Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
In our over ten years of experience in physician and executive leadership recruitment, we have learned firsthand the types of critical mistakes that a client unknowingly makes that "blow the deal" with a potential candidate. One such mistake is having too making cooks in the kitchen; all working to cook the same meal, but each following a very different recipe. These well meaning sous-chefs miss no opportunity to secretly throw their preferred ingredients into the mixing bowl, certain they will enhance the end product. In a nutshell, the communication of mixed messages to candidates, by your team during interviews, is detrimental to success. Even worse, are rogue individuals who, with good intentions, take it upon themselves to call candidates behind the scenes, and who often times end up leaving negative or false impressions that greatly undermine the search. This happens more often than you may realize and many times results in a candidate withdrawing their candidacy without the client knowing the real reason why.
The answer is a strong master chef and/or search committee chair that can lay the ground rules for the kitchen and participation in the search process. On a recent search we lost two key candidates for unknown reasons only to find out that they had one thing in common. A member of the medical staff search committee had called both candidates seeking to share his views regarding the politics within the clinical department. Not only was much of the information incorrect but the perceived decent did not reflect the positive changes that had already been implemented by the Chief of the Department. The caller's intentions may have been good, and yet the result was a great deal of angst for the candidate.
Do your search committees set firm ground rules for candidate contact and communication? Without them, it is hard to maintain one of the golden rules of recruitment that insists on consistent communication. Consistent, single point, positive communication with candidates is critical to your success. That's not to say that the candidate should not be told about the challenges they may face; however, positioning the challenge as an opportunity rather than dwelling on all the negatives and the past, can make all the difference in the world.
Remember, invite everyone to the meal but check your kitchen staff immediately as there may be a few rats in the pantry that can unknowingly cost you a lot of customers and recruitment success. Bon App�tit!
Wesley Millican
President
MillicanSolutions, Inc.
For assistance with your internal recruitment strategies and leadership needs please do not hesitate to contact us:
www.millicansolutions.com
wesley@millicansolutions.com
(817) 421-5800
|