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The Perfect Hire
8 characteristics of a highly effective supplicant
Posted 03.09.2004
Presumably, if you have enough money to
buy this magazine, or you get your hair cut in a place that
subscribes to it, or you found it at a doctor's office where
your insurance will cover you, you have some kind of a job.
When they hired you, if it's a halfway-decent job, you thought
to yourself, This is a good job, meant for an intelligent
person with certain ineffable qualities that add up to potential
greatness. I wonder why they picked me.
Today, if you've been any kind of player
at all, you sometimes get the opportunity to hire somebody.
This is always a very big deal, no matter how small the
job. You hold the fate of another person in your big, hairy
hand. That's heavy-duty ballast. And chances are, if you're
at all good at it, you come up with somebody whose head
pops out above the rest, a man or woman whose name you remember
even though others seem more qualified. And in the end,
as your new employee stands there on that first day, you
look at this intelligent person with certain ineffable qualities
that add up to greatness, and you ask yourself, Why did
I hire this loser over all the other losers?
Why?
This question lies at the heart of every great hire. Why?
Why me? Why him or, increasingly, her? Why this dude, when
that other dude went to Wharton? Why the one with the beard
stubble, when there were 10 clean-shaven Stepford dads you
could have hung your hat on?
Sure, there are a lot of rational answers,
but they don't touch the heart of the conundrum. The real
key, as is so often true, is part logical and part emotional.
And if you don't get that last part, you're going to screw
things up.
Pass-Fail
The stakes couldn't be higher. You're bringing somebody
in to do a job you don't want to do yourself. If he or she
is not right in some way? You have to do it yourself. Which
can be a real pain in the neck when you want to get away
for the weekend.
You could bring in a dud. Back in the late
'90s, I got schmutzed by a guy who impressed me with his
political credentials. He had worked in Washington and knew
George and George and Ron and Don and Ed and Fritzie. My
bosses liked him a lot. He looked excellent in a suit. Yeah,
there was this nagging little voice inside me saying, Bullshit
factor! Help! But I didn't listen. His teeth were too white.
About a month into his run, I realized that
he was having more lunches than I was, that I was still
honking away at my desk at the end of the day while he was
popping by with his umbrella and a smile and a cheery "See
ya!" I didn't realize how deeply this was going to
suck until I had to come in one Saturday to clean up some
paperwork my new pal was staring at. "I need more time
on this," he said to me as I stood in his doorway in
my jeans, alligator shirt, and sneakers.
"We don't have any more time, Chet,"
I said, and moved to look over his shoulder at his screen.
It was blank.
It took me 6 months to get rid of my well-scrubbed
M.B.A. I replaced him with another guy who's so ambitious,
unpretentious, and unreflectively can-do that sometimes,
when I think about all he's capable of and willing to perform,
I worry about my utility around here.
That's what you want. Somebody who could,
after years of growth and nurturing and being tortured by
you, replace you. Okay, that might be a problem later on,
but you can deal with that then, huh?
So let's get cracking. The person you're
looking for has a mix of very specific qualities, in exactly
the following proportions:
1. Isn't disgusting looking (7 percent)
Yes, it's shallow, but you're going to have to work with this
yutz every day. I once knew a guy who was terrific in every
way except that every time you looked at him, he made you
want to yak. Like, after lunch he inevitably was wearing something
repulsive on a portion of his face. Usually tuna fish. He
also didn't smell in the top quartile some days. It got to
the point where I preferred to do a lot of the things he was
supposed to do myself, and that's the definition of a bad
hire. At the same time, I never hire a guy who smells like
he's been rubbing himself with a copy of Vanity Fair. Unless
he's a woman.
2. Is not very much stupider or too much smarter than you
(10 percent)
Either extreme is to be avoided. If you're sitting with the
guy and feel moss growing on the inside of your skull, or
his, or if you feel the sudden, inexorable urge to say "Buh!"
in order to wake yourself up, that's a bad sign. Think of
delegating something important to him and a few hours later
finding your bosses yelling about the damage your mismanagement
has wrought. Ugh. Makes me shiver. Rule of thumb: A guy too
stupid to appear semi-intelligent in a brief interview will
be 42 percent stupider later on. If, on the other hand, the
fellow is so bright and squeaky you want to squeegee him with
a razor, that won't do, either. He'll be doing all the stuff
you don't want to do. The last thing you need is a general
consensus that you could be replaced by a genius making one-fifth
of your compensation, with 5 percent of your attitude. Hire
somebody who makes you look smart without looking stupid in
comparison.
