Recruitalicious

I’d like to think I’m a realist, but perhaps after reading this, some may call me an idealist. It’s simple: My job as a recruiter is to find the best candidate among all the other choices, to optimize. However, according to Don Moyer’s article, “Satisficing,” companies settle for the first adequate choice they can find. In other words, instead of optimizing, we’re satisficing: we know what we want, but we usually settle on the first alternative that meets the minimum requirements. This doesn’t just apply to job candidates. Moyer thinks we satisfice about simple choices like where to eat lunch.

I never thought about decision-making like Moyer describes. Moyer explains that in situations where many choices exist or are presented one by one, optimizing is hopeless. I screen candidates over the phone, one by one. After reading this article, I began thinking–actually, panicking–”What if I recruited someone who wasn’t exactly right for the job? What if I chose a candidate over another because I felt pressured to make a decision?” 

The truth is, candidates go through extensive conversations with recruiters. We ask a long list of pointed questions and I hope I make it easy for a candidate to be honest, whether that gets them to the next step or not. I can read people fairly well, and if I sense something, I don’t take that lightly. I’m not willing to accept anything less than who is right for the job. There are times when another candidate is chosen over mine, but I know that the other recruiters look for the same characteristics as I do in a job seeker. Call me an idealist, call me a perfectionist, but I do what’s right, not what’s acceptable.

Images: http://www.sie.arizona.edu/MURI/abstracts.html

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Recruitalicious. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.