Why the best person for the job isn’t always the person with the best CV
I’ve been in recruitment for a very long time.
Long enough to have seen thousands of CVs.
And here’s the problem with CVs.
CVs don’t turn up for work. People do.
Yet we still recruit as though the two are the same thing.
“They’ve only got two years’ experience.”
“They haven’t worked for a training provider like ours.”
“They’ve moved jobs three times.”
“They don’t have exactly the right qualification.”
“The other candidate has done the role before.”
All perfectly reasonable observations.
But none of them necessarily tell you who is going to be brilliant at the job.
The best CV doesn’t always win
Imagine I send you two candidates.
Candidate A has eight years’ experience, has worked for three of your competitors and ticks virtually every box on the job description.
Candidate B has four years’ experience, comes from a slightly different background and probably ticks seven boxes out of ten.
Easy decision?
Not necessarily.
Candidate A might be bored within six months.
Candidate B might think you’ve just given them the opportunity of their career.
Which one do you want?
I’ll take hungry over comfortable surprisingly often.
Because you can teach someone your CRM.
It’s considerably harder to teach someone to give a damn.
CVs tell you what somebody has done
They don’t necessarily tell you why they did it.
And that’s the bit I find fascinating.
Why does this person want your job?
Why are they leaving?
What gets them out of bed in the morning?
What frustrates them?
What are they brilliant at?
What do they want to become?
What type of manager gets the best out of them?
What type of environment makes them want to hide under the duvet on Monday morning?
These aren’t fluffy HR questions.
They’re recruitment questions.
Because understanding someone’s motivation can tell you far more about whether they’ll succeed than another half-hour interrogation about what they did at Acme Training Ltd in 2022.
Everyone is motivated by something
Money?
Absolutely.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Some people want progression.
Some want responsibility.
Some want flexibility.
Some want recognition.
Some want to build something.
Some want stability.
Some want to be left alone to get on with their job.
Some want to become a Director.
And some genuinely want to finish at 5pm, switch the laptop off and go and walk the dog.
All perfectly valid.
The mistake is assuming everybody wants what you want them to want.
I’ve met brilliant salespeople who couldn’t care less about becoming Sales Director.
They want to sell.
They’re brilliant at it.
They want to earn lots of money.
Fantastic.
Let them.
Don’t give them six people to manage and then wonder why everyone is miserable.
Culture isn’t beanbags and free fruit
The word culture gets thrown around an awful lot.
“We’ve got a fantastic culture.”
Great.
What does that actually mean?
Is it fast-paced?
Structured?
Entrepreneurial?
Corporate?
Competitive?
Supportive?
Autonomous?
Target-driven?
Collaborative?
Because there isn’t one universally brilliant culture.
There’s only a culture that’s brilliant for that person.
Put someone who loves structure into an entrepreneurial business where the answer to every question is “use your initiative” and they may struggle.
Put an entrepreneur into a business where ordering a new stapler requires three signatures and a procurement committee and they may spontaneously combust.
Neither person is wrong.
They’re just in the wrong environment.
I’ve seen average candidates become superstars
This is one of the reasons I’ve never been completely obsessed with CVs.
Someone can look fairly ordinary on paper and absolutely fly when they’re put into the right environment.
Give them a manager who believes in them.
Give them autonomy.
Give them a realistic target.
Give them proper training.
Give them recognition.
Give them a product or service they actually believe in.
Suddenly the person who looked like a 7/10 candidate becomes a 10/10 employee.
And unfortunately, I’ve seen the reverse.
Hire a superstar.
Give them a terrible manager.
Change their targets every month.
Micromanage them.
Ignore their ideas.
Make every decision take three weeks.
Then sit around a table six months later asking:
“Why hasn’t this worked?”
It might not be them.
Ask a different interview question
We spend an enormous amount of interviews asking:
“Can they do the job?”
Of course that’s important.
But perhaps spend a little more time asking:
“Can they thrive here?”
That’s a very different question.
Do they fit the pace of your organisation?
Do they fit your management style?
Do they believe in what you’re trying to achieve?
Will the job give them more of what motivates them?
Can you genuinely give them what you’re promising?
And perhaps most importantly:
Will they still want to work for you when the honeymoon period is over?
Beware the perfect candidate
I’m always slightly suspicious of perfection.
The perfect CV.
Every qualification.
Exactly the right competitors.
Exactly the right number of years’ experience.
Salary expectations perfectly within budget.
Lives 14 minutes from the office.
Available immediately.
If they also enjoy long walks and have a Labrador, you’ve basically found the recruitment equivalent of a dating profile.
But sometimes the candidate with the slightly messy CV has the more interesting story.
Maybe they took a risk.
Maybe a company failed.
Maybe they chose the wrong job.
Maybe they followed a manager they trusted.
Maybe they took time out.
Maybe somebody once gave them an opportunity they weren’t quite ready for.
Talk to them.
A CV is a summary of someone’s history.
It isn’t a prediction of their future.
Potential is uncomfortable
Hiring potential involves risk.
That’s why organisations don’t always do it.
Hiring somebody who has already done exactly the same job feels safer.
But almost every brilliant senior leader, salesperson, trainer or manager was once given a job they hadn’t done before.
Someone took a chance.
Someone looked beyond the CV.
Someone thought:
“I reckon this person could do something special.”
And occasionally they were wrong.
That’s recruitment.
But occasionally they were spectacularly right.
Recruitment shouldn’t be Tinder for CVs
Too many recruitment processes have become:
CV.
Swipe left.
CV.
Swipe left.
CV.
“Not enough experience.”
Swipe left.
“Too much experience.”
Swipe left.
“Wrong sector.”
Swipe left.
Then three months later:
“We’re really struggling to recruit.”
Maybe the perfect candidate doesn’t exist.
Or perhaps you’ve already rejected them.
This matters particularly in the skills sector
Our sector is about potential.
We tell employers to invest in apprentices.
We tell learners that skills can be developed.
We tell people that careers don’t have to follow a straight line.
Then sometimes when we’re recruiting ourselves, we demand somebody who has already spent five years doing precisely the job we’re recruiting them to do.
There’s a slight irony there.
Of course experience matters.
Qualifications matter.
Technical competence matters.
And in some positions they’re absolutely essential.
But let’s not allow the CV to become more important than the human being sitting in front of us.
My favourite recruitment question
Forget:
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Most people don’t know.
I barely know what I’m having for dinner on Thursday.
Instead, I’d want to understand:
“What would have to happen in the next three years for you to look back and say joining this company was one of the best career decisions you’ve made?”
Now we’re talking.
Because the answer tells you what they actually want.
And once you understand that, you can decide whether your organisation can genuinely give it to them.
If you can, brilliant.
If you can’t, don’t hire them.
Even if their CV is magnificent.
The person behind the paper
At National Skills Agency, obviously we care about experience.
We’re recruiters. It would be slightly worrying if we didn’t.
But we’re equally interested in the person behind the CV.
Their ambitions.
Their motivations.
Their frustrations.
Their personality.
Their potential.
And the environment in which they’re likely to perform at their best.
Because recruitment isn’t simply about finding somebody who can do the job.
It’s about finding somebody who wants to do the job, in an organisation where they have the opportunity to become brilliant at it.
Hire the CV and you might fill a vacancy.
Hire the person and you might transform your business.