The Right Person on the Bus Doesn’t Sit in the Driver’s Seat

By Mark Newman, HireVue Co-Founder and CEO

The right people on the bus. Every business book, manager, CEO, recruiter – you name it – talks about constantly striving to have “the right people on the bus”, “the A-Team”, “the highest level of talent in the industry”. But what does it all mean?

From a managerial and personal perspective, I am fully convinced that the right talent on your team can make your life better. When you have the right people on your team and you are achieving your goals you can’t help but have a personal high that seems to make everything better. Stress is lower, relationships are strong, results take care of themselves. Think about the best team you have ever been on – can you agree that life in general seemed a bit more positive?

From a customer perspective though, what does the right talent mean? A few examples:

• The nurse who saves a life by averting an infection or drug interaction
• The teacher who gets your child to absolutely fall in love with reading and learning
• The mechanic who catches a life threatening defect in your brake system that someone else missed (happened to me)

The examples are endless. Notice something though; these roles are hardly ever top of mind when people talk about talent. We can all admit it. When most people think about talent (and I hear it constantly when I have conversations with managers), the discussion invariable turns to comments like “this VP is amazing” or “our Head of xyz is an all-star”. In reality though, the quality of your talent is not in the singular role of a manager or department head. The quality of your talent is in the person you think about last. The front line person, the statistic in your organization (e.g., the 5000 call-center people sitting in Duluth), the so called “cog” is actually the true indicator of your quality of talent. On a personal level, a board member recently said to me “you guys are growing fast, you need more people, life is hard and stressful because there is so much going on, but it will be worse if you settle and bring on the wrong people.” We are small compared to most of you but the requirement is the same. Every company who uses HireVue expects the best. Our people need to be the best. Your customers (students, buyers, companies, consumers, patients – you name it) need you to be the best. It pays off personally though too.

In the current economy, quality and cultural fit of talent has been the key differentiator in determining success. The companies with the right people in place at all levels are the ones who adapted, improved, managed, grew, developed, and survived. However, it’s not about the right VP or the right CEO (these help) but it’s about the right store manager, the right nurse, the right teacher, the right customer service representative. Our economy is improving (all indicators are pointing that way at least), and when times are flush standards can slip when it comes to hiring in large numbers. The key is to make no excuses and to not settle for mediocrity. The requirement to find the person that makes you better, makes the company better, and who will be so engaged that they will go to the ends of the earth to serve you and your customer should not change. One thing I’ve noticed over the last year is just how selective managers have been when it comes to interviews and hiring compared to earlier times – that’s not a bad thing and it will be important to keep it up.

I hope you are having a successful 2010 thus far. As we grow we want to ensure we have the right people on board and constantly want your feedback as to our results. For you, we will go to the ends of the earth to make sure we do everything we can to help you find the right talent. It’s not just for your company’s results (although we always want to contribute to improving those!) – I’m fully convinced that if we help you find the right people we can make your life better too. Yes I do drink our Kool-Aid, but it’s not just about delivering video interviews, it’s about changing the lives of the candidates who interview and the managers who hire.

Thank you for your constant support. As always, please tell me if there is anything that I can do for you.

Sincerely,

Mark

This article also appeared in this month’s issue of THE VUE, HireVue’s monthly newsletter. To sign up, go to the HireVue home page and scroll down to the newsletter sign up on the right.