The Power of Being Real

Not long ago I read a book entitled, "The Power of Nice", by Linda Kaplin Thaler and Robin Koval. Great read. You should pick it up if you have a chance. Anyway, it basically talks about treating everyone with mutual respect and kindness. Everyone from retail casher to all the way up to the company president. Understand, life can be hard at times, but most people respond to someone being genuinely nice to them, especially if they're having a bad day. I do my best to try and incorporate being nice in my day-to-day life.

There's another quality I believe that's akin to "nice" and that is being "real".

What I mean by being real is to be genuine. In other words, it's being authentic. You're not trying to blow smoke in mirrors. You're not trying use "sleight of hand" to get them to buy something by trickery.

In a world crawling with plastic surgeons, photoshop, and Facebook, or as we older folks call it, "The Face Book", it can be refreshing to know that what you see is what you get. No pretenses. No techniques to get them to buy what you're selling.

In general, as a society, we're just tired of always being "sold" something. Like with TV Commercials, popup ads when you're online or the endless spam emails and robocalls. This is also true when it comes to recruiting. Some in my profession have garnered a bad reputation because they are always trying to "sell" the candidate on their job opening. They just want to get their reqs closed. While it may yield them short term results it inevitably will come back to bite them in the ...hinny. They simply aren't looking out for the best interest of the candidate, and they're certainly not doing their hiring managers any favors either.

I would advise them to try being real and genuine. Stop trying to put square pegs in round holes. Here are a few things that they should realize.

1) Put yourself in their place. You wouldn't want someone to convince you to take a job that you wouldn't be a good fit for.

2) You're dealing with their livelihood. Thier job is how they provide for themselves and/or family. That's something to be taken seriously.

3) Your position and/or company may not be a good culture fit for them. Simply put, even if they made the desired amount of money, they wouldn't end up being happy employees.

4) Realize a candidate is always going to make the best decision for themselves and their family. Don't take it personally if they turn your opportunity down, you'd do the same.

Over my 27 years as a Recruiter, I can lay my head on my pillow and sleep at night because I haven't "sold" a candidate on taking a job that I thought wasn't in their best interests. I can call any number of those in my LinkedIn network, and they'll take my call. Why? Because even if I never hired them for one of my positions, they know that I'm not calling to "sell" them. I'm calling because I feel that the opening I have may be a great fit. I give them all the information and I let them make the final determination. And that my friend, is the power of being real.