SYNTAGMA GROUP - January 2021 Moneyball Webinar Article

Moneyball Recruiting – The Next Big Thing in Hiring.

In a recent blog post  on the downsides of an inexperienced recruiting team, we highlighted the 2011 movie Moneyball. We’re doing it again. Why? Well, it’s not only one of the greatest corporate underdog stories of our time but it’s the blueprint for how to compete for top talent come 2021.

Based on the best selling book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”, the movie begins with Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane handicapped with the lowest salary constraint in baseball. If that isn’t troubling enough, his veteran team of scouts and coaches push back on his new ways of recruiting talent. So to win against the better financed teams, Billy needed not only a competitive advantage, but also a way to change a team of malcontents.

Doubling Down

So given this is our second reference to this iconic movie, it’s safe to say we’re doubling down on both its entertainment value and its ability to provide business perspective.  With certain references to this movie, we can help you think differently about how to recruit next year.

On January 11th from 11AM to 12PM EST we’ll be stretching a single into a double by hosting a live Moneyball Recruiting webinar. In that one hour, we’ll be breaking down a few key scenes and how they correlate with better ways of to recruit top talent next year.

Recruiting’s 5 P’s

So what can a decade old movie like Moneyball teach you about recruiting top talent? Well, it actually depends on not only your recruiting team’s experience but on their level of curiosity and compete level. When it comes to corporate change, without a deep curiosity to find better ways to hire top talent there will be no change. For example, take this scene where Billy, played by Brad Pitt, confronts the young statistical analyst.  Notice it’s the Billy’s intense curiosity that can drive change. People like this young analysts have innovative ideas all the time but lack either the passion or the path to express it. Without a passionate, well connected change agent, innovative ideas face resistance and ultimately fail. But not this time. Check out Billy’s unwavering drive to find a better way to compete. This is what it takes to win at the recruiting game in 2021. The background music starting at the 3:00 minute suggests Billy found a better way. In our webinar, you’ll discover how this formula can be applied to hiring top talent in your industry.

So it’s now clear Billy Beane was an intense competitor who hated losing top talent to the competition. His goal was to win, not keep the status quo. But along with being competitive, he was also clever. Before reworking his recruiting process, Billy redefined his recruiting problem. Only then did Billy look for better solutions.

After speaking with a number of our clients, we sense this approach works well in today’s business environment as well. So we’ll be looking to redefine your recruiting problem and cover these five topics in more depth during the January 11th webinar.

  • Problem  – quality of hiring manager’s view of the top barrier to winning.
  • Pitcher – quality of hiring manager’s capability as a change agent.
  • Players – quality of hiring manager’s starting lineup and bench depth
  • Process – quality of team’s operational techniques and systems
  • Provisions – quality of team’s tools, supplies, technology, partnerships

Moneyball Recruiting’s 5 C’s

If you are familiar with baseball scout lingo, you’ll know the quality of a baseball player can be broken down into five areas. In the movie, the actors casted as the scouting team were actually real scouts. They mentioned each of these “five tools” that a complete player possesses.

  • Speed: How fast can a player run.
  • Throwing: How a player throws in terms of strength.
  • Fielding: How a player catches, throws and handles the ball.
  • Hitting: How a players bat meets the ball and quality at bats.
  • Power: How a player exhibits home run and extra base potential.

Can these five tools carry over to the business world? Of course not. However, think about it? What skills are needed to not only survive but to thrive on your team? You likely do have a good sense. But believe it or not, we do too.  You see, Syntagma Group’s team of experienced recruiters have personally assessed thousands upon thousands of job candidates for our clients. This collective knowledge, along with our latest industry research, allowed us to build a data set on the top five tools needed to succeed regardless of industry, department or role.

This knowhow and research we’ve come up with these five general cognitive competencies. Individually each yields the highest career and economic rewards. However, collectively they’ll help you identify your potential team MVPs. 

These five competencies are in high demand across all labor markets:  

  • Competitiveness: quality of personal grit and resiliency when solving problems and thinking both critically and creatively
  • Communication: quality of personal expression one-on-one
  • Collaboration: quality of personal expression within team dynamics and team leadership
  • Charisma: – quality of vibe, energy level and presentation
  • Command: – quality of self-confidence, self-discipline, preparation, organization and domain knowledge

Change is Coming Fast

Unlike in the movie, you may not need to implement a new recruiting system or completely break from traditional best practices. But perhaps you need to refine a problem you’ll know you’ll be facing in 2021. Or perhaps you’ll need to readjust your team’s critical and creative thinking in 2021. To do so you must think differently. Why? Well, it may be obvious to some but come next year, change will come faster than ever before. So you may end up with one of two choices as Billy rightfully points out in this clip.

Webinar Registration

As it turns out, Billy Beane’s new player recruiting and management system actually became part of many successful sports teams and businesses. That type of knowledge is a Google search away if you’re interested.

So this live webinar will spend little time on the “how” of this system and most of your time on the 5 P’s and C’s above. In the end, it’s up to you, as the recruiter, to look in the right places and analyze the right KPIs.

If you’ve made it this far in the article then it’s likely that Moneyball resonated with not only the competitor in you but also the leader hoping to change things up next year. If that’s accurate, this webinar is for you.

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