'A Players' Don't Exist
I’ve been in recruitment since 1996, filling various functions at various times. In all that time nearly every report I’ve read, nearly every strategy I’ve seen, has been about how to locate, recruit, and retain ‘A Players’.
While the definition of ‘A Players’ is slightly different for variant industries and occupations, it always revolves around a critical mass of brand names. Where did the candidates go to school? What about previous employers? Who knows them?
I understand the logic: it’s the same as any decision based on brand names. Since you can’t really know people before you hire them, you look at the people, places, and things in their past for clues to their future. If the past is rich with Top Brand associations, there’s a better chance the future will hold that same promise.
Here’s the problem: as an employer, you don’t always want people who attended the top 10 schools and worked for the top 10 employers. While it sounds great on a surface level, it creates a real imbalance in your organization. You need look no farther than the US National Basketball Team to see that putting together the ‘best’ players is no guarantee of success. As the age-old adage goes, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” A collection of Type A personalities is just as likely to produce chaos or a fight for control as it is to produce great results.
The person you really want to hire is the person who best fills the role. You don’t want a Stanford MBA to work the counter at McDonalds — she would be very unhappy and likely not function well. You don’t want a marketing pro from IBM to work at your startup — the lack of resources, structure, definition, compensation, and benefits will drive him crazy. You don’t want a consultant from McKinsey to manage operations for your manufacturing line — she may find the human management issues and dearth of functional variety to be unfulfilling.
What’s the answer then, if not to search exclusively for traditional pedigreed Top Brand ‘A Players’?
Simple: search for the candidate who best matches the position. Hire high school grads, hire bartenders as entry customer service, hire people with community college diplomas, hire the best person for the job.
Does that mean you should never recruit the MIT engineer with a Wharton MBA and 7 years of progressive experience at Google? Absolutely not… but only recruit her if she’s the best fit for the job.
Do ‘A Players’ exist? They do, but you can’t always tell them by their pedigrees.