Too Busy To Hire?

It has been said, except for life itself, time is the most precious commodity on Earth. Frankly I agree.

Leaders need to ensure they have time to focus on the right things – and hiring a great team is the ONLY way to have the time to do so. But,… how many of us stay “too busy” and delay the hiring of new staff or fail to give the process the same attention we give to a product launch? I have been guilty of this – to the point of frustrating the very HR team that is trying to HELP ME.

Great companies hire well and you don’t need to be Google or GE to hire well.

Personally, my experience is that most bad hires come out of either a flawed premise (job description / organizational design, etc.) or a poorly executed process (too busy, rushed, missed red flags, etc.). In a small enterprise, both premise and process are the responsibility of the CEO.

If you fail to make time and fail to run a thorough process, you’ll never be surrounded with top tier talent – or that talent will arrive later than needed.

I always discuss hiring with a timeline in the conversation. It goes like this, “Wow, I can see we need the position. So, if it takes a recruiter 30 days to deliver a filtered set of candidates and 30 days to do multiple interviews and make a decision and then up to 30 days for the candidate to resign their current position and get on board, followed by 30 to 60 days to get them oriented and “up to speed” in their new job… wow that’s up to 5 months from today – certainly 3 to 4 months even if it’s a well-executed quick process.” The room usually falls silent for a moment until someone fairly junior breaks the silence, “WOW – we need to start now.” I then ask that everyone be committed to the process and committed to make time – including me.

Even the most seasoned executives still need to be prodded, nudged, reminded and in some cases, literally pulled away from the daily slog to focus on reviewing resumes, screening candidates and then the interviews themselves.

Stop with the excuses – make it a priority to make time to hire.