A short excerpt from Simon Sinek's talk arguing for values-based recruiting and deliberate filtering. Using anecdotes — a Marine Corps recruiter who honestly told students they might not be fit for the Marines, and Ernest Shackleton's blunt recruitment ad for polar expedition crew — the speaker argues that organizations should candidly describe difficulty to deter unsuitable candidates and attract people who seek challenge, service, and grit.
Chapters
Any Marines in the audience here? Yeah, there we go. Okay. The Marine Corps is extremely good at recruiting to its values. Right. As a result, Marines tend to be of an ilk, Right? They tend. They tend to. And if you ask Marines, which I've gone and asked sort of Marines, why did you. Why'd you become a Marine? They'll say, well, I wanted to serve my country. I'm like, well, I got options for you. Well, I wanted to be in the infantry. I still have options for you. Why'd you choose the Marine Corps? They said, because it was the most difficult thing I could find. Marines for. A huge portion of Marines are either trying to prove something to themselves or to others that they could do something difficult. Right. This true story. A bunch of recruiters were at a high school trying to recruit kids for the military. The Air Force recruiter stood up and gave a beautiful PowerPoint about why the Air Force is an amazing organization and why you should join the Air Force. The army recruiter stood up and said, no, let me tell you why the Army's better. Beautiful PowerPoint, why the army was so great. The Navy recruiter stands up. Beautiful PowerPoint, why the Navy is so great. You know, they're all selling. The Marine recruiter stands up. No PowerPoint, no nothing. He stands on the edge of the stage and he looks out at this room of kids and he says, no, I don't think any of you are good enough to be in the Marine Corps. He says, you have to understand the Marines is the most difficult thing you'll ever do in your life. It'll challenge you physically and emotionally more than anything else has ever challenged you. And I don't think there's a single person in this room good enough to be in my Marine Corps. If you think I'm wrong, I'll be at the back of the room. And that what he's doing is he's putting up a filter. He's putting up a filter saying, I'm looking for a kind of person, and if you're that kind of person, you'll do well here. And so the question is, if it's a difficult job, are we saying to people, you know, this goes back, you know the story of Ernest Shackleton. Ernest Shackleton, he very famous explorer back in the turn of the century, and he was famous for a shipwreck they had. What was it, the South Pole, North Pole, one of the poles, a lot of ice. And the reason the story is important, they were stranded on the ice for months and months and months, and no one died. No stories of people eating each other. And the way he recruited his crew is he said men looking. He says men needed for hazardous journey, long hours, bitter cold, dark nights if survival honor guaranteed. He recruited people who had that grit, not just people who had sailing experience. And so it's the same thing. Are we recruiting people? Are we saying if you're looking for a challenge, if you're looking to push yourself or if you're looking to work at a pace that will make other people their heads spin, we might have a job for you. Oh, and if you really love to serve each other, if you like to serve a cause bigger than yourself, please apply. It's a filter. It keeps the wrong people out and attracts the right people in and so there's no lies. It's going to be a difficult job, but we're recruiting for people who like that.
