There were almost 11 million job openings in July 2021, according to the US Government – and not surprisingly, the National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that 51% of small businesses were struggling to hire employees.
How can we supercharge hiring? How can we make sure we hire the right people? That’s what we will cover in this post. It matters because to stay competitive, a business cannot just hire “anyone with a beating heart – they need to make conscious hiring decisions. Hiring the wrong person can be the beginning of a long period of trouble (for both parties – the employee, who will, at some point, realize that he’s in the wrong job, as well as for the manager, who has to deal with a non-performing employee).
The following are a few key ideas to supercharge your hiring decisions and position the business for future growth and success.
Hire Smart People, Not Yes-People
As a leader the first decision to take is: Am I going to hire the smartest athlete, at the risk that my new hire may be smarter than me – or am I going to hire someone who may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but will make me shine? Insecure managers may tend to the latter, but smart managers know that you cannot build a great team by hiring Yes-People. Every manager will, at some point, face difficult decisions and the risk of making an error, and while a Yes-Person will provide “instant gratification”, the person is not likely to stop bad decisions from happening. So, put your ego aside and don’t settle for Second-Best – go hire the smartest candidate you can find!
Results not Tasks
One of the challenges every hiring manager faces is that no candidate will fit all criteria. What about that smart, young wiz-kid with limited experience? Should you give that candidate a chance, despite taking a huge gamble? Here’s one way of thinking about it: Pivot from evaluating people to developing them.
This is especially critical now given the tight job market. As a manager your core responsibility is to develop your team, and that means developing every single member of the team to become independent critical thinkers as first step to perform the best they can perform. By becoming critical thinkers, they understand the rationale of the assignment. It enables to assign outcomes, rather than specific tasks, and gives your team a stake in seeking out the best possible solution to solve the challenge.
How can this work? Simple: be transparent and clear about desired business outcomes, and why the outcome is important. Tie it to the overall impact on the business, and why it matters.
Development
Let’s assume you hired the young, inexperienced wiz-kid – now what? Developing talent through offering opportunities for skill development is critical. It creates a sense of loyalty, and team members will be appreciative of being placed in training development programs.
I can speak from personal experience. I was always thankful to attend seminars and courses; and similarly, team members I sent to developmental classes were also appreciative. The impact of these training classes it generally immediate and the positive impact reverberates through the team. Moreover, the training also provided an additional benefit in that it prepares team members to assume additional roles and responsibilities within the organization, should another member leaves.
Sourcing
With intense competition for talent, where do we find them? The rising costs of education has made many top-school unaffordable, and it is therefore important to look beyond the premier schools when considering new graduates.
Think different - the sweet spot may be not the Ivy-league graduate, but rather the equally hard working, skilled, intelligent candidate that did not have the financial means to attend a premier school. A bonus is that they will likely not command the same pay as a Tier 1 candidate.
To Sum Up…
The global pandemic has dramatically shifted hiring processes. Employers need to be prepared for robust conversations with managers and their teams. Gone are the days of micromanaging individual tasks; today’s environment is shifting to more empowerment, more individual autonomy, and a higher focus on development.
Every hiring process starts with asking yourself what success would look like, and what the ideal candidate should contribute. Then, hire for talent and character, not experience or academic credentials – think about training talent and make a development plan.
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