Hiring Overqualified Candidates

I recently read an article, well really a Blog, that got me thinking.  In our business, we are constantly searching for the "high potential" or "stretch" candidate.  Traditional thinking in the world of corporate recruiting says "stay away from candidates with too much experience."  But why?  So what if someone seems overqualified.

Amy Gallo recent wrote her piece in Harvard Business Review titled "Should You Hire an Overqualified Candidate?"  In this posting she dives into the common reasons why not to hire the candidate who is perceived as overqualified.  But what she says about why companies might want to look at those over-experienced or overqualified candidates is more intriguing. 

Think Broadly!
Could this person who has all of this experience from another industry or in another role be able to come in and quickly add value to parts of your organization that you are currently planning for?  Can you expand a particular role to put those "extra" skills to use now or in the future?  Businesses are placing an emphasis on workforce planning and succession planning now more than ever.  You need to be two or three steps ahead of your hiring needs in order to stay competitive for the future.  That "overqualified" candidate just might be the perfect fit for where the business is trying to go.  Think about how he or she can fit in now and what a great value to the business they will be in a year or two once the organization has progressed.  If you plan your business' hiring needs with only the here and now in mind, your hope for growth will soon hit a wall


Make sure you have a plan
When conducting interviews for our clients, we are always looking for people with drive to progress beyond where they are today.  Candidates oftentimes have goals for where they want to be in 5 or 10 years.  If you are planning ahead and hiring someone who may have more experience than is need for the current job but who is perfect for that next step, set the expectations up front.  Let that person know there is a plan and that plan is dependent upon performance.  The "overqualified" candidate will surely stick around if they are performing well and know that the plan is unfolding before them.  If you have set the expectation right up front and share with them that 5 year plan for the business and for them there is no reason why they should not continue to be engaged and enthusiastic about their role.

Don't be cheap
Just because you can hire a candidate with more qualifications for cheaper than they are worth because of a down economy...DON'T.  And this goes for any candidate that is an A player.  If the that person is that strong, don't low ball them.  Remember that you are always competiting for top candidates.  If you can't pay, pass.

Any way that you slice it, hiring is a game of risk.  Our job in that game is to mitigate the risk for our clients by being consultants in the process and doing our diligence on how candidates fit the current and future business needs.  In certain cases, it is worth the slight increase in short term risk to go out and get that "overqualified" candidate to over-meet a current need and plan well for the future.  You have to know the market, your competition, and most importantly, the person or candidate.  In the right circumstances the overqualified candidate is the best match for your businesses needs.

Fistful of Talent: Goodbye, Gold-Plated Relocation: Hello, Cheap "Build as you Go" Relo...

There once was a point in time where a company would buy your house, even as a mid-manager, in an effort to relocate you. Not only is this not happening internally any longer at most companies, the likelihood of this sort of package being found in "new hire" comp packages is slim to none... and slim just left the building. I don't know if it the fact that most people are down 10-20% on the value of their homes over the last 2 years (some much, much more), or that every organization in the known world got together and in an act of conspiracy decided to stop "taking one for the team"; but what I do know is that if you are evaluating a new opportunity you had better be prepared to swallow hard, bite your tongue, and take what they give you.

This all sounds a bit harsh and slightly "preachy" but it is true. Though most of our clients still provide relocation assistance, they are paltry at best in comparison to the days of old (which are so old that I was never even around to see them!). The following blog post is a pretty fair and accurate representation of the new form of "a la cart" relocation packages.

Fistful of Talent: Goodbye, Gold-Plated Relocation: Hello, Cheap "Build as you Go" Relo...

The Global Association for Strategic Talent Management

If you have not recognized the importance of creating a brand for your company and using social media as a way to recruit using that brand, then you are missing the boat. If the Fortune 1000 are doing these things to reduce the cost of 3rd party recruiting to their organizations, it is only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches on. Now I am not saying that 3rd party recruiting will go away or that it is obsolete, but, I am saying that recruiters better figure out how to incorporate some of these newest ideas into their value propositions or they will be left behind.

Here is a great webcast that sheds the light on some of the issues facing the world of recruiting now and over the course of the next ten years... watch and learn!

