Friday, July 01, 2011

small validation

I just found out a bit of validating news. While I was in Gabon, we had a new trainee arrive who I was skeptical of from the start. I don't know who exactly recruited him, but I had a bad feeling about him almost immediately based on his whole bearing. He wasn't a bad person, but he was clearly a bad fit for the company. It's hard to explain succinctly but he just seemed too weak to make it through the field. Perhaps that sounds a bit arrogant to use a word like "weak" but it does take a certain amount of mental and physical fortitude to be in the field and I just did not see it in him. And lo and behold, I was told he quit as soon as he came back from his first field rotation.

I learned, largely through mistakes I made when I worked in Texas, about trusting my instinct about people when it comes to recruiting and hiring. It's a judgement call and my judgement has improved with time. I have been here long enough to see a lot of people come and go at work and plenty have washed-out along the way. People will sometimes surprise you, but hiring is ultimately a statistical process. Good fits do better and succeed and grow and stay. Bad fits do poorly and usually quit and it's best not to take fliers on bad fits. You're better off with no one at all than someone who doesn't end up working out.

1 comment:

buickguy said...

Hiring will not be the last thing about which you learn to use your instincts. Sometimes, ethical issues can be decided upon "instinctively". After a while, you just make calls based on "experience".