Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Well, I had a candidate who said that I had his commitment that he would accept the job if the offer was $103,000. $103,000 was his minimal acceptable starting salary, and not a penny less.
The offer came in for about two hundred thousand pennies less and my candidate turned the job down. It didn’t matter that he said he wanted the job or that the offer was for more than he currently was earning. He even thought he would be a bigger fish that he was now. He ultimately turned the job down.
I spoke to a friend of mine and this is what he had to say…
“It is not easy to give up being a child. The whole world is a toy for the typical two year old. It is a toy and a game. Sure, we have to learn the rules of the game, but most of us eventually turn three and have won the game of being two. And then there is three, and then four and we are still winning and then at some point we become thirty or forty and are still playing the game. Problem is, we can no longer dictate the rules of the game and it is not so easy to win anymore.
The introspective mind realizes that everyone else is also trying to win and that everyone else thinks and truly believes that they are as entitled to win as you are. The insightful mind realizes that you cannot have it all. It doesn’t even really matter what the all is. You just simply cannot have it. You have to learn to accept and to be content with part of it. It is a tough lesson to learn but an important one. The question is, what part of it can you learn to be content with.
Now what does this have to do with being a successful recruiter? The answer, quite simply, is everything. Because in some secret place in the mind and heart of every candidate, is a narcissistic two year old with an unreasonably profound sense of entitlement who thinks he is justifiably entitled to everything he wants, that the world is his oyster, ripe for the picking, and who just cannot accept that the world won’t play the game by his rules and give him all the toys, candies and everything else. The successful recruiter must be aware of this and direct his persuasive comments not to the regressed two year old candidate on the other end of the telephone, the frustrated, angry, wounded and betrayed child who is having trouble coming to terms with the reality of a world and a game about which he cannot make the rules or control the outcome.
Have you ever tried to convince a two or three year old that it is reasonable and fair that he not have as much as his older brother? That he cannot have all the toys in the toy store? All the candy in the candy store? Well, try convincing the “two year old candidate” that it is reasonable and fair that he cannot have all the money he wants from the prospective employer’s piggy bank!
The recruiter’s plan must involve a “here and now” approach to the hurt candidate. Don’t argue with him that it isn’t right or fair or appropriate that he is not being given what he wants. Don’t argue that he is not entitled to more or bigger. You won’t win. Remember the two year old. Tell him this is the way it is. Don’t allow him to focus on what he is not getting. Stay focused on what he is getting and what that will lead to in the short-term future. Keep reality in his approach to his decision-making. There are a lot of other kids who want the candies, too, and a lot of them are bigger and stronger. His turn will come some day but today may not be that day. Help him to see that he should not miss an opportunity to get something of value even if it is not exactly what he had wanted or expected. It can still be good enough even if it not perfect.
Direct your persuasive powers to the grown up and not the child within.”
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