A dear friend of mine is the CEO of a very large retail business out east. She had been working on recruiting a new head of merchandising and thought she had found the “pot of gold” in a particular candidate. After many interviews, she made the decision to hire the candidate and then she learned that he had some social conflicts that would be barriers to starting the job promptly. This was her first sign that his commitment to the job was not as high as she had predicted. Then a few days before he was about to begin he called and said that his wife’s family was getting together for Thanksgiving and wanted to make sure this would not be a problem for him to take off the time. For those of you not involved in retail, I will remind you of “Black Friday,” the single largest day of retail sales. This new employee (or perhaps not) was asking for the day off before he even began.
Some CEO’s would have stayed with the candidate even after this experience. Not this one. She retracted the offer and has begun the process anew. She knows what commitment feels like and this was not someone she was going to depend on to romance customers into spending money in such a tough economy.
