Hiring a new employee is an investment in your business that you can’t afford to take lightly. At the heart of a talent acquisition strategy is a drive for long-term growth and stability, a desire to foster a high-performing culture and a commitment to promoting leadership accountability.
Hiring a new member of your team just because you need “another body” isn’t just unwise; it will result in a recruitment process that wastes time and money. When you hire just to fill an open position you’re not only missing opportunities to identify top talent, you’re missing opportunities to strategically grow your business and enhance your organization’s culture.
How do you know when hiring a new employee is the right choice? Here are four strategic reasons.
You’re expanding and need new skills at the table: If you’ve identified that you need a specific skill that your current team doesn’t have – it’s time to hire someone new. While it’s important to develop your current employees, hiring someone with the right expertise in the skill-set you need is a vital investment in your long-term business strategy. It can take weeks, months and sometimes even years to train employees to reach the performance level you need to move your bottom line. But, if you’re ready to grow now, you can’t afford to wait. When you hire for expertise, don’t just look for experience in a specific skill-set, identify candidates who are collaborative and have a desire to share their knowledge with the team.
You’re building hype for your company during its growth stage: One of the most important steps in building your company is to get the right people on board as soon as possible. When you hire strategically to build hype, you’re not only hiring top talent, you’re tapping into a candidate’s network and generating buzz for your brand. When hiring at this stage, focus on a candidate’s growth potential and their LinkedIn network in addition to looking for experience. You want someone who is excited about being part of something new, and who will spread the word to a valuable network of friends and colleagues. In potential candidates look for curiosity, engagement and a relentless pursuit of achieving goals, and remember that your recruitment process is also a marketing tool for building your brand.
You’re trying to reinvent your company or brand: If you’re in need of new ideas and the drive to build something different, hiring different talent is vital to reinventing your company, brand and team. When you’re looking to transform your business, identify candidates who think and act differently from the standard norms of your current employees. It’s time to be diverse and open minded in your recruitment process and to remember that star talent attracts star talent. Wooing a top performer from another company or competitor could be a huge game changer for your business and will be well-worth the investment.
You’ve started proactive succession planning: There is no such thing as starting succession planning too early. Especially when it comes to the leaders of your company, ideally you should start succession planning for their role as soon as they take on their leadership position. Your succession plan and recruitment strategy should always be top of mind when you’re at a conference, networking at an event or chatting with a competitor. Building relationships with top talent candidates over the long-term is what could make the difference between a signed offer and a lost opportunity.
Research shows that hiring top talent is worth the investment, which means your recruitment strategy can’t be taken lightly. Whether you’re looking for sales talent, product managers, or a new team leader, it’s important that you work with a recruiter that has the expertise to build top-performing teams.