Hiring is a risky business with direct, long term, and financial implications on your company. This is the problem founders and business leaders must deal with when making the right hire.
Neither the ideal nor the perfect candidates exist in the real world. In addition, understanding what you need and what you want is also crucial before hiring a candidate.
DON'T RELY ON PAST CORPORATE BRAND EXPERIENCE OF OTHERS TO MAKE YOUR COMPANY GREAT
Your circumstances as a business are unique. This is why hiring based on the guidelines by other companies is a bad idea. What works for others will not necessarily work for you. Being flexible, with an understanding of your circumstances, and what your business needs, is crucial to the success of your hire.
Here is a common and often logical assumption: To be great, you need to hire people from the companies that you aspire to be. This may be what you want, but what you need is someone that has the experience to take you to where you aspire to be.
Hire great people rather than people from great companies. This is the most important hiring advice one can give you.
The experience of people from your “target” organisations does not necessarily reflect the experience your business needs at the moment.
*You may need it in 2 years but that is a long time away.
DON’T HIRE FOR THE FUTURE
Here is one of the key hiring tips. Hire for the now, and let people grow with your business.
If you hire for the future, people will become frustrated in waiting for the business to catch up to their experience.
This is often where roles are also mis-sold to candidates. I can not underline enough at how DANGEROUS this is. It will invariably create a loss of trust and immediate bitterness with dire consequences in the vast majority of cases. It will not only have an impact on your hire but their team and the business as a whole.
Giving people the option to grow with the business is often a much better “sell” and a far more interesting “challenge”.
This creates motivation and engagement. You will inevitably get people who will be driven every day by the challenge of growing your business and being part of that business. Needless to say, it greatly improves retention as people have ample space to grow.
WHY ARE YOU HIRING?
Make sure that you know “WHY” you need to hire a particular profile for your role. It is great to have someone, but why do you need their particular skills, background and experience? Remember that your organisation is unique and thus you can't (nor should you) replicate other businesses. You need to create your own way.
Hire those who can see the way and not those who can show you only the road they took to where they are.
Keep in mind, the people you want and need will, in most cases, be happily employed. In many cases, they will not be looking to make a move. It is YOUR job to convince them that their time will be put to better use backing your business. They need to believe that your aspirations and their aspirations align.
HIRE SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN YOUR COMPANY
Hire someone that believes in what you believe in and buys what you are selling wholeheartedly.
So who is that person? Someone who wants to accomplish the same goal.
When shit gets real, these are the people that will stick with you because they KNOW why they are there. This is the person you NEED, and it doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they have the skills and drive to take the company from where it is NOW to where you want to be.
SUMMARY
- Look for the talent that you need instead of what you want.
- Stop following and replicate other companies but customize the hiring process according to your own business needs.
- Find and hire a candidate with similar goals as of your company.
- Hire people for now instead of future, and grow with them.
