CIMB Singapore

Oliver Guo

Recently, I have had to hire for my team due to natural attrition and it reminded me of how it seems easy to find a perfect candidate on paper but also how in reality, it is not easy to find a perfect candidate for the team and organization.

Fit for organization – Finding the perfect candidate

When replacing a headcount, most managers gravitate to finding a like-for-like replacement as the previous incumbent – why fix something if it is not broken? However, it is also a great opportunity to rethink about the role and how it fits into the team.

Assessing their fit for the role and team then becomes critical – there are myriad of methods to do so including situational based interviews butthere is no one method that is fool-proof so it is important to prioritize your needs for the team.

In my example above, some of the considerations include – am I from a renowned organization looking for a recruiter who is good with processing applications given our volume of applicants or am I from a boutique firm where we need our recruiter to be out there canvassing for candidates because no one will google about our career opportunities if they do not even know this company exists? That is 2 different profiles of recruiters e.g. for the latter, maybe a recruiter who has had agency experience will work better and be well-placed to succeed.

Even after knowing what you are looking for in the new candidate, the real challenge comes in finding that perfect candidate. Contrary to popular beliefs, I am of the view that there is a perfect candidate in the market – just if and when you will ever meet them given the more than 8 billion people in the worldi.e. possibly impossible!

Hence deriving and then arriving at a satisficing outcome of a better-than-the-rest candidate is likely to give you less grief as opposed to finding a maximizing one, whom might not even be keen to join your team!

Fit for candidate – Putting the candidate in a role that will set them up for success

A resume is akin to an advertisement – it showcases the best and downplays or leaves out the worst. So finding a perfect candidate on paper rarely translates to a perfect candidate in person. Even tougher is for the candidate to find out if the organization is a fit for them from both career exposure and personal or life goals perspectives.

“Even after knowing what you are looking for in the new candidate, the real challenge comes in finding that perfect candidate.”

Many a times especially in bigger organizations, instead of fretting about the organization culture, a lot of the interactions happen on the ground within the team so the interview with the hiring manager is critical to understanding what is expected of the candidate and in what form of environment.

It is critical to be transparent because hiring managers are hiring typically not for the short term (unlike for a contract role) but for the long term and you need the candidate to be comfortable in their own skin to contribute and mix in well with the team so that it is a positive working environment for all.

Hybrid Work Environment 

Nothing beats meeting your candidates face to face in a world where remote work is increasingly the norm and accepted by many organizations as the way forward. During video interviews, you can often see candidates reading off a prepared interview script perhaps suffering from imposter syndrome but that also means you might be hearing the things you want to hear but not getting the things you expect to get when they finally onboard.

In a hybrid work environment, trusting the team to do their job when they are out of sight is important but depending on the school of thought, that trust is either earned or theirs to lose.

Managing the Employee Career Lifecycle – Communication

Lastly, even as the candidate gets onboarded as an employee and performs on the job, hiring managers must understand that career and personal goals change as they move on to different stages in life – someone who might have been willing to pull an all-nighter to see through a non-BAU (Business as Usual) project might now be parents of young kids and priorities have shifted where work life balance is more important than ever.

Even if there are no significant changes in life, people are more aware of mental health and wellness and with life expectancy on the rise, life is truly not just a race but a marathon with different finishing lines set first by your parents then by yourself taking into consideration your dependents.

There is no one size fits all solution but regular communication with your employees is key to know how best to set them up for success and what success means to them as well as how it can align with the success of the organization. In a hybrid working environment, regular communication can mean Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams and many other software whilst not forgetting face to face interactions.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Quoting great NBA coach Pat Riley, “Great teamwork is the only way we create the breakthroughs that define our careers.” Managers’ responsibilities these days do not just entail managing the team’s performance but also leading the team to greater heights beyond the scope of work or expectations from the organizations. And without knowing your employees’ best position on the field at the current point in time – maybe an aging wing back is better off in a central position where his pace (or lack of) is less exposed – how can you put the best team forward in the ideal formation?