Black swan

Greg Wyatt • March 21, 2024

When everything else is known, it’s hidden context that completes the puzzle.

I’ve written about the importance of context in recruitment on a number of occasions. It’s the basis of what, who, how, when and why you should recruit.

You can read one such article here.

And I was reminded of its importance by listening to Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. (incidentally narrated by Michael Kramer who also narrates Wheel of Time)

He describes that one of the defining aspects of a complex negotiation is the Black Swan: a high-impact event that is difficult to predict under normal circumstances, but in retrospect appears to have been inevitable.

In recruitment, finding the black swan means looking at reasons you wouldn’t or couldn’t otherwise have considered that have led to undesirable outcomes.

This article shows a number of ways in which you can find the black swan, so that you improve both how you recruit and the outcomes of your efforts.

You may have also come across the same theme in ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’ terms made famous by Donald Rumsfeld when discussing the invasion of Iraq in 2002, in which it is accepted you have to make pivotal decisions without full information.

Yet, in any negotiation, which can be any interaction, known or otherwise, with a candidate, full facts are the only way to predict, with confidence, the outcome.

You are right negotiation isn’t just about persuasion and influence, conversations and offers, it’s also about how you negotiate the journey beforehand.

An example.

Let’s take the Chief Operating Officer (COO) position in a company.

Typically this is the role that oversees all operations of a business and is the right-hand to the CEO.

This week I’ve been talking to a number of COO job seekers.

Let me tell you all of their CVs are pretty much identical.

And they all express dismay at having breadth and depth of transferrable skills, yet not being able to have a look-in for the various COO vacancies they go for.

If you look at the COO vacancies they apply for, they typically look pretty much the same:

  • Company info

  • Job responsibilities

  • Essential and desirable requirements

  • Benefits (often only the contractual ones)

  • £Competitive salary

  • Diversity statement

Compare the responsibilities and requirements, and the terminology is often pretty much interchangeable both between themselves, and the CVs of the many excellent COOs out there.

None of these vacancies stand out, nor do any of the COOs.

Yet are any of them in any way identical?

Of course not.

What’s missing is context.

When everything else is known, it’s the hidden context that completes the puzzle.

A COO of a bootstrapped £1m business has a similar CV to the COO of a multinational’s division.

A COO vacancy for a downsizing business in turnaround has the same advert as a COO for one in maintenance mode and another growing rapidly.

While all are market-leading progressive innovators.

If employers and candidates thought to show suitable and sufficient context, everyone would find recruitment a lot easier.

An obvious point, yet not one most people think to show.

Because it’s an unknown known.

In a sense, all these unknowns and knowns are like playing Jeopardy (you know that game show where they give you the answer and you have to ask the right question).

Answer: You haven’t shown suitable and sufficient context

Question: Why are all these applications completely unsuitable?

Answer: Candidates consistently ghost us.

Wrong question: What’s wrong with candidates? Why can’t they behave?

Good question: Why are candidates ghosting us?

Better question: How can we find out why candidates ghost us?

Right question: What can we do systemically differently to reduce the risk of candidates ghosting us?

Ghosting, counteroffers, bad behaviours - yes candidates are people who can change their minds. But for every strange decision is a black swan that is their hidden context.

Which might be as simple as trained distrust from widely bad recruitment experiences.

So while this is a simplified example, it’s used to show that problem solving can find unknown unknowns, by looking at known issues, finding their root cause, and then applying learnings against future events.

Another opportunity to find the black swans that can improve recruitment is to check your blind spots.

A wing mirror and shoulder check works well enough in driving.

Why not in recruitment?

Recruitment is a business where candidate and employer activity directly reflect each other.

Indeed a recruitment exercise is a reverse job search and vice versa.

Which makes learning from candidates a valuable exercise in improving recruitment.

But not just the candidates you know about, those in your process, but the ones you’ve rejected, ignored and even the ones who read your advert and chose never to get in touch.

I write about this in my 11-part Recruitment Reflected series, part 1 of which is here.

Of course, the problem with blind spots and bias is that often you aren’t aware you have them, which is why they are unknown unknowns in the first place.

But if these same are also black swans, then there is a significant opportunity to find improvement in recruitment by identifying them.

One such opportunity is through Diversity.

But not just the diversity of your people, but the diversity of problem-solving.

