Upon leaving Andreesen Horowitz in 2014, entrepreneur Sam Gerstenzang wrote as #1 of his Seven Things I learned in Venture: “The winners always have something that looks hugely wrong with them. Like spectacularly wrong. That’s why no one else has invested/hired/built this opportunity. But you can. Value strength over lack of weakness.”
This sounds like great advice for investing in startups, but for hiring? Who in their right mind would hire a candidate with something “hugely wrong,” “spectacularly wrong” with them? What would that even look like and how could it be anything but a recipe for disaster? I mean, if you were trying to hire somebody to support your next guerilla marketing campaign (yes, they still exist) why should you even consider a candidate whose featured accomplishment–as captured in the photo above–appears to be wobbly handstands on the beach? Talk about a mismatch of skills. Or is it?
What if this handstand candidate also does backflips, one-armed push-ups, and full routines that draw crowds and inspire imitation? What if this picture was taken mid-cartwheel and not in a handstand at all or it was poorly timed and doesn’t accurately capture his handstand stability? What if he was not actively looking for a job but this is the best photo he had available when asked to submit one right away if he wanted to be considered? What if you met him in passing, really liked him, and thought he would fit in great with your team… if only you knew what to have him do. Well, don’t sweat it, with that wobbly handstand he is clearly an easy “pass” anyway. Besides, if he were worth hiring somebody else would have already, right?
This scenario may seem far fetched but strong candidates are overlooked everyday because gaps in their skills become insurmountable to recruiting teams and hiring managers. Today’s hot fill needs eclipse tomorrow’s growth and succession objectives when it comes to hiring.
This unfortunate mindset is encountered every day by military Veterans, and other career field changers, as they transition from their familiar professional ecosystems having achieved measurable degrees of success, to entirely new and highly ambiguous ones. With a high degree of uncertainty these professionally “weakened” candidates find themselves simplifying or eliminating significant accomplishments as they translate their experience into the language of corporatese, which they barely know. As they highlight talent equivalencies for job duties they don’t have direct experience in, they find themselves doing figurative cartwheels to articulate their value for multiple career paths while still uncertain any are right for them. This lack of clarity is a sure sign of candidate weakness… isn’t it?
It all depends on what you’re looking for. Even with focused transition seminars, workshops, and increasingly prevalent placement programs, a steady stream of highly accomplished Veterans still hit the job market with unremarkable resumes and awkward military translation skills that do little to elicit excitement. As candidates, these “mismatches” for your existing job descriptions often have the potential to be high performers given the right starting opportunity and growth path. Of course, if you don’t know how to recognize their hidden strengths, there is a good chance you’ll continue missing out on this population which represents some of the best talent on the market.
Let’s face it, awesome Veterans that have spent 4, 10, 20, or even 30 years in uniform often don’t have the industry specific experience and meet all of the pre-requisite skills listed on your job description. Even when they do, they may not know your position is available or how to powerfully convert their qualifications to submit a conspicuous application. Yet these same Veterans, and other undervalued candidates, present an enormous opportunity for companies seeking to snag high caliber talent. Every Veteran that struggles to focus his or her transition efforts, choose an industry and specific jobs to apply for, and translate wide-ranging skills and experiences into narrowly focused targeted resumes is a potential rainmaker in disguise amidst what many professionals still lament as a talent drought.
Regardless of whether your company seeks senior leaders, project managers, technicians, or skilled tradesmen, there are likely Veterans available in your market that can scratch that itch as good—or better—than much of their competition. Many recruiting teams and hiring managers view these candidates as unqualified based on immediate priorities and, depending on your hiring process and applicant tracking system (ATS), their candidacy many not even be considered with so much as a glance by human eyes. If you want to find and hire these future rock stars, you have to align your team to start looking for them, learn how to recognize the right characteristics to meet your needs, and understand how to make the case to your team and to the Veteran.
Snagging this undervalued talent is a perfect reason to borrow a page from the military’s own recruiting playbook. Military recruiters screen applicants for overall potential, cultural match, and alignment of knowledge, skills, and abilities to current job openings while managing a robust pool of applicants that may fit future openings. Applicant volume across all programs and specialties allow recruiters to focus more on an individual’s potential for service than their fit for a specific job. While service members transitioning to civilian life may initially lack a clear cut path, an understanding of industry specific jargon, or be an ideal resume match for any one position, it’s valuable to recognize that they are great team players, respond well to training and development, and can quickly take the lead on new initiatives. Simply put, these undervalued candidates represent a huge opportunity for companies that know how to recognize and seize it.
As for our handstand guy, if we’re honest with ourselves we will recognize he’s doing something that 98% of the population either doesn’t have the strength, skill, or willingness to try, let alone do. And if we are brutally honest with ourselves, we will understand hiring the very best talent means selecting based on those core skills we can build upon, “valuing strength over lack of weakness”.
