HireBetter Blog

When Your Start-Up Outgrows You: Hire Up or Sell out?

November 17th, 2011 | by | hiring, human resources, management, recruiting

Nov
17

Some would say that entrepreneurs like you and me care about our companies as much as (or more than?) our own children.  I think that comparison is fair.  We create businesses out of nothing, work tirelessly to equip them for success, and sometimes, we hold on too tightly.  Like sending your high-school grad off to college, often you have to give up some control to let your company graduate to its next step.

Caught in “No Man’s Land”

Successful entrepreneurs are great at building new ventures and growing them into viable companies.  But that doesn’t always mean that they are the right people to lead their companies into that next phase of growth.  Many entrepreneurs get into real trouble when they reach the stage where their company is “too big to be small but too small to be big.” 

That’s what Doug Tatum, a former colleague of mine and founder of Tatum, calls “No Man’s Land.”  In his book of the same name, he explains how many companies in No Man’s Land (which for most companies is when they have between 20-100 employees and $5-$50 million in revenues) fail because they don’t have the right team to make the leap to a “big” company.  He goes on to say that you either need to sell your business to a larger company with the resources to get to the next level, or you need to build out your team with leaders who have the experience to drive the business forward.

 

Know when it’s time to let go

No man’s land, as the name suggests, is no good place to be.  The issue is, most entrepreneurs will have to give up some or all of the control of the companies they’ve worked so hard to build.  I’ve had to do it myself (when I sold my baby to Doug’s company, Tatum, just as he was ceding control to a new CEO), and I can tell you, it’s not easy to do.  But if you want your company to grow out of that phase, then you’ll most likely have to empower someone else to help take the reins.

 

To hire, or to be acquired?

The idea of “selling out” to a larger, more experienced company is nothing new in the entrepreneur community.  It’s tried and true and it often does work.  Your new parent company already knows how to be big, and they’ll have great resources to help you grow…and you can take some money off the table and enjoy some of the fruits of your labor .  The downside is, you usually lose the individuality and freedoms that you enjoy as a smaller venture, controlled by you.

But that’s not the only way.  If you still want your business to remain independent while it grows, then upgrade your senior management team.  Hire a new CEO, bring in a strong COO, or acquire other key VP and C-level talent…and give them a real say in your strategy (or its execution).  Properly vetted and hired, they’ll have the skills you need to scale your business that you, and your core team who got you to this level, usually lack.  Many of your new hires will have been in similar situations before, and they’ll know what needs to happen for your company to make “the jump.”  Hiring leadership is both an art and a science and you’ll probably want to enlist external assistance.  Again, properly done, it’s a great way to grow your company without losing its character.

 

Giving up control is hard, but it’s the best move for your company

You’ve done a great job getting your company this far, but now it’s time to let it grow.  Give up a little control, hire up, and watch your baby grow up to the next stage in its life.

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The Three Huge Hiring Mistakes You Didn’t Know You Make

October 21st, 2011 | by | hirebetter, hiring, human resources, job descriptions, recruiting, talent

Oct
21

Every company can improve their hiring in some way.  And given how important successful hiring is, it’s scary to think that two-thirds of companies continue to make bad hires.  Here are three key hiring mistakes many companies make when hiring a new employee.  Are you making any of them?

 

Mistake number one: You pass off hiring duties to the wrong people       

You wouldn’t let an office manager design a factory or a chemist balance your budget.  You leave those jobs up to the experts.  But when it comes to hiring, many companies let just about anyone take charge of a hiring task. Building a great workforce is too important to leave in untrained hands, so make sure that only skilled talent experts run your search.

 

Mistake number two: You improperly define roles

The second big mistake is just as dangerous.  Maybe you are hiring good people, but the job just doesn’t match up with their skillset.  Or you’re settling because you can’t imagine what an ideal candidate even looks like.  If you can’t properly define a role and come up with an actionable plan to fill it, you’re doomed from the start.

 

Mistake number three:  You insufficiently assess the person you hire

When you make a hire, you’re not just bringing a collection of skills and experience onboard, you’re teaming up with a person.  Many companies get into trouble because they only look at easy to compare, conventional metrics and then hire the person who interviews the best.  You have to know how to thoroughly assess a candidate to get a good idea of who they truly are, and that’s not easy to do!  Very few know how to vet a candidate like that.

 

Bad hirers: There’s hope!

Luckily, these three mistakes are very curable.  HireBetter is committed to delivering the systems and expertise companies need to confidently make great hiring decisions.  We work with companies to define exactly what role they need to fill, determine what that ideal candidate looks like, and then deliver the very best candidates to you.  If you’re ready to start making great hires, contact us, and see how we can help you HireBetter.

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Defining The Role: What Does “Top Talent” Mean For You?

September 20th, 2011 | by | hiring, human resources, job descriptions, management, talent

Sep
20

Since you now know how you shouldn’t start your hiring process, how do you do it correctly?  Hiring a great employee deserves a coherent plan like any other aspect of business. After all, good employees will be with your company longer than most of your business endeavors.  You absolutely have to correctly define the role for which you’re hiring if you hope to get the right person for your company.

Where are you trying to go?

It’s much easier to get where you want to go if you have some idea where “there” is.  Don’t start at the beginning and try to piece together an ideal employee, instead, start in the future.  What do you want your new hire to accomplish in their first year?  In their first ninety days?  Start there and work back until you can pinpoint what type of person you need.

 

A collaborative process

Get “down in the trenches” and consult the people who will work with your new hire on a daily basis, especially their future direct superior.   Find out what qualities they seek in a coworker.  And determine what skills are really required for your new hire to attain success.

 

Build your map, and follow it

With the new information you now have, make a written sketch of what an ideal hire will look like. Only after you’ve considered what a successful hire would do should you craft a job description and start looking for candidates. That way, you’ll know when you’ve found the right person.

You can’t see the future, but you can have a good idea 

It’s impossible to know exactly what you’ll want/need a year from now, so realize that planning from the future is imperfect.  That being said, you have a much better shot at a great hire if you have an idea of what the right hire will entail.  Get started on the right foot and you’ll recruit the talent that will get you where you want to go.

 

Image used under Creative Commons from calsidyrose.

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Is Your Hiring Process Like The Telephone Game?

September 8th, 2011 | by | communication, hiring, human resources, management, recruiting, talent, uncategorized

Sep
08

Have you ever played the “telephone game?”  You know, the one where one person tells a word to one person, who tells another, who tells another, and so on…What always happens?  The last person has a totally different word.  Almost without fail, the word doesn’t make it around the room.

This simple childhood game was supposed to teach us about how unreliably we pass messages along to others.  But why do so many hiring processes seem oddly similar to this?  Does the following situation sound familiar to you?

A cumulative error

An upper manager (or CEO) decides that they need to make a new hire.  They briefly tell a lower manager to find some candidates during a regular staff meeting.   That manager goes to their administrative assistant or a Human Resources employee and asks him or her to write a job description that they post online.  Then, a different low level employee sorts through incoming resumes and passes some back to the lower manager, who performs phone interviews on a few of them.

Finally, the (weak) candidates interview once or twice with the upper manager who realizes that none of them really fit what they were looking for.  They either send them all away and invest some real time into making a great hire, or (as happens all too often) they begrudgingly decide that one of them “will do” and likely join the sixty-seven percent of employers who make bad hires.

 

Define where you want to go and you might just get there

Isn’t it easy to see how a communication breakdown is almost expected in a scenario like this?  Don’t be foolish and fall into the trap of this kind of “easy” hiring.  Clearly define your role and make sure everyone in the hiring process knows what you need.  In our next post, we’ll help you do just that!

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