“How the h… does this guy get this job? Mitchell Laurio’s hiring retrospective”
A closeup to a security guard position in a very unique company, and the candidate selected to fill it in 2003’s movie X-Men II.
(!) → If you like to refresh memory about Mr. Laurio’s fate, please watch the scene about the night before his last day at work, and the scene about the last day at work itself.
Starting from scratch…
Position to fill: Security guard
Company: Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters
Tasks: (1) Support and monitoring the prison created to contain one special inmate.
(2) Provide daily care tasks (carrying food, perhaps providing items for personal hygiene, etc.) for one special inmate.
Research and state of art
Until now, what do we know about this qualified position?
Well, here we have three basic and main characteristics of the job to be done that help us to outline a profile idea:
- It’s about performing tasks in what we might take to be a high-security prison.
- Many times these tasks will be to maintain direct contact with the inmate.
- The prisoner: A septuagenarian mutant, with skills to control metal, psychopathic characteristics -the complex of Messiah included-, charisma, leader profile. Friends outside.
- The environment: a glass-plastic prison assembled especially for him, with highly sophisticated security measures.
Now, what do the experts say about the Guard role in High-Security Prisons?
Here’s an extract from a United Nations Handbook on High-Security Prison Conventions, in its chapter on Recruitment and Selection Process.
“Governments and law enforcement agencies shall ensure that all law enforcement agents are selected by proper screening procedures, have appropriate moral, psychological, and physical qualities for the effective exercise of their functions (…) Their continued fitness to perform these functions should be subject to periodic review”.
And what the experts say about dealing with psychopaths?
This quote of the article of Science of People put a highlight:
The Mayo Clinic describes psychopathy as a personality disorder where the person “typically has no regard for right and wrong. They may often violate the law and the rights of others.” Often, psychopaths have little empathy, have antisocial behavior, and lack inhibitions.
_And we are talking about an old one, with magnificent supernatural skills and with a highly systematized delusion_
Given the results of the research about the tasks to be developed, and the level of difficulty and risk, let’s think in a possible candidate profile to target someone who can face such a responsibility.
Candidate profile:
- Proven experience in high-security prisons.
- Optimal physical condition (part of the selection process is practical tests in the field).
- Role-oriented interpersonal skills.
- Negotiation skills.
- Self-discipline.
- High capacity to handle disruptive situations.
- Good judgment and teamwork.
- Proven experience in working with interns with complex behaviors will be especially valued.
- Current or past membership in the Armed Forces will be a plus.
- Being a mutant will be a big plus.
Assumptions
To start with, I guess the Company has a mutant’s DB which first checks to find possible candidates. I can assume this didn’t work. So, let’s pretend the very unlikely possibility that they had to go out to hire.
I also assume that the search took place while they were building the plastic dome to retain Magneto. So they didn’t have much time.
About the platform for publishing a job ad like this, it must have been a problem. Maybe a hidden encrypted, low-profile search, in which at least I would have involved all the teachers at the Xavier’s School.
For them to be aligned with job description and profile requirements, I would design a persona.
Persona: Disciplined, analytical and knowing of the cause
So, let’s meet our ideal candidate…
Final credits -for you-
It’s gotten to the point where there’s a big question that I can’t help ask myself
What the h… happened here?
From that job description, that leads us to Of. Wilbur designed profile, the best fit found was Mitchell Laurio?
I can think of some, but tell me…
What “noises” would you have detected in Mr. Laurio’s resume, or file, or the interview process?
Would you add something to the job description? What about the sourcing strategy?
Thank you for looking -and sharing and commenting-.
Punch lines -for the company-
- Come on you guys! You have mind readers. Next time use Cerebro to Sourcing, Jean Grey (on a good-mood day) to recruiting and interviewing, and Logan could make a great physical tester.
- For future searches, have someone look out for extraordinary new mutant skills. You never know, maybe there is a mutant who can see the amount of value a person has brought to others in their life or their core values. Process improvement, learned lessons, always.
About Punch line number two, a wink to Marvel: I’m working for free here…
