You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Mick Jagger and The Stones had it right – you can’t always get what you want.  The same is true for both job seekers and hiring companies.  From the job seeker’s perspective, it’s rare to find everything you are looking for all rolled into one ideal job at your ideal company.  And often hiring companies perceive the search process as an a la carte ordering process, whereby they can select a multitude of ideal attributes and the dream candidate will suddenly appear.  

Keep following Mick's lyrics, and they’ll steer you right – but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need.

Job Seeker Perspective

Who wouldn’t want unlimited career progression,  a much higher salary with uncapped bonus potential and an intellectual challenge with increased responsibility? Oh, and fully paid benefits!  And, don’t forget flexibility, and generous PTO…  of course, work/life balance is a prerequisite these days.  As is a shorter commute.  And while we’re at it, why not throw in some equity too!  Ok – now back to reality.  The chances of all of these desirable attributes being rolled into one opportunity are slim.  

Instead, figure out what you need by prioritizing your most desirable attributes before considering new opportunities. Two or three required attributes makes a lot more sense and is reasonably attainable.

Hiring Company Perspective

Companies with a recently vacated role often use the profile of the person leaving to build a template to find a replacement.  While this makes logical sense, the basic flaw is in assuming that only someone with a similar profile will be able to perform the role at a high level.  Perhaps the incumbent has 6 years of experience, a MBA, and helped implement your specific ERP system.  Does that mean only MBAs with 5-7 years of experience and exposure to your ERP will be good in the role?  Likely not. While most financial, and operational roles require specific technical skill-sets, those skills can be acquired and mastered through a variety of prior professional, educational, and certification based backgrounds.

Instead, figure out what attributes are critical to success in the role, and focus on finding candidates that exemplify them. But keep an open mind when it comes to certain attributes that, while nice to have, aren’t imperative or necessarily predictive of success at the company or in the role. Perhaps someone with a couple years of less experience than the person vacating the role will perform better because they possess other skills that better equipt them to excel. Or maybe someone without your company’s specific industry experience will bring outside perspective and inject fresh ideas, solving problems more efficiently as a result. 

It’s really hard to find exactly what you’re looking for, exactly when you’re looking for it.  Keeping an open mind both as a professional considering the next step in your career or a hiring manager looking to build a team may not yield exactly what was wanted at the outset.  Perhaps what you find will be far greater instead.