The Summer Olympics start soon and most will be focused on the athletic achievements, but the Olympics can provide many valuable lessons for recruiters. Recruiting leaders often say that they’re looking for “outside-the-box” approaches and it’s hard to argue against the fact that the Olympic recruiting approach differs significantly from the corporate recruiting model.
London 2012
What better example to emulate is there than a system that motivates and convinces thousands of individuals to make extraordinary sacrifices and to develop themselves beyond the capabilities of the athletes who preceded them? This Olympic people-management model routinely brings out world-record-breaking human performances.
So, while you’re watching the events, think about the powerful way that Olympic teams recruit and how their strategy and methods differ from the traditional and more conservative corporate approach.
Top Recruiting Lessons That Should be Learned From the Olympics
Corporate recruiters should consider the value and impact of the following top eight most impactful Olympic recruiting practices.
Employer brand building — National Olympic committees do an extraordinary job of building their brand image. Making the team alone creates a level of prestige that remains with the individual for their entire life. The Olympic committees effectively build their “brand pillars” of exposure, competition, challenge, nationalism, and the opportunity to do the best work of their life. Not only does their employer brand attract and recruit the very best athletes, but it also results in a team of highly engaged and motivated individuals who actually work for free. Rather than relying on advertising, the Olympic teams spread their brand virally, relying on athletes and coaches to spread authentic messages and to make referrals. The corporate lesson to be learned — your employer brand is an extremely powerful recruiting tool that can attract and engage the very best without relying on active sourcing. A strong employer brand can overcome many corporate weaknesses including a stressful work environment, a bad location, and low pay.
“The work” is the most powerful attraction tool — Rather than offering perks or high pay to attract, Olympic teams focus on providing the opportunity to do “the best work of your life.” Rather than unambiguous results, every team member is guaranteed that their results will be measured, quantified, and ranked, so that it is crystal clear to everyone who produced the highest level of results. The corporate lesson to be learned — recruiting traditionally relies on managers to design jobs, even though they might not know what aspects of the job are most attractive. Instead, because the work itself is such a powerful attraction tool, recruiting needs to work with individual managers to ensure that the work itself and the position description are exciting, challenging, and even compelling. It turns out that if your firm produces world-changing products like Apple, the work itself becomes the most powerful recruiting tool for top talent. Managers and recruiters should realize that using quantified performance metrics is also a powerful attraction tool for top performers.
Performance results over credentials — Instead of relying on academic credentials, loyalty, or even past experience, candidates for the trials are selected based on their actual quantified performance immediately before the formal tryouts. In order to get selected, candidates must be a top performer during the trials. The corporate lesson to be learned — those with the best credentials might not turn out to be the best performers and those who have performed in the past might not be strong current performers. Corporations can hold tryouts or Internet contests to identify “hidden” performers and problem-solvers that might not have the highest level of credentials.
Assessment and selection of finalists using a work sample — Olympic teams use “performance-based hiring.” Candidates are required to perform in an actual event that directly mimics the Olympic event. Instead of their ability to write a great resume or perform during an interview, their performance on the actual task is the primary selection decision point. The corporate lesson to be learned — candidates should be given actual work problems or tasks to assess their current capabilities in your work environment. Interviews and reference checks can be important first steps but performance on actual work sample should be the final screening criterion.
“Top Grading” is essential — In Olympic recruiting, the goal is to have 100% top performers in every position. There is no room for average performers either as athletes, coaches, or in supporting roles. Top performers universally want to work alongside and learn from the very best and they see average performers as a distraction from overall team excellence. The corporate lesson to be learned — in direct contrast, many in HR are the misguided “champions” of the average. But the fact is that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so recruiting can never be satisfied with average hires. In order to dominate your industry, you must use the “top-grading” concept and target recruiting top performers in every job.
The recruiting and selection process is transparent — The recruiting and selection processes for Olympic teams are clearly spelled out, objective, and transparent. There is no mystery involved, and every recruit knows exactly in advance what process and criteria will be used for selecting the final athletes. The corporate lesson to be learned — In direct contrast, corporate candidates are kept the dark about the steps in the process, what is being assessed, and why. This subjectivity can unnecessarily scare away potential applicant and put unnecessary stress on recruits. A superior approach is to follow the example of the firm Research In Motion and clearly spell out what you’re trying to do and what to expect on your corporate website.
Quality of hire metrics allow for continuous improvement — after the Olympics are over, team leaders compare their actual results produced at the Olympics by their individual team members to their results produced during the Olympic tryouts. This comparison allows leaders to determine the predictive accuracy of their recruiting and selection process. The corporate lesson to be learned — Most corporate recruiting managers fail to take the time to link recruiting with the actual on-the-job performance of new hires. If the on-the-job performance scores of new-hires don’t directly correlate with the assessment scores during hiring, recruiting managers can then work to identify the flaws in the selection process. Quantified quality of hire metrics are also essential if recruiting is to prove and quantify its business impact and if it is to continually improve its recruiting and selection processes.
Revealing the business impact of recruiting — the failure of the security firm G4S to effectively recruit enough security personnel at the London Olympics demonstrates the tremendous impact that recruiting can have on operational success. If military personnel were not available to substitute for private security guards, the entire event could have been put into jeopardy. And even with this last-minute substitute, the recruiting failure definitely damaged the image of the London games. The corporate lesson to be learned — Extensive position vacancies, slow hiring, and low-quality hires can have a multimillion dollar impact on your product brand, your operational results, and your bottom line. Recruiting leaders need to do a more effective job in demonstrating the business impacts of both weak and great hiring and then recruiting must deliver on its promises.
Final Thoughts
The goals of corporation executives are similar to those of the managers of Olympic teams. They are both not satisfied with simply getting a strong performance; instead, they want to elevate to the next step so that they dominate their competition. In both cases, it takes recruiting top talent (that have many career choices) with both physical and mental toughness and great training in order to dominate. Of the two recruiting approaches, it’s obvious that the Olympic model is much more valid, reliable, and scientific.
Obviously these “outside-your-box” Olympic recruiting strategies and tools must be modified to fit your own business situation, but it takes pure arrogance to automatically assume that great recruiting is restricted to the corporate world. So if you are a corporate recruiting manager who is always spouting off that you want more “outside-the-box recruiting solutions,” closely examine and benchmark against the Olympic recruiting model. Even if you are reluctant to accept sports analogies, this model has proven itself in the exceptionally competitive global talent competition that is the Olympics.
