Clients and colleagues frequently ask my opinion of people they are considering hiring. It’s often a request, “Dave, what do you think of each of these candidates? Who would you hire?” And the requests are accompanied with resumes, each extolling the fantastic accomplishments the candidate has achieved through their career.
When asked this, I always reply, “What are you looking for?”
The responses are always the same, “I want a high performer for this role…….” The roles vary, I’m asked my opinion on CRO Candidates, VPs, managers, Account Managers, and others. While I never respond with my knee jerk reaction, 100% of the time I’m thinking, “Well I’m glad you aren’t looking for a mediocre performer…..”
And after this response, I always reply, “What are you looking for?”
At this point, people start getting frustrated, “Each of these people look very good, look at their backgrounds, look at what they’ve accomplished! Who should I hire?”
And, I always reply………. Yeah, you guessed it, “What are you looking for?”
At this point, inevitably, they are really frustrated, they say, “Why do you keep saying the same thing?”
I then ask, “How do you know which of these 3 candidates is the best fit for the role you are filling?”
And this leads into a discussion. “You won’t know which candidate is the best fit until you have developed your Ideal Candidate Profile.”
This ICP is, conceptually, very similar to the way we think of ICPs in targeting customers. The customer ICP represents the characteristics of our best customers. In those ICPs, we develop rich characteristics of the organizations and individuals that are most likely to be a good match for our products and services. In developing these ICPs, we look at demographics, firmographics, where they fit in the customer maturity map, (Think of Hank Barnes’ work.), and behavioral graphics. We know that success isn’t just targeting a certain industry or market, say technology of financial services. But it’s a certain type of company within a sector. We’ve learned the most important characteristics for our success with these customer ICPs aren’t just the obvious firmographics and demographics, but the maturity, behavioral, cultural fit. We know when we stray outside that very tight definition, our win rates and success plummets.
In some ways, we can look at firmographics and demographics as table stakes for our Ideal Customer Profiles. The real nuances around success are maturity, behavioral style, cultural alignment.
As we look at our hiring ICPs, the same principles also apply. It’s not just the obvious things in their background—jobs they’ve had, success in those jobs, industry/market experience, experience with similar offerings. The more important aspects of these ICPs are the maturity, behavioral, and cultural fit.
Until we define these, as part of our Ideal Candidate Profiles, we don’t know how to evaluate which candidates are the best fits for the roles we are filling. We would never consider anyone who hasn’t been an outstanding performer in their past roles. But just because they have that experience, doesn’t mean they will be the best fit for the roles we seek to fill. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen organizations recruit and hire people who have been truly outstanding performers—but they have been horrible fits into the organization and have failed miserably.
Just as firmographics and demographics are table stakes for our customer ICPs. Background, experience, past performance are table stakes for our candidate ICPs. The most important factors are cultural, behavioral, values characteristics. And until we define these, we will never be able to recruit the right individuals for each role we seek to fill.
Have you defined your ICP for your recruitment process? Do you know what you are looking for in a candidate that will be an outstanding performer and a great member of your team?
Afterword: Here is the AI Generated discussion of this post. As often happens, this discussion may be better than the post. Enjoy!
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