However, as innumerable business books have tried to point out, it isn't the ideas that matter so much. As even Edison said about invention, it's 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. It is the speed with which such ideas are brought to market, the skill with which they are and the completeness of them when they are launched that makes the difference.



What this means is that there really is very little to no space in a company for a slacker: IBM might be large enough to keep a few tame geniuses in the basement but not the rest of us. What companies are therefore looking for are those able to execute an idea, to get it from the planning stages to the marketplace as fast as possible, concomitant of course with doing so successfully.

There are of course the old jokes about professionalism: shiny hair, shiny shoes has always been a favourite amongst salesmen but that reflects an interesting attitude. The potential customers might not be all that impressed by someone well dressed but they will certainly be unimpressed by someone not: if attention is not paid to something as trivial as shoe polish, then what will the products be like?

But such stereotypes (fun though they are about salesmen) shouldn't blind us to the fact that it is indeed professionalism, the ability to actually do the job one is hired to do (which is, after all, the justification for the pay check) which is what companies are looking for.

Having said all of that there is also the point that we shouldn't be too rigid. Different companies, different people, have differing ideas (not about what professionalism is, no) about what exudes an air of professionalism. The brown suit that will have you laughed at in The City might be just the thing at a regional house builder while City pinstripes would be laughed out of the automobile industry.

The recruitment experts at Talisman can't provide you with professionalism itself, of course, but they can and will guide you to the tribal customs of the various companies as to how they expect it to be expressed.