Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership
AI and Quantum Computing tech leaders are worth their weight in gold, but they can be easy to offend. Many of your recruiting targets will not be active job seekers, which requires a different approach. Be aware that you may literally anger these leaders simply by calling them “a candidate.”
And you will also likely anger them whenever you accidentally treat them like a typical recruit. You should also know that these “prima donnas” have such extremely high and inflexible expectations. For years, they have been continually told about their exceptional value and how desperately every competitor wants them.
Below you will find two quick examples of recruiting actions that might offend these extraordinary recruiting targets. For example, extraordinary talents like the current AI team lead at Microsoft would never tolerate having a junior recruiter call them directly out of the blue about a current job opening. If that were to occur, your recruiting target would immediately feel disrespected, get angry, and then hang up. They firmly believe that their status deserves an initial contact by someone at the same level or one above them. The same angry response would likely also be generated in the case where your recruiting target wanted to keep their interest in your company 100% private, which would not be possible if you scheduled their first interview at a physical location where they would be easily seen by others.
The Lesson To Be Learned Is That You Can’t Afford To Make Even A Single Misstep
If you want to successfully land extraordinary candidates like the head of a competitor’s AI, Quantum Computing, or product development team. Before you even begin your recruiting, it’s essential that you first identify and then design both a hiring and a candidate experience process. This process must completely avoid each of these “instant dropout factors” and a design that offers both white glove treatment as well as a highly personalized approach. The remainder of this article highlights each of the major instant dropout factors that you must avoid whenever you absolutely must hire extraordinary tech leaders, innovators, and executives who are in extreme demand.
A List Of The Possible “Instant Dropout Factors” That Can Occur At Each Recruiting Step
The most damaging dropout factors appear below, organized by the recruiting step where they are most likely to occur. Each of the dropout factors that you must avoid… has its title bolded and italicized.
Recruiting Step #1 – The Initial Contact
Standard recruiting processes seldom restrict who can participate in this initial contact step. For extraordinary candidates, there are three critical dropout missteps to avoid.
The initial contact must be made by someone of equal or higher status – the target will likely feel disrespected if the initial contact (and most future contacts) is made by someone whom the target feels is below their status or rank. This is because the typical professional courtesy expectation only requires them to respond to a fellow professional at an equal level. So obviously, no one with recruiter in their title should be involved in any way during this initial contact step.
This initial discussion cannot be labeled as recruiting-related – no one should consider recruiting to be one of the goals of this initial contact. Instead, it should be labelled as “an initial discussion to explore mutual interests.” And that means that the words recruiting, candidate, position numbers, or job titles must be completely avoided so that the target can honestly deny that they are actively looking for another job.
The target must approve before you can move on to the next step – so that the target can feel like they aren’t being pushed. This initial discussion can only go to the next step after the target has clearly given their permission to continue.
Recruiting Step #2 – The First Interview
In a standard recruiting process, the recruiter sets the time, the content, and the place for the initial interview. However, for these extraordinary targets, the first interview must become a collaborative process. There are three critical first interview dropout missteps to avoid.
Instead, hold a professional conversation – rather than calling it an interview. This first exchange should be classified as a professional conversation between equals. This approach has many advantages over the adversarial relationship of most initial interviews. So there should be no grilling or even the use of standard interview questions (which a seasoned professional might find to be insulting. And at least half of the allocated interview time should be devoted to answering your target’s questions.
The location of the meeting must respect your target’s privacy – the interview location should be set in a place that respects the target’s privacy. Because at this stage, many don’t want to be seen participating in an interview. So, ideally, you let your target pick the interview time and location.
The target must agree before the company moves on to the next step – once again, the process should only proceed to the next step after the target has clearly given their permission to continue. If the target decides to proceed to a second interview, they should be asked who at the company (by title) they would like to talk to.
