an MBA and four years experience in the field and ah, let’s see…oh

yes, and good consumer relations experience." Fuller slaps his

forehead. This is the type of request executives give search teams

all too frequently. "They are seeking credentials, not

capabilities,"

he says. "They fill slots like some sort of recipe for the status

quo."

A company’s very first step in hiring anyone at any level is to very

specifically define its goal in hiring. Don’t just gobble up MBA

cookies,

but examine your firm’s total nutritional needs. What do you need

to grow? Near term and long term?

creatures of habit," says Fuller. Occasionally, some new job will

propel a long time plodder into high gear, but that’s seldom the way

to bet. The key here is to analyze more than an individual’s work

performance, and to talk with more than his past bosses. Defining

a person’s critical performance capabilities must entail as exhaustive

a search as the corporation has undertaken to define its own goals.

Panel moderator Terry Williams is founder of a Collegeville,

Pennsylvania, recruiting firm T. Williams Consulting. He says,

"Always

choose the right DNA over the right training."

innovative

employee, the fit must be total. This includes an attitudinal,

cultural,

and emotional mesh between the candidate, his fellows, and the

employing

firm. Among other tools, Fuller employs a behavioral assessment test

consisting of an array of questions. For example, in one column there

are five traits: yielding, tenacious, flexible, understanding,

unalterable.

The candidate simply lists these traits in order of how others

perceive

him. Then in the next column several sets of different traits: for

example, believable, wary, compromising, relentless, courteous. Such

self-analysis spread over large numbers of questions yields a pretty

good idea of a candidate’s innate personality — and how it fits

with the company’s requirements.

All of this, plus the personal interviews, leads to a report of as

much as 25 pages per candidate. The process is exhaustive, but it’s

a whole lot easier than living with the wrong employee grinding along

squeakily in the wrong company.

of compensation. Naturally, the entire menu of benefits that accompany

salary must be examined. But with the technical industry, relocation

often becomes a major hurdle. Williams notes that the pools of both

talent and industry in greater New Jersey are already so great, that

often the relocation distance is minimal and culture shock is slight.

Fuller, who has offices in Montclair, Houston, and Austin, says that

getting some employees to the Garden State is a challenge. "West

Coast people," he says, "generally do not want to budge."

Candidates from the South are more willing and those from the New

England climates are happy to come down where it is warm.

Midwesterners

tend to be flexible.