Change the Way You Recruit, Part I
Step I: Hire Better Than Yourself
It is a common belief within the recruitment industry that top employers hire top performing candidates, while average employers tend to hire below average candidates. The speculation for this is that those average performing individuals do not want to see someone excel moreso than themselves. Continuing this pattern, however, will lead to hiring completely dense employees which then leads to a layoff.
Step II: Don’t just look for skills, look for love
Yes, education and experience are very important. But so is a burning desire to excel at…whatever it happens to be you are recruiting for. Look for love. Hiring an employee with decent education and experience who also comes with a built in obsession for your product will most likely pay off more for you in the long run. This employee won’t have to learn to be dedicated because they already are.
Step III: Sometimes the most impressive quality is the most irrelevant
So he’s an MIT PhD in Computer Science, aye? Great. He also worked for Microsoft for 20 years. Is he the best candidate for a start-up? Probably not. This guy never had to worry about competition or capital. And you know what they say about old dogs…
Step IV: Intuition can only take you so far
She was an amazing interviewer. You just knew she would be perfect for the job. So much so, that you didn’t happen to check her references as much as you normally would have. Your gut feeling told you to go ahead and it turns out your gut feeling was wrong. It’s hard to go against what we feel is right, and I’m not saying to completely disregard intuition, but make sure to take all necessary steps during the process with all candidates. This insures that you are making the right decision.