When you’re trying to convince a recruiting prospect to see things from your perspective, you may think presenting as much evidence as possible will strengthen your case.
But, according to London Business School professor Niro Sivanathan, you’d be wrong.
For humans, receiving too much information interferes with our ability to process it.
Our minds deal with this by quickly sorting the input received into two types: diagnostic and non-diagnostic.
Diagnostic information is information of relevance to the evaluation being made.
Non-diagnostic is information that is irrelevant or inconsequential to that evaluation.
When both categories of information are mixed, dilution occurs.
It’s better to deliver a short, concentrated argument relating to the specific needs and interests of your recruiting prospect.
If you have 30 minutes to spend with a recruiting prospect, spend the first 20 minutes or more asking questions and learning about their specific needs.
Then spend the remainder of the time making just one point relating to the topic most important to your prospect.
As Dr. Sivanathan suggests,
Stick to your strongest point and resist the temptation of trying to best others with brute force.
P.S. Did you get a chance to listen to this week’s Recruiting Insight Podcast with Darrell Morgan? If not, add it to your Spotify playlist this weekend—you won’t regret it.
