Lessons in leadership: 30 concrete hiring ideas

An email came across my inbox this morning from Tech Republic’s leadership forum.  Iilya’s article on hiring ideas is right on the money, but missing several key things for hiring.

(layout to match the original article)

Marketing

31.  Define (and develop) your department’s culture.  Consider things like the energy of the group, work style, innovation level, style of management.  Understand where you want the culture to be.  Knowing / marketing the culture will let applicants better understand if they’ll fit.

Looking and Finding

32.  Hire people who will help move your team’s culture to where you want it to be.

Selecting

33.  Consider hire for base required skills and aptitude instead of the person with the most knowledge.  Often growing and developing the greater skill set you need yeilds better long-term results. This ties in to #22.

34.  Hire for team fit.  Attitude is key.  It’s important that the person fits with your team (and where you want it to go).  We spend countless hours in the office – knowing your team gels and likes each other will make a much better team.

35.  Listen to your instincts.  They’re usually right.

36.  Adding to 25: Use tests appropriately.  Testing for data that someone can pull from a Google search or text book is useless – because most people would just pull it from a search in the real world.  Test using scenarios that show the person’s common sense and understanding of broader concepts.