Forgive the Obama slight – I am actually a big supporter of our President. It is just throughout the campaign, whenever I saw an Obama Hope poster, I chuckled. And it wasn’t the cynic in me.
I think that Hope is the most dangerous thing when interviewing candidates. Particularly for those of us who are empathetic. I for one really want people to succeed and strive to see the best in people. When making critical hiring decisions, however, hope is a killer because we simply cannot hope away our concerns. Those people who are most successful are unequivocal in their history of success – when you interview them it is clear. Yet when we like someone, feel sorry for them, or are just tired of looking, we need to be most diligent. I find it is those situations when I let Hope distort my judgment.
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Last week I wrote how bulge bracket investment banks (and other large corporations) have an inherently flawed system in outsourcing the management of temporary labor to Vendor Management Services (VMS.) The VMS employees are unable to provide their vendors, the sources of consultants and temporary labor, with the information they need to be excellent and insulate the hiring managers from the sources of labor. This is in part a result of equating Consultants and Temporary employees with office supplies.
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It is an interesting time here at Wall Street Services – most of our current clients are bulge bracket investment banks who worry about getting the best quality and employ significant technology to manage and get the most out of their vendors. Exhaustive Supply Chain Management Systems blast temporary staffing requisitions out to their vendors and automatically resend to 2nd tier vendors after 48 hours if the first fails to yield a satisfactory response. Intricate quarterly performance reports are delivered to vendors in somber meetings where resume submission ratios are detailed.
Yet despite these expensive tools, our clients struggle to get the best people. With all the technology, they seem to forget the one thing that yields the most results: relationships.
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