A key piece of work was published in 1911 by a mechanical engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. He laid out the principles of scientific management, also called Taylorism, focusing on three goals:
- To show the loss our country is suffering through inefficiencies in our day-to-day activities.
- To convince the reader that the fix for this inefficiency lies in building unique management systems rather than searching for extraordinary men.
- To prove that management is a science-based approach that relies on defined rules and fundamental principles of business operations.
A successful company is like an assembly of a puzzle. The puzzle pieces are people, products/services, processes, and resources that connect to form a unified image. Most organizations figure out all the puzzle pieces but one, the people. They offer generous pay and other attractive benefits hoping the last few missing pieces to their puzzle will surprisingly end up in their hands.
Now here's the problem. These companies do a great job describing the shape of this missing puzzle piece and hire specialists to sift through hundreds of pieces to find the right one. But what they should be focusing on instead is describing why finishing this puzzle is essential. If their vision aligns with the belief of an individual looking to be part of their company, the right person will be at their door in no time.
Many consider the late Kobe Bryant to be an iconic basketball player and an important puzzle piece to the Los Angeles Lakers dynasty. An interviewer once asked Kobe, "How did you recruit players on other teams to join you and the Lakers in contending for an NBA championship?" Kobe's response was simple. He asked potential fits, "Do you want to win a championship? And, are you willing to play hard until the clock runs out, or they need to carry you off the court? If yes, join us. If not, play somewhere else."
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, shared the tweets below to promote a career day at SpaceX. The company was looking to hire production staff, engineers, and support personnel to work on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft. See this CNBC article for more details.
This is mainly for staffing up 4 production shifts for 24/7 operations, but engineers, supervisors & support personnel are certainly needed too. A super hardcore work ethic, talent for building things, common sense & trustworthiness are required, the rest we can train.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2020
Compare this approach from SpaceX and many other visionary companies to traditional recruiting methods, and you'll notice one key difference.
The pitches from Kobe Bryant and Elon Musk focus on answering, "why should a person consider joining them?" However, most of the job descriptions on LinkedIn and other job boards focus on "what are the job requirements, minimum experience, and skills required to get hired?"
To put it another way, the former focuses on building the right system to attract any man with the desire to learn, a strong work ethic, and basic skills. The latter focuses on finding the right man who checks most of the boxes for the job requirements.
