Kicking Tires
How to find the best candidate that you can't hire.
After three meetings and much salary discussion between a client, a
candidate, and myself, I was confronted by a wholly avoidable situation
today. The client really wanted to hire the candidate and the candidate was
quite keen to join the client but the money was not in the budget. In fact
it wasn't even close. How, you may be asking, could I make such a rookie
mistake and waste everyone's time? Why, you must certainly be adding, would
the client go to all the trouble and put themselves through all the pain of
finding the perfect candidate only to come up short at the offer stage?
Who, the logical next question, would do such a thing?
Well, it seems, the client was fooling himself. He made an age-old mistake
when I presented him with the bio and resume of a completely qualified and
motivated candidate (as is my habit.) He wanted to "check her out," and see
what was out there. He assured me, and thus the candidate, and himself that
if she was the right man for the job he could come up with the money. Well,
he couldn't and she is not motivated enough to take a job for less than she
is making.
The repercussions of this are not as severe for the candidate or myself as
for the client. I will continue to introduce the best candidates China has
to offer to my clients and the candidate will find her next position as sure
as I am sitting here. The client is the one who will now judge every
candidate he meets for the job against the one that got away. For a while
they will all fall short until he realizes that she was a great candidate
and he will have to settle for what his budget allows.
A better strategy for our client would have been to take an honest look at
the budget and meeting only those candidates whose expectations fell into
the range. On top of the usual salary questions and discussions of bonuses
and internal equity I always provide my clients with the current salary of
the candidates I introduce, their expectations, and my input, when
necessary. This is to avoid just such a situation and to ensure that the
client will be able to successfully hire the best candidate for the job.
All that and no car analogies!