (NEET), around 350,000 people of working age with a disability are unemployed, single parents are twice as likely as unemployed as those in a couple, refugee unemployment rates are up to three times the national average, and only 25% of men and 20% of women leave the criminal justice system with any type of employment.

The idea that in all of these groups, in all these statistics there is a void of talent – well frankly it simply doesn’t add up. And whilst I know it is hard and I know it is unusual, as leaders of organisations we cannot overlook the opportunity that exists to create meaningful work for people and to mitigate the risk of the skills shortages we have created for ourselves through a lack of strategic workforce planning.

This isn’t about corporate responsibility, or employability programmes, whilst neither are among in and amongst themselves. This is about the search for talent and about the performance and productivity of our organisations. You can read more about it here.

Don’t look back

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I stand to be corrected, but if memory serves me well I’ve only once employed a direct team member in two different organisations. And in that case it was many years later and after they had already left the organisation in question. To say that I find it peculiar when people hire people from their previous teams, is an understatement. It completely baffles me.

Let’s start first of all with the moral arguments, or those of good and decent etiquette. Whilst there are often contractual and legal reasons for not seeking to solicit previous employees, there’s also in my opinion a really simple point of etiquette. A bit like stalking an ex on the internet to look at the pictures of them with their new partner, or driving slowly past the house that you once lived in to see what they’ve done with the decor, there is something a little bit icky and unbecoming about going back into an organisation that has been part of your past to make it part of your future again.

But more than this, it also infers a limited self confidence and a level of protectionism and closed mindedness. The chance that the very best people that are available to do the job that you need doing are in the place that you previously worked is highly improbable. There are of course certain circumstances that might prove extenuating, when a full team moves from one organisation to a near competitor, for example. But these are nearly always closed off by the contractual restrictions I mentioned above.

One of the things that I’ve loved throughout my career is working with different people, with different perspectives, ideas and approaches. Sometimes learning to get on and find your groove can take a bit of time, but that’s as much about stretching yourself and adapting to other people’s styles. In many ways that’s one of the joys of moving to a different organisation, learning new things, new ways and working with new people (incidentally that’s also one of the joys of moving sector). Bringing the people that you’ve previously worked with is going to limit that stretch and potentially lead you to continue to have the blind spots that you previously were unaware of.

Would I rule out ever working for a CEO I’ve worked with before? No, but I’d want to know that there was enough time and space between it to make sure that they’d changed and so had I. I’d want to know that the organisation was entirely different and there would be things that I would need to learn and develop in. But would I ever take the people who’d worked for me with me? I just wouldn’t. For the very simple fact that I would want them to grow and develop and learn from different leaders in different contexts. When push comes to shove, no matter how brilliant they are it would be better for them, and it would be better for me.

Moving on up

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A few years ago I wrote a post about internal promotion and the comparison to external candidates. It is fair to say that it raised quite a bit of debate at the time and a range of differing views. If you don’t have the time, or the inclination, to read the original post, my point was essentially that internal candidates should be given more benefit of doubt when being compared to external candidates.

One of the main challenges that internal candidates have is that their limitations and areas for growth most likely already known. Which, whilst some would argue is a benefit, can often be a reason to look beyond them. So does that mean that as an ambitious internal candidate you have to move on and look externally? Well obviously sometimes that’s the right thing to do, but before doing that, how about trying to address some of those gaps?

Every HR person and recruiting manager is different and of course I only speak for myself here, but when I’m interviewing or assessing an internal candidate I’m quite happy for there to be gaps between the role and the individual, it is only to be expected. But I want the candidate to be aware of that too. And that is particularly true if the role that you’re applying for is a promotion.

To put it more bluntly, no-one applying for a promotion should have nothing to learn. In fact it is entirely counter intuitive to believe that could be the case. Whilst there are always financial and other considerations, and I don’t mean in any way to belittle these, my experience is that the deciding factor for most people is that they want to pick something new up – more responsibility, a different team, a different department or function, a different business area.

Yet the moment you put them in the assessment process, the justification of worth can start and completely overshadow the very thing that I want to see. I want to know the individual has understood the requirements of the role, has assessed themselves against them, has made an appraisal of the areas that they can and can’t currently demonstrate and are willing and able to work on the gaps. I want them to have identified the very best person doing a similar job and asked themselves the questions, “how do I get to be that good?” not, “how do I persuade them I’m good enough?”

Being an internal candidate is hard – for all the reasons that I’ve mentioned in the previous post. No matter how we assess external candidates, they will always have the ability to add more spin and positioning than we will ever fully see through until they’re in post. But at the same time, internal candidates have a whole host of data, information and connections that they can use to their advantage. They just need to make sure that they absolutely do.

Recruiters admitting failure

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I’ve previously written about the role of recruiters in the current climate. I absolutely appreciate that for hard pushed recruitment teams, dealing with the volume of applicants that you get in a recession is tough. As people try to get a job, any job, you find yourself dealing with more and more applicants who simply don’t have the experience or knowledge that you need. It is a super tough job, but not half as tough as that of the unemployed.

I’ve seen numerous posts and Linkedin statuses complaining about the use of unnecessary qualifications for selection. I’ve got a long and proven track record of suggesting this is blunt thinking, even in the best of times. And of course that remains to this day – education is not a meritocracy. It never has been. But before I get distracted and start beating my truly old and battered drum, I want to talk about something else.

“We advise you to apply early, because due to volume of applicants we may close this advert early”

I cannot tell you, in how many ways this makes me want to scream. But I’m going to try, because it is raining and I appear to have nothing better to do for the next few minutes.

The vast majority of recruiters and resources will tell you that their job is to find “the best talent” for XYZ Corporation. They will tell you that the main attraction to their job is when they find a truly brilliant hire. I genuinely believe they believe this, however, if they ever use the line above they are admitting that these assertions are a sham. They are only interested in filling a seat and making their own lives easier. A more accurate statement would be, “the best fit from the people who can be bothered to apply”.

In some ways, I’m not against this latter assertion. It is honest, in reality it is what most recruiters do and whilst there is increasingly a level of active search, the goal is more to find an acceptable bum on seat, rather than to find the best talent. However, and it is a big HOWEVER, by closing down a role early, you are absolutely signalling that to the candidate pool. The logic is, “I’m saying this explicitly so the best candidates will apply quicker”, the reality is that you’re reducing your chance of finding the best person or people.

And of course, particularly in early careers recruitment, this also builds in a massive bias towards those candidates with pushy parents, school teachers or mentors and disadvantages those who might come to the recruitment process later or not recognise the importance of acting sooner rather than later.

It is a process that introduces another, non job related, bias filled selection criteria – SPEED.

Life is hard enough for job seekers at the moment, and whilst I really do understand the pressures on the recruitment teams (I used to recruit 18,000 Christmas temps each year) I implore you to put this in Room 101 with the other stupid recruitment practices. If you want to know more about those, you can read them here.