The Secret to being the right hire!

Whether you are looking to be hired for a role in a new company, or a new role with your existing company, you need to stand out as the right candidate to be successful. In today’s employment market, how do you make your candidacy stand out from all those other candidates that you are competing with?

We have to assume that you all have a well presented and relevant resume, your applications and cover letters are well thought through, and you, as some of the others also will, display the required areas of consideration for any senior role; relevant Experience, consistent Performance, appropriate qualities and Behaviours, an Ambassadorial Attitude and support of Growth Orientation (see previous article).

Despite the myriad of selection criteria in each of the areas of consideration companies use when reviewing candidates, the secret of being the right hire is to identify and delivery to their “Most Important Thing”.

To help identify what is their “Most Important Thing”, we need only to look at some psychology fundamentals:

• The advent of behaviorism in psychology advocated by J.B. Watson (1) amongst others, put the emphasis on the external behavior of people and their reactions to their situation and environment, rather than their internal, mental state.
• B.F. Skinner (2) proposed the behaviorist theory of learning in which learning is a process of ‘conditioning’ in an environment of stimulus, reward and punishment.
• Albert Bandura (3) also added in his Social Learning Theory, that modelling, and imitating the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others shows both environmental and cognitive factors interact to influence human learning and behavioral choices.
• Whilst there are several metaphors describing organizations summarized by Morgan (4), using the Organization as an Organism Metaphor, a collective response of the contributing individuals, and to its environment, it is therefore not unreasonable to suggest that organizations, as well as individuals are subject to behaviorism, conditioning, and social learning.

You may be thinking “so what does psychology have to do with identifying and delivering to their Most Important Thing”? If organizations, as well as individuals are subject to behaviorism, conditioning, and social learning, they too act for one of two reasons; to gain a reward or to avoid a penalty.

This informs us where the candidate has to stand out, is by identifying their “Most Important Thing”; usually this is the problem are they trying to solve (to avoid a penalty), or what is the opportunity they are trying to create or take advantage of an opportunity (to gain a reward).

Often, the hiring decision makers are not keen to reveal their problem(s), or their lack of ability to take advantage of underachieved opportunities. You, as a candidate should be identifying their “Most Important Thing”, through your research before you meet the hiring team, and certainly during the interview process, using astute questioning.

All other things being equal, it is usually the candidate who identifies and best adapts their message to the organization’s needs, that stands out as the right hire.

As we have said in a previous article, “If you don’t know what they are looking for in a candidate, it is much harder to show them what they want to see”

“The Secret to being the right hire is to  

identify and demonstrate you have their “Most Important Thing”

Simon Crockett

Founder and Head Coach

To find out more email [email protected]

1. J. B. Watson (1913), Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review
2. Skinner, B.F. (1938), The Behavior of Organisms. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
3. Bandura A. (1977) Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall, 1977
4. Morgan, G. (2021), Organizational metaphors, www.academy.nobl.io