David Cancel, CEO of Drift, said, “All business problems are people problems.”
If that’s true–and I believe it is–then bringing the right people to the table becomes incredibly important. Hiring the right team, and creating a culture that keeps them engaged and establishes a strong employer brand, becomes a driver of business success. Not only does skill matter, but so does company fit. You’ll be working with this person, ideally, with longevity, so it is important that they can do the job and be additive to the team as a cultural match.
Hiring the right person requires a clear vision of two things:
1) What the job is you’re hiring for and
2) What type of person you need to fill it (notice I didn’t say any person who can fill it).
As you start to cast your vision for hiring plan, lay the groundwork by getting in the right frame of mind about your changing team. Here are 5 things to do from the beginning.
- Spend time planning each hire. Define the unique role, outline requirements, and think outside the box regarding recruiting, assessing, and interviewing. Consider making changes to the way “you’ve always done things” when it comes to hiring if you want to achieve better outcomes.
- Gain buy-in from employees already on the team–and not just during the interview phase. Just because you’re leading the hiring effort doesn’t mean you’re the only person working with the new hire. Include team members from the start, especially while brainstorming the type of person you need to fill the position.
- Devote time to the process. Quality hiring takes time. Don’t rush the process or try to take shortcuts (because there aren’t actually shortcuts!). Plan time on your calendar now for the hiring and onboarding process.
- Don’t settle. You’ll likely get some good candidates early on–but it might not be the right candidate. Hold on. Although you’ll be tempted to choose the first person who could be a fit, make the choice to wait for the best fit. Patience, people.
- Remember, each position and hire is unique. Treat it that way. Revise job descriptions and analyze behavioral patterns for thriving in this role. Interview questions and job descriptions shouldn’t be carbon copies from the previous hire.
Experiencing less business problems starts with hiring the right people. Peter Drucker, management guru, says “Out of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decisions about people, because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.”
Hiring is an important task. That’s why Amber Hurdle Consulting is an expert in people analytics so we can help clients thrive in business from the inside out by uniting science and branding. See what AHC can do for your business with our free 6-minute Predictive Index behavioral assessment.
Ready to start hiring better? Download the Bulletproof System for Building Better Jobs here.
About Abby
Abby Siegel Hyman is the Marketing + PR Manager at Amber Hurdle Consulting, and is a dual master’s graduate student at Vanderbilt University. She is the proud mom of the goldendoodle Willie–one of the office dog cheerleaders that keeps AHC innovative and engaged. Connect with Abby on LinkedIn.
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Amber Hurdle Consulting is a multi-award-winning talent optimization firm that pioneers using both science and marketing principles to solve these problems by strengthening your brand from the inside out. As a Predictive Index (PI) Certified Partner, we teach you how to generate and use real data in the form of people analytics, and then we sit on your bench as analytics experts, bringing along almost 20 years of branding, marketing and public relations experience. With these tools, we partner with you to design a compelling internal relations strategy featuring three key areas:
#1 We work with your leaders on their personal brands, so they increase self awareness and see and harvest the greatness in others.
#2 We teach you to use a scientific, repeatable method to recruit, retain and inspire top talent, elevating your culture while crafting a world-class employer brand.
#3 We then help you leverage strong leaders and a “best places to work” environment so that happy employees are serving happy customers…ultimately elevating your business brand.