A recent post from Seth Godin suggest that people should listen more to the great baseball statistician Bill James when hiring people, when he said: “past performance is a good indicator of future performance.”

Endurance Corner, a great blog aimed towards endurance athletes, wrote a great piece on “Big Jobs“. Gordo says that the only way you can really achieve anything worthwhile in your career is by working very hard and focusing on the task in hand.
That post was inspired by a great piece by James Michener, the US author. Written in 1962, it focuses on achievement / hard work and how education should never stop.

So what does all this mean in the context of recruitment?
The people we place in jobs often behave in a similar very way. Although it’s only gives a snapshot of what people are like in general, we find that people who excel at interview are the ones who prepare best, who put genuine effort into research companies and people and who convey a genuine enthusiasm at interview. They’re the ones who communicate a lot with us (sometimes over-communicate!) and call us up straight after interviews. They pressure us to work for them, and in turn we convey their urgency to the Client. If there is any way you can attend an interview when asked to then do – they’re SCARCE and shouldn’t be taken for granted!
We can allude to numerous examples of this during our day-to-day: There was a candidate who showed great enthusiasm to attend an interview on the other side of the country during the Big Freeze. The Client told him not to risk it, but he eventually he got the job when they met as the Client could see the opportunity meant so much to him. I can allude to countless other examples whereby a Client’s attitude towards a candidate has been coloured by their enthusiasm and general vibe during the whole interview process.

Be proactive and enthusiastic when speaking to us and companies, it will rub off on the people you speak to who will then associate you with positivity.
If a company wants you to do a presentation with only 24 hours notice – do it. If you do a great job the time constraints will impress them even more. On the other hand, you could easily be exposed to a situation like this in the day – to – day run of business so it’s a good test from the Client’s viewpoint.

As always we’d like to hear thoughts you have on this – Brian (brian dot c at lifescience dot ie)