First Class Honours, CGPA 4.0, graduated from Harvard University, MBA from MIT Sloan, Masters of Finance from Wharton University … and the list goes on.  These are some “prestigious achievements” that anyone filtering CVs are unlikely to miss when they see one.  The candidate is sure to get some attention from recruiters.

During the good times, large corporations keep a lookout for them; the smaller companies don’t stand a chance.  Big name graduates usually eye for big names - McKinsey, Boston Consulting, Microsoft, Google, IBM, Accenture; Antarabangsa Enterprise, Uncle Razak Kopitiam or any small companies won’t get their attention (even if these companies are cash rich, they’re unknown).

Now that times are bad, the larger companies (especially in the Banking sector) may not even be recruiting, some may suggest that it’s time for the cash rich but smaller brand names to “shop” for talents at a bargain.  The question is - “should these smaller companies hire top talents?”

Hiring top talents and top brains comes at a price.  My general suggestion is for the cash rich SMEs to first brand themselves to outbeat the multinational competitors in the business, then think about the talents you might want to bring in to step ahead.  Talents to big companies may not be suitable to all businesses.  Graduates from top universities may not last long in smaller companies.

If your organization is a small 20-man team or smaller, my suggestion is to forget about hiring any top graduates from top universities.  You’re bound to be used as a stepping stone to a larger job.  If you’re an SME of 100 employees, hiring graduates may be a good idea, but maybe just not the best.  If you’re a regional company that has operations in a few countries, maybe just the graduates from top regional schools will bring you a long way.  Why?  Here are some reasons:

• Top graduates from top universities has top ambitious - the smaller companies may not be able to match their ambition levels.  Insufficient career opportunity, lack growth or lack financial capabilities to pay better may be some of the reasons.
• They need a respectable role model - The new generation of employees need a role model to keep them motivated.  This role model may not exist in smaller companies.  If you run a small company and think that you may be a role model since you has as strong an academic background as they are, maybe they’d rather be your business partner than employee.  Or even choose to be your competitor in the SME field.
• They have different values - It’s a case of the value system of the “elite” versus the hardknocks.  They may look for worklife balance, prestige, and will be tough in adapting to the unstructured way of doing business (some people would call that the “chinaman business style” - as long as it works).
• They are taught “the best practice” - What it takes to run big corporations and those it take to run a small company is completely different.  Sadly, most of what is taught in business school are best practices from the large corporations.  Case studies are often based on large and successful firms, seldom the small and growing ones.  Therefore, they may not even have the skills to survive to in small and disorganized firms.
• Employee Dynamics - Imagine if you’ve got lots of hardworking employee without much academic qualifications.  They may not be the brightest minds but they have served you well over the years.  Now you bring in this “brightest guy” to implement strategies which are unheard of to them.  Are they going to abide by it?  Alright, you might argue that this bright guy will first learn from the oldies, bu ask yourself honestly - is that going to happen?

It’s obvious that the best minds may not be suitable for all businesses.  The most important “talent” in your organization is the ones who will fit to the culture well and maximize your gains.  If you’re planning to hire a sales person for a product where your target market is in the villages, the humble village boy is probably going to do a better job than a corporate high flyer.  Give it a thought.

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Tags: Culture, family business, job fit, mismatch, SME, talent management, talents, top graduates

This entry was posted by Clayton J.C Tan on Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 10:28 pm and is filed under Economy, Generation Y, Leadership & Management, Malaysian Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.