Get aligned 🧭
First things first. Make sure your hiring objectives are aligned with your company’s overall goals. This will help to ensure that the candidates you invest in attracting, engaging and onboarding will positively impact the growth of your business and your hiring plan is pushing your company in the right direction!
Questions to ask yourself: What objectives are we trying to achieve as a business this year? What sort of hires would help us hit those objectives? Are we set up to deliver the quantity and quality of hires we want this year?
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Define your needs in full 🧠
Before you start hiring, make sure you have a clear understanding of the role’s key responsibilities and outputs. This will help you identify the crucial competences and experience for the position.
Questions to ask yourself: What problem(s) will this hire solve? How and where does this role need to work with the rest of the team? How will we measure success with this hire?
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Bring your ideal candidate to life 🤩
Using what you know about the role, personify the candidate who would excel in the role. A clear understanding of your ideal candidate will help you to know when you’ve got a diamond on your hands – or haven’t!
Questions to ask yourself: What do the ideal candidate’s personality, work style and values look like? How will we know when we’ve got the best possible candidate in front of us?
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Set realistic expectations ⭐️
Be clear on what candidate expectations are fixed and which you can be more flexible on. For example, some personality traits might be an absolute must, and some technical competences could be taught once the candidate is onboard.
Questions to ask yourself: What are our absolute necessities and where we can afford to be flexible with our requirements? Are we open to the idea of nurturing talent, or do we need a ready-made expert?
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What next?
Hiring is often the highest priority and yet hardest activity for any Founder or People leader to undertake. However, you are who you hire. Building great teams needs everyone involved to understand exactly what ‘great’ is and what it will mean for your business’ growth.
Whilst the questions above seem straightforward, giving them the necessary time and attention will really pay off in the form of clarity, direction and a goal-based approach. Use this exercise as an opportunity to challenge current hiring processes and potential preconceived biases around who you need to hire and how important they are to your journey.
With well thought out answers guiding you, you’ll have a clear position from which you can start planning your hiring activity for the year ahead.
Author
Louis Cross
Leadership
