Under the Influencer

So I was on LinkedIn today, and someone in my network had commented on or responded to one of the ubiquitous posts from some yahoo crowing about how they'd hired someone off the street who seemed completely unqualified, but "just needed a chance."

"We hired someone with ZERO experience." said the posting. "We thought he would be a great fit with our culture so we took a chance. He has since been promoted twice. Sometimes people just need a chance. Agree?" And that's it. It's basically an invitation to back patting and "all the feels" as the kids say these days.

But I thought about it for a moment, and the posting doesn't say what they hired this person for. I mean, companies hire people with ZERO (the all-caps mean really, truly) experience all the time. The posting doesn't say when they hired this person either. But LinkedIn said that the average tenure of an employee of the company is four years. And that they hadn't added any headcount over the past six months.

So they hired a person into an entry-level role that didn't require any previous experience (if you recall, this used to be the definition of "entry level role" on the basis of a perceived culture fit, and he turned out to do the job well enough that he stayed on, and was promoted. This is worth shouting from the rafters precisely why?

I think I understand the influencer game a little better now. All this guy did was tell a mundane story, but one with all of the relevant details stripped out. The audience then filled in the blanks with their own assumptions and hey, presto! 4,300+ reactions and 600+ reactions over a 12-hour period for a story that might as well be: "We hired an a green guy into an entry-level role and he stuck around long enough to work his way up." There's an assumption that the story is being told because it's worth telling, and so people start embellishing the tale to make it seem like something wonderful. But there's nothing there. There's no actual indication that this guy was down on his luck. Or that anyone considered hiring them a risk. For all we know the role paid below market wages and the promotions were required to keep the guy around. And one of the most common pieces of advice that one gets about interviewing is "make a connection." And what is a great culture fit other than making a connection?

Now I understand why less can be more. All it takes is letting other people connect the dots.