I Must Have That Man
Do you ever wonder why companies take so long to hire? Especially if you’re a candidate they’re interested in? You speak to one person, then another, and another.
The process slows, or stops. You enquire, and are told that, yes, they’re still very much interested and will let you know soon. Sometimes you hear back, sometimes not, weeks or months go by. Is this as good as it gets? What’s going on behind the scenes?
You also know the answer to that, as most of us work at companies and hire people ourselves.
If you’re the one hiring, you have to clear by the boss, Finance, HR, see if anyone internally fits, decide if you’re committed to expending and investing time on finding, assessing, deciding and on-boarding a new hire to ensure success. A bad hire can tarnish your legacy, so is it better to just wait it out a while, save the money to ensure the budget looks good, and do the work with combined internal resources?
I see it from both sides. Candidates who are interested get a rush of interest and enthusiasm which usually wears off after 6 plus months of an interviewing process. The irony is that many times, management gets wind or observes that one of their senior staff may well be interviewing. If they’re good talent, management will sweeten the pot to keep them, and they’ll stay.
The hiring company is usually philosophical, and simply decides they’ll get more candidates. “If it takes longer, we’re just casting our net, making sure we’ve covered all possibilities.” That is a silly but common attitude, as looking for people to hire can go on in perpetuity, the one little thing they’re missing rather than the positive. Everyone gets tired, internally and externally. I was discussing one candidate with a hiring manager not long ago. They’d met, he liked the guy, and when we spoke, he said, “What if he leaves in a couple of years? I can’t afford that.” I told him he didn’t know how long he’d be there, and what if the candidate stayed? Why assess a possible hire with a half empty glass? He listened, then laughed, and thanked me for the polite verbal slap. But his initial response was in part shaped by the corporate culture..
Patience is a virtue, it is said, and Aristotle wisely noted that virtue is a habit.
The same is true with hiring people. It is a habit, and with repetition it gets easier—and quicker–over time. There is no need to wait 8-12 months to go through the interviewing process to decide on a hire. That is wasted time, company (or hiring manager) indecisiveness becomes its reputation.
Do you really think that if Samsung, or Uber, Citibank, IFC, WPP. Li & Fung, MIT–fill it in yourself–really had their sights set on someone they wanted to bring on board that they would wait the better part of a year?
What to do?
If you’re an interested candidate, find out what the time frame and protocol is. If there is clarity of both, run with it. If not, it is a portend of how they manage their shop.
If you’re an interested company,. make sure your hiring process is muscular, not flabby. Manage it as you would your P&L and be clear on the parameters. Otherwise it will drag you down, and the talent you REALLY want will be taken.
At a senior level, hiring is a romance which leads to a business marriage,not a functional arrangement.
Back in the late 30′s, Billie Holiday sang one of her torch songs (with Lester Young and Teddy Wilson, never anything finer, jazz chamber music) “I Must Have That Man”.
The lyrics finish with
I need that person much worse’n just bad
I’m half alive and it’s drivin’ me mad
He’s only human if he’s to be had
I must have that man
As I said, it’s a romance, not a transaction..
