14 March 2023 |

Hire Green Or Hire Great

By Alex Alleyne

Before recruiting talent, take a moment to assess what type of role you’re in or taking on. If you’re in a turnaround job, you may want to have more consideration for candidates that are already proven, to limit the amount of development time you need to dedicate to them.

By taking on talent that have already experienced the journey you’re about to go on, they can immediately add value from day one whilst you focus on the strategic aspects of the task ahead.

By contrast, if you’re taking on a build job, you may have more runway to take on ambitious talent that’s earlier stage with all of the will and desire to build something great alongside you. You can shape them and put them in a position where they’re able to drive your agenda. 

First thing to figure out: have you got a build job or a turnaround job? Next: what type of person do you need for the road ahead?

Avoid this: The toughest path is having to develop early stage talent while you turn around a ship. I have been in this position and it is hard; very hard. Combine experience with aspirational talent to reduce the development gap if you have a turnaround job ahead of you.

What are your non-negotiables?

No matter what the road ahead looks like, you must have hiring criteria. Within that criteria, you need to include a set of characteristics that you will not compromise on.

For me, this includes drive and hunger to learn. I cannot and will not compromise on having teammates that are committed to achieving their own form of greatness with an ongoing thirst to expand their knowledge.

You’ill notice that these attributes are heavily weighted around a person’s mindset and attitude. These two variables are key in helping you to create critical mass within your team.

Critical mass is an infinite energy source, which continues to combust when you have a group of like minded individuals, all driving towards a common goal.

To get towards your own set of non-negotiables, write down your answers to the following questions:

  • What are the core values that are going to underpin your team? 
  • What’s your team mantra in one sentence? 
  • How do you want your team to be known to the world?

As you answer these questions, you should see a pattern and commonalities which will underpin your set of non-negotiables.

Avoid this: Don’t compromise on your non-negotiables. The easiest thing to do is to source a candidate who has 2 of the 3 ingredients you’re seeking and hire them because you need to fill a seat. Never compromise, non-negotiables have that title for a reason.

Do they raise or maintain the bar?

When assessing candidates, there is one question that is more important than any other – “Do they raise the bar?’

Raising the bar ultimately means, will they make your current team and situation better as opposed to meeting the status quo.

Elon Musk is one of the wealthiest people on the planet because he sought to change the modern world. Bill Gates is one of the most successful people in the world because he chose to reinvent technology as we know it.

These are examples of bar raisers, they exist in every industry but they are special and form a part of the top 1% of talent.

Your job is to seek out and find bar raisers for your team, to enable you to go further and faster than ever before.

In next week’s send, we will unpack the key ingredients of bar raising hiring criteria to enable you to onboard the elite.