“I do not think it means what you think it means” – Inigo Montoya

Few people could disparage the statement to the left. Most recruiters would tell you that this is exactly what they are looking for. Except that they would be lying. And before I get a lot of indignant sputtering from them, I need to state that they don’t know they are lying, so in this case, their ignorance of their mistruthful beliefs needs to be considered. They aren’t devious or duplicitous. They just have the same problem that almost every other human being has. They want the path of least resistance. So, yes, there are very few people in the world who would scoff at the motivational statement here. I am one of those people. Let me tell you  why.

Awesome is a term that has been so distorted that it really no longer truly means what it originally was intended to mean. Here is a refresher on the true meaning of awesome according to the Oxford English dictionary:

awesome
ADJECTIVE
1. Extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring awe.
‘the awesome power of the atomic bomb’

Here are a few things that are pretty great but don’t fit that definition:

• The latest episode of This is Us
• The Big Kahuna Cheesesteak at Jersey Mike’s (although I do agree, it’s pretty tasty and very filling!)
• Megan Rapinoe’s penalty kick goal in the World Cup final (average success rate is 75%)

By diluting the term awesome, what it does is provide a wide open application of how you’re going to be awesome. “Well, what is wrong with that, you snarky curmudgeon?” you might be asking. Here is what is wrong with that. By having no true metric of what is awesome, many people stop once they feel that they have achieved sufficient levels of “awesomeness”. And being awesome at certain things isn’t necessarily what recruiters are looking for. Because they want someone who is an awesome fit. The hard truth is that the fit matters far more than the individual characteristics.

If I were to use the term awesome like everyone else does, here are some things that I think I’m pretty awesome at:

• learning from mistakes, especially the mistakes of others
• making sure as many people benefit as possible
• looking at things from a completely different perspective

“Awesomeness” in the eyes of recruiters

How valuable are these attributes to recruiters? I’ll tell you how valuable they are. They are completely worthless. Recruiters want people who are familiar with systems. They want people who can work well with others. Hiring managers want people who can help them achieve their goals, they don’t want awesome people who are a threat to them. See, our definition of “awesome” isn’t congruent with recruiter and hiring managers’ definition of awesome. And that’s the rub. Messages like the one above really don’t help you become more attractive to employers. I personally believe it does the exact opposite.

I have no animus toward recruiters whatsoever. They are trying to find the right people for the right positions. It’s just that the definition of right isn’t always clearly communicated. They don’t really want the best people. They want the best fits. And the emphasis on job postings is about tasks, not attributes. Where I have been wrong recently is my belief that companies still want people with strong intangible skills. The best path forward for myself, and possibly you, is not to focus on being awesome, but instead focus on being valuable. And those two concepts are very different from one another in the world of business. Most companies and recruiters would rather have ten very average and capable people instead of one “awesome” candidate. If you aren’t “most companies” or “most recruiters”, we should probably talk, or at least connect on LinkedIn!