How do Agile approaches and Intelligent Adaptability fare within the complex recruitment world? Marshall Wolfe CEO, Jim Marshall, uncovers the value.
5 years ago, I could be found pushing the term Agile Recruitment. It was a crude, but valid (in my opinion) to take the best of the Agile Software Manifesto and shoe-horn it into a recruitment methodology. A quick ‘Google’ would suggest mine was not the only attempt (although perhaps it was the first?)
I still like many of the core concepts:
- Fluid requirements rather than bullet proof specs
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools… (it must be about dialogue – good recruitment has always been about good three-way dialogue)
- Trust of relationships – build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and the support they need, and trust them to get the job done!
- Regular Scrums (but share changing briefs with all the stakeholders)
- Make an early connection – clients often tell us that they know whether they are going to hire an individual within the first 10 minutes of an interview. It therefore surely makes sense to bring that 10-minute interaction (that early connection) further forward in the process. Agile 10 min Skype call from early prospects?
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery (I’d be wary of any recruiter who could not, in the first conversation, give a customer a few names they already have in mind
- … and it is OK to reflect and rethink
- The best requirements, candidates and hires emerge from self-organising teams
‘Agile Recruitment’ worked on the premise that you might not know what you want until you see it.
… but how about IA?
IA (Intelligent Adaptability) is a term I believe emanates from Google’s Hiring Mantra (please correct me if I am wrong or if this has now been updated).
IA works on a different premise. A strategic hire is not going to be doing what you hired them for in 2 years’ time so why hire them on the specific needs you have now? Hire someone who is Intelligent and Adaptable and they will thrive in the constantly evolving landscape of your business. What does Intelligent and Adaptable look like? … and what are the best ways of assessing and testing for it?
‘It does not make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do’ – Steve Jobs
‘The key for us, number one, has always been hiring very smart people’. Bill Gates
