“Human beings are basically wired to want to give help. It’s one of the richest sources of self-esteem, and it has the potential to be a real win-win. Helping is rewarding for people because they like to be supportive and connect with other people.”
social psychologist Heidi Grant
Let us flip asking for help to being offered help in business.
If an organisation was offered help from a well known person in a field that could be of benefit for growth, for example Gary Veynerchuk for Marketing, Jane Fraser for Strategy, Grant Cardon for Sales, or Karen Brady for Commercial, would this be refused on the basis these people would not accept employment long-term or their isn’t a vacancy for them?
OK. Forgive one or two of the examples because their help might be declined purely due to how annoying they are!
On a serious note, when we are offered help by high-profile people the terms that an organisation would attach to this are diminished. Why could this not be the same for those people who are unknown to an organisation, however, could bring equal or more clout to overcome issues and maintain growth?
I think the reason is our perception of recruitment.
Organisations believe recruitment is about acquiring employees.
People in the market believe recruitment is about getting a new job.
Recruiters and advisors believe recruitment is about finding and filling vacancies.
Proceeding with the above beliefs removes the human-element in us all, where we are willing to help.
If I an organisation was to seek help, rather than employees, how would this change the dynamic of what they experience?
If a person in the market was to offer help, rather than a CV or application, what would the response be like from those in other organisations?
If recruiters were to focus on facilitation of the above, could this stimulate more activity, growth, and revenue?
Would we all find ourselves in a more productive space, where being proactive and opening doors was the motive ahead of ticking the “employment” box.
We all have our part to play here.
Organisations feel the pain of attracting and retaining the correct Talent. By shifting their strategy to that of seeking help they could transform this engagement. Instead of asking 10 professionals if they would like to apply for a role, where 8 likely find a reason not to, ask those same 10 professionals for help, where the majority respond with “how can I help?”.
Now there is a conversation, and a journey, where before there was nothing.
People looking for a new role feel the pain of applications, lack of engagement, and all while their expertise is stagnating and not being utilised. Not only is the frustrating for them, it’s a waste of investment for the organisation they are currently with and it’s certainly a huge missed opportunity to solve business issues quicker (by access this latent knowledge) for those organisations who are better suited.
So, by taking the same tact to those who are able to offer an organisation help that would be taken to someone with a high profile, business issues can be addressed and mitigated earlier.
A lot of highly knowledgeable professional people are raising their online profile in order to ask for help with their career.
It might be time for organisations to reciprocate by showing the human side, and offering insight to the issues faced in order to attract Talent to help.
And, the beauty of focusing the strategy on seeking help, we no longer depend upon push factors where people are looking for a new role. Now, we can speak to 80-100% of the workforce who are not applying to jobs although are willing to apply their professional knowledge to help.
