Searching for Hiring Answers? Ask the Right Questions!
There's more than one way to skin a cat, and it's worth considering all of them
Originally published Feb 27, 2017
“I need a CIO who also has a background in finance, significant experience in the hospitality industry, and expertise in inventory management. Preferably someone who’s worked in a Fortune 500 Company, and knows basic, applied household cleaning robotics. With 20+ years in the field. And oh, I have a tight budget, maybe $100k or so... if that!”
We all need help running our businesses. I could use an accountant and a business developer, and maybe a marketing specialist, for example. Maybe you need a CFO, or a CIO… someone strategic, who can also do the dirty work. Unfortunately, we often can’t afford what we’re asking for… we have what we have, and inevitably the market for what we want demands twice our budget. And that’s assuming we can even find someone out there who meets our requirements.
Small firms sometimes get lucky, taking on a person who can do everything they want for a reasonable cost. These people are the “all-stars,” the ones who can build and maintain the web site, run the technology infrastructure, go out on sales calls, and clean the toilets in their spare time. We envy companies that are somehow able to hire (and keep) these IT-Sales-Plumbing Specialists, because we’d love to have one or two ourselves. Sadly, while we seek, we don’t usually find.
Why do we put ourselves in these positions? We long for candidates who are either too expensive for us or simply don’t exist in "real life," and waste valuable time (and sanity) searching in vain. Few of us seriously take the time to think about things like labor market dynamics before jotting down the laundry list of skills and qualifications we want from someone. If we did, we wouldn’t put so much effort and money into recruiting for people we can't get, and we'd refocus ourselves on who we can afford and use.
Before we start to recruit, there are some basic questions we should be thinking about:
- Do we really know what we need someone to do and know, and the credentials they should have? In other words, what is critical ("we-can't-live-without") work, and the minimum qualifications that we can accept from a candidate for him to be an asset to our organization?
- Do we need someone to do everything right away? Is it possible to prioritize the work, focusing on immediate needs that require only a subset of the full suite of skills we’d love to have, or do we need a person who can truly "do it all" starting on the day she’s hired?
- How does a person acquire the skills and levels of expertise we’re seeking? Is experience the best way candidates can learn what they need to know to be useful to us, or can some capabilities be learned through classroom, virtual, or on-the-job training (OJT)?
- Are the necessary abilities typically represented in a single individual? Seriously, is there really any such thing as a skilled IT-Sales-Plumbing Specialist in the labor market (maybe there is, you never know), or should we be looking for multiple, appropriately specialized people?
- Do we have the budget to get people with the skills, experience, etc. we'd like to have? What will it cost to hire an "ideal" candidate, and is paying such a person what they're worth the best use of our (limited) financial resources (i.e., is there a sufficient return on investment)?
- If the labor market rate is too expensive, what’s driving up the price?
Which
of our knowledge, skills, and experience requirements are most responsible for "raising the price" of potential candidates (it's the IT, right... tech experts don't come cheap these days, do they)?
By answering these basic questions, we can open up a world of creative opportunities to get the people we need, at a cost we can afford. There are so many potential options available when we’ve really thought through what we’re looking for, when we need it, how it’s most likely to be “packaged” in the labor market, and the costs and key cost contributors. In effect, we can shape our "job descriptions" so that we have a better chance at getting the right resources without “breaking the bank.” For example, we can explore:
- Splitting our requirements into multiple, easier-to-fill roles
- Hiring "down" for immediate needs, and developing skills through
training
- Carving out expensive requirements and contracting them out
- Moving some responsibilities "in house" to staff we already have
- Designing part-time roles for highly specialized, expensive skills
- Sharing resources with peers who may need similar things
- Using interns or volunteers, if possible, to meet part of the
needs
With apologies in advance to the feline, when it comes to small business (or really, any organizational) recruiting, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. We shouldn’t feel like we have to find the perfect match for the things we need done—there are often equally effective, cheaper ways to get the right people. It takes a little bit of advance planning and analysis, but for every problem, there’s a cost-effective solution. It’s up to us to find it, and it starts with asking ourselves the right questions.
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