I've been thinking about how quickly we decide a conversation is over.
Sometimes we have good reasons.
We're busy. We've got deadlines. There are decisions to make, people waiting on answers, and about 37 things on our calendar that probably could have been emails. And when something doesn't line up with our expectations, it's pretty easy to move on.
I understand that. I've done it myself. But something happened this week that made me think a little more about it.
I wrote a LinkedIn post about a candidate whose salary expectations were considerably higher than a company's budget.
I used two hypothetical numbers. $140,000 and $95,000. Quite a difference.
Enough to make most recruiters reach for another cup of coffee. But the point wasn't the money. It was about what happens after someone shares something with us that we weren't expecting.
A reader commented with a perspective that made perfect sense on the surface.
The recruiter should know the budget. If the candidate wants more than the company can pay, explain the difference, end the conversation, and move on.
Nobody wastes time.
I appreciated the response because it highlighted something I've been wrestling with.
When does being efficient start getting in the way of being effective?
As an internal recruiter, I know the budgets we're working with. I also know there's a responsibility to be thoughtful with company resources and respectful of a candidate's time. I'm certainly not suggesting we should spend an hour trying to convince someone to accept substantially less than they need.
That's not a better hiring conversation. That's just a longer one.
I wonder what happens when we become so focused on qualifying someone that we stop trying to understand them.
- Why is that number important?
- What experiences shaped their expectations?
- What do they believe the role involves?
- What would they need to see in an opportunity to seriously consider making a change?
Sometimes those questions reveal that we're simply too far apart. Fair enough, but sometimes they reveal something nobody knew when the conversation started.
Maybe we haven't explained the opportunity clearly enough. Maybe the candidate is picturing a different level of responsibility. Maybe, just maybe the company needs to reconsider what it's actually asking someone to do. Or maybe we walk away with a better understanding of each other, even though we never reach an agreement.
That doesn't feel like wasted time to me.
And the more I thought about it, the more I realized this isn't really about recruiting. Think about the conversations we have with employees, coworkers, family members, or even our kids.
Someone tells us something that doesn't fit what we've already decided. And almost immediately, our minds start moving toward a response. We explain or we justify or we offer a solution and sometimes we decide there's nothing more to discuss.
I catch myself doing that last one sometimes especially with my kids. Not necessarily because I don't care what the other person thinks. Sometimes I'm simply convinced I already understand what they're telling me. And that's a pretty dangerous place to be when you're trying to understand people.
One of the things I've come to appreciate about recruiting is that people rarely fit neatly into the boxes we create for them.
A résumé tells part of their story. A salary expectation tells part of their story. An interview answer tells part of their story. But none of those things tells the whole story.
We have to be willing to stay in the conversation long enough to discover what we might be missing.
That doesn't mean every conversation needs to continue. Sometimes the right decision is still to move on suggested by my network friend here on LinkedIn. But I'd like to think we can make that decision with a little more understanding than we had when the conversation started. And maybe that's where trust comes into the picture. Not because we agreed or because someone changed their mind.
But because we listened long enough to understand why they believed what they believed.
I started this week thinking about what happens when someone tells us the truth. I'm ending it thinking about how often we decide what that truth means before we've really explored it.
Maybe the question isn't whether we should move on.
Maybe it's whether we've learned enough before we do.
Better Hiring Conversations
Because sometimes the most valuable part of a conversation happens right before we think it's over.