The best way to recruit.

How often do you encounter a situation where a candidate with a perfect resume and recommendations is hired, only to find out later that they are not a good fit?

Or how often do you find yourself at job interviews trying to present yourself in the best possible light, only to be rejected with a phrase like “too good — miracles don’t happen”? Or during the interview, when you’re asked to name your weaknesses, you genuinely don’t know what to say, as any “weaknesses” can be seen as strengths upon closer examination, and you end up being turned down for the job because they claim you have “inflated self-esteem.”

Sometimes, an employer asks for a “little business plan” to evaluate a candidate. They assess whether the candidate’s vision, or rather the feeling of the right vision, aligns with the employer’s hidden thoughts.

The latest trend has been to rely on “ objective “Profile assessments, which in themselves do not provide a 100% guarantee, as the results depend on the candidate’s momentary mood or, again, the candidate’s perception of their role.”

Sometimes, the candidate’s evaluation is attempted to be “fitted” to certain criteria. numerical and binary factors No, it’s not about height and weight, but rather work experience, industry expertise, sales volumes in monetary terms, and so on.

Employers, like blind kittens, fumble around in search of a “guaranteed” way to hire the right candidate. Often, using certain criteria, such as the aforementioned “excellent resume and outstanding recommendations,” actually means not choosing a selection method for candidates, but rather opting for a way to avoid responsibility.

So, when children misbehave, they don’t think about whether it’s “right” or “wrong,” but rather whether they’ll get “scolded” or “not scolded.” If a candidate doesn’t work out, there will always be a backup justification—like, “Look, everything was in order.” There’s the resume, the recommendations, the assessment, and the little business plan. In other words, the primary criterion for selection is not one’s own assessment of “yes” or “no,” but the evaluation of others: “Will they scold me or not?” This is a byproduct of our educational system, and it lives on in people. There are very few among us who are willing to take on the risk of responsibility, including the responsibility of hiring people. Even company leaders don’t want to fall flat on their faces and are swayed by “documented” evidence; they conduct interviews in the presence of others and choose the path of “collective irresponsible evaluation.”

What is the problem with this whole system of resumes, interviews, recruiters, and assessments? The issue is that during this process, we don’t see the real person. We can’t even touch them. Is that person sitting in front of us? Ha! That’s Hamlet or D’Artagnan or Edmond Dantès sitting there. It’s a role. The person in the interview starts playing a part. The recruiter or interviewer does too. We’re in a role-playing game. You can’t understand the character of Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Georgy Vitsin, or Johnny Depp just by watching their roles in movies.

So what, in the end, are people to do who really are picking people for themselves, for their own team? People who care less about whether they will “get told off” and more about the result? People who are not taken in by the entries in a CV, the positive ones or the negative ones? The recipe is simple: get both yourself and the candidate out of the role-play. If you liked the candidate during the interview, give him another 1–2 hours of your life. You can say that the interview is over, that everything is fine and the paperwork has to be done, let the person relax and talk to him “about life.” Or invite him to lunch or dinner, formally explaining the invitation by the need to “discuss further cooperation,” or with a “by the way, have you had lunch today?” If you find it pleasant to be around this person, if nothing has put you on your guard, if no “horns” have poked out from under the blanket, if you have been able to understand what actually drives this person and what he is saying and what he is hiding — he is yours. Only a sincere conversation with no role-play reveals a person in all his glory. And such a conversation should not be a “final check” for the undecided. It should be part of the conversation with any candidate who fits, especially for senior positions.