I know, I know, you only hire ‘top talent’. The problem is you don’t have a top talent brand. You have a generic brand. So, while you keep telling yourself you hire top talent, you don’t. You hire generics.
That’s okay, generics are just like top brands, right? I’ve tried generic drugs and name brand drugs and I have to be honest, I didn’t see (err, feel) a difference. So, based on my formal study of generics, you have nothing to worry about! Yay!
Generics suck. You know it, and I know it.
You are hiring generics. Most organizations are hiring generics.
Here’s how you can tell. Ask yourself why you hired one of your recent hires. If it was because they had the skill to do the job, and a really nice personality, didn’t smell funny, you hired a generic. If you hired them because they can do the job and you can specifically say why they fit your culture, you hired a brand name!
Therein lies the problem, you have a generic employment brand. It doesn’t have to be generic. You made it generic because it sounded safe and professional. Because it sounded like every other boring brand you have heard or seen. “Tim, you don’t get it, we aren’t Google or Tom’s”. Thank G*d. No one really likes those crappy shoes and Google probably hires worse than you.
The question is, who are you? Really?
At my company, we’re grinders. We’re a little more blue collar, than white collar. We might swear in a meeting and no one will notice. We like kids and dogs and both are welcome to come visit the office, and no one will ever feel odd about that. We like making money, and we love watching each other succeed. We don’t get sick on Mondays or Fridays. We like to try stuff. We probably hold on to bad clients longer than we should, but that’s because we get involved and relationships are hard to end. Most of us like Michigan State, the ones that don’t get brutally harassed as much as possible. We like to give everyone nicknames.
That’s not generic. That’s specific. We don’t hire generic. We hire folks who fit our brand. The ones that get hired that don’t fit, get weeded out pretty quick. Generics don’t fit well in with Brands. There’s always something that just isn’t right. Strong brands build strong cultures. Generic brands build cultures where people don’t feel any connection.
Stop hiring generics.