None of a Kind. The Fallacy of the Purple Squirrel.
Unicorns don’t exist in nature. Not in the singular nor the plural. They are fantastical, mystical creatures. Unicorns are none of a kind.
Purple Squirrels don’t exist, either. They are elusive, wily figments of imagination. Also, none of a kind.
Why do we use these terms in business?
The modern usage of the term “Unicorn” describes a private V.C. backed company that defies old rules of economics and risk, is usually disruptive, and promises $1B valuations and upwards of 100x returns for investors upon exit (going public or being acquired). As of this writing, 191 companies are in this category with a total estimated valuation of $662B. Uber being #1 at this time (and facing many tests of their viability). Cooking up a company that meets this standard and achieves these measures is extraordinarily rare, but not impossible. So unicorn is not accurate, but it is picturesque and better than saying “educated long-shot”.
“Purple Squirrel candidates” phrasing was originally coined in 2000 by recruiters working for unicorn companies. These poor bastards were trying to express to their CEOs that “you are asking me to find senior candidates with rare skill combinations that don’t exist, for a business model that defies logic and a problem/solution you cannot fully articulate”. Again, not accurate but kind of cute and picturesque.
“The first time I heard and used this term was at Amazon in 2004”.
Over time, Purple Squirrel problems have become synonymous for “we generally have a sourcing problem that we don’t understand”, a CEO’s excuse for failure to recruit candidates that are 1) hard to identify (we just need someone super duper smart who can code super duper fast), 2) hard to engage (because they can’t relate to a problem set), and 3) hard to lure away from their current purple squirrel gig (the devil they know). Even new college grads with commodity pedigrees are referred to as none of a kind freaks. They aren’t. This is getting ridiculous. Even a company I respect, PayScale, has gotten into this silly game.
“Purple Squirrel is the catch-all for any breathing human that is hard to identify, engage or recruit for any reason. Now we are really missing the point.”
Purple Squirrel hunting is bad for business.
So, let’s look at the purple squirrel thing a bit closer. Why would a business leader expend energy and resources throwing candidates at jobs to see what sticks? Simple: lack of intellectual discipline and operational rigor when it comes to talent. Failure to define the problems their companies are solving in a way that can be directly and specifically tied to talent needs.
This doesn’t make sense. The ROI on the “I’ll know it when I see it” strategy is dismal. Throw some humans against the wall to see if anyone sticks? In dollars, a poorly defined recruiting strategy can suck up $20k-500k$ per hire. According to a CFO friend of mine at a small start-up, “a bad hire can cost anywhere from $50k-1.5M per hire”. This is not chump change.
“The ROI on the “I’ll know it when I see it” strategy is dismal. Throw some humans against the wall to see if anyone sticks? “
Now, imagine being on the slate of humans that is getting tossed against that wall. Those humans are potential employees, customers, and brand enthusiasts, and competitors. We only get one chance to make a first impression. Richard Branson at Virgin realized that treating candidates poorly resulted in lost employees, customers, and brand enthusiasts, to the tune of $7M last year. Not chump change. Think about it. Purple squirrel hunting is bad for business.
FOOK the dang Purple Squirrels.
High impact problem solvers are not purple squirrels. They are sometimes few-or-one-of-a-kind (I like the term FOOKs)” They do exist and they can be found, but first we need to define what we are looking for.
What we have here is not a sourcing problem. It’s a definition problem.
Everything I know about recruiting I learned in kindergarten: Define the problem that needs solving, define what measurable progress looks like, and consequences of not solving. Then identify the talent / skills gaps needed to solve that problem. And from there define “who” to hire by calibrating and benchmarking the talent pool. <<I’ll go into the details of how to define roles for problems solvers in my upcoming post>>. Then go out into the market to engage that specific kind of problem solver whose talents and interests align.
“That’s not nothing and no one. That’s something and someone. It’s called a great hire”.
Shannon L Anderson: I teach leaders how to hire high-impact problem solvers.
