Do Your Goals Match The Hiring Company’s (or Hiring Manager’s) Goals

Recently I watched two organizations start a project that was very exciting.

Both organizations were excited and dropped a lot of obligations to make this one project move forward quickly.

Shortly into the project, however, there was an interesting discussion.

Organization A wanted to take the project in one direction.

Organization B wanted to take the project in a completely different direction.

Both directions could have been okay, for different reasons, but the directions were dramatically different.

What started out as very exciting and “drop everything else” turned out to be a long series of emails and phone calls about the objectives, and the path to get there.

Unfortunately, the project died.  And no one won.  Time was spent on the bureaucratic nausea instead of the exciting project, simply because neither organization was clear about, or maybe even understood, what the final objectives were when they started.

Worse, when they started to understand the objectives, they were not aligned.

I’ve thought about this and how it applies to a traditional “job,” and job interview.

Some of my objectives in a job are to:

• Reasonably give all that I can to the job to be successful for the company.  This means I’ll work long and late, but not all the time.  I need to have balance with other parts of my life, but when I’m there, I’m THERE.
• Excel professionally.  Become more expert in my trade.  Grow.  Advance.
• Network with other leaders in the industry.
• Be a part of something big and exciting.
• Make a difference to individuals, touching their life.

As a hiring manager, my objective in finding the right person for the job is to:

• find someone who will do the job right, the first time, and not require rework or add overhead to my system.
• Find someone who is high-speed, low-drag.
• Find someone who has enough expertise that they don’t need me to handhold them to do their job.
• Find someone who is a quick learner so they can jump in and get going, instead of me spending months with them training and retraining them.
• Find a team-worker who wants to contribute to making my team a massive success (and make me look good).
• Find someone who is not offensive, who is ethical, who has a strong work ethic, who is honest and is proud of doing a good job.
• Find someone who has a balanced life, and gives their job/work 100%.

Maybe there are other things in either lists… here’s my thought: What can YOU do, or how can YOU position yourself, so when you interview you can communicate that you are aligned with a hiring manager’s objectives?

If you don’t have the same goals/objectives, either (a) your workplace will be miserable or (b) you won’t last.