Candidate Presentation: Perception & Reality

Take for example a candidate who has at most 80% of the experience, skills and knowledge that you need for your open position.

One possible viewpoint is to see his potential and commit to helping him achieve that potential. When you do this he becomes a íStar Candidateí for you and there is a natural symbiosis with your company. He has most of what you need and you can train him up for the skills that he lacks. You win, he wins.

One the other hand, you can focus on his limitations for your open position. In that case he will fall short of your requirements and will enter the rejected pile. You continue to hunt for the person who matches your Job Description perfectly. You lose, he loses.

The candidate in both cases hasnít changed, you have.

So, you say to yourself, this is all just psychology. Surely there is nothing in nature that changes form right in front of our eyes.

Well, there is.

In the mid 1800s, the Swiss crystallographer L. A. Necker noticed while examining crystals that three dimensional objects can fluctuate suddenly in appearance.



This was dubbed the íNecker Cubeí and it provides a useful paradigm for how and why our perceptions can switch quickly based on our assumptions. Change the assumptions and you change the perception.

According to the theory we all eventually find one interpretation of the cube and stick to it. So for our candidate analogy, once we have established a view of candidates we stick to it forever. Those who see the limitations of candidates continue to see limitations, while those who see potential continue to see potential.

The theory also says that if we are rewarded for seeing the cube one way rather than the other, with say money, or attention, our brains begin to hold on to the rewarding view.

The lesson here is that candidates can be viewed in many ways, but the reward system in your company will eventually train you to view candidates one way.

Even if you had a long-term, strategic viewpoint of the hiring process before you joined your current company, if the system in your company rewards you for just filling seats it will tend to make you take a short-term, tactical approach to hiring. This will cause you to focus on the limitations of candidates. Eventually you cannot see it any other way.

Alternatively, any system that rewards you for taking a long term, strategic view will tend to make you, or allow you, to take the positive view of candidates. It allows you to plan ahead and take the time to invest in new people. It also trains you well and improves your thinking about the hiring process.

So you need to look at the way that you view candidates now and ask yourself why. If the system or thinking in your company is making you take a short term, tactical view of hiring you can work with your GM to change the assumptions. Only then can you change your companyís approach to hiring.

Let me look at this again!