Recruiting to Fit
I was listening to the new EntreLeadership Podcast (iTunes, Stitcher) this morning, and I was struck by what the guest, Simon Sinek, was saying.
And the place that that starts is in recruiting. And what we tend to do is we recruit to skills, and we recruit to the assets that we need, and yet we do a poor job of recruiting to fit. Do you feel like you want to work here? Do I feel like you would belong here?
And so we tend to hire too quickly. We hire based on resumes, previous experiences, and a couple of not-very-deep interviews. Can you imagine if you got married that way?
This struck a chord with me, because I feel like, in the tech industry, businesses are in a rush to put butts in seats. They are looking at resumes for the “right” skills, and they have little interest in finding a candidate that fits their culture.
Worse still, I think that many organizations are not that interested in defining their values, sticking by them, and growing their culture. These organizations are happy to make market and revenue growth their priority while they let their culture fluctuate as people come and go. And so the leaders of these business are elated when everything aligns and they have a strong quarter, or a great year. But they are at a loss as to the reason why their best employees become unproductive and leave for other opportunities.
So please, hire for fit. Because growth comes out of having a strong team. And a strong team is the result of vision, communication, and trust.
