Hiring is the Lifeblood of Growing Companies!
By Boaz Moar
Most of us work in knowledge-oriented businesses. In such companies, the heart of the business is the people working in it. For such companies to grow, hiring is key.
Yet, hiring is hard, especially in challenging market conditions. In a survey Maranda Dziekonski ran on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, more than a third of respondents suggested they are actively looking for new opportunities, and another quarter were open to opportunistic job changes. This presents challenges for employers.
To help think through this challenge, the Customer Success Leadership Network (CSLN) dedicated our January event to this topic. Maranda and I shared best practices for hiring managers who are looking for the best candidates and for people who are looking for the best jobs. This short post provides highlights from that session. Our next post will focus on best practices for Job Seekers
For many of us, Q4 was focused mostly on the activities needed to finish the year strong (push through the last few renewals, squeeze a few more upsells, ensuring we meet or exceed all of our goals) and planning 2022 (set goals, approve the budget, develop the plans). At the same time, the fewer working days due to the holidays coupled with many people waiting to get their bonuses at the end of the year caused hiring to take a back seat.
Now that we have our budgets defined and goals set, hiring is critical.
Best Practices for Hiring Managers:
The main thing to keep in mind is that hiring is an essential part of a manager’s job. It is not and must not be treated as a side job.
It is a core part of your job. For senior executives, Organization Design (the combination of defining the org structure, developing / refining / enhancing job descriptions, and adjusting responsibilities among team members including hiring the right people) should take 25-35% of your time.
Depending on how many roles you have open in your team, actual time devoted to hiring will change, of course, but in general, managers should devote a significant amount of time to hiring - on an ongoing basis - Always Be Hiring - as the saying goes!
So, how do you ensure you can optimize your chances of hiring the best people? Here are a few best practices:
Treat Hiring as a job: set goals, track progress on a weekly and monthly basis, proactively dedicated time to hiring on your calendar, and avoid shortcuts - do it right!
Invest in Very clear Job Descriptions: Good job descriptions are key to sourcing appropriate candidates, invest in getting them right. When developing JD, provide very clear descriptions of what the role is expected to achieve. You may want to specifically call what metrics are used to evaluate the position, ahead of describing what areas of responsibilities the position holds. See the example at the end of the article.
Broaden your sourcing: especially in this very challenging hiring environment, relying on reactive sourcing techniques like posting positions and waiting for people to apply may not cut it. Be proactive: reach out to your network, post on LinkedIn, Slack, attend meetups, etc.
Build your (and your teams!) public persona: people want to work with and for people they think can help them grow their careers, and work in successful companies. Convince them your company and team are that place!
Define your hiring process: A good process is essential to good recruiting - especially if you plan to scale your organization and hire a lot of people. Key areas to think about:
Sourcing: look for internal candidates from other teams - they may present good candidates already within your company! Consider referral programs to get your team to help you source candidates, use your network!
Screening: It is very effective to conduct a screening session before investing (both the candidate’s and your team’s) time in lengthy interviews. Decide who is doing the initial screening (hiring manager or recruiter) and based on what criteria.
Interviews: A lot has been written on interviews and their challenges, so this short post will not go too much into detail here. All we’ll say is: be very intentional with what you want to be done: who do you want to interview each position, what format do you want those interviews to take (case studies? Presentations? Brain teasers, behavior questions, 1:1 or a panel, etc.). It is VERY recommended to provide the interviewers with a guideline for their interview and provide them with a feedback form to collect their feedback on each candidate. A sample is attached.
Debrief: A time and place interviewers can get together and share their views on the candidate towards a hire / no-hire decision is a critical step - don’t short-cut it! I often find the conversation in a debrief not only super interesting but also a mechanism to galvanize the team and hone in on the needs for the job and the right profile of the candidate. It is also a tool to coach people on interview techniques, reading of candidates, and providing feedback. Again, be intentional about form and format.
Offer: What are you offering? Who delivers it to the candidate? In what format (verbal before written?)
A few more thoughts on the interview process:
Your hiring process conveys your culture - are you quick? Are you comprehensive? Are you organized? Are you consistent with your company values?
Speed is critical especially in an employee market - the faster you move the better your chances to get the best candidate!
Compensation is very tricky: The market changes rapidly - make sure to get market data - including multiple data points in order to ensure you can make the best decision on the right compensation for the job.
Diversity: Diversity continues to be a challenge for technology companies and while progress was made in the last decade, especially in driving gender diversity, much more room still exists to improve. If this is important to you - be proactive and intentional about it. One side effect of the move to remote work by many employers due to COVID is that it is easier to access talent in remote locations where more diversity can be achieved. You’d be smart to make use of this opportunity!
Hiring is the lifeblood of a growing company and it requires time and effort. There are many moving parts to getting the right people and building the best possible team, and it will NOT happen without intentional effort. We hope this post helps.
Also, If you are actively hiring now, check out our Customer Success Leadership Network Slack Group, we have a hiring channel and a looking channel and it is a great external source for finding some great candidates in the CS space.
