Recruitment Mantras: Rhetoric or Reality

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it.

Look for who will aim for remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

(David Ogilvy — British American Advertising Executive)

I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day, you bet on people Not on strategies.

(Larry Bossidy — American author and former CEO of Allied Signal)

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

(Confucius — Chinese Philosopher)

When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.

(R. H. Grant — Chairman Reynold Company)

Case Reflection:

After having viewed all these recruitment mantras, the artifact of mind insight leads us to assume that every business organization wants to hire the best but most managers are extremely reluctant to acknowledge this. In fact, my tacit knowledge construes all these recruitment chants as somehow mythical. Here is the catch; I once interviewed by GM human resource in one of the xyz textile firms of Pakistan. The interview was for the position of recruitment specialist and it went quite long (about 40 minutes) due to the meticulous nature of the job. The interviewer asked me handful of questions about job analysis, recruitment cycle and so forth. I strove to answer all of his questions succinctly and articulated some of the above mentioned recruitment phrases as well. The interviewer, after a short pause, scratched his head with a smile, and asserted “yeah you are right we often try to seek competent and smarter folks within this organization but obedience and compliance are more important than talent and competence.” Then I realized that he was the ultimate pragmatist.