I am not alone in my belief that the most important decisions leaders make involve selecting the best people to join their team.

Steve Jobs - "I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1."

The good news is that advances in technology and more recently social media have been a great help in reaching an extremely large audience and generating interest in open positions.  We have access to a seemingly limitless pool of potential candidates.  We have a huge net...life is good, right?

Why is it that the #1 concern I hear from hiring managers is the quality of the candidates they get?   Part of the answer lies in the recruiting process, more specifically the recruiting lens with which candidates are being screened/evaluated.  These days, candidate screening is done through ATS Systems and associate personnel with no actual hiring/leadership experience.   At odds with this is the hiring manager's expectation that the recruiting process is capable of developing a shortlist of the best candidates for the position.

You would be amazed at the number of times I have recruited for a company and the person that was hired was someone who had tried to apply through the normal process but could not even get a callback.

How do you break the cycle?  In my world, I personally evaluate every candidate for every position I work all the way through the recruiting process.  We do not use ATS or technology to screen candidates.   We rely on a recruiting lens that benefits from 20+ years of  Information Technology leadership experience.  Sometimes you have to "Turn Over Rocks".

Short of that, think about injecting your leadership experience earlier in the screening process before the best candidate is eliminated.   Adjust your expectations, screening parameters and encourage your recruiter to open things up and take some chances on the candidates they are submitting.  Stop wondering about "Why" you got that candidate...instead, think about "What If"? The extra effort will reap tremendous benefits for years to come.

Bernard Beaullieu founded Beaullieu & Associates, Inc., in 2007 as a full-service San Antonio Information Technology Staffing & Recruiting firm.   We are the antithesis of today's Information Technology Staffing providers and company internal recruiting processes.   Our philosophy is to focus extensive IT leadership and hiring experience directly to finding and engaging the best people.  Why not hire the best!