Getting specific. (EBH#160, "Can't Be Sure") 🧪

Casting your net wide is a guaranteed recipe for failure.

James Ellis

Aug 29, 2022

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The Big Idea

What’s the value of being specific?

I (and often we) toss around the idea that it is important in employer branding to be specific, not just in the things we say about a company or role, but in the person we’re trying to hire. Sure, you’re looking to hire an excellent freshly-minted MBA grad, but are you looking for someone who graduated near the top of their class because they stopped at nothing to get every edge? The kind of person who every other student respected, but would say was a total asshole with just a little prodding?

Or do you want someone wasn’t just respected, but valued for their judgement and calm demeanor, someone who was looked to as a leader, even if they only squeaked into the top half of their class? The kind of person everyone else wanted on their team, because they elevated everyone around them, even if they weren’t ‘the best’ by any objective measure.

If you met these two people, you’d know which was which in about 30 seconds. Degrees notwithstanding, these people couldn’t be more different as potential employees. Your hiring manager wants one of these people and will be annoyed if they have to interview the other (and there’s no right answer as to which is which: some places want the shark, some places want the shepherd).

But if you read most job descriptions, “newly-minted MBA” is all you see instead of, “We’re completely okay if other students thought you were an asshole, so long as you ended up the victor,” or “we’re less concerned about where you graduated in your class than we are in your ability to influence and lead others without authority.” Job postings get scrubbed of anything that is specific, because being specific means having to show the bad with the good.

When you aren’t specific, and you need to get a hundred people to apply, you are forced to spin, hype and sell the job, which is the beating heart of what’s wrong with hiring today. It is a process of attracting someone to a lie, knowing full well that lie will be revealed when they join.

Being specific is giving the gift of honesty to your hiring managers and your candidates. If you can help your hiring manager be specific in what they are looking for, you can be specific in what you’re asking from talent. You can say something real about the company and role, talking about the challenges and opportunities without sounding like a huckster.

Have you ever talked to an expert in something? A sports car aficionado? An audio equipment nerd? Someone who has written a dissertation on Harry Potter? They don’t talk about the positives. They talk about the negatives, how that car is amazing but has som slight oversteer. How those headphones are some of the best on the market today but suffer from slightly too much gain when listening to classical music. How the Harry Potter series is excellent (if it weren’t for their author). People who are specific are comfortable bringing the negative in. When two nurses compare notes on their respective hospitals, they don’t spend time talking about how their hospital is committed to patient care. That’s assumed. What do they do instead? They complain. That’s how professionals talk to one another. That’s how they judge each other.

When you and your job postings only talk about the positives, you sound naive, like someone who doesn’t actually… know. Because if you knew, you’d skip 90% of the bullets and jump to the interesting parts.

So look at your job postings (and social posts and web site and and and…) and ask if you could be more specific in who your company is, what you’re looking for, and why they’d want to join you.

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Headlines

“We live in a post-advertising era. Right? Media divergence, social platforms, and a new generation of brand-savvy (and skeptical) consumers, have collided to effectively demand a more layered approach, changing the entire communications landscape.”

This is a really nice way of saying that ads just aren’t as effective as telling a legitimately interesting story across channels. For one, a cool or splashy ad won’t beat an interesting video or a compelling perspective. But more importantly, would YOU click on a “we’re hiring!” ad that doesn’t really say much of importance or with any kind of credibility? And would you want to HIRE someone who was so bored as to click an ad out of the blue? Changing their life based on ad that didn’t really say much beyond “we’re hiring?”

The “post advertising era” doesn’t mean ads aren’t useful. They are. As add-ons. To target people who have already done research on our brands. To announce events and larger means of learning. But spending time and money to tell untargetted audiences that you are hiring a data scientist seems like a way to fill up an ATS, not hire someone great.

Also:

Inside the fortune cookie

"A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points” - Alan Kay

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-James Ellis (LinkedIn)

Thanks for reading. I bet you know some people who would really value this kind of thing.

The Sundays - Can’t Be Sure

I had forgotten that this song was released in 1989. It, and its bigger hit “Here’s where the story ends” exist in that liminal space seemingly between decades, between the raw rot of corporate hair metal and forgettable pop and the freedom that was sparked by “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Nirvana gets credited for opening the doors to a huge amount of amazing indie music being made just beyond the spotlight being pointed at of Michael Jackson, Roxette and Wilson Phillips, but there really was so much amazing music being made. It was the template for the 1990’s being crafted on tiny labels and in weird out-of-the-way record stores. And this may be the finest example of what was happening. Listen to Harriet’s amazing vocals and the jangling guitar and rhythm section, the drums holding back until the climax. This song is so flat-out beautiful, it is a must-listen, especially if you’ve never heard it before.

If you are enjoying the music, congratulations, you’re old! Just for you, I made a Spotify playlist of all the subject line 80’s songs I’ve referenced over the last year and a half. You don’t even need hairspray to enjoy it:

Tha