Break the Rule That Says to Hire the Most Qualified Candidate for a Job

 

When to Break the Rule That Says to Hire the Most Qualified Candidate for a Job

One of the most important responsibilities the leader of a vibrant, growing organization has is to make sure the right people are hired or put in place to assure continued growth and success. Failure to accomplish this objective could portend the ultimate failure of the organization.

Find the future in the present.

I have an abiding belief that the best way to sustain a successful organization’s growth is to do so organically by identifying, developing and promoting people from within. Indeed, a clue to a company beginning to fail is when management decides it is easier to hire from the outside, rather than grow talent from within the organization.

Certainly, there are times when introducing some “fresh blood” into a culture can be good for the system by preventing inbreeding or staleness, but this approach is fraught with risk and must be done the right way, for the right reason. (And it should be the exception, not the rule.) It is important to realize that hiring from outside the organization creates the risk of introducing “Type A” blood into a “Type B” body. This can cause rejection, infection, and even death.

Become a Nonqualified Employer

We all know the accepted rule: When seeking to fill an open position from outside the organization, always try to find the most qualified person for the position. That’s logical and seems a safe rule to follow, but over time I discovered a better rule. The new rule became: Don’t hire the person most qualified to do the job today, but rather the one who has the most potential to do the job tomorrow. (This is true for both internal and external hires.)

What happens when we obey the rule that tells us to hire the most qualified person for the job? First of all, you have to pay top dollar for that experience. That’s okay, I don’t mind paying fair value, but it may not be the experience you really want. Sure, the person may have a lot of experience, but has that know-how been gained doing things the way you want them done? Being fully qualified for a job will naturally limit room for future growth and create the potential for the person to become bored with the job.

By going against the traditional hiring rule and seeking to identify potential rather than experience, opportunity is given to candidates with high energy, untapped potential and a burning desire to learn. My experience was that most individuals selected on the basis of long-term potential worked exceptionally long and hard to validate that the decision to give them an opportunity was the right one.

Hire the Hired

As I have said, there are instances when it is prudent to go outside an organization looking for “existing experience” to fill an opening, but the reality of this approach is that there is actually more risk of making the wrong external hire than when making the effort to develop internal experience.

A study of high-growth, winning companies will uncover a culture that consistently bred its own leaders. A winning team – a winning culture – always stands a better chance of continuing to grow if building on that winning record is accomplished by promoting people who developed in that culture.

Leaders need to challenge the often-accepted idea that a company can grow faster with experienced outside people than it can with internally developed talent. The problem is that it’s hard work cultivating a farm system of future leaders in an organization, but the reward is worth the effort. The example of wild, free-agent spending in sports should be proof enough that throwing more and more money at experienced people is not always the path to consistent winning.

Create a reservoir of talent.

Effective leaders always try to create a reservoir of talent within the organization that could be drawn from whenever there is an opportunity to offer or a need to be filled. The rule says look for time-in-grade and experience in a job seeker – I say look for the potential. You can always instill knowledge and experience, but not potential, attitude or effort. Give me a bright person with the right attitude and they can be taught to do almost any job.

Thus, you should constantly violate the rule that says hire the most qualified and instead hire or promote the one with the most potential and give them the opportunity to become the most qualified.

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Bob MacDonald -- Former CEO of ITT Life; Founder of LifeUSA; retired chairman and CEO of Allianz Life of North America; author of numerous books on business, management and leadership. bobmac5201@gmail.com