My top 5 lessons for hiring without tiring.

And 2 additional ones for growth

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5 Lessons on how to hire strong

1. Time does not change who you need

It happened to me, it will happen to you. You get frustrated. 300 profiles, no match after 3 months. You start to lower your standards. Red flags turn into orange flags, you make compromises. You can adjust your requirements always but never your standards. A mishire costs you a year easily, it's not fair to them and not to you. Try to minimize the danger at least in the recruitment process by having high standards.

2. Do you need experience or hunger?

Most hires fall into either of two categories: they either did what you need them to do 20 times already, or they have a hunger to get there with everything they can offer. More often than not, you hire people with experience in the market and hunger from inside your company. Don't overlook internal promotions and support them with external mentoring

3. Don't rush without a profile

While there is some merit to the idea that you should hire talent the moment you see it, even if you don't have an open position there is also danger in it. "We need a product manager" as a briefing to go out and hire is a recipe for disaster. We should all align on what problem we're dealing with and what that new person can take. These meetings are boring but a huge return on investment if done right.

4. Gather a lot, post little.

Hiring for a person is much like advertising for a product. If you post 30 requirements into a job ad it's impossible for candidates to really know which 3 ones are really important for you. Separating into table stakes and nice to have's is the bare minimum. If you then jam 10 bullet points into each section it's impossible to understand what's really important. You devalue the entire position by listing too much.

5. Look for reasoning & and vulnerability, not answer

Whether you like homework or assignments aside, understand where someone is coming from. I don't look for the best candidate skill-wise. I look for someone who is good enough that I can trust. Trust that if something goes wrong they will be strong enough to point it out. One of the biggest risks in any hiring is an expert who thinks they're infallible.

Two differences for Growth Hires

Growth is started internally as a strategic initiative but hired operationally.