Why the best hire might not have the perfect resume by Regina Hartley.
Your company is launching a search
for an open position. The applications start rolling in, and the qualified
candidates are identified. Now the choosing begins.
·
Person A: Ivy League, 4.0, flawless resume,
great recommendations. All the right stuff.
·
Person B: State school, fair amount of job-hopping
and odd jobs like cashier and singing waitress.
Both are qualified.
Who are you going to pick?
Terms to describe two distinct
categories of candidates:
·
A, ‘the Silver Spoon,’ is the one who clearly
had advantages and was destined for success.
·
B, ‘the Scrapper,’ is the one who had to fight
against tremendous odds to get to the same point.
A
resume tells a story, and people’s experiences read like a patchwork quilt that
makes us stop and fully consider them before tossing their resumes away. A
series of off jobs may indicate inconsistency, lack of focus, unpredictability.
Or, it may signal a committed struggle against obstacles.
At the very least, the Scrapper
deserves an interview.
Getting into and graduating
from an elite university takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice. But if your
whole life has been engineered toward success, how will you handle the tough
times?
On the flip side,
what happens when your whole life is destined for failure and you actually
succeed? I want to urge you to interview the Scrapper.
As I met
successful business people and read profiles of high-powered leaders, I noticed
some commonality. Many of them had experienced early hardships, anywhere from
poverty, abandonment, death of a parent while young, to learning disabilities,
alcoholism and violence. However, during studies of dysfunction, data revealed
an unexpected insight: Even the worst circumstances can result in growth and
transformation. A remarkable and counterintuitive phenomenon has been
discovered, which scientists call Post Traumatic Growth.
Entrepreneurs who
experience post-traumatic growth, view disability as a desirable difficulty,
which provided them an advantage because they became better listeners and paid greater
attention to detail. They don’t think they are who they are in spite of
adversity, they know who they are because of adversity. They embrace their
trauma and hardships as key elements of who they’ve become, and know that
without those experiences, they might not have developed the muscle and grit
required to become successful. 
Scrappers are
propelled by the belief that the only person you have full control over is
yourself. When things don’t turn out well, Scrappers ask, ‘What can I do
differently to create a better result?’ Scrappers have a sense of purpose that
prevents them from giving up on themselves.
Moreover,
Scrappers know that humor gets you through the tough times, and laughter helps
you change you perspective.
And finally, there
are relationships. People who overcome adversity don’t do it alone. Somewhere
along the way, they find people who bring out the best in them and who are
invested in their success. Having someone you can count on no matter what is
essential to overcoming adversity.
Focus on the
future and don’t dwell on the past.
Companies that are
committed to diversity and inclusive practices tend to support Scrapers and
outperform their peers.
Choose the
underestimated contender whose secret weapons are passion and purpose. Hire the
Scrapper.
Given
the choice between a job candidate with a perfect resume and one who has fought
through difficulty, human resources executive Regina Hartley always gives the
"Scrapper" a chance. As someone who grew up with adversity, Hartley
knows that those who flourish in the darkest of spaces are empowered with the
grit to persist in an ever-changing workplace.
