The quick answer to this question?   …Because they have to make a change.

About a month ago, I wrote an article highlighting Po Bronson’s book, What Should I Do With My Life?  Bronson later published a follow-up article in Fast Company Magazine highlighting the most common misconceptions regarding finding meaning in one’s work.

The misconception that I’d like to discuss today is:

“People are the architects of their own change.”

Bronson notices:

“Extremely few people quit because of career ennui.  Rather most are pushed into change:  they’re laid off or can’t make ends meet or have at-home family demands or find their new, postmerger boss to be an absolute jerk.  They are not naive idealists.”

If you are a Hiring Manager or are responsible for recruiting in your company, this should be a principle you should consider nearly every day.  From a recruiter’s perspective, timing is everything.  Being in the right place (in the back of the candidate’s mind) at the right time (when the candidate is being forced to make a change), has a lot to do with your success.

This is one of the most important differentiators in separating successful recruiters from those who struggle.  It only makes sense that if these right place / right time interactions are left to chance, they are not going to happen very often.
 
Successful recruiters do the hard (and often boring) work of maintaining a presence in the back of the most desirable candidates’ minds.  This work takes creativity, persistence, and an understanding of human nature.  Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the principles that help recruiters find success in this endeavor.