Inside Looking Out

So ingrained is our tradition that a man should start at the bottom and work his way to the top that some sort of a stigma is attached to job hunting. Why, so the thinking seems to go, aren't you working the way to the top with your original company instead of butting into our business? Were you fired, laid-off, or are you one of these restless job jumpers? Or are you a moon-lighter, trying to hold down a day and a night job simultaneously? Except in our youngest industries, like electronics and television, the first challenging question is more apt to be, "Why are you coming to us?" instead of "What have you got to offer that we need?" This only slightly veiled hostility still exists in most industries even though those industries are in desperate need of top-flight men, and even though the executives of those industries realize that many a man's talents are atrophied by the lack of opportunity for growth in their present jobs.

Because of this, the tendency of talented men is to keep their job hunting to a minimum, first because it's a painful process, and second because they don't want to get the reputation of being "floaters" or job hunters. They have no hesitation about trying on shoes until they get a pair that fits, but when the job doesn't fit, and their futures are faced with a permanent pinch, they'd rather keep hoping for the best instead of doing something about it. The result is that they know little about the technique of job hunting, or even that there is a technique.

The same type of thinking affects the executives who need to hire the best men they can get. Hiring a man- buying his life in monthly salary installments-entails an enormous amount of responsibility that increases in direct proportion to the importance of the job.



In the lower levels of employment, where the ability to do the job is the main requirement, the employee either does his work or he gets fired. It's that elementary. The boss might not like to fire him-for most men firing an employee is an unpleasant if not downright shattering experience-but at least he is not to blame if the employee can't handle the job.

But the higher one goes, the more intelligence and personality enter the picture. Of course one is still subject to the same harsh laws of dismissal if he fails to handle the job properly, but now he is a discredit not only to himself but to the man who hired him. And no supervisor or executive wants to go through the ordeal of firing a man, and then through the humiliation of admitting to his superiors, "I was way off in my judgment of that man. He didn't work out."

The result is that in the majority of cases executives have abdicated their most vital responsibility-the selection of their subordinates-in favor of archaic methods that leave them one vanity-restoring out-"Well he came highly recommended-" or, "He got the highest marks on our intelligence tests."

To put it even more emphatically, the executive knows little more about the technique of talent buying than the applicant knows about the technique of talent selling, or even that there is a technique. In order to get the best out of a man, you must look for the best that is in him. Success Factor Analysis, the technique, enables an executive to seek and find the best that is in a man. These techniques also help to adapt men to new technology jobs.