Hiring? Know what you want. The rest will be easy.

If you’re reading this blog and trying to fill an open job at your company, you’re likely thinking, “Of course I know what I want! I need to fill a process engineer role.”

That statement is a great start, but hiring managers often need to dig much deeper than a job description to get to the heart of the matter. In other words, spend time thinking about who will be most effective in this role in addition to what skills you need.

Here are a few questions to get you started:

·       Should the new hire be a visionary, big-picture thinker, or a tactical employee focused on executing projects given to her?

·       Does this person need to shake up the team dynamic, or am I hoping to find someone who can seamlessly integrate into my culture?

·       Must the candidate be a subject matter expert, or would our team benefit from hiring someone whose expertise comes from an entirely different domain?

·       Can my team handle a more disagreeable, hard-charging person at this time?

·       What kind of person would thrive in the culture we have created?

Candidates are not simply the sum of their knowledge and skills; instead, it’s important to think of them as unique individuals comprised of a combination of temperament, personality, sociability, agreeableness, quirks, biases, strengths to be leveraged, and weaknesses to be avoided (or minimized).

If you take the time to build a holistic ideal candidate profile for your opening, your recruiting and hiring process will start to make a lot more sense to all parties involved. Why? Because you’ll have clarity in the form of knowing exactly the type of candidate you need to move your organization forward. You can easily share your vision with the hiring team and candidates alike.

I have met with many executives and hiring teams over the years who simply can’t get past the job description when discussing an open position. These hiring teams often are comprised of individuals whose opinions on the position and agendas are at odds with one another, making consensus on a hiring decision extremely difficult. These hiring processes often stall out or the hiring team simply agrees to hire the person who was least unpleasant to them. Worse yet, candidates who get hired into a role with a lack of clear focus and objectives step into a bad situation, because the hiring manager didn’t take the time to understand what he wanted at the beginning of the hiring process.

If you put together a plan on the ideal candidate before hiring, you’ll clear roadblocks, build alignment with organizational partners, and confidently assess the talent presented to you. When done right, recruiting and hiring can, and should, be an enjoyable process for all involved. And best of all, you’ll consistently land game-changing talent.