Amplify Your Weirdness to Make Better Hires

Jim Morrison once asked, "Where's your will to be weird?" To that I would like to add, "Don't be afraid to amplify your weirdness."

Jim had a great point—at the end of the day, everyone is just a little bit weird. And with that weirdness we have a couple of choices, we can suppress it to try and be like everyone else, or we can use that weirdness to let it set us apart.

Hopefully as a company you've created a culture that is unique and maybe even a little bit weird. I know my company's culture is different than a lot of other tech companies in the area—but amplifying that has really made us stand out in the market.

This week's article is all about how to amplify your company's unique culture (in other words, its weirdness) through your hiring process.

Here at isolved Talent Acquisition, we provide a more relaxed environment where we still work really hard to get things done. Knowing my company's unique culture, we try to hire for employees that'll match our values. To do this, we amplify our weirdness in our job ad content and other stages throughout the hiring process. For example, our job ads tend to be much more laidback compared to traditional ads, we aren't as formal in the emails we send to job seekers, and we usually end up texting candidates to set up interviews.

This helps job seekers see exactly what our company's about and it's an early indicator of our values. While it might make some of the job seekers pretty nervous or uncomfortable, it's actually a good thing. It can help weed out some of the applicants that wouldn't end up being a good fit for our company anyways.

Moving forward, instead of trying to suppress your weirdness to fit what you think your company culture should look like, amplify your weirdness and let the right employees find you.