3. Hasn't heard the bad news yet (10 percent)
And is jolly because of it. Guys who have had one knock
too many have a dazed, beaten, condescending, belligerent,
or quasicrushed look about them, or possibly all of the
above. The interview process takes the stuffing out of a
normal person after a while. So does corporate life. The
guy who can summon up a positive attitude from the get-go
is worth a dozen of his more rational counterparts.
I was once on one of those idiotic golf
retreats that are supposed to build character in middle
management. Folks were brought in from all over the country
to bond. The thing was . . . it rained. Rained Sunday, when
we got there. Rained Monday, when we were still there, eating
and drinking and looking out over the vast wasteland of
the windswept course. We all felt like killing ourselves,
not because we wanted to play golf but because there was
nothing to do but talk to each other. Horrible! Worse than
being at the office, by far, because we were mandated by
corporate overseers to have fun or else. And we weren't.
Except for Nagle, a superyoung guy pretty
much straight out of college. This was his first getaway,
and he didn't get the memo instructing everybody to be grouchy
and wet and sick of each other. At first, his relentless
good humor wore on me, but after a while I found myself
hanging with him because, unlike the others, he still could
feel the excitement, the majesty, the wonder of a business
career in which one is paid well to waste tons of time.
Didn't take long to realize that I could
get really used to having him around. I had him transferred
to my department, where on a regular basis he makes me feel
as if the life we've chosen is sometimes worth living.
4. Is like you in some important ways (9
percent)
You don't want the candidate to be altogether different
from you. You have strong points, even if they're not evident
to you or those who know you well. These good qualities
should be mirrored, to some extent, in the successful applicant.
You don't want to find a carbon copy, though. Just somebody
who is as neat as you are, who likes to talk about baseball
now and then if you do, or doesn't if you don't, who can
be silent when you want to be, or talk when you feel garrulous,
who will put his head down and work instinctively at the
times you wish to do so, and not be too much of a grind
when you don't feel like being one, either.
Most of the people who work for me are younger
than I am and resemble mini-me in days I almost remember.
In fact, they're better than I was because, to tell you
the truth, I've always been a bit demented and ill-fitting
in the corporate garb. I like the things about them that
remind me of myself as I almost knew me.
5. Complements your weaknesses (10 percent)
Contrariwise, you must find an individual who zigs when
you zag, who snaps when you crackle, who pops when you stop.
Like: I have a bad habit I'll share with you. I get incoherently
angry when insulted or thwarted, and lose the ability to
think, breathe, or speak, often huffing and barking into
the phone like an epileptic seal when things don't go my
way. This is not a good thing in a world where one must
occasionally play one's cards close to an imaginary vest.
That's why I genuinely value those I have hired who are
able to keep their heads when I am determined to lose mine,
and why I hire guys who can take a needling and keep on
wheedling.
I also stink at burdensome, laborious processes
that must be done because that's what we do. When hiring
a department assistant not long ago, I gravitated to a mega-organized
soul who presented her ideas in a beautifully tailored red-and-blue
loose-leaf binder in which she had placed a variety of visual
aids spaced neatly between laser-printed subject dividers.
As a nerdy object, it was nonpareil. As something that,
as loopy as it was, I could never have done myself, it was
priceless. I needed a person who could do something like
that because I knew I never, ever could.
6. Not completely crazy but not totally
sane, either (14 percent)
I mistrust people who are too sane. For 20 years, I worked
at a large multinational manufacturing company. People there
were so sane they drove me around the bend. Give me a modulated
basket case any day. Note the word "modulated."
Only ultrasenior management can exercise complete dementia
and get paid for it.
7. Good breath (8 percent)
I can say no more.
8. X-factor compatibility (32 percent)
And then there's this: The feeling you get when you're talking
to The One. I could work with this guy, that little voice
within you says. Yes, I could see him every day and not
end up twisting his nose off. I could come in on a snowy
Tuesday after a 2-hour commute and not throw him through
the window. If I were in some kind of trouble, I just might
ask for his advice. I could sit in silence with him and
eat a sandwich if I had to. Yeah. Why not?
Why not? It's the same question as "why,"
which is how we started. And the answer is as simple: Why
hire this loser over that loser? Because you want to. In
the end, that's all that counts.
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