How To Hire The Right Person For Your Start-up?

Selection Process: Step 1 – Evaluate Your Current Workforce 

          The cost of hiring the wrong employee can be as much as $240,000, according to Jörgen Sundberg, CEO of Link Humans, this does not include the cost to find a replacement. These are staggering figures. To avoid this, you must hire with intent. 

Assess Current Roles & Responsibilities

The first step in making an intentional hire is to evaluate your current workforce’s day-to-day work. Assess what is actively being done, and determine where your gaps are (soft skills or hard skills) within the current team. Ask yourself, ‘Is our work getting done in the most efficient and effective manner?’ You may notice that some of the work is no longer needed, some work can be automated, and/or that your current employees have underutilized skills that should be championed. Ultimately, the outcome of this exercise should allow you to determine if you need to make a new hire, or if you need to adjust what is happening already.

Review Your Player Profiles

This evaluation exercise will also give you a better understanding of your employee’s dynamics. Amongst other observations, you can also examine if your team has a healthy mix of A Players and B Players. In a start-up where resources are limited, hiring the right employee profile can be a tremendous, and lucrative advantage. 

Your A Players take initiative, they understand and internalize your business goals and visions, and will play the largest role in helping you grow your business. You want your A Players in leadership and strategic roles – they are your go-to innovators who know the industry inside and out. Contrary to your intuition, A Players aren’t necessarily more skilled or talented, they have an edge because of their drive.  

Your B Players are executors, they may not necessarily internalize your business goals and visions, but they follow instructions well. As noted in The Harvard Business Review article, “Let’s Hear It for B Players,” “A  companies’ long-term performance—even survival—depends far more on the unsung commitment and contributions of their B players” At the end of the day, your B Players are the consistent needle-movers of your business. They will keep the engine moving. 

As you start to get the itch to hire more employees, it is important for you to take a step back and analyze your team’s current roles and responsibilities as well as their player profiles in order to make the strongest hiring decision. BurgeonHR can support you in assessing your current workforce and building your sourcing strategy, so you can avoid hiring the wrong employee. Reach out to us here