Stop recycling old job descriptions and do this instead! (Hiring High Performers Part 2 of 6)

In Part 2 of our Hiring High Performers Series, we look at what hiring managers can do in order to start building a hiring process that attracts the best candidates.

To hire the best, it’s not enough to take an old job description and post it online, hoping the right candidate will see it. You can’t rely on what role description worked in the past, or what works for your competitors! 

How can you design a role that will attract the right candidate? By making sure all job requirements relate to both your short and long term needs. To do this, let’s first take a holistic look at your business context. 

STEP 1: Think about your organization’s overall business goals, then how this role will support these goals.

Focus on your organization's current needs and context:

• What are key goals for your team’s upcoming season?

• What should the candidate achieve in their first 90 days on the job in order for your team to succeed with achieving their goals?

• What about in the first year?

By emphasizing the desired outcomes of a successful hire instead of just what you need them to do day to day, it is possible to distinguish between an exceptional candidate and a candidate who could sufficiently do the job. This shift in focus from short-term needs to long-term goals provides a more holistic perspective on the role. 

This will also allow you to form a convincing pitch to candidates to use during the interviews. The best candidates want to hear about the importance of their role in the context of the big picture. 

STEP 2: Get specific on seniority

Be prepared to define what a seniority level means in your current context, as this is something that differs from team to team. If you’re working with a recruiter, sharing specifics will allow them to filter candidates more meaningfully by evaluating if they’ve worked on projects with the right scope, complexity, and level of independence (instead of just evaluating them on their job title). 

STEP 3: Think about your top performers 

• Who are they?

• What makes them top performers?

• Which traits do they have which make them successful at their job in the specific context of your club?

This quick exercise can help you figure out what defines success in your particular organization, and what traits define the culture at your organization. 

Once you have all this figured out, it’s time to formulate your role criteria. See how to do it in our next blog post.

This post is part of an ongoing series, Hiring High Performers. To read previous posts, check out the Resources section on our website!