Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the traveling production of Les Misérables. It was the fourth time I had seen the musical, so the most surprising thing might have been that in the 20 years and several revisits since my first Les Mis experience, the play still turns me into a sobbing mess. However, what surprised me most is that the play offers several lessons that can be applied to recruiting.

Those of you who have seen Les Misérables, as well as those of you who haven’t, may immediately assume that this connection is a stretch. Frankly, I don’t blame you. What may be more disturbing to me than any skepticism you have about this is the fact that I was thinking about work lessons during a brilliant musical. Perhaps, though, what this really highlights is how the lessons we learn which dictate how to live and how to interact with others really do apply to professional dealings just as much as to personal relationships and actions, and they apply to the real world as much to fantasy.

Les Misérables offers quite a few lessons that apply to business and recruitment, but here are the five most prominent ones:

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The holiday season may be drawing to a close, but repercussions of being on the naughty list are only just starting to be felt. This isn’t a reference to those snide remarks behind a friend’s back or the sick day that truly was taken to watch the season finale of Dancing with the Stars on the DVR. No, this naughty list is the one that includes any company that took advantage of the recent economic challenges to reduce labor costs through excessive downsizing and that then wrung every last bit of productivity out of their layoff survivors. Hiring figures are starting to creep up, and as employees learn to trust the uptick is solid, the great employee migration will begin. keep reading…

Recruitment, at times, can seem a lot like a poker game. The client is the dealer, and every candidate is a player. At prescribed stages in the game, all cards are hidden, and bit by bit, each individual reveals his or her hand. Each show of cards is a risk. Sometimes the dealer wins, which is good because that means the game can remain solvent for other players to enjoy. At other times the players win, which is also positive, since a losing game draws no players. As long as the odds are relatively even and everyone abides by the rules, the game can go on. But what happens when a player steps up who doesn’t play by the rules? keep reading…