Recruiting Step #3 – Continuing Conversations and Messaging
In standard recruiting, the recruiter uses the communications channels that they or their company favors. In this case, your target’s communications preferences should be given the most weight.
At this point, there is only one misstep to avoid.
Use your target’s communications preferences – the target will choose the communication channels and the timing of future communications. It is critical that the target doesn’t feel rushed. So you shouldn’t over-communicate with your target or even expect timely responses from them.
Recruiting Step #4 – Deciding on the Number of Additional Interviews Must be Collaborative
In standard recruiting, the recruiter determines how many interviews are needed. In this case, decisions are more collaborative. At this recruiting step, there are two dropout missteps to avoid.
There must be a joint determination on the number of additional interviews – the target must be given input into the number and the format for any additional interviews that they are willing to participate in. In most cases, those additional interviews should all be scheduled on the same calendar day.
The final interview must have all of the important players participating – because most extraordinary candidates judge their internal future support by who attends their final interview. The number of high-level executives and colleagues who participate in the final interview is essential for selling the candidate. Having the CEO stop by before the interview begins is also an effective selling approach.
Recruiting Step #5 – The Offer Step
Rather than dictating the terms of the offer to the candidate, determining the content of their final offer must be a collaborative process. There are five missteps to avoid during the offer phase.
Make your offer generous – these extraordinary professionals expect nothing less than a knockout offer. At other companies, your target will be allowed to essentially sculpt their own offer. So be generous when you put your offer together because obviously it will be compared side-by-side to the offers from other companies.
Make sure that no portion of your offer is considered to be insulting – if the target considers any element of your offer to be insulting (i.e., your compensation offer is below their current level). You will not only anger them. But you will also likely permanently lose them for any of your future job openings. You can avoid most offer surprises by frequently showing them drafts of their developing offer and by asking them to share with you their “must have” offer elements.
The job itself must be tailored and personalized – realize up front that people at this level demand to be given input into the job itself. So be prepared to be flexible if you expect to land a top recruiting target. Also, realize that the degree of freedom that they are allowed is also a key selling point
Don’t rush their final decision – remember if your recruiting target feels rushed in any way. It’s likely that they will simply decide to stay where they currently are. And then all of your efforts will be in vain. So simply ask them how much time they will need in order to make their decision.
Proactively encourage their future colleagues to support their hiring – people at every level (including this high level) desire to be needed and welcomed. So, encourage your employees who the target respects to personally encourage them to accept your offer.
Also, Follow These Additional Guidelines That Fit Ever Recruiting Step
- It only takes one mistake – unfortunately, most recruiters are not perfectionists, so they automatically assume that one misstep would be okay. That is a deadly mistake because it usually only takes one misstep to completely lose a top recruiting target.
- Don’t ever make them feel like a typical recruit – periodically remind everyone involved in the recruiting effort. That if at any time your target feels like they are being treated like a standard recruit, they will drop out.
- You’ll have to guess their discomfort level – unfortunately, you can’t really ask your recruiting target to list their instant dropout factors. However, you can put together a list that will likely be close by asking some of your own extraordinary employees to share their dropout factors as a starting point.
- Remember that current recruiting practices will impact future recruiting results – realize that not meeting the expectations of your current extraordinary recruiting targets. It will affect not only your immediate hiring but, as word-of-mouth spreads, your brand as an employer will be hurt.
Final Thoughts
I like to use George Clooney as an example of how quickly a superstar will drop out of a recruiting process. Because he is always in demand, he is, of course, extremely difficult to approach, talk to, and sell. But you shouldn’t be discouraged, because he is constantly working. And that means that many organizations have successfully found the right approach to approaching and selling him. So I hope that this article has given you some insight into the factors that cause many in-demand recruiting targets to prematurely drop out of a recruiting process.
Thank you for reading.
Note for the reader
Please take the time to follow Dr. Sullivan or to request a connection with him on LinkedIn.
And please help spread his ideas by sharing this with your team/network and by posting it on your favorite social media.
