When everything else is known, it’s hidden context that completes the puzzle.

I’ve written about the importance of context in recruitment on a number of occasions. It’s the basis of what, who, how, when and why you should recruit.

You can read one such article here.

And I was reminded of its importance by listening to Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. (incidentally narrated by Michael Kramer who also narrates Wheel of Time)

He describes that one of the defining aspects of a complex negotiation is the Black Swan: a high-impact event that is difficult to predict under normal circumstances, but in retrospect appears to have been inevitable.

In recruitment, finding the black swan means looking at reasons you wouldn’t or couldn’t otherwise have considered that have led to undesirable outcomes.

This article shows a number of ways in which you can find the black swan, so that you improve both how you recruit and the outcomes of your efforts.

You may have also come across the same theme in ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ terms made famous by Donald Rumsfeld when discussing the invasion of Iraq in 2002, in which it is accepted you have to make pivotal decisions without full information.

Yet, in any negotiation, which can be any interaction, known or otherwise, with a candidate, full facts are the only way to predict, with confidence, the outcome.

You are right negotiation isn’t just about persuasion and influence, conversations and offers, it’s also about how you negotiate the journey beforehand.

An example.

Let’s take the Chief Operating Officer (COO) position in a company.

Typically this is the role that oversees all operations of a business and is the right-hand to the CEO.

This week I’ve been talking to a number of COO job seekers.

Let me tell you all of their CVs are pretty much identical.

And they all express dismay at having breadth and depth of transferrable skills, yet not being able to have a look-in for the various COO vacancies they go for.

If you look at the COO vacancies they apply for, they typically look pretty much the same:

Compare the responsibilities and requirements, and the terminology is often pretty much interchangeable both between themselves, and the CVs of the many excellent COOs out there.

None of these vacancies stand out, nor do any of the COOs.

Yet are any of them in any way identical?

Of course not.

What’s missing is context.

When everything else is known, it’s the hidden context that completes the puzzle.

A COO of a bootstrapped £1m business has a similar CV to the COO of a multinational’s division.

A COO vacancy for a downsizing business in turnaround has the same advert as a COO for one in maintenance mode and another growing rapidly.

While all are market-leading progressive innovators.

If employers and candidates thought to show suitable and sufficient context, everyone would find recruitment a lot easier.

An obvious point, yet not one most people think to show.

Because it’s an unknown known.

In a sense, all these unknowns and knowns are like playing Jeopardy (you know that game show where they give you the answer and you have to ask the right question).

Answer: You haven’t shown suitable and sufficient context

Question: Why are all these applications completely unsuitable?

Answer: Candidates consistently ghost us.

Wrong question: What’s wrong with candidates? Why can’t they behave?

Good question: Why are candidates ghosting us?

Better question: How can we find out why candidates ghost us?

Right question: What can we do systemically differently to reduce the risk of candidates ghosting us?

Ghosting, counteroffers, bad behaviours - yes candidates are people who can change their minds. But for every strange decision is a black swan that is their hidden context.

Which might be as simple as trained distrust from widely bad recruitment experiences.

So while this is a simplified example, it’s used to show that problem solving can find unknown unknowns, by looking at known issues, finding their root cause, and then applying learnings against future events.

Another opportunity to find the black swans that can improve recruitment is to check your blind spots.

A wing mirror and shoulder check works well enough in driving.

Why not in recruitment?

Recruitment is a business where candidate and employer activity directly reflect each other.

Indeed a recruitment exercise is a reverse job search and vice versa.

Which makes learning from candidates a valuable exercise in improving recruitment.

But not just the candidates you know about, those in your process, but the ones you’ve rejected, ignored and even the ones who read your advert and chose never to get in touch.

I write about this in my 11-part Recruitment Reflected series, part 1 of which is here.

Of course, the problem with blind spots and bias is that often you aren’t aware you have them, which is why they are unknown unknowns in the first place.

But if these same are also black swans, then there is a significant opportunity to find improvement in recruitment by identifying them.

One such opportunity is through Diversity.

But not just the diversity of your people, but the diversity of problem-solving.

In this way retaining consultants who have insight you don’t is advantageous for many companies.

And a good recruiter can do the same at the outset of a recruitment project, by asking the right questions.

After all, if each unknown unknown has a simple question at its root, you need simply ask the right questions to find the black swan that can lead to the best recruitment outcomes.

Unfortunately, the opposite of this notion is why much recruitment is the way it is.

Companies who don’t proactively challenge their own assumptions, biases and unknown unknowns, will believe that’s just how recruitment should be done.

It’s the illusion of explanatory depth.

And so, any improvement is only down to skill or good fortune, rather than better principles and process.

But while you can always build skill and find luck from the right principles and process, you can’t do it the other way around.

How do you fix shoddy foundations once the house is built?

Perhaps the cracks you have in your walls are the symptom not the cause.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. buy my stuff - recruitment, writing, projects. I can be your black swan.