'Never hire anybody for anything without a serious aberration in their background' – Tom Peters
I believe one of the things that makes me different from many recruiters out there is that I do not forget the experiences that I had on the way to getting where I am now.
I remember back to a rookie candidate I interviewed for a sales position, he was awful and after 20 minutes I told him so, but then offered to spend the other 25 minutes of our allotted interview time coaching him on the steps to take to start a successful sales career. Apparently, his father later told me, he went home in tears – but he took my advice and about 18 months later came back to me and told me he was ready for his first field sales position – he was and he got the job.
His father recollected the story one day when he was giving me the assignment to hire his rookie sales team of 12 reps and subsequently all the sales and marketing hiring for the company.
Many recruiters and hiring managers seem to all too easily forget that as the saying goes ' there but for the grace of God go I' and they judge someone by a poor mistake earlier in their career or dismiss them after a minor error in a resume, or cover letter or interview. They have all done it themselves, they are not perfect – nor would you hope that they are, it would just be nice once in a while that they recalled their own mistake.