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Three pictures, one role
When a position is not clarified upfront, everyone involved carries a different picture of it. The search can only hit one.
A key position opens up, and three people sit at the table. Management wants stability. The division head wants someone who challenges the status quo. HR wants the person to fit the team. Three legitimate expectations, none of them spoken.
The search starts anyway. It then runs against an average of three silent pictures that matches none of them. Every candidate is measured against a target that shifts depending on who they are talking to. Whoever pleases management fails with the division head, and the other way round.
The conflict is not the problem. The problem is when it surfaces. Without upfront clarification, it breaks open in the final round, when three finalists have been through the room, a lot of time is burned and everyone is frustrated. With Pre-Recruiting, it breaks open in the first hour, where it costs nothing but a few honest sentences.
Pre-Recruiting forces the three pictures onto the table before the search begins. Three expectations become one role definition that all three carry. Not because someone gave in, but because it became visible what the role really has to deliver.
After that, the search has one target instead of three. And the people who decide in the end decide on the same picture.
Michael von Hirschfeld, Pre-Recruiting pioneer
