The Flawed Pursuit

Have you been struggling to fulfill a position beyond a reasonable time frame ? Is it that your talent pipeline is thinning day by day and you are kind of running out of options ? Is it that every conversation that you have had with your recruiter in the recent past has ended up in an argument ? Is it that, the ones that you are shortlisting are not the ones that are shortlisting the role that you are offering over other similar roles in the market by your competition ?

Then let’s see what’s potentially going wrong ,

• If it was not for communication would you have rejected that candidate ?- Please remember communication is relatively a easily/moderately trainable skill , and it is not a prime requisite for all the roles. Instead pay attention to individual’s listening and comprehension skills , it’s not easy to train individuals on these ( emphasis on communication cannot be debunked if you are hiring for content writing , sales , customer success and business analyst kind of roles )
• It’s a customer facing role - oh really ! do you want some one that can convince that customer to take what you are offering or the one that can understand customer’s real pain points and translate them into technical inputs and device a solution that can fit the customer needs in the long run? If the prerequisite of the role is technical prowess, putting too much of emphasis on communication isn’t going to help    
• Do you really need someone that meets all the criteria listed for that role ?- Recall what happened when you hired a perfect fit last time - A perfect fit will always outgrow the role in no time and any individual is a perfect fit only in a given scenario, past performance of any individual is just a proof of her/his excellence in that scenario , try and place her/him in different situation with relatively less similarities of the past and see how she/ he responds , simulations and case studies are great ways to do this 
• What is the career plan for the resource that you are planning to hire ?- If you ever hire someone that needs very little learning to do, to perform in a given role believe me , like I mentioned earlier she/he will outgrow that role soon and most often such individuals would seek faster growth and better challenges,if you have not planned for their career , soon that great fit will turn out to be your great risk as she/ he wouldn’t think twice before moving out for a relatively better and competitive role . So if you really need a straight fit , you better have great career plan for her/ him
• Why is that the great candidates are not taking your offer ? - let’s not forget that , while you are assessing the candidate for the role , she/he is assessing you as an employer for her/ his next career move . Starting from your conduct during the interview to the process of evaluation and transparency in the role needs articulated to the prospect , everything is up for weighing. And don’t even for a minute try overselling the role , because sooner or later she/ he will figure out what actually the role is all about, before accepting your offer or at least before joining. And it’s not always for money that they take up other offer

See all the above said are not applicable in all the scenarios but they are worth considering before you write off any candidate for a role. After all we all are operating in a talent driven, complex and competitive market , you don’t take my word on that ! Go check LinkedIn profile of that candidate that you rejected a year back for some peripheral reasons.

Next time before you reject any candidate for the role that you are hiring for , consider writing three solid reasons for rejecting that candidate with some decent explanation for each , if you cannot come up with three reasons to reject , do reconsider your decision and consult with your team , explain them what are those one or two skills that the individual is falling short of and how much of hand holding the individual would need to up-skill in those areas and figure out , to what extent the team can help her/him in that and take a call , and now you may ask why consult with the team , please remember you cannot always be there for the person that you hire and a high performing team always works together by overcoming each other’s shortcomings. At the same time be watchful of the subjective biases, especially when the person is exceptionally good in other areas.

No hire is always better than a wrong hire but an unreasonably prolonged hiring decision is even worse than no hire.

Do let me know your views in comments and feel free to share if there are any more key aspects that a hiring manager should be considerate of.