It has been a few months since I have shared anything from Peter Weddle with you. As you may recall, Peter is a recruiting expert I admire, and I’ve referenced his work a few times (1, 2) over the last year. 
Last week, Peter wrote an outstanding article that does a lot to answer a question we hear quite often from our clients:
How do you inspire someone (during an interview) to take the “leap of faith” necessary to change careers?
...Especially if that change requires them to risk the security and comforts of a stable situation for something that could potentially be more engaging and rewarding in the long run. Here’s how Peter’s article answers that question:
“Over the past decade or so, social scientists have been trying to figure out just what happiness is and where it comes from. While many of us think the answers to such questions are intuitively obvious, it turns out that we may be selling ourselves short. Humans have the capacity not only to experience happiness, but to experience joy, as well. And those two states are very different.
Joy is an emotional state. It is derived from our relationships with family and friends. When those interactions engage and satisfy us, when they enable us to be the best of ourselves with the others in our life, we experience joy--one of the human species' greatest gifts.
Happiness, on the other hand, is a cognitive state. It occurs when we are tested by meaningful challenges that stimulate us to express and experience our fullest natural potential, our talent. These challenges can occur anywhere, but they are most prevalent in the workplace. In other words, our best shot at achieving happiness occurs when we put ourselves in a position to excel at what we love to do.
That is the essence of the American Dream. It is a personal commitment, a determination to devote our Life and exercise our Liberty to the accomplishment of two tasks:
- To discovering our natural talent or what we love to do and do best.
- To working only where we can use that talent to achieve satisfying goals.
The outcome of those tasks will be unique to each of us, but the tasks themselves are the same for all of us. They represent our right to the Pursuit of happiness.
Those two tasks are also the key to a successful job search and a rewarding career. Whether we're in transition or currently employed, they enable and empower us to control our destiny, to shape it to an end that is important and fulfilling to us. It is our right, to be sure, but it is also our responsibility. For only we can take the first step, only we can decide to set off on our own personal Pursuit of happiness.
Why should we bother? Because as wonderful as the joy is in our relationships, we deserve more. We spend at least one-third of our lives at work, and that experience should offer more than frustration, anxiety and despair. It should be, it can be a source of profound fulfillment. Or what the founding fathers called Happiness."
See if you can apply these principles in your next interview. High-quality people--especially young people--love to be engaged on this level.
If you can truly help a person discover their natural talents and then paint a picture of how those talents can be used to achieve satisfying goals on your team, you’ll not only win the “most inspiring hiring manager of the year award,” but you’ll also see better results!
Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.
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