The Truth About Recruiting | 120 Seconds to Better Leadership

*Video Transcription*

The Truth About Recruiting

So I want to just drop a quick note on recruiting. I'm seeing this from two sides of the same coin.

“How honest should people be when they're recruiting for a major position?”

I have one client that I would say has been led on about the nature of her position. She’s been led on about the complications that come with the position and was probably recruited in a way that I would say is unfair.

I don't do recruiting. So I'm not saying this as a recruiter. I'm just saying this client had no idea what they were walking into, and now they're struggling to make it work. 

Then I have another client who is recruiting for a position that is very difficult to fill. They've had a very public tough time with their last CEO. Getting a new CEO to inherit that role has been very difficult in my counsel, even though I don't do research. 

You have to be brutally honest about what has happened so that you get the kind of person that's going to want to come in and tackle those kinds of issues.

Misalignment is probably the number one thing that I see in my job that people struggle with. My clients struggle with misalignment. One way you can get ahead of that is to be just brutally honest about the situation that people are inheriting when they take a role. 

It's part of why when we do onboarding, we do that work for them. We figure out what are they really inheriting versus what the company told them they were inheriting. 

Because if people know and they understand and they accept it, then they're up to the task.

But if you shine people on and make them think it's going to be this, but it's really that you're going to lose them.

In this employment economy, no one can afford to make that mistake. So be upfront, be brutally honest, be truthful and be compassionate that you don't want to set people up for something that they're not expecting. And recruiting costs will go down.

If you’ve been in the mix of recruiting and had some insightful and interesting experiences, I’d love to have a conversation on LinkedIn about that. Don’t hesitate to reach out