“The pickup line”

You know the scene. The part of the movie when the main characters, in the moment of intensity within the plot, find themselves backlit by the setting sun, profiles in full screen, stop and move in… for the kiss. How do they arrive at this point of romantic bliss? How did it even start?

I was in conversation a few weeks ago with two leaders in an organization on the topic of hiring - specifically, culling through all of the applicants in the part of the process by which we begin initially sorting through the mass of information. It’s waaayyy upstream of the scene where the new hire and the organization find themselves in the aforementioned romantic bliss. No - this is first impression time.

In the conversation, one of the leaders happened to say something about “the pickup line”. Now, as a guy that takes gender bias and bad behavior by guys very seriously, I cringed. (The two leaders on the call both happened to be women). I was afraid either had been subjected to bad behavior. But alas, not this time. When I asked what she meant by “the pickup line”, she matter-of-factly explained, “ya know, that point in the cover letter where the candidate tells you what a great catch they are”. (Oh, that pickup line… whew!)

We laughed and began a full series of applicant stereotypes. For a moment, I began to imagine the Dude Perfect videos on stereotypes. Our conversation got back on track of sorting through applicants and our selection processes. To their credit, these were leaders who were now getting serious, not just about the candidate part of the process but also establishing a job target by which they’d evaluate candidates. This is a critical step in selection that most organizations bypass altogether, save the HR-compliant-friendly version of the job description.

If you’ve done any amount of hiring in your career, you probably have your own list of bad pickup lines or other such stereotypes. For all of us, it’s more vital than ever that we invest the time, energy, and comprehensive perspectives on the job itself - skill set and experience, yes, but also the behavioral and cognitive fit a given person brings, cultural fit, the importance of diversity, etc. This all takes intentionality and discipline. My experience tells me it also takes structure, processes and tools that bring as much objectivity to the human decision-making process as possible.

How would you grade out in this discussion? Have you been caught up by a pickup line in the past? Have you scoped your jobs and placement processes to focus on the things you care about most? Whatever the case, or however new this conversation is to you, it is within reach. It can be built and mastered - so that once a candidate is placed, you can get to the good part!