Human Capital Institute | The Global Association for Strategic Talent Management

Career Advice, Personal Branding & Job Search Help From Top Career Experts : CAREEREALISM

I find this article fascinating:
Career Advice, Personal Branding & Job Search Help From Top Career Experts : CAREEREALISM

What is it about people that give them a sense of entitlement?

The Future of Recruiting is in the Cloud

This a truly amazing presentation. I can not stress enough the importance of understanding the way in which our industry is changing. Those who are still stuck in the age of using your old networking techniques will fade away quickly. Companies, hiring managers, HR leaders, and job seekers are using new and creative ways to tell their stories, build their brands, and hire and retain talent. Flip through this presentation and tell me I'm wrong!

The Future of Recruiting is in the Cloud

A New Way of Doing Things: Changing the way recruiters add value through process NOT candidate ID

The market is changing for recruiters and you better be prepared. If you are stuck in the days of selling the fact that you can "find" talent then you are spinning your wheels, or you soon will be. Clients are more demanding and Human Resources leaders need to believe that you can provide value so that they can show ROI. Everyone is using social media to build their networks and connect with more people in more ways and in more places than ever before. With information so easily available almost anyone with a computer can become a "recruiter" and throw a resume, or ten, out to a HR Manager in need.  But how does this create value?

The answer is that is doesn't.  It does not save time.  Nor does it provide value in the form of a service that they do not have the ability to do themselves.

Most people are now expected to do more with less and it will be those people that can find creative ways to partner with experts to help them manage critical processes to improve their business who will flourish.  So what does that mean for recruiters and the firms who employ them?  If you can't assess and screen talent, manage the scheduling, work through the offer stage, and create interest in your clients' organizations then you had better learn how... and fast.  The truth is that we can no longer be recruiters because finding and presenting resumes is a small part of the process.  It is what happens after that and how you can manage that process for others where you have the opportunity to make a difference. 

The following blog from the Human Capital Institute did a very good job of framing this shift:
Creating Real Impact and Results | Human Capital Institute

I am ready... are you?

ROI Speak! Use Business Language to Make Your Case | Human Capital Institute

ROI Speak! Use Business Language to Make Your Case | Human Capital Institute

This is a great article to understand how to put together a value proposition that makes sense no matter who the audience... Money talks!

MORE RESUMES PLEASE - Finding a way to get more candidates for a search is almost always a key goal for HR Managers and hiring managers. But conducting a search for quantity vs. quality is risky business and ends up costing more in the long run.

I recently had a conversation with a client regarding candidate flow.  For organizations who are used to the "resume dump" that happens with most external search services it is all about volume, quantity.  This is because many external services have proven that they do not know how to screen people OUT of the process.  Doing so properly creates quality and eliminates the need for quantity, saving time and money!

When I engage a client on a search, I make sure that I understand their needs and pain points to such a degree that I do not need to send them 10, 15, or 20 resumes before they tell me that I am on the right track.  There is always a period of calibration, but honestly... do you really want me to send you a flurry of candidates who are close, but missing this, or missing that?

As a Human Resources leader, or even a hiring manager, you would berate your internal recruiter if they simply bounced resumes off of you without screening people OUT.  That is where a truly valuable external resource adds value... by screening people OUT.  And this is a key differentiation that makes the retained search process successful.  If you want an external recruiter, or a firm, to scour the job boards for people that they can INCLUDE, then you are wasting your own time because now you have to EXCLUDE the majority of those people before you send someone, if anyone, to the next stage in the process. 

An external recruiting resource should be exponentially more selective than you and your team are because I can tell you from experience, the hiring managers are.  And if they are not getting results from a process, they are going to find a way to change that process or circumnavigate that process to get results.  That is what makes them successful... they solve problems.  As a retained search firm, our job is to make you, as an HR leader, recruiter, or hiring manager more successful.  The only way that we can do that is to screen OUT.  The only way to do that is to spend time and resources getting to know you and your business.  Faster is not always better and more is not always preferred. 

The next time you or your organization is making strategic hiring decisions think about whether or not you are receiving a value added process from your recruiting relationships or if you are just looking to more candidates, please!

