This scenario comes from one of our placement managers here, Pamela Miller. Her candidate was a 20 something person with five years of overall experience. He was bright, energetic, well- spoken and presented himself extremely well. His resume, however, did not do the candidate any close to justice. He started out in one career path (accounting) for three years and then moved to a second career (sales) where his drive and relationship skills were a better match.
Pamela presented him to four companies. Two of the companies agreed to see him face-to-face without looking at the resume. One of the firms decided, without consulting with us or the candidate, that he would not be willing to accept their base salary. He made a higher base salary in another industry which pays bigger bases of lower commissions. One of the firms looked at the resume and passed on him.
The two companies that interviewed the candidates face-to-face made him job offers immediately. Interestingly enough, he accepted the lower base salary offer which was the same base of the company who passed on him because they didn’t think he would take their base salary.
So, who handled the interviewing process correctly? Were the companies who saw the candidate in person right? Was the company who, based on his resume, passed on him right? Obviously, they missed out. And was the company who decided unilaterally that the candidate wouldn’t be happy accepting their base before they even tried to hire him right?
Our profession is a totally inaccurate science. As I often say, we deal with “spiritual beings acting human.” Probably none of these people were really outright “wrong.” But as you can see, those that made assumptions might have missed an exceptionally good candidate.
