Today I wanna talk to you about one of my favorite subjects, Fantasy Island.
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Now, let me put some parameters around this.
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Oftentimes, when I'm talking with somebody in my marketplace, I will ask them, say, "Hey, let's go to Fantasy Island. What is your dream job? If you could choose to do anything next, what would that look like?"
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Same thing with hiring managers.
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"Hey, hiring managers, what would be your dream talent?
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If you could choose anyone to come work on your team next, who would that be?
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What would they look like?
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What skills would they possess?
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What value would they be able to add?" It's a great way to get a really good understanding on what's going on with both my candidates and my clients, and really understand the depth of their needs, and quite frankly, some of their wants.
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This is a great line of questioning, and I like it a lot.
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It helps me understand where people are coming from.
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However, there is a wrong time to go to Fantasy Island.
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Fantasy Island is just that.
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It's somewhere that you go temporarily, but ultimately, we gotta come back to Reality Island.
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Recently, I've had a couple experiences where I have recruited a couple of candidates, and we've actually started out on Reality Island, and somewhere along the way, they shifted away from reality and started heading towards Fantasy Island.
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Candidly, they started to get a little greedy.
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"Well, now that I see that they'll give me this, what about this? What about this? Well, what about this?" And of course, I had to lovingly and gently guide them back to reality.
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Yes, there's absolutely a time and a place for a wish list, but there's also a list that's critically important when you're making a big decision, and that's the must-haves.
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Same thing with the clients.
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Oftentimes, when they get in front of top talent, they have a very realistic view of who and what they want.
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Yeah, they can be a little dreamy about it at times.
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Like, "Oh, gosh, I'd love to have this," but I, you know, "Hey, that's not what the market's bearing.
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This is what the market's bearing, so let's stay focused."
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But sometimes it happens, too, on the client side, as they get in there, start interviewing, and start seeing a few folks, they wanna return to Fantasy Island.
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"Well, gosh, I, I really like this candidate, but if you could find me that purple spotted unicorn, that's what I'd really like." Let's face it, folks, we're not even sure unicorns exist, but a purple spotted one?
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Ooh.
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Again, there's a time and a place for both.
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I appreciate them both and always am thankful for the opportunity to work with my clients and candidates in letting me be their cruise director as we go from island to island.
