We have now entered the time of year when most NFL teams’ seasons have ended and coaches are getting fired and hired. I couldn’t help but think, about how public this job search process is for them. True, it’s on a level that most of us will never encounter as these people’s successes and failures are analyzed to death week after week on ESPN, but it got me thinking—in the real world, if you knew someone’s failures at work so intimately, would you want him on your team, let alone running it?
With that being said maybe it’s time we embrace the failures of job candidates and give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe their last opportunity was actually a learning experience.
Plus, do you really want to hire someone that’s perfect? When a candidate tells you their biggest weakness is that they’re a perfectionist, do you even buy that line anymore? Here are 5 reasons why hiring a perfectionist is not actually a great move.
5 Downfalls of a Perfectionist:
- Being Perfect is Boring. Someone who’s perfect rarely takes risks to get results. They’re typically uncreative. They do their job, but they don’t bring new and fresh perspectives to the table.
- There’s a “Me” in Team. Perfectionists typically have an “if you want something done right, you better do it yourself” mentality. That being said, they don’t usually work well as a member of a team, sometimes they are great delegators, but let’s face it those who are taking the orders, might be incredibly stressed by the expectations they’re expected to meet.
- Flexible is Not in Their Vocabulary. Sometimes in the workplace you need to be flexible, deadlines get moved, meetings get canceled, and coworkers get sick (especially around this time of year), and not following an already set schedule can be hard for someone that needs everything to be perfect.
- The Work Is Never Done. Perfectionists often dwell on projects well after they’re done. Having a need for everything to be the best makes finishing a project a challenge. Deadlines need to be met and in a fast paced environment where timelines are short—perfectionists might not thrive.
- Criticism Implies Being Less Than Perfect. A perfectionist might be resistant to receiving criticism (constructive or otherwise) as it may be interpreted as failing.
So if you’ve been recruiting those perfectionists all this time and the results are less than perfect, maybe it’s time to make a change.
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