In this way retaining consultants who have insight you don’t is advantageous for many companies.

And a good recruiter can do the same at the outset of a recruitment project, by asking the right questions.

After all, if each unknown unknown has a simple question at its root, you need simply ask the right questions to find the black swan that can lead to the best recruitment outcomes.

Unfortunately, the opposite of this notion is why much recruitment is the way it is.

Companies who don’t proactively challenge their own assumptions, biases and unknown unknowns, will believe that’s just how recruitment should be done.

It’s the illusion of explanatory depth.

And so, any improvement is only down to skill or good fortune, rather than better principles and process.

But while you can always build skill and find luck from the right principles and process, you can’t do it the other way around.

How do you fix shoddy foundations once the house is built?

Perhaps the cracks you have in your walls are the symptom not the cause.

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Greg

p.s. buy my stuff - recruitment, writing, projects. I can be your black swan.

Why five? Innovation from Iteration, pt 1

By Greg Wyatt • February 26, 2026
So here were are, the start of a new series. This series may be around 10 editions, looking at the things other industries do that we can implement into recruitment. These were written 3 years ago, right at the start of the AI zazzle, and in some ways have dated quite a bit. In others, the way in which they haven't dated at all, because the principles of how we live our business lives can be universal. So, I'm not sure yet, how much editing I'll do, whether there will be any inclusions, or whether I'll leave articles intact, as a moment in time. I've learnt all of these notions from candidates and clients, as I came to understand the function of their vacancies. Hearing about the daily practice from people doing jobs, I couldn't help but notice the same relevance in recruitment. So while these articles are hardly comprehensive, perhaps they'll make you look at your candidates differently, in what we can learn from them, and how that might improve our recruitment. Why five? December 2022 Ask anyone involved in active recruitment what their key problems are, and they’ll likely talk about skills shortages and candidate behaviour. On the face of it, problems which are out of our control, worthy of complaint with little opportunity to find improvement. But what if these were issues that weren’t entirely out of our control? What if we could apply a replicable process to understand what’s really going on, and how we can make a difference? Fortunately, we needn’t invent the wheel, as other industries have already done this for us. One such is 5Y, or Five Whys, a problem-solving technique that was developed by Toyota in the 1930s. It's part of the Toyota Management System that has inspired much of my work. Five is the general number of “Why?”s needed to get to the root of a problem. Often you can get to the heart of the issue sooner, sometimes later. Often there are multiple root causes. More than just solving problems, it’s about establishing practical countermeasures to prevent these problems from coming up in future. 5Y is an example of Toyota’s philosophy of “go and see”: working on the shop floor to find out how things work in practice to find ways for iterative improvement. This isn’t a theoretical idea to try out on a whim – it’s based on grounded reality and almost always works. There are two costs – time and accountability. Here’s a practical example, then a recruitment one. (Names have been removed to protect my identity) Problem 1 : The children were late for school. Why? Traffic held us up. Why? We left the house late. Why? The children weren’t ready on time. Why? Their school uniforms weren’t prepared. Why? We hadn’t set them out the night before. Here the countermeasure is to get everything ready the night before, rather than blame traffic for being late. Perhaps we might have gotten to school on time without heavy traffic, but that is an element out of our control. Of course, here there is another root cause – very naughty children – but better to focus on the simple changes. And sometimes traffic is the root cause after all, once you’ve ruled out other elements in your control. (2026 note: my eldest now often drives my youngest to school. A time laden solution I hadn't considered three years ago. Now I don't care if they're late 😆) Problem 2: Candidates keep ghosting us. Why? They weren’t committed to responding. Why? They didn’t accept my requirement for a response. Why? They saw no value in my requirement. Why? I didn’t create an environment where this requirement has value ( root cause 1 ). Or because they are very naughty candidates, with a bad attitude. Why have we allowed someone with a bad attitude in our recruitment process? Because we didn’t prequalify them well enough ( root cause 2 ) The first root cause is something we can work on by giving candidates what they need, building trust, and working to mutual obligations. There are many ways to do this – I’ve already talked about examples in previous newsletters. It comes down to good candidate experience and reciprocity. The second root cause requires us to work harder at understanding candidate needs, aspirations, behaviours and attitudes at the outset of a recruitment process. There’s a reason for their behaviour. We can be accountable for finding it. That’s no mean skill to develop, yet an essential one for anyone whose core responsibility is recruitment. And it’s hard to do in a transactional volume process, so the question then becomes, does your process help more than it hinders? You can apply 5Y to any issue you come across, as long as you are prepared to be accountable. At worst you may find that the things that were out of your control are at fault. In this case, you are at least armed with good information to report to your stakeholders, by ruling out other possibilities. What’s the point of doing all this? For me it’s continually improving how I recruit, with the consequence, in the example above, that I am rarely ghosted at all. And you can 5Y any issue you come across. Are poor agency CV submissions their fault, or in part down to your briefing and process? Are skills genuinely scarce, or is your requirement unrealistic? Is it true that your agency hasn’t listened to you, or do you engage the right partners in the right way? 5Y has the answers. Regards, Greg

