Brilliant Jerks are Killing Your Recruitment, Retention and Reputation in Business and at Work

I’ve been in the hiring and HR biz for a long time. In other words, I’ve always been part of a leadership team responsible for recruiting and retaining great and talented professionals.

It’s been a tight candidate market for a while now. Recently, I participated on a panel discussing why recruitment and retention are challenging for companies of all sizes. When asked why this is a challenge, I immediately knew why. “Brilliant jerks,” I answered. “Especially in a smaller market like the Tech Valley / Capital Region of New York. Somewhere in your organization is a brilliant jerk (or jerks), and everyone inside and outside the organization knows about it. In a tight candidate market, the best candidates command not only the best pay and benefits. Since we spend so much of our waking hours at work, candidates are also looking for a welcoming culture that encourages everyone’s success – not to work with a brilliant jerk.”

Cliff Oxford in his 2012 New York Times blog post precisely and authentically outlined the problem with hiring and retaining brilliant jerks in your organization:

I define Brilliant Jerks as specialized, high-producing performers. They are not, however, brilliant business people, and that is what companies need during periods of rapid growth. There are a lot of hurdles to cross when companies move from start-up to growth, including dealing with chaos and changes in culture. But the biggest hurdle is dealing with the human factor — how you move, shift and replace people as the company grows into the next level of success. (Emphasis mine.)

At the beginning of my HR career, the site General Manager was displeased that they did not get a chance to interview me before I was hired into the organization. In my first meeting with them, they challenged my commitment to the job because I lived an hour away. Without missing a beat, I replied that my father commuted more than 2 hours each way to work, and that my commute in comparison was a cakewalk. I apparently passed the General Manager’s hazing, as they changed the subject to the work at hand – however, it was difficult to take them seriously after that Brilliant Jerk introduction.

From a recruiting standpoint, one of the hardest challenges I’ve experienced is when the hiring manager is the Brilliant Jerk. One memorable experience was after spending a number of weeks identifying and qualifying a few great candidates – via email, phone interviews and in-person interviews with other managers – the Brilliant Jerk hiring manager would interview each great candidate last. The first few times, the Brilliant Jerk hiring manager would preempt any candidate follow up, declaring those candidates inferior to the CEO, their executive team and then me.

However, when it happened to the 3rd candidate – a particularly talented professional who would have been a great addition to the organization, and who consistently communicated with me throughout their interview process – the 3rd candidate asked to speak to me before they caught their plane back home. “I want to tell you why you’ve had a problem filling this job,” the candidate said. “I had a great experience interviewing with every member of your team at every level,” they continued. “I was ready to seal the deal with the (Brilliant Jerk) hiring manager. The entire interview with the (Brilliant Jerk) hiring manager consisted of them yelling and screaming at me, apparently in an attempt to see if they could scare me. They didn’t – however, there’s no way in hell that I would ever work for that person.”

It wasn’t their interview conduct that got the Brilliant Jerk fired  It was when they caused a financial loss for the organization that the Brilliant Jerk was finally fired.

On another recruiting assignment to fill the Chief Operating Officer job in an organization, I received a startling (and pointedly direct) late-night email from a potential candidate: “Your CEO has a well-known reputation for being an asshole, and I’d never work for them.”

In this tight candidate market – are brilliant jerks in your organization killing your recruitment, retention and reputation in business and at work?