Recruiting Motivated Recruits

If you are looking for people who are persistent, ambitious, and willing to try new things, you cannot always find that simply by looking at their CV. Consider looking at what they do outside of work, and see how that fits the image of the person you want working for you.

I recently had a conversation with an HR professional about taking the company’s staff on an adventure retreat. I’m not always a big fan of such things; I tend to feel that if you want people to learn to work as a team, the best way is to put them in a working environment where they work as a team. You don’t have to take them into the woods and make them climb ropes or eat bugs, because the lessons learned there often do not translate well into the office.

However, as we talked more about adventures, I did suggest that, based on the kind of growth they hope to achieve, he should look for adventurous people n the recruiting process. People who run marathons, compete in triathlons, or climb mountains, for example, have shown you something about their personality that might not be revealed by job titles they have had in the past. These are people who have shown they can set a long-term goal (one that few people pursue) that takes a lot of effort, and they follow through on it. If you are looking for risk takers who will work hard and not give up, people who do that for fun are much more likely than most to do that in their work, too.

Of course, I have long advocated that anyone looking for someone who can overcome adversity should try recruiting from among their country’s Paralympic athletes. They tend to view “stress” and “difficulty” a little differently from the rest of us.

Even though we do not normally include personal interests on CVs, you can find a way to ask about those interests that align with the personality types you are looking for. What someone does outside of work can tell you a lot about what they do at work.

And I am not just saying that because I ran Sunday’s Bank of America Chicago Marathon.