What are four major prompts to hire?
1. Receiving the dreaded letter or resignation.
2. Poor performance of an existing employee where rehabilitation efforts have been exhausted and termination is imminent.
3. Overall business objectives are not measuring up.
4. The organization is seeing an increase in return on investment evidenced by increasing business volumes.
Now that you have been prompted to hire, what is next?
That is right, the old SWOT analysis.
Assess SWOT of your organization overall and departmentally.
What are the Strengths?
What are the Weaknesses?
What are the Opportunities?
What are the Threats?
Note how each department and or team member contributes to S.W.O.T.
You need the overall view and then the granular view (big picture then what makes up this "big picture")
Why is this analysis useful?
It serves as a purposeful and intentional evaluation of the state of your business.
This analysis should already be done on a regular basis; annually, monthly, quarterly, and when the need arises due to new circumstances (a pandemic, increased competition, any prompt to consider a pivot of any kind).
Think of this as merely a check-in to ensure that your business operations are still in alignment with the goals and benchmarks you have set with your stakeholders.
The prompt to hire IS a prompt to S.W.O.T as it meets, at minimum, one of the criteria earlier mentioned… "new circumstances".
What will you learn from the S.W.O.T?
You may find an opportunity to address a vacancy or need without hiring at all.
You may find that this presents an opportunity to promote or redefine roles within your organization. You may have underutilized staff time or skill sets.
There may be additional funds now available for raises or incentives for existing staff should you find an alternative to hiring another FTE.
You will learn more about who and what skill sets you are looking to bring aboard as you should not merely blindly try to find a replica of the person who is leaving.
You can use this as an opportunity to 'level up'.
How do you define who you need based on all the assessment?
You are seeking in your candidate, should you NEED to hire...
Someone whose attributes address your weaknesses, threats, and opportunities while also contributing to your strengths.
Take time to envision the candidate with respect to the role that you have decided to hire for. Kind of like you envisioned who you were going to marry when you grew-up.
Important because this IS a marriage of sorts.
How can one attract the candidate you are seeking?
Cast a wide net (tell everyone), but make sure anyone not appropriate slips through the net.
What this means is use all your feelers to reach out (existing staff, ads, social media, longtime clients, ect...) to get the word out. But create a statement of what you are looking for that attracts the right candidate and turns off the wrong candidate. Use words that the wrong candidate would avoid but the right candidate would be drawn to. (challenging, highly productive, make a difference, performance above industry benchmarks, ect..)
Most importantly...Be the place of work that attracts the candidate you need.
How do you know if you have found The One?
Like in The Matrix (movie reference)
Filter for fit.
Team interviews (with future co-workers/team leads). Get them to be comfortable to let their hair down. Who is this person really? What are their future goals? Can you assist them with this? Do these goals support where your organization is going?
Ask..Why this type of work? and Why our organization? Listen for purpose, passion, or higher calling above monetary gain.
Ask questions that help you understand the candidate’s temperament, value system, communication style.
Further filter
Use skills testing, personality tests, situational questionnaire to evaluate decision making, reference checks based on areas that remain undefined with regards to your assessment of the candidate. Listen for trends within reference feed-back. Listen out for points that come up that relate to your SWOT.
Past performance is a strong predicter of future performance under similar conditions.
Provide scenarios that your organization is challenged with currently and find out as a 'hypothetical' how they would go about addressing the issue or contribute to improving said situation.
Listen for flow of thought, approach, flexibility, honesty, ownership vs passivity, ect..
This is what you can expect to see when you bring them aboard and said issues present themselves.
In conclusion...
Does the hiring of this candidate address SWOT of your organization? Do you have a good feel for who the candidate really is? Do you have a strong sense of the performance you can expect?
Then you are ready to make your decision!
But…Sometimes there is a big BUT. But what if that just right candidate does not show up???
Then kiss as many frogs as you need to before committing!
When you have cold feet, you may be able try your candidate out first by offering a short-term opportunity. Internship, volunteer, contract to perm, part-time to full-time with effective probationary guidelines.
These relationships can be treated like working interviews. This can be an interim stress reliever for your staff by solving some problems that are more immediate. Use this time to finalize the decision on the candidate or to continue seeking that perfect fit.
Happy hiring!
By: Fatima Sparks
Medical Practice Growth and Development
Strategy: People, Processes, and Branding,
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