QUALITY SELECTION | Hiring successfully is a matter of your attitude
“I still struggle with the vibe check”, he said.
In today’s coaching session my client, a serial founder of 17+ years currently hiring for his growing fin-tech company shared that he finds it difficult to spot a good hire."Hiring is hard. I don't like it.", he admitted. This is not about finding people with the right skill set and comparing resume-driven data.
An attractive company seems like an ideal position to hire quality talent. In reality, it can make it harder.
Having a successful company in a highly popular space grants him access to an abundant talent pool: candidates who on paper all seem great. But who is actually a match? One that can move the needle with strategic vision, and bring operational discipline that improves flow of deals, processes and complexities on a day-to-day basis? Somebody who understands what's needed and delivers?
Leading the casting call is challenging for the most experienced leader. Whilst delegating this typically less favored founder task seems like the time-saving, convenient solution, it is unlikely to play out well in the long-haul. Think about the first 10 people in your company – each hire is 10% of your company. It becomes obvious that composing a good team is foundational to your success, not just in numbers but also in how well you are going to fare when the unforeseeable happens. In my coaching practice I have found a common idiosyncrasy — the higher up, the higher the risk in a “hire to fire''(far too often, far too delayed).
Two factors that frequently impede successful CEO-led hiring:
Too many hats + too little time | The breadth of your responsibility does not leave enough mental real estate and actual focus time to properly evaluate a potential candidate. The result is hiring who’s convenient, instead of who is a good fit.
Fame Game + Inauthenticity | Allure of working for you and your company can trigger performative behavior. This can be consciously ego-motivated yet in most cases, happens unconsciously. Insecurity drives the need to be recognized and associated with. And social media amplifies the desire for status gains. This is especially vexing if you're in the business of impact and innovation and need original thinkers who solve problems creatively.
In our coaching session my founder client recognized that he had labeled recruiting as a nuisance costing him precious time and energy. “On any given day I have 50 things on top of mind that all require my attention, how am I supposed to find time for that?”, was part of his internal narrative causing him to negate the opportunity therein. Changing his apprehension towards recruiting and reframing the lack of trust in his own ”vibe-check- abilities' - which really were only a result of mental attitude compounded by being pressed for time -was key to transforming the entire hiring experience successfully. He understood he wasn’t actually spending time but rather investing it in a meaningful way, and simultaneously becoming an even better leader.
Here are key takeaways from our session for successful CEO-led hiring:
Presence, Time and Customization | Recruiting talent that fits you and your company - especially in roles of high impact - guarantees resilience in changing climates. To ensure that your relationship can weather what may crop up in the future, these people need be hand-picked by you. Think custom-design: if you have a pair of shoes made at John Lobb, the measurements must be taken on your feet. Sending your brother won’t work, even if he has the same shoe size. Your requirements are unique. In the same vein, only you can identify who is a true fit, matching your expectation of quality.
A good starting point is to ask yourself:
Can I see myself working with this person for the entirety of my professional life?
If the answer is not yes, please swipe left. (This applies even if reality turns out different. You want a trust base of that quality.)
Carving out suffice time to meet each candidate 1:1, at a time where you can be present, focused and calm. (As opposed to having your assistant schedule it right after the third long meeting just because there is an open slot in your google cal).
Working with an executive coach to distill what is valuable right here, right now within the context of your personal expectations, current needs of the company and existing team helps you in hiring the right person. That time investment results in a different kind of convenience: having a powerful, because effective, because matching team is so good, you start to think: "how convenient…quality is".
Self-Leadership and Emotional Intelligence | Improve your people-reading skills by getting to know yourself better. This is by far one of the best skills to improve upon as it helps you making early judgement calls and better decisions.
How do you respond in crunchy moments? Are you able to choose your emotions or are you at the mercy of angry outbursts, annoyance, frustration?
Identifying and naming trigger scenarios helps you not only to learn the 'abc' of your own emotional landscape but also equips you with the ability to decode those of others quickly and accurately.
Find a mentor or coach who is able to give you unedited feedback and has no other agenda than seeing you be your best.
Hiring can be a pleasant experience and the rewards are immense, when done right.
A nice side-effect: you become a magnet for quality.
On Quality, from my upcoming e-guide THINKING UNIQUE.