I Received A Valuable Piece Of Wisdom The Other Day

The other day I had a conversation with an older person from New York. We started the conversation and it was interrupted by him because he had to complete a task and he asked me to call him back. As we conversed I knew there would be more to this conversation than the purpose of the telephone call. I called him back on time when he asked me to call back. I kept hearing the Holy Spirit nudging me to ask him if his profession was that of a lawyer. Did you ever have a refreshing and intelligent conversation with someone in which you just knew they were refined in culture and in their ways? That is what I experienced the other day. I wish I had lots of time to let this conversation go on longer because it was so refreshing to talk with this man.
The main purpose of our conversation was completed and I asked the question of him, if he was an attorney before he retired. His response was no. Since I learned about "probing" the other day at work I continued on to ask him if he was then a professor. His response was he inquired why I asked of these two professions. I told him it was a pleasure to speak with him and to have such a wonderful and intelligent conversation with really good insight. He began to share a bit of his story with me. I believe his heart was touched that I would hold him in the classification of both professions in my inquiry. This is what he shared with me. He did not finish high school. He was in the fashion industry in New York City. He started out in manufacturing and worked his way up the ladder in the industry. He was a part of all different price structures of various lines of clothing.
This is the valuable piece of information he gave to me...when he would hire someone or work with them he did not base his hiring just alone on their grade point average or if they had schooling credentials or not. He told me he went with his gut instinct and if they had that "spark in their eyes." He was looking for the creativity in the person that he would be able to pull that out of them and work with them. You know what I am talking about. The type of person that when you are having a conversation with them you can just see their mind racing and the wheels of creativity are turning while you speak. Thoughts just keep pouring out of them and it is as if their thoughts are rapidly coming out of them because the creativity button so to speak has been turned on inside of them and it flows out of them so quickly that it is probably hard for you at times to keep up with their conversation . They are the type of person that also sparks the creativity in you to come forth and you find yourself wanting to create when you are around this person. That is a good business connection. That type of person is someone that you can work with because they are flowing in their area of gifting and they at times just need someone that recognizes this to temper them and draw it out of them and release them so to speak to create. Those creative ideas could be the next great artist or writer or sales person you could ever have working, with you as their mentor.
When you think of it like that it is pretty important as a hiring manager to really take the time in the hiring process. If they are of soundness of mind and you see the spark of creativity inside of them and they are a person of integrity then do you not have an obligation to give them a try as an employee? I do not know the answer to that question only you can be the judge of that. Creativity in some people not only needs to be cultivated you will probably have to work with them to get more structure in their life at some point because a creative mind wants to just do, do, do. Doing is fine don't get me wrong, it just needs to be tempered so they are not spinning their wheels so to speak and your job is to funnel the "doing" so it works for them and not against them.
The conversation continued and I shared with him that a former boss of mine (which is an executive of a very large organization) once told me his knowledge he accrued throughout the years in the hiring process. He found it to be that the most successful people were the employees believe it or not that had grade point averages in the "C" range from college as opposed to the "A" range. He went on to tell me that they were the better employees that worked for him throughout the years. Please do not misconstrue what I am saying and only hire people with 2.5 gpa's, it is a gut instinct that you need to follow also. There are unfortunately a lot of con artists out their that fudge their resumes and even their schooling credentials. If a person is honest and sincere they will carry along with them when they interview a copy of their transcripts with the official school seal on it. It is also prudent and wise to possibly do a credit/background check on a potential employee. In some instances it will reveal a lot more information on them. If there is something that is questionable in their check then give them the opportunity to explain what was going on in their life during that time.
When my father owned properties and I managed an apartment complex I always did a credit check on the person. If a person experienced hardship in their life due to a divorce or illness or some valid reason I would let them explain to me and I would take that under advisement along with my gut instinct. The people that brought the "red flag" warning to me were the ones that owed the government back taxes from years ago that never paid them or student loans they skipped on, etc. Those are the kind of things that you should pay attention to. If they don't/didn't feel it was important to meet those obligations or attempt to make them right then how will they treat you and your company? Do you see what I am saying? Follow the pattern. Only once did I get burned so to speak with allowing a tenant to move in when they conned me with their sob story and I went against my gut instinct back then. The lesson learned was it was much harder to get rid of them once they moved in. I would have not had to deal with that situation if I would have just followed my gut instinct to begin with. A part of growth is the learning curve in which each one of us have to experience. There will be hits and misses in life. Let me share this with you.. of all of the misses you may experience it just takes the one hit you take a chance on and it is so worth it that it seems to wipe out all of the past misses in life.
Lesson learned...follow your gut instinct if you are vacillating on hiring a person. Now the even bigger lesson in all of this is that you better have a really good prayer life and are reading your bible because it is the Holy Spirit that sometimes will give you the knowledge you need and to ask a particular question of the person that you would have not normally asked to get the information you need. Does that make sense?
You see, I would not be able to write on this subject today if I did not follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit to probe and ask the questions at the almost seeming end of the conversation. Just by asking the right questions it took the conversation in another direction in which I was able to leave the conversation with wonderful knowledge/wisdom given to me. I then thanked the man and said that I will hang onto that wisdom for I will need to use it in the future one day. He also thanked me for thinking he was the caliber of an attorney or a professor. It was a true pleasure to speak with such a man that was refined in the words he chose to speak with and the perspective he gave when answering my questions.