Off Topic: The Joker

You know the famous song 'The Joker' by the Steve Miller Band?

The one that goes 'I'm and joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker...'

Sure you do.  It is a designated earworm of the first degree. 

Well early last year at the Recruiting Innovation Summit, the great George Anders, while giving a talk about just how difficult we often make our recruiting efforts by virtue of an overbearing list of job 'requirements', showed the following image - a Venn diagram of the classic song to illustrate just the kind of trap we set for ourselves and our organizations:

 

George's point, and one so cleverly depicted in the 'Joker' Venn diagram, was that with every additional requirement (smoker, sinner, etc.), added to the job description, the universe of matching candidates diminishes to the point that only a very few 'hard' requirements are needed to make the candidate pool almost impossibly small.

In the case of the 'Joker', as it turns out, the only matching candidate for the role is Steve Miller himself.

I loved the presentation by George, and this chart is a classic - the next time you feel like you are faced with a hiring manager or executive that has more than what seems reasonable, (or likely to even exist), requirements for an open role, you should think about sharing this diagram with them and then have a frank talk about whether a 'grinner' is really needed for the job.

That's it - I am out for the weekend.

Playin' my music on the run...

Comments

[aqib]

Your page is sweet, your graphics are great, and what's more, you use videos that are relevant to what you're saying. You're definitely one in a million, man! brasiliansk vaxning