Recruit Your Dream Team
“The cost of hiring someone bad is so much greater than missing out on someone good.”
Joe Kraus
Founder of Excite, JotSpot and Digicelconsumer.org
I conducted a brief survey a few weeks ago and I asked local entrepreneurs what were some of the skills they were lacking when they first started their business; 85 percent said that they hired poorly and managed badly. Now, how many of us make the same mistake? I know I did…I really have to stop hiring families. Most of us complain about hiring ‘stupid staff’ and that they were all driving us crazy but ‘who hired them? who trained them? what system were in place?’ Yes as leaders we are responsible for all that!
Entrepreneur’s are 100 percent responsible for the team and their results. We have to take much needed effort and time in hiring the right staff and acquiring the business skills you would need from the people you hired; kind a like a reverse apprenticeship. Big Dave from my earlier post about comfort zone also had the same problem of hiring the wrong people but then he said:
“I spent hours learning from my accountant, the builders, salespeople and chefs. I then developed the training programs and systems to improve our results and reduce stress.”
David Staughton
KeyNote Speaker and Small Business Expert
When I first started customer service was really bad and I had no idea about what customers really wanted or how critical it was. I was always stressed out and made mistakes everywhere. Then I hired better staff and trained them and used lots of simple systems. I send out customer service surveys and spent a lot of time eliminating our mistakes. We worked really hard on having back up systems and improving out services and it worked.
“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
Steve Jobs
Recruiting is the life force of any business. No matter how committed you are of your product, there is a limit to the number of people you can reach. Even if you’re the greatest sales person on the planet, there is a limit to the number of hours you can work. If you still want to have a life, you have to learn to recruit the right people to be part of your organization. Recruiting lifts the ceiling off your income. The way to reach the highest income levels is to find and train the right people to sell your products or services – and to teach them to do the same.
There are a number of things that attract great young staff – a fast track career path, leaders that listen and keep their promises, lots of positive feedback, praise and appreciation, rewards and recognition systems, and most of all, a good working relationship. Impressive job titles, project work and fast promotion are also desirable. Staff are looking for opportunities, not jobs, and your website is an excellent place to market your business to potential staff – what can you offer an employee? Coaching, mentoring, quality training and development, the opportunity to travel and rewards are all attractive. Young staff are highly motivated to learn and keen to improve.
“I treat all my team with respect and I believe in honouring them when they do a great job. I share the vision I have openly with all my team and, regardless of what age they are, they are excited about being part of the vision. While sharing the vision I give my team a lot of ownership and support their risk-taking along the way. “
Joshua Nichols
Founder and Owner of Platinum Electrical
Some working agreement between the employer and the employee are very tight ( longer term, longer hours, frequent and close contact, greater access to critical company data and documents); some are very loose (a freelancer with a clear deadline and no indication of future work). The tighter the relation is, the more weight should be put on the recruitment decision. Because in loose relations, when you find the behavior of the other party to be detrimental, or their work output sub-optimal, you can end the agreement with relatively less energy and harm.
For many organizations, bringing in recruits with ‘tight’ relations is a must, in their path to growth. While working with a flexible freelancers are good for short term work outputs, your company needs to grow with people who feel they own it and belong to it.
Don’t stress on hiring the ‘perfect’ candidate because there is none but make an effort on finding the ‘Right’ one because people are complex, they don’t even know if they will still want the job three months from now. Through some observation I have found 7 qualities I use as a blueprint to help me find the right candidate to be part of my team. They are the signal within the noise.
The 7 qualities of the RIGHT candidate:
1. Tolerance to uncertainty – keeps cool when is in a unpredictable situation.
2. Openness to change – easily able to adapt.
3. Life-long learning attitude – he/she is willing and is determine to learn.
4. Good Work ethic – able to manage time effectively, set realistic goals and make projections that are accurate.
5. Information reach capacity – great language and tech literacy
6. Innovative – always looking for a better, faster and more effective ways of doing things
7. Cooperative First, Competitive Second – understand that team work is important to get things done.
Of course this are not the only qualities to look for because you will also need to measure the know-how, technical expertise and occupational skills that the new recruit is promising. Because you want someone in your team that knows at least one area very well, while while having an at least surface understanding of other neighboring expertise areas. You basically want your new recruit to have both depth and the width; and this starts with you knowing what to look for.
“If you get the right mix of people working for your company, it will have a far greater chance of success.”
Richard Branson
Founder of the Virgin Group and Activist
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