Hiring is not easy. But it is a critical part of growing a successful business. Time and again we find that the most productive or the most innovative organizations are the ones with highly competent, diverse teams. At the end of the day, it starts with the people in your company.
And hiring is hard enough when you know exactly who you need. When you have a detailed list of tasks and responsibilities that someone will need to do once they get hired, with a clear title and vision for where and how this person fits into the organization, it makes your job much easier.
But what happens when none of those things is true?
Sometimes you just need to hire someone. You know that there are things that need to get done that aren’t, either because you don’t have enough time or enough know-how. Your team is stretched too thin and you need to add another player to meet your growth targets.
Here are a few things you can do to get started:
1. Review Your Strategic Goals
What are you hoping to accomplish this year? What new initiatives do you have planned? How do you plan to grow the business?
These kinds of questions are the ones you will answer in your strategic plan. If you don’t have a strategic plan, I recommend starting there. You need a roadmap that details how you plan to get from A (where you are today) to B (where you want to be in 1-, 5-, and 10- years).
A careful review of your strategic plan will highlight key areas you need to pursue.
2. Look for Gaps on Your Existing Team
Once you have reviewed your strategic plan, you must review your existing team. Match people up with the plan, highlighting their current skill sets and where they can continue to add value.
In most organizations, this will reveal certain gaps. These gaps are areas where you don’t currently have the right people to do the job.
Perhaps there are skills or sets of experiences that your team is missing. This will clue you into what a new hire should add.
3. Find Out What Peer Companies are Doing
It’s possible that you are working in uncharted territory. Perhaps you have many different gaps and aren’t sure how to prioritize them.
It can help to take a look at what other companies are doing. Look to peers in the industry, even competitors. Find out who they are hiring, and how they are planning to grow and succeed. Often this will open your eyes to the types of positions needed to achieve your goals.
4. Look for Soft Skills
Whenever the hard skills for a position are not well-defined, you will need to rely on soft skills. You are going to look for someone who fits well within your existing culture, someone who is passionate about the company and its mission.
You also want to find someone who has demonstrated the ability to learn and grow professionally. This person should have strong creative thinking skills, as you may end up relying on them to define their role and think up new ways to add value.
5. Hire and Adapt
Hire the best person available and design the role to fit them rather than the other way around. The exact responsibilities that this person has on their list might change over time, but if you have the right person, everything else should fall into place.