Auditorio Nacional needs better HR

Last weekend my friend and I went to Auditorio Nacional in Madrid to see the Best of Broadway with the National Choir and Orchestra of Spain. That was my first time at the Auditorio and obviously I was very excited. The building smelled of the 80s and the decor was following suit, but that´s a side thought.

The program included some of my favorite pieces, such as Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Night and Day, I Could Have Danced All Night, Stars, etc. Naturally, my spirits and expectations were high and, unfortunately, not supported by harder spirits, pardon the pun. The soloists were great, no doubt about that. Jennifer Larmore, for instance, is a world'renowned mezzo-soprano, singing the closing song at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. However, when she was doing I Feel Pretty, I was not feeling pretty at all. I mean, I enjoyed her voice and the performance, but something was missing. I realized later what exactly. Maria is a young girl, innocent of life and plentiful of hopes. When you give that part to an opera diva, the result is not pretty.

It happens a lot: the square peg and the round hole problem. More often than you think. Great people get hired for jobs, which are not suitable for them. The philosophy is like with arranged marriages: it's gonna work. Well, it does not. It's better to have an average candidate for a suitable job that a top performer for the same job, but in which he does not fit. Normally, those employees leave maximum after a year.

Here's the rub: when you see talent, you should grab it, but what should you do if there is no suitable role for that person? We are running into the mandate to hire problem, when a recruiter is given the authority to hire a high-potential candidate on the spot or within a very short period of time like three days, but how do we approach the headache of the business HR, who now needs to stick that brilliant candidate somewhere? The jury is still out on this one...