By Chris Gandy

Ran into old Alf again last weekend walking his dog on our bush track and as always he had a story for me.

This one was about Brian, the youngest of three sons from a farming family in our valley. His two older brothers went to work on the farm as soon as they could leave school and Brian’s parents were determined he would break the mould and complete a university education after graduating from high school.

It was well known Brian had other ideas but to keep his parents happy he did just enough to scrap into an Arts Degree

“…. but plainly his heart just wasn’t in it” said Alf

To prove his point Alf went on to tell me that …

“During a Psych 101 lecture the Professor ran a quick quiz on emotional extremes.

‘What is the opposite of happiness’ he asked the first student.

“Sadness” she replied.

‘And the opposite of elation?’ he said to another student.

“Depression” says he.

Looking straight at Brian, he enquired.

‘What is the opposite of woe?’

‘Giddy-up’ Brian replied without hesitation 

Always do what you are interested in, you will be a failure if you don’t!” And off he toddled with his dog.

As always Alf’s little story got me thinking – this time about the recruitment process and the importance of teasing out a candidate’s true interests.

We specialise in searching for and recruiting top talent for leadership roles yet it is quite surprising how many candidates have a relatively low interest in actually leading people and in many of the other traits identified as being essential for a particular position. It is not that they don’t have the skills. It is just that their true interests lie elsewhere and they will have a tendency to gravitate to these behaviours as they enjoy performing them. Like Brian it is highly unlikely people will be successful in roles they just aren’t interested in.

Does your recruitment process include Interest Profiling of shortlisted candidates? Ours does. Contact us and we will tell you how.

About Chris:  Chris Gandy is the founder and director of Cause and Effective – a provider of contingent resourcing and leadership search services to cause-based organisations.