(Hint: Try the Warby Parker Way)
Imagine you need to hire someone quickly. Perhaps your company’s hockey-stick growth isn’t exactly aligning with how many people you need to deliver or maybe your key marketing leader is moving to London?
The only clear part of a hiring story is that the wrong hire will take you even further away from a good night’s sleep.
We’ve seen how the speed of hiring can translate into irrational decisions. You have important projects to keep moving forward — and you don’t want to lose momentum. But this could be a good time to take a breath and slow down your hiring frenzy. Because there’s always more than one solution to a problem.
Consider taking a lesson from Warby Parker, the innovative eyewear company whose philosophy is ‘try before you buy.’
Warby Parker encourages their customers to try out up to five pairs of glasses at one time — decide which ones you like — then place your order. Brilliant! It turns out that with eyeglasses, what costs money are the lenses; the frames are more of a commodity.
Our experience at Forshay has taught us that there are three compelling reasons to ‘try before you buy’ when hiring:
Reason #1: Hiring a hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves, get sh*t done consultant allows you to think well.
Progress happens while you search for the right person. You have room to see what’s possible in the open position. You avoid the tight feeling in your chest to act quickly, because you’ve bought yourself some oxygen.
Reason #2: Sometimes the consultant is open to joining the team, and is just as interested as you are in trying the team/company out to see if there is a fit.
Our consultants are keenly interested not in just solving interesting problems, but in working with teams where the cultural complement is aligned and everyone is playing to their highest and best use.
Twenty years ago, the only people available for interim basis were entry-level temps. In the last ten years, experienced professionals are choosing consulting as a career path for reasons that include autonomy, mastery and purpose.
Reason #3: Building relationships with new people is good for everyone
The future of work includes more fluidity of teams. Teams are always evolving. You may have a great core team, but how often are you bringing in new team members, and/or objective outsiders to add fresh thinking, and seeing other people move on? Old-school thinking was to avoid spending time on relationships that weren’t “long term.” Now leaders understand the fluidity of organizations, and embrace the benefits of growing a wider and more diverse network of people.
So next time you have a hiring crisis, consider leveraging an interim professional. They can evaluate whether it’s the right fit for them and you can see how well they work with the team. Your best-case scenario is that you find the perfect candidate who turns out to be a great fit. Your worst-case scenario is that you accomplish some of your company’s current needs while looking for the right person.
Let’s keep redesigning work in ways that benefit everyone.
