Hire for potential, not experience

Who would you rather hire?

Candidate 1: ticks all the boxes for the role and would do the same again at your company

Candidate 2: doesn’t fit all of your requirements, but has a history of quickly expanding their skillset and improving in their past roles

Experience and technical skills can be learned, it’s far harder to develop determination and self-motivation.

Consider this translation of a typical job ad:

Must have 5 years+ experience of … MEANS: We need you to do that thing you did (again)

It may seem like you need a body through the door as quickly as possible but your business is about disruption, not tweeking. You want to hire people that are in hypergrowth.

Consider S-Curve logic* before hiring your next ex-Google staffer and avoid hiring those that have mastered their art and are plateauing. This doesn’t mean they are done, it means you need to help them find their next curve and reach a new hypergrowth phase. If that’s not going to happen, you could be better off with someone who will be challenged to learn the job you have on offer.

You can find huge potential amongst your current team, move plateauing staff to new curves where they can benefit from knowing the company, products and processes so they have a headstart. This makes hiring a replacement easier, as you have a ready-made mentor in place.

Hiring is never about finding the perfect person. Most applicants won’t tick every box, but what would the ‘next best thing?’ look like. You are not lowering the bar, you maintaining a very high standard that takes into account that new hires are smart and can pick up skills very quickly. Ask most Engineers how long it takes to learn a new tool, the answer is usually about two weeks to master the basics. After that, they will use Google same as your current team does!

Look out for life skills including resilience, hustle and determination to work out candidate potential – if you get this right, you will be futureproofing your business not slowing it down.

You will make the odd mistake, but seeking out people who have the potential to be “A Players” is much less of a risk than hiring “A Players” who will expect things their way and won’t lose any sleep when they opt out. Inevitably, they will have other offers and some of them might offer the chance to disrupt themselves again.

* https://whitneyjohnson.com/lean-in-surfing-the-s-curve-how-to-disrupt-yourself-and-why/