He felt like the right hire. Actually, all of his competencies proved he was the perfect, spot-on hire.
He was carefully evaluated on specific characteristics and skills critical to the job. His past experience married tightly with what our client wanted him to do. He was fabulous at his past positions said all of his references. Ya, he was going to cost a bit more than the other candidates, but he was heads above them in every aspect.
And he failed.
Within months it was obvious he was absolutely wrong for the position.
I’m betting this has happened to you, too.
So many of our clients tell us that hiring someone to do one of the jobs they are doing (and shouldn’t be) is just not worth it. They hire someone, train them and they fail. And it takes so long to get them up to speed, it’s just easier to do it themselves.
Yet, if you want to begin to walk down the track of working on your business, rather than in it, all roads cannot lead to you. When you’re doing everything, you’re doing many of the least profitable things…in case you wanted a clue about why your business isn’t growing.
You know just about everything has changed in all areas of business from just a few short years ago. Hiring has changed, too.
You’ve been hiring based on what people have done in the past.
What the market requires today means you must hire based on what they will do in the future–on their potential!
A successful team member today must have the ability to adapt, change and grow because business–your business–is increasingly complex, vague, and adapting to customer shifts and unpredictability.
But how the heck do you hire based on potential, as someone asked me just Friday morning?
The first indication of potential shows up in the candidate’s motivation–their commitment to excel towards goals unselfishly. They have great ambition and want to leave a mark at the same time as aspiring to your big, collective goals. The great thing about motivation is it’s stable. Unselfishness doesn’t come and go.
Next, toss in some curiosity. They want to seek out new experiences and develop new wisdom. They seek feedback and are open to learning and changing.
Insight matters. Do they have the ability to gather and make sense of information that hints at new and maybe better ways of doing things?
They can use both logic and emotion to communicate a persuasive point-of-view and connect to and with people.
Lastly, they demonstrate a determination to push through difficult goals despite the challenges that you know will absolutely arise. Plus, they can bounce back from the situation.
Now just imagine using these criteria to find and hire…say…your administrative assistant. Yes, it would be super great if they had a resume that showed they made phone calls to set up appointments. But wouldn’t you rather have a candidate who doesn’t have that in their background, but clearly demonstrated they had potential–unselfish motivation, curiosity beyond the “job description”, insight to make sense of what appears to be contradictions or nonsense, communicate skills to connect and determination to push through the hard stuff?
Yep, me too.
So no more excuses about not hiring because it didn’t work in the past.
You were simply using past performance as an indication of future performance.
Now you have all the insights to spot and hire great people.
You don’t have any legitimate reasons (we’ll get to the “I have no money” thing soon) for avoiding, rejecting or dismissing the notion of hiring.
Go forth and do great things,
Martha Hanlon and Chris Williams