Would you re-hire all of your team tomorrow?

One of the questions I always ask my clients is ‘How many of your current team would you re-hire tomorrow if you were given the chance?’

So…how many would you re-hire?

If you say all of them, congratulations! I’m delighted for you, because I know from experience how rare that is. In fact it’s only happened to me once since I started asking the question.

Most people have at least one person in their business who was never right; they may be the rotten apple in the barrel or just a round peg in a square hole. Someone who you’ve trained, developed, probed, and coached to no avail. You’ve put up with them for years rather than removing them from the team; knowing they should never have been hired in the first place – they were never a good fit for you, your team or the business. And on the other hand you’re probably not a good fit for them and perhaps they could blossom elsewhere. But both parties are just playing safe avoiding the pain of parting.

So how does hiring the right person for you, first time, every time sound?

By the time you’ve read this blog, I want to have convinced you that it’s possible. Not only possible but pleasurable; that it’s an exciting opportunity to build your high-performing team and grow your business.

I’ll go through the three steps to a great job advert and there’s a template too which you can download. I’m going to share with you my 2 Golden Rules for hiring and show how, if you embrace these, you will be well on the path to hiring a ‘keeper’.

So how to get it right first time?

Golden Rule No. 1

Never, hire in a hurry.

Why? Because anything you do in a hurry tends to be botched. You’re rushing to plug a gap; hiring somebody to make up the numbers. They may not be a great fit but you settle for the best of the bunch.

You hire in a hurry, you make mistakes.

Golden Rule No. 2

Always hire to your values.

Think about why you’re hiring. You’re not just hiring a body. You’re not looking for someone who’s going to clock on, park their brain at the door, and then clock off at the end of the day. You want somebody who is engaged. You want somebody who cares about what you care about – who buys into that goose bump-giving inspiring vision of yours; who has the same values as you.

You’re hiring a mind and a heart, not just a body.

Things go wrong when you ignore the golden rules and only look at skills and experience; when you hire in a hurry cos it’s all just too much hassle; when you abdicate responsibility to a third party.

Change your mindset around hiring 

• See it as an opportunity to add to your highly engaged, high performing team
• Invest time and energy in this crucial task and get creative even with your job ad
• Think differently

Create Inspiring Job ads

So many people put out the job description as a job ad. ‘You will be responsible for, you will have so and so reporting to you, you must be able to do this, that and the other.’

Who’s inspired by that sort of job ad?

No-one. So when it comes to your job ad I want you to lead with three things.

1. The vision and purpose of your business. You want to inspire people, so tell them about the purpose of your business and where you’re going with it? Tell them about your inspiring picture for the future; your goose-bump-giving vision.
2. Next, the purpose of the role. Tell them how the role adds value to the business; how crucial it is. Tell them how it fits into the bigger picture; how it adds value to the team, your customers, you.
3. Finally, a pen portrait of the individual that you’re looking for. A picture of the person you’re looking for written as if you are in their shoes. ‘I leap out of bed every morning looking forward to the day. I like an early start, to get ahead of the game. I love being part of a team, working together to get the job done. I like to be supportive too, helping my teammates out when they need it. I’m really big on detail – my pet hate is sloppy mistakes.’ You get the idea.

Think about the person you’re looking for, the sort of role that you’ve got for them, and write your pen portrait as if you are them and this is their ideal.

You want them to be reading going, ‘That’s me, that’s me, that’s so me!’

If you want to know what this looks like click here to get your hands on a template which explains what you need in each section and gives you an example of what the ad might look like.

So let’s recap.

If you:

1. Take your time when you’re hiring
2. Know your vision and values
3. Write your job ad to inspire your ideal candidates;

you will be well on your way to hiring the right person for you, first time.

Of course, there’s more to it than just that and I’ll be exploring the next stage in a future blog!

Do one thing: Download the job ad template here (or below) and use it for your next hire.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.

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