Meet in the Middle

Let's face it, it's a tough world out there.  For companies, tough to find the stellar candidates you need and for candidates, tough to find that perfect next step in the career.  On the company side, they are always on the look out for top talent, especially in sourcing & procurement.  On the candidate side, they might not be looking, but when made aware of a potential opportunity that is attractive, their eyes become open.  That's the easy part.

Now we get to the hard part.  Let's skip over all of the steps in the process in the middle for the sake of this blog entry.  We're skipping to the offer stage.  Company and potential candidate have been dating for the last couple of weeks and have now fallen in love.  They want to make a commitment.  Each has their list of wants, needs and desires and each is starting to communicate that to the other (many times, through a recruiter which sort of makes us like Cyrano de Bergerac) to seal the deal on the partnership.  Here's the message:  both parties must be willing to make some adjustments and meet in the middle in order to create a happy union.  Hey - this is kind of like dating!

This may be salary.  Maybe it's a signing bonus (offered only for a good reason, of course).  Perhaps it's the relocation package.  Vacation.  The list goes on and I do realize that some of this may be non-negotiable.  My point is to companies:  you cannot expect a candidate to join you just because you think you're wonderful - the entire package needs to be attractive and make financial sense.  To candidates:  you cannot expect a company to offer you, for example, a 30% increase in salary or 8 weeks of vacation because you think you're wonderful - there is an apple cart within the walls of that company and if it gets upset, all the apples roll down the hill and it's a mess. 

The bottom line is that once you've found one another, each party must be open for some give-and-take and be willing to meet in the middle.  I think there is a country song based on this theme.  If not, there should be.