Hiring Irrationally- Roger Wright (Career Coach, Consultant, and Author)

Roger Wright is a career coach, management training consultant and author but in 2008, Roger was unemployed. Six years ago he found himself, and the entire department he’d been heading, out of a job and back on the job market. Roger found that using conventional methods for job hunting simply wasn’t working and so he set out to discover how people really found work and how the connections are made between what an organization needs and the talent they need to fulfill that need. Roger’s journey was successful and he decided to share what he’d learned about how people really found work. Roger discovered a disconnect between businesses and the people they’re looking to hire, he explored this and in his Paper Napkin Wisdom, he shares with us what he learned. Finding staff, he says, has become mechanized. We’ve outsourced the job search from companies, says Roger, people find work via key words fed into a machine and the job search machine gets in the way of finding people who fit the job in a significant way. Roger says that part of the problem with what he calls ‘the job search machine’ is that it operates under the assumption that hiring is a linear, rational process. That’s old thinking. The ‘new’ thinking is all about fit. One of the key point and problems with the old method of thinking, says Roger, is the idea that there is a one size fits all for a job. Being qualified for a job doesn’t necessarily mean you should be able to get the job. You need qualifications, obviously, but Roger says that a big part of it is ‘fit’. Fit is a judgment, says Roger, it’s not a mathematical equation. Roger’s insight into the world of finding work and finding the right person for work is important. All it takes for things to go wrong is one bad fit. Not only do we need to make sure we’re aligned with our priorities, we need to be sure those we surround ourselves with are aligned with us as well. That isn’t an easy task and it isn’t one that can be fulfilled simply by keywords and qualifications. Data doesn’t tell us who a person is and when it comes down to it, we’re not hiring a resume, we’re hiring a personality…and that isn’t something you can do rationally. Listen to the conversation with Roger here:

Get Roger's Book: Finding Work When There Are No Jobs