The ROI of Being Human

My earliest founder success story features two key contradictions. First, it begins before I even founded Captivate Talent. Second, it centers around a deal that I lost.

So, how does chalking up an L lead to a W? Well, let’s come back to that. First, let’s consider success through a startup lens.

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If you’re a founder, you understand that the window of opportunity when you’re first to market is remarkably small. Innovation is only innovative until everyone’s doing it, right? It’s why you’re in a hurry to acquire customers and gain market share. If competitors recognize your value before potential clients do, your competitors will sign them. Your flagship client – the one that could change the future of your business – will have its logo firmly positioned on your competitor’s website. And you’ll have officially missed the boat.

All this is to say that your first revenue hires, the people responsible for acquiring your early customers, can make or break your business. Hire the right person and you’re the leader in your category. Hire the wrong person and watch the above scenario come to life in the 6-12 months it will take to truly evaluate his or her performance.

Many founders and their recruiters use data to pare down, evaluate and hire their early revenue folks, quickly. It sure solves the time problem – data is an instant evaluation tool, and should be used as such. But it’s only a piece of the story. Data doesn’t understand the subtleties of your space, culture or leadership methodology. Data doesn’t know what lights an individual candidate’s fire. Put simply, data doesn’t do nuance. And “fit” is all about nuance.?

Let’s go back to the original story:?

Chapter I: I met Captivate’s first client, Kevin Mulrane, at a previous firm that I was consulting for.? At the time, he was a candidate who was also working with another recruiter to find his next career step, but we just hit it off. We talked about jobs, sure, but also about what really mattered to him, at both work and in life. What were his short and long term goals? How did he define success, where did he achieve it in the past??

Chapter II: I received an offer for him at around the same time as did the other recruiter.? The offer I had was strong and hit both of his long and short term goals but the other offer had similar benefits. We talked through the pros and cons of each and, at the end of the day, whichever choice was best for him and his family was the right decision by me.?

Chapter III:? Kevin called me after taking a few days to consider his options. We’d talked enough by that point that I knew right away that he was about to deliver “bad news”. He walked me through his thought process and, while I was a little disappointed, I was also excited for him. He had put his all into interviewing and was really happy to be taking the next step in his career.? At the end of the day my job was to present my client and offer in the best light possible, not try to force or convince him to take my offer.? My job was to treat Kevin like a person, not a product, my job was to Be Human.??

Chapter IV: Fast forward a few months: I reconnected with Kevin and told him that I was launching Captivate Talent, and he told me to come in for a meeting when I was ready to go. ? While another recruiter was the one who placed him in his current role, he wanted to talk to me about building his team as he felt that the process he went through with me was how he wanted the candidates for his team to be treated.??

Chapter V: Our meeting was July, 13th 2017.? That date is important to me for two reasons.? One, it was the first day Captivate Talent was live as a business, and two, it also turned out to be the date of our first contract signed by a new client.?

Chapter VI: The lifetime value of being human and understanding that element of business, especially recruitment, can be infinite. Kevin and the Captivate Team have worked together in multiple capacities over the last five years. We’ve flipped back and forth between client, candidate, and collaborator, and now we are even a customer of his.? The ROI in recognizing the human element in recruitment has been 10X over what that original deal would have been.?

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If it’s not yet clear why we’re the ones who got that call, the answer is pretty simple, and purely human. We form relationships to live in the nuanced space that data just can’t touch.???

We understand founders because we 1) find their pain points, 2) internalize their visions, 3) recognize their leadership competencies and the type of candidate that will complement them, and 4) are prescriptive about not only current, but also future, evolving needs.?

We understand candidates because we 1) discuss their goals, 2) discover what keeps them happy and motivated in their roles, 3) consider their communication styles, and 4) are prescriptive about not only current, but also future, evolving needs.

Odds are, you’re a founder with a phenomenal, disruptive idea. Odds are, the data will serve you with candidates who have had very successful careers by the numbers. Odds are, if that’s as deep as your vetting process goes, you’re playing a very risky odds game.

Nuance takes a little more time, sure. But nuance will take you from hiring and praying to hiring and knowing. And nuance will keep you firmly within your window of opportunity in ways the wrong hire will not.?

Data stories are all about 0 and 1. Human stories are all about the infinite space between 0 and 1. Your company’s success story depends on both.

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