A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

170 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
not think through all the job requirements. His boss had. In addition, he
relied on his personal knowledge and opinion of the candidates <strong>with</strong>out
investigating other aspects of their work at the company. That would
have been bad enough. However, he even failed to read the resumes he
sent forward. He merely attached a strong letter of recommendation for
his candidate.
What the staffing executive did not know is that one of the three additional
candidates had been <strong>with</strong> the organization for many years and had
a reputation as an up-and-coming manager <strong>with</strong> superior capabilities.
However, for the past year he had been on special assignment away from
corporate headquarters, so the staffing executive did not know him very
well. As it happened, this candidate’s background and proven experience
were particularly suited to the obvious requirements of the position to be
filled. He was so well-suited in fact, that he, of all people, should have been
the prime candidate.
This was one reason that the staffing executive’s boss had asked to see
the resumes of additional candidates. If this manager was not even
included in consideration, he wanted to find out why. If he was included,
but was not the candidate selected, he wanted to see if he was missing
some important information before he approved the promotion. At least
the staffing executive included this candidate’s resume along <strong>with</strong> the
others. Otherwise, he probably would really have been in real trouble.
However, had he looked closely at the resumes, he would have immediately
grasped the fact that he was not recommending the best candidate for
the position. Of course, he may have known something about this candidate
not known to others, but he did not.
What his boss saw was that the executive was clearly not recommending
the best candidate for the job. In a face-to-face interview <strong>with</strong> the
staffing executive, the boss soon determined that he did not know who
should have been the obvious candidate, or his background as well as he
should have. He could perhaps be forgiven since this manager in question
had been absent during most of the staffing executive’s time <strong>with</strong> the
organization. However, it still did not reflect well on his ability as a highlevel
manager. Had he promoted the wrong manager, it might have
caused a number of problems in the organization, not to mention the fact
that the organization would not get the manager most suitable for the job.
After a discussion of the requirements and the qualifications of the candidates,
both the boss and the staffing executive agreed that this ignored