If the Shoe Fits: How to Lose Talent
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Back in the early 1980s when there were no cellphones, no email, no WWW and Apple was the hot young company with the great perks a friend of mine interviewed with them.
She was a very talented programmer and Apple wanted her badly.
When I asked her how it went she said it was the dumbest interview she had ever had.
All the manager talked about was how “cool it was to work there” and “the great perks, like the group’s own foosball table” and how much money she would make her and on and on about the stock.
While all that was true, what the manager didn’t spend much time on was the work itself, what she would do, what she could learn, what value she brought and what her career path might look like.
In other words, she was looking for substance and the manager spent almost the entire interview on fluff.
She said he was very surprised when she turned down the offer.
I know it wasn’t that she was female, because I knew many guys who had similar interviews.
And it wasn’t just that manager.
It happened over and over because the perks and stock were constantly spotlighted in the media, like Google and Facebook today, although Apple is the granddaddy of cool perks culture, and the people who worked there couldn’t believe anyone would turn down a chance to join.
The lesson here is that focusing an interview on what the media (real and social) finds noteworthy is not necessarily what attracts people and may cost you real talent.
Image credit: HikingArtist
