Passion at Work
I was inspired by Mike Sansone of Converstations and his blog post today titled Where's the Passion? I spent nearly a decade as a recruiter during which time I conducted hundreds of in-depth interviews with candidates.
The most important question I would ask was ...
"If there were a hall of fame for (insert profession here), give me some specific examples of what you have done in your career that would get you into that hall of fame."
Most people would have very mundane answers. Often they would just give me some general statements about how good they were at their job. But about 1 in 5 would have an extraordinary answer that demonstrated their passion for one or more aspects of their job.
At this point, my job became much easier. If the interviewee's passion was congruent with the specific objectives of my client, then we had a probable fit for all parties.
I taught my staff and counseled my clients to interview for passion becasue of the extremely high correspondance between passion for the elements of a profession and the quality of work that is done.
As a final note, the most passionate candidates often did not fit the initial picture that the client had in mind of the ideal candidates. A resume rarely reveals the character trait of passion.
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