An Israeli high-tech company was willing to go far just to sign a certain talent. She approached him with an attractive offer and “stood in line” to get an answer from him. The talent, for its part, examined every detail of the terms of the contract, as expected went down to subtleties and unusually stuck to trifles. The recruiting department chose to ignore it, if only to reach the signing status, which did finally arrive. But then they discovered in the company that something was not working. That excessive meticulousness intensified every day and clashed with the flexible corporate culture.
“He exhausted the system,” says Eyal Solomon, CEO of the placement company Athosia. “The company was disappointed that he did not know when to ‘let go,’ which clouded the relationship with the other employees, who even attached a derogatory nickname to him behind his back. At the end of a few months, a hurt talent informed him of his departure, and in harsh tones. The chaklakas were there,” Solomon mentions, “but in that company they chose to ignore it and moved forward with the recruitment process.”
The prisoner’s dilemma of companies
The high competitiveness in the market, at least the one that reached its peak last year, magnified the power of employees defined as “talents”, i.e., employees who are considered particularly talented and stand out in their field. The demand for talent continues even now, under the conditions of the crisis in high-tech, and perhaps actually increases under his protection, but Solomon identifies several points of failure in the recruitment of these workers, and they repeat themselves.
“Sometimes a company wants the candidate so much, that it ‘loses it,'” he says. “She does not do an orderly process and skips basic steps in the examination. Sometimes they avoid revealing the candidate to the organization, so that the day it is decided to work together, he will also know that it is true for him. He also runs within the competitive dynamics and does not check in depth, just because he has a ‘celeb assumption’ Very quickly after starting the job, he discovers that it is not his cup of tea, then comes the stage of ‘I won’t leave now’, and an internal struggle that ends in the decision to leave, which is sometimes accompanied by folding of the hands, a feeling of mutual failure, failure and anger. Sometimes I He sees the process and can determine how it will end.”
That “run to the buzzer”, as Solomon says, takes place out of fear that the talent will go to another company. “This is a version of the prisoner’s dilemma. If they do a long and orderly process, they may lose it, but if they cut it short, they will also pay a price. Companies choose to take the risk.”
The “halo effect” disrupts judgment
Psychologist and organizational consultant Rami Pinchas, who previously served as VP of Human Resources, confirms that he has experienced such lapses first hand, and he recognizes them even today in companies, as a partner in the consulting company AKT.
Rami Pinchas, psychologist and organizational consultant / Photo: Sahar Paprovitz
“As soon as someone is on the talent track, biases automatically come into play in the decision-making. If they told the interviewer, ‘Make time for a certain talent,’ biases like the ‘halo effect’ immediately come into play. If they had asked for an interview without mentioning that he was a talent, the diagnosis would have been of a higher quality Pinchas believes.
According to Pinchas, the organization focuses on visible parameters: what the talent did in the past, what it is doing today, but it is much more difficult to identify the hidden parameters that imply its suitability for the framework. “In talent recruitment processes, we follow past performance, and this does not predict what will happen in the current organization. Therefore, anyone who skips thorough diagnostic processes, ones that include objective tools, may lose.”
The gap between fantasy and reality in the office
Pinchas also notes the gap between the courtship phase and the reality the day after. “It often happens that there is a disconnect between the recruiting party that granted VIP conditions in the courting and recruiting process and the day when that employee meets the organization without silk gloves.”
Solomon also warns against excessive courting that harms the integration processes. “Not only does it blind the candidate and influence the rational decision, even when he already arrives, it was as the ‘chosen one’, which harms team dynamics and the quality of work.”
Pinchas tells of a case that could have ended differently if only the company had flexed its policy. “At one of the technology companies in Israel, at the end of a great effort, they recruited a super-talent, and even made him leave another organization. He went through a VIP recruiting process, but left after two months.” The surprising reason, according to Pinchas, was that he is used to working in front of two computer screens, but the IT policy in the organization does not allow this. “He even suggested that he bring a screen from home and encountered resistance. He announced that he was not interested in working in such an organization.”
As marginal as it may be, the subject of the screens did not at all meet the extreme demands that that employee demanded and received. “But this is an example of the gap between the courtship and the practice,” Pinchas says. “You have to be prepared for support the day after. You have to remember that talent recruitment doesn’t end on the day the contract is signed. He advises the recruiting agencies to define what extra they are willing to give.
“There are places where it is appropriate to give up and there are places where it is not, in the process and afterwards. For talent, it is appropriate to be flexible, for example, in unconventional interview hours and location. However, sometimes talents will appreciate more an organization that adheres to an orderly process. In short, do not rush just because the candidate has other offers” .
Organizational consultant Hiba Halavi, owner of the consulting company Wewin Consulting, says that sometimes companies give up coordinating expectations in the recruitment process. “I accompanied a young training company founded by a well-known serial entrepreneur,” she says. “He recruited someone who is considered a champion in her field, and he also invited her to join him while she was still working at another company. Although he paid her a fortune, but it didn’t work out. It quickly became clear that the position was not what she thought, and there was no coordination of expectations at the beginning. The same employee She chose to look for another job at the same time, and even claimed that she was injured during work and took sick days to strengthen the claim, which ended in a crisis of trust between the parties. Coordination of expectations regarding her role and abilities would have prevented this.”
Not everything that works in one place will work in another
Talents, let’s remember, exist in many branches and industries, not only in high-tech. Hizkosh Yeshuron, creative director at the Leo Burnett advertising agency, meets many talents in the creative fields, especially on social media. According to him, many of the stars of the network do not integrate as expected in the advertising agencies. “For almost a decade, creative people have been eyeing the same talents on Tiktok and YouTube. They say, ‘If they know how to write viral posts and edit good videos, they can also write 30-second commercials.’ Theirs will give the office a flattering aura.” But Sharon discovered a gap.
Hizkush Yeshuron / Photo: Tsari Admoni
“I discovered that the audience of a network creator comes not because of the content he produces, but because of his personality. But when the same talent is asked to produce a commercial for sheltered housing, suddenly it doesn’t work. In addition, the same star discovers that he has a creative director above him, someone who tells him that it’s not good enough. Them Talents who are used to creative independence and a fan base are offended because their work is being harmed.”
“There is a hidden wish that if you bring the stars from the network, the glow will stick to you,” says Imi Iron, CEO of Leo Burnett. “But those stars discover for themselves that working in an organized organization requires dedication, seriousness, and routine. I make sure not to give them celebrity discounts.”
Imi Iron, CEO of Leo Burnett / Photo: Shlomi Yosef
However, Iron also agrees that flexibility should be maintained. “The stars of the networks say, ‘This is the world, learn.’
The 5 common mistakes in recruiting talent
1. “Putting on a celebrity” in the recruitment process: the competition and time pressure may lead to giving up on critical testing stages
2. The halo effect: the mere definition of the candidate as a talent may lead to biases and affect decision-making
3. Creating classes: The test of truth comes when the work begins. Granting outrageous and conspicuous conditions may create antagonism on the part of the other employees
4. Skip coordination of expectations: organizational culture and the nature of work differ from organization to organization. A talent that was successful in one place will not necessarily fit in another
5. Lack of flexibility: While it is recommended to avoid “discounts” in the recruitment process, there are nevertheless cases where there is room for flexibility. Every organization needs to define its boundaries in advance