Preparing to Hire an A+ Player

Talent hiring has been one of the key differentiating factors for organizations of different sizes & growth phases. Over the decades, the medium (newspaper classified to the Internet) has seen many iterations but at the core, building a team that truly creates an impact has fundamentally been constant. Assessing skills, competencies, traits, drivers of individuals in a methodology way that gives predictable results that ups-game of spotting, engaging, and winning Talent.

At Hevo, Talent Recruitment is evolving dynamically, and investing in the right tools and devising the correct Process & Matrices has made us more prudent than ever to solve our Talent hiring challenges. Therefore this is going to be a series of reads that starts from basics — the way we learned and continue to do so.

The Quandary of ‘What’ ‘Who’ and ‘Where’

Step 1: Defining the ‘What?’

This is one of the most important yet challenging questions, as the challenge or the business problem can be more complex than it actually is. For example, — Team Management is the most sought-after skill in leadership hiring, but there are many variations if we dig a little deeper. Are we looking for someone who has built a team from scratch in a start-up or someone who has managed a complex team structure with a global team in a Fortune 500 company or someone who has improved throughput by restructuring the team?

In the beginning, answers to repeat ‘What’s’ may not give us clarity but spending time defining these questions gives us lucidity during the entire selection and assessment process.

Three questions that can be answered while defining ‘What’ are:

1. What are the short-term and long-term goals?
2. What is the expected quantifiable output or deliverables?
3. What resources are available to solve the problem?

An example of a well-documented definition of ‘What’ for a Team Management position can read as:

“The Team Manager will take ownership to hire and onboard three Customer Success Managers in a span of six months and scale the team to twelve members in the span of two years.”

Step 2: Defining the ‘Who?’

Once you have clearly defined ‘What’, the next logical step is to determine ‘Who’ can solve the ‘What’?

You would reckon, the answer to ‘three questions’ in Step 1 provides key ownership or accountability of the new hire/incumbent; in this step, we will translate the ‘What’ to ‘Who’ by giving it a persona.

Defining ‘Ideal Candidate Persona’ is one of the most vital elements of engaging A+ players. Few pointers that ensure we define the ‘Who’ effectively are:

• Use simple, concise, and jargon-free language.
• Define experience requirements clearly; should be inspiring, challenging, but not unreasonable.
• If the ‘What’ is very specific, moderate it. The intent is to encourage target and potential candidates to show interest, not self-disqualify.
• Competencies and Traits are for internal evaluation, so they may not be relevant to the candidate.

An example of a well-documented definition of ‘Who’ for the Team Management position can read as:

“The Team Manager should have prior experience in identifying the right Talent pool, assessing the candidates, and readying the new hires to engage customers.”

Step 3: Figuring out ‘Where?’

By now, we have a fair understanding of ‘What needs to be solved?’ and ‘Who can solve the What’? The next step is to determine ‘Where can we get the Who to solve the What’?

A practical approach is to conduct primary research validated by a larger audience. A Whiteboarding session backed by Talent pool insight with stakeholders like Hiring Manager(s) and skip level Manager, with direct and indirect team inputs is crucial.

Primary research should conclude:

1. What is the Size of the Talent Pool? This can be derived from LinkedIn Recruiter, Job Boards or, any other portal with a target talent pool community.
2. Does the Talent Pool have a Common Pattern? Common Industry, Education, Company, etc.
3. Sample Profiles? The researcher/recruiter should be able to collect 5–10 profiles that can be reviewed during the Whiteboarding session.

Bonus Tip: Ask the Expert — Leveraging a professional network to find people who have hired directly for similar opportunities or provide dependable insights along with their struggles and solutions. Always attempt it.

Once we have the details and data ready, a Whiteboarding session with stakeholders should determine:

1. Do the insights from Primary research and the ‘Ask the expert’ session give us an intended and viable pool to assess?
2. Feedback of all sample profiles providing precise details around ‘What we liked in the profile’ and ‘What more we were expecting/anticipating’.
3. What is the next step from here on?

At the end of Step 3, we should have a clear and concise definition of What, Who of the ‘A+ player’ and an understanding of ‘Where’ to spot them.

The next logical step is to solve ‘How to spot A+ player’. In the next read, we will cover aspects like Talent Pool Coverage, Pipeline Building, Stakeholder Involvement that gets the search process started in the right direction.