Michael Jordan taught us how to dream. The Chicago Bulls taught us how to handle the hiring process.
Back in 1983, the Chicago Bulls took Michael Jordan in the first round of the NBA draft, and as you probably know, that pick transformed their organization forevermore.
With Jordan at the helm, the Bulls amassed six out of ten championships throughout the ‘90s, and to this day Michael Jordan is widely considered the greatest player to have ever set foot on a basketball court.
How does the story of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan tie into our roles as hiring authorities? And what can we learn from that historic 1983 selection when it comes to the way we recruit and hire?
Much to their detriment, a lot of hiring authorities are overly focused on bullets points in a job description. Even after accounting for such credentials as skills, experience, and education, they tend to place undue emphasis on the specifics of the role they’re hiring for. In other words, the hiring authority wants to know if the applicant has already done what they’ll be directing them to do.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the Chicago Bulls took the same approach. They certainly wouldn’t have gone after a player fresh out of college with no professional experience. Instead, perhaps they would have pursued a power forward with experience in the NBA playoffs or a player with a championship already under their belt.
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Seeing the process through this new lens might just fundamentally change the way you do your hiring in 2019.
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Seeing the process through this new lens might just fundamentally change the way you do your hiring in 2019.
During the period between the ‘80s and early ‘90s, the Chicago Bulls weren’t a great organization and were easily outmatched against forces like the Lakers and Celtics. But when they drafted Jordan, the Bulls took a chance on an unknown quantity and rightly saw something in his raw skills and experience.
In addition, they assessed his soft skills—was he a leader at the University of North Carolina? Will he and how can he be a leader at the professional level? They looked at the totality of what Jordan had to offer, and, as they say, the rest is history.
Let this be a lesson to all of us about how we craft our job descriptions and consider the weight that raw skills and experience carry versus prior experience when we do our hiring. Ultimately, our focus should be on an applicant’s probability of success in our organization, rather than if they have direct experience in very specific areas. Seeing the process through this new lens might just fundamentally change the way you do your hiring in 2019.
If you have any questions or would like to have a conversation with me, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to hear from you!