Contingency vs. Retainers: The True Cost of Ownership - How one failed contingency search, no matter the level within your organization, can cost many times more than a targeted retained search. Executive search and selection advice that businesses of all shapes and sizes can use to build high powered management teams of A-Players. Recruiting for open positions no longer has to be stressfull.

Search is expensive... exponentially so relative to the level of talent that you are seeking.

A failed search is expensive... even more exponential is that cost relative to the role.

Let’s talk through this one. You just made a hire. For the sake of round numbers and because it is too early in my day for me to break out my Ti-89 (I don't even know if they still make those) let's call this person a manager making $100K plus 15% target bonus. Since this manager is a "specialist" and you are a busy HR leader who doesn’t have the time or resources to conduct this search internally, you called in a headhunter. And by the way I love this term...it is so aggressive and whenever someone asks me "oh, so you are a headhunter" I beam with pride. I have the image of some primitive tribal warrior with shrunken heads strung around his neck. But I digress.

When you were choosing to use a third party for this search, how did you evaluate that talent? And I know, the whole reason that you decided to go outside for this one is because you didn’t have time to evaluate talent. But bear with me on this one. There are a tremendous amount of options and all too often hiring managers and HR leaders don't even consider the option of retained search because "why would you pay up front when you can use 5 contingency firms at once that will fight against each other and you only pay them if you make a hire." Now I completely understand this. If I go out to a restaurant with my family I am not going to give the waiter $20 bucks just because his team "has more experience or a better process." But this is not a steak dinner and frankly, if you had the resources in house, you would do this on your own.

My point here really is that the industry is too competitive and too saturated for anyone to claim a distinct advantage over the candidates, or end product that they can produce, through a contingency search. If you were in their shoes and you knew that you were competing against 4 other firms, you are going to try to find people as quickly as possible, and just like in that restaurant, when your steak is rushed it either comes out way too rare or burnt to a crisp. The analogy that I am making here is that you can't afford a rushed process and or no process at all. Retainers protect your investment. They are like insurance policies. You know that when a firm is retained, you have their undivided attention, or you should. If you don't have that level of interaction then you didn't vet them properly. If a competent firm has the ability to truly screen candidates OUT of the process rather that screen them IN, you will get a better product... and it will be guaranteed (another benefit of the retainer is a one year replacement guarantee... why do you think contingency firms don't make that promise).

So back to cost. You haggled all of these contingency firms and played them against each other. We are down from a fee of 33% to 25% (which by the way many retained firms will entertain in the right situation). $100K plus 15% bonus is a $115K first year total cash compensation. That's $28,750. Nearly $30K just to hire this guy and you want to rush this... it isn't just the steak that is going to get burned. Now you train this guy and he gets through the 90 day contingent guarantee and you start to see the warts. For a litany of reasons, this guy isn't working out and you let him go. How much have you spent?

3 months of salary plus payroll cost is nearly $35K. Search fee of $28,750. Many estimates put the training of skilled labor at this level at nearly double the salary. $200K (but lets call it half that because this guy wasn’t there a full year) $100K. Now you have down time or lost productivity to account for or the loss of new business or any number of direct impacts to the top and bottom lines of your business. And you have to conduct another search that you now have to manage more closely because the rushed search the last time created a black hole that is sucking money from your company. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars that this search has cost you because it failed.

So again I ask the question. How much have you spent? What is your total Cost of Ownership?

The point here is not to berate the contingency model.  There is a place for every service and there are many contingency search firms that can perform at a very high level in the right situations. Rather, my point is that there is a better way to control costs, develop talent, and find a partner that can help you... truly help you in your process. I cut my teeth in the contingency search business and ran, as fast as I could, away from that model. Retained search is more difficult and it is more intense and I have to be available at all hours. But you know what, I love it! I am free to add value in a positive way by deeply understanding my clients' problems and finding creative ways to come up with solutions with them, as part of their team. Contingency search is transactional in nature and when you are dealing with a commodity that is as variable and volatile as human capital, give retainers a chance. The total cost of ownership is lower in the long run...