Recruiting the Best Team

Posted on October 11, 2007

Don’t settle for hiring the first qualified people who apply.  Try treating your job candidates like customers and take time to generate a large candidate pool.  This will increase your chances of building a great team.

Too many businesses settle with hiring people that are “good enough.” They don’t do the work (or know how to do the work) to make great hires and to wash out bad hires. As a result, they have teams that aren’t what they need to be, leaving the business leader way too busy doing work that subordinates should do and without enough time to really hire properly.

Don’t get stuck in that trap. Spend the time (even though you are too busy) to make great hires and you’ll benefit every day from every great hire.

Some fundamentals

As you prepare to search for your next great team member, pretend that you are searching for your next great customer. The process is the same.

Write an advertisement for the position that is designed to get the best possible prospects to apply. Well-written ads have a target audience in mind. So we’ll need to decide:

• Who is this job perfect for?
• Why would they want to work here?
• How will it benefit them?

From reading your ad, prospects should get a feel of what it’s like to work at your company. They should get an idea of what their manager is like. People really work for their manager, not the company. We’ll put in a few things so they can figure out if they’re qualified, but don’t sweat getting too many resumes. It’s quick to scan them and ignore the inappropriate ones. But it’s deadly to have an ad that dissuades even one great prospective employee. Of course, you won’t ever know it, since you’ll never see their resume.

In the old days, we had to cram a lot of information into a tiny classified ad. No more! Even in a small classified ad, a web link can be inserted, where an interested prospect can read all about your wonderful company. Most ads today are run online, where there is no limit on length. Use the room to sell them on submitting their resume.

Your current employees and your customers can be great referral sources too. Ask for names.

Have lots of choices

No matter how you get the resumes, be sure to interview many candidates. Hiring the first person that comes to you is the way it is often done. But how can you choose the best candidate when you have a choice of one? Selecting your employee should be a competition. Make the extra effort to have at least three candidates to choose from. Of course, that means you’ll have to move fast and coordinate your activities so that all three are interested in your job at the same time. Hiring is a like a sprint – you do it in a concentrated period of time. If you end up with a few good choices, keep the information from the runners-up as backup in case the one you choose doesn’t work out.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can go through all that process and still come up short – no one is a standout. Don’t settle for the best one you found. Start all over if needed. I guarantee you’ll lose less hair starting all over than making a bad hire. Trust me. I’ve done it.

Clear expectations.

Hire for culture and values.

Check references.

It all counts – your gut counts, too.

Takeaways:

• You are never too busy to focus on hiring. Great teams are a key to success.
• Treat job applicants like customers. Put yourself in their shoes.
• Interview as many candidates as possible and keep information on the runners-up.