Karl Marx - Your New Director of Recruiting...

My partner in crime at Fistful of Talent, Tim Tolan, had an excellent post last week entitled Looking For Talent?  Always Look Outside Your Company.  It is part of a point/counter point discussion between Tim and the mighty Kris Dunn for a Workforce Management series.  I have many thoughts on this topic, so I decided to share some of them with you here. 

I am going to come right out and say it.  I think organizations with documented process or policy that require them to look at and/or hire internal talent, absent a side-by-side comparison with external talent, are practicing a form of talent management/recruiting communism.  It's like Karl Marx rolled out of the grave and became your Director of Recruiting.  Let me explain.

When I was the Director of Talent Acquisition at Quicken Loans we had a saying within the organization that went something like, "what got us where we are will not get us where we want to go."  Great organizations need to constantly evolve and get better.  Rarely can this type of performance improvement evolution happen without an influx of talent from outside the walls of the organization.  Constant promotion from within is a form of corporate "inbreeding" that is dangerous and often leads to innovation stagnation, acceptance of norms, inefficiency and general acceptance of mediocre performance.

Internal focus in hiring virtually ensures that the very best don't get the job, only the very best within a specific organization.  What if the very best within a specific organization isn't really that good?  What if the very best within an organization isn't good enough to take the team, division or company where they need to go in order to get better performance, greater efficiency etc.?  There is no competition for the open position.  Lack of competition, as we have learned with communism, doesn't work out so well. 

This is why so many organizations with an intense union presence are literally bleeding out because of inefficiency, lack of performance, and lowering of quality in order to feed a union mentality of entitlement.  Nothing comes closer to communism in America than unions.  No where is this more vividly portrayed than in the promotion, job posting and internal transfer policies that unionized companies are forced to follow.  These policies almost assure an organization will not put the best talent in the open position but, rather, the next talent in the open position.

What is more frustrating and perplexing is that non-unionized companies have built career opportunity, job posting, promotion and talent acquisition strategies on these same principles.  This effectively ensures a low performing organization by preventing competition in the recruiting and selection process. 

When it comes time to fill an open position, it is right and equitable to look at internal talent.  It is also right, equitable, in the best interest of the business, in the best interest of the shareholders, and in the best interest of American corporate health, that companies create a situation where internal talent competes with and is evaluated against external talent. 

I think this will ensure that the very best person gets the job.  What a novel concept!

Editors Note - Michael Homula is the founder of Bearing Fruit Consulting, a national recruiting consulting firm based out of Michigan.  Prior to founding BFC, Michael served as a Director of Recruiting/Talent Management for multiple companies in the Financial Services industry.   A world-class athlete, Michael's boycotting the 2008 Olympics in protest of the Communist Party of China...

Comments

[William]

Sensationalism, yes (I looked).

This article breaks down quickly with the analogy to communism never being referred to again in the rest or end of the piece. Leaves the read asking, where's the beef? Where are the examples in the current marketplace of this phenom occuring? Is there any market data?

[Jessica Lee]

"Nothing comes closer to communism in America than unions. No where is this more vividly portrayed than in the promotion, job posting and internal transfer policies that unionized companies are forced to follow."

I agree! Especially after having worked in pub sector for five years where it was heavily unionized. It has to be fair for everyone! Everyone gets raises and equal raises! It drove me nuts. There is limited incentive to be innovative or go above and beyond - what's the point when we're all paid the same? It breeds mediocrity.

The only thing I disagree with, respectfully, is having people internally compete with folks externally. We should know who internally has it and who doesn't. Why get their hopes up? If you think someone has it internally, give them a stretch project. Put them in the role temporarily... just don't pit them against someone externally though. I think it's way too demotivating. The employee relations issues that come up afterwards are just no fun.

[JR]

Good ideas - but like every good tool it should be used in moderation. If you choose outside talent for every promotion you soon will have no internal talent - no corporate knowledge - no long term employees who are very good at their jobs. They will bolt because they "will never get promoted here."
I also believe that you must have the internal talent compete for several reasons - they need to know they were considered for the position (they do have a chance for promotion) and if they don't get selected they will know why (even if you have told them their shortcomings in the past) and now they will earnestly work to correct the situation, if they want to get ahead.

[KD]

MHomula -

Nice piece, hope you enjoyed the hippie Karl Marx picture I broke off for you.

Interesting stuff imbedded in this one. First up, I've always been a part of union free companies. But there's a reason for companies to have internal process for posting, etc. The primary reason is to force managers to have the dialog about internal candidates and to create opportunity for associates. For every 10 openings you force internal postings on, the hiring manager will get a nice surprise on at least 1 or 2 of them - an internal candidate they weren't aware of will emerge, or someone will interview and position themselves stronger than anyone anticipated. That's a good thing.

So you have to do the postings - but it's not a sham - good internal hires actually result from the process.

JLee and JR bring up good points. You should know who your people are. I'm a big proponent for not running internal and external search processes at different times - run them at the same time. That way you can still have the career discussions with people even if you know you'll have to go outside.

[Michael Homula]

William, I respectfully submit to you that the examples of this are rampant and I do mention at least one in the post.

The UAW and their incessant demands on auto makers has led to debilitating concessions with the auto industry that have prevented them from keeping up and remaining competitive with other non union car makers (Honda and Toyota routinely kick US car maker butt).

How about public zchool teacher unions. Performance doesn't matter. The Teachers Union makes it all about tenure and teacher rights. What about the rights of the students and parents? The school should be about the kids and not how much time off, how much money or how much a teacher can get away with in the classroom. Trying to get rid of a teacher who ill prepares their students or whose students don't meet basic profiency numbers is more difficult than passing a bill through congress thanks to teachers unions that put teachers ahead of students. If teachers were to be held accountable to performance like a business then American kids would come out of our schools vastly more prepared than their global competitors. Thanks to teacher unions our kids are getting their butt kicked! Then, when charter schools pop up in response to this lack of performance, the unions and public schools start taking them on in droves. Hmmm...wonder why?

Thanks for your comments but I must say I am not sure you read the article in its entirety or you came to the table with an opinion already made. Either way, I appreciate your commentary and welcome the criticism so we can have a healthy debate on this.