The Perfect Candidate = The Real Tech Unicorn

"For all you men looking for the perfect woman, let me tell you this: If there really was such a thing as a perfect woman, do you really think she'd be interested in you?!"

- One very wise man

Truer words have never been spoken. 

As with all things recruiting, you can easily compare it to relationships.

And as it pertains to the above quote, companies can learn a valuable lesson: if there really was a perfect candidate, do you think they'd really be interested in you?!

How often have executives said in hiring-planning meetings something to the following: "We need someone who knows our business. Who knows our competitors' business. And they need to know what we don't know about our business and our competitors' business. Oh, and they need to look, sound and smell the part."

A lot of tongue firmly planted in cheek there, but you get the point.

Hiring managers want to hire someone that often comes close to walking on water. And that's not a type of person I've ever been able to find in my many candidate searches, if truth is being told. 

Are companies' sights too high? Are they being unreasonable? No and no. 

But companies will often overlook the basic implication to the above quote when looking for their next hire: the perfect woman (A.K.A. the perfect candidate) doesn't exist.

So what is to be done? Give up? Settle? Again, no and no. 

The solution is simple: worry less about the candidates and more about your own company.  

Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and others. What's one of their common denominators? They're focused on their own success above all else and that success attracts people who want to be successful. 

Candidates like good companies, just like Ms. Perfect likes a confident and good man. They like hearing a good story about a good company, e.g., its funding success, clients, executive team, board members, innovative products, etc. The more of the above at any one company, the better the company is in the candidates' eyes. 

And when a company is finding itself more refined internally that refinement and success will attract better candidates. 

Just like the attractive lady in a crowd, you might get some suitors who are sometimes less desirable. But in the end the good guys will typically show themselves. 

So, a few tips to becoming the candidate magnet we all want to become:

1. Vision--what's the purpose and big picture of your company? Everyone wants to believe in what they're doing for work.
2. Success--success breeds success they say. Position small victories to build into bigger ones and make sure the right audiences know about them. It's not vanity--just good business when done correctly and with the right tenor. 
3. Always be hiring--you never know when the perfect candidate will walk through the door. Budgets and strategies might preclude a hire, but a conversation with a possible candidate is ALWAYS a good idea. 
4. Live up to your high standards--attracting the right people means more than just the message. It needs to be who you are as a company. If not, new hires will quickly see through the smoke screen and move on. 

Good luck as you look to make you and your company better so as to attract as perfect of a candidate as you can.

Happy hunting!