Map the Market. Jobseeker Basics XVIII

By Greg Wyatt • February 23, 2026
What follows is Chapter 21 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) . It's a good example of how a job search is an inverted recruitment exercise, but also how the same principles from recruitment can be applied in a job search. Market mapping is one of the first steps of a search process in what is often called headhunting. Here though, instead of an exercise that helps find a person for a job, you help find a job for you. This can be in one chunk, at the outset, and iteratively, as you learn more information. It's a great example of how LinkedIn can be used as a data repository, given the vast majority of professionals are present here. And if they are present here, the insight that is their careers is too, allowing you to identify potential viable employers, who works there, and therefore where else they may have worked, with further potential hiring managers. The snake that eats its own tail. Try doing the iterative work above, every time you come across someone new, whether in an application or in networking . You can use this to build out your network, identify companies to contact proactively. Simon Ward and I will talk more on this in our LinkedIn Live on Tuesday February 24th at 1pm GMT. You can join us, and view the full recording afterwards, here: Is The Nature Of Networking Changing for Job Hunters? If you happen to read this as a hiring authority, market mapping is one of the invisible processes in a structured search. It can often take me 80 to 100 hours to fully map a role for potential viable candidates, given I try to find non-traditional candidates as well as those that are easier to find through sourcing. 21 - Map the market Market mapping is a common activity in executive search. Why wouldn’t you adopt the same approach in your inverse of a recruitment exercise? The idea is to fully understand your market, so that you are better able to navigate it. This is a summary chapter because market mapping is both a strategic and a tactical exercise. I’ll cover some of the How of mapping in Part Three. There are three ways in which to map the market. The vacancies you are qualified for This is about determining which vacancies you should focus your attention on. In which domains does your capability directly apply? This could be context related, if your expertise is in start-ups, growth, downsizing or other contexts. It could be industry related - your process manufacturing expertise might directly apply in food, plastics or pharmaceuticals. It could be job related, with the right applicable skills. Establish where there is a market for you, and if what you offer is needed by that market. Advice on the transferable skills trap (p55) and whether you are qualified (p178) to apply will help. The geography of your job search Where are all the employers and vacancies that you can sustainably commute to? A geographical map can help you target opportunities by region. What resources are available to help you with this map? Searching online for local business parks, even driving around them, can give a list of viable companies to contact. Directories and membership hubs. Local newspapers, social media stories. If you see a company you like the look of, say from an advert, search on their local post code. Who else might be there? The chapter on doorknocking (p241) has more ideas. The people of your network Every time you come across someone you might build a relationship with, connect with them on LinkedIn. Then check out their career history. Who else have they worked with? Where else have they worked? This works for peers, hiring managers, and recruiters - a headhunter in one company may well have worked in a similar domain in a previous one. Is there anyone at these previous companies you should introduce yourself to? What about their listed vacancies? Building out a map of relevant recruiters to develop relationships with (if they answer the phone) can lead to vacancies. Treat it as an iterative exercise. Check out the chapter on networking (p236). This map isn’t just about potential opportunity. It’s also about information that might be helpful now and in future. This might be for job leads. It might be industry insight you can share through content. It may even be topics for conversation in interviews or with peers. Make sure you track it in the right way, whether through Notion, Excel or other resources you have available. With any information, check it is accurate, then prune appropriately. Prioritise on degrees of separation (closest first) and context fit (where what you need is most closely aligned with what you offer).