TL;DR
– Being competent in hiring excellent people is what determines a business success. It trumps many important things like leadership skills, market size and others.
– Focus on hiring people that are fast learners and have a curious attitude. Choose them based on their strengths vs. the absence of weaknesses.
– Hiring people who’s seen what you need is usually a better choice if you don’t have optimal budget for hiring who you need.
If there is one thing that can be a good indicator of whether a business will grow is its ability to hire good people.
I remember, right at the beginning of the MindMiners’ history, in the first or so, when we spoke with a potential investor. She commented that what caught her attention on us was our ability to bring in good people to our startup. She was only looking at the resumes of the team to judge, but it was already something we were proud of.
Throughout my entrepreneurial journey, this idea gained a lot of relevance in light of numerous lessons learned from hiring the wrong people. Very wrong, sometimes.
We’ve hired people who stayed in the company for literally one day and jumped to another company the next day. We’ve hired a team leader from a competitor who, in six months, lost half of the team, learned how we operate, and then returned to the competition. And so on.
Knowing how to hire is critical and, in my view, has a causal relationship with the success of a business. Any business or team manager must prioritize having the highest density of talented people possible in their team as a top three priority.
How to do this involves countless things that we could elaborate on many posts, but in this one, I will share the three lessons I consider the most important.
Hire for the presence of strengths, not the absence of weaknesses.
The first time I read this phrase was right in the first year of the company when I read “The Hard Things About Hard Things”. I recommend this book to everyone on my team, and you should read it too.
When we are looking at a group of candidates for a position, it is very common to list strengths and weaknesses to try to come to a conclusion about whom to hire. Commonly, the weaknesses or “problems” in a certain resumé will be listed and used as a selection criterion.
But, in my experience, these weaknesses should only be used as a criterion for exclusion. That is, if the candidate has a weakness or resumé issue that disqualifies them from the process as a whole, they should be excluded.
Now, the hiring decision itself should be based on the candidates’ strengths. Who is the candidate who best meets the desired criteria? That should be the question. Among a list of candidates, who is the one who has all or almost all of the desired requirements?
Especially when the decision involves more people, where the tendency ends up being to choose the person who has fewer issues in the view of more people. In other words, you hire someone apparently without flaws, but mediocre, eventually leaving aside someone who is potentially high-performance, but who has some identified and relevant negative aspect.
In other words, the more people participate in the hiring process internally, the more it ends up being the hiring of the lesser of the problems.
When you look at the whole team, what gives you the most pride is knowing that you have incredible people at what they do. That’s what matters. All have some negative aspects and, almost always, they don’t matter.
The ability to learn is more important than past experiences and Current Skills
In general, what generates the need to hire someone is a business problem of some sort. This problem can take various proportions, but the fact is that we seek someone to fill a gap generated by a problem:
- The volume of work is high, and we need more people to handle it
- A new area is being created, and there is no one to lead it
- A team is growing, and there is a need for a manager
In my opinion, when we hire someone to solve a problem optimizing the decision based on the candidates’ past experiences, we end up generating another problem for the medium term (1 to 2 years).
This is because an experienced person will solve the bulk of the problem in about 12 months, but at the same time, the business context will change even more in the same period – especially those of high growth companies.
The initial problem may even be solved in the period, which is great, but its complexity tends to increase in the same period, adding novelties for the person. Even if they have experience, they need a high capacity for learning and adaptation; otherwise, they will become stagnant and act as a blocker of growth.
In fact, in my list of skills when I look for professionals, this is the most important: the ability to learn. At another time, I will share how I try to identify this in my interviews, but there is a way.
Where I see this happening: in investment rounds.
Startups raise funds thinking about the next cycle of challenges of 18 months, during which they have to validate certain business challenges. Let’s suppose, launching a product and getting the first customers.
The money raised was thought of in the short/medium term, to bring in professionals who help solve this challenge. Assuming that the startup manages to solve it, the next challenge will be to build a sales machine, which is completely different from the previous stage.
What happens is that the professionals who were hired for the previous stage, if they do not evolve at the same speed as the startup – which generally does not happen – will become incapable of absorbing the challenges of the next stage.
What happens then? Team change. A period in which the company brings in a new level of professionals for the next stage, and those who built the business up to that point leave. While for some investors and founders this is normal, for the team is terrible.
What is the solution? Either hire people who have lots of experience or who can meet the challenges of multiple cycles. Generally, the company does not have money for the first solution, that will naturally involves hiring more senior professionals. Therefore, hire people who learn and adapt very quickly.
I spent many words on the example above, but in the end, it’s a macro view of what happens in the micro as well. Think about the area or team you lead, the people you’ve already hired and the challenges faced over time.
Hire someone who has seen the next level
This is very important for hiring managers and leaders, especially for startups. When the original problem of the need to hire refers to solving a challenge such as “developing a business area”, there is a tendency to look for someone in the market who has already accomplished this challenge.
For example: you need to set up your customer service area. Who do you look for in the market? Someone who has already done this.
In my experience, I prefer to hire someone who has seen very closely how the construction is done, not necessarily having done it. Why?
The person who has already done it has done it. Now, they are ready for another challenge. It is much more likely that they are at another career moment, looking for a bigger challenge. Also, now they have a market value that maybe you don’t have the budget for, and, in case you do, they tend to get less hands-on than you need. They don’t want to redo all the work again.
Now, someone who worked for them saw up close how the process was, and is eager to take on the next challenge – which is exactly what you have to offer. Plus, you can offer a better salary. If she is someone who learns, then great. This way she will stay with you for years.
Therefore, hire someone who has seen and somewhat participated very closely to the process of solving the problem you have and don’t focus only on who has done it.
Final Notes
I hope these three items have helped to open your mind to different perspectives on hiring people.
I insist on the importance of this topic: being able to hire well defines the success of an organization. It is more important than having an organized process, being good at raising funds, having any technology, and so on.
This is not taught and I think still undervalued about its importance.
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