Setting A Hiring Pace

Why you should hire slowly and fire quickly

What does hiring for cultural fit look like? I’d argue that it starts with pace.

The most common piece of advice I’ve given people is, “hire slowly, fire quickly.” I think one of the top mistakes leaders make in staffing - and this is true regardless of what kind of business you run - is that people hire too quickly and fire too slowly. They’ll delay hiring a new person until it’s absolutely necessary to hire someone and fill the position. They’ll hire someone based on a friend’s quick recommendation, or they’ll find a resume on a job board that looks good on paper, which is easier than ever to do these days.

 

 

But after helping hundreds of organizations build great teams, I’m convinced now more than ever that you should hire slowly, hire around your company’s culture, and make sure you take more time than necessary to make the decision. Go slowly. Take your time.

And then, hire around culture.

My friend Dave Ramsey is an excellent example of this. He has more than six hundred employees. He’s the “money guy,” the “Don’t waste your money; don’t go into debt” guy. Having done a good amount of work helping him find talent, I can tell you - he goes slowly.

I’ve joked with him and told him it’s probably easier for me to place someone at the CIA than it is to place someone at his company. Dave told me the average candidate at Ramsey Solutions goes through fourteen to sixteen interview stages before being hired. Think about the time and the cost of the salaries involved in that many interviews. The hiring costs are astronomical. And this is from the guy who makes his living telling people how to spend wisely. But his company continues to win Best Places to Work awards. It keeps growing, and the staff turnover is very, very low.

I asked him, “Why do you do so many interviews?” His response was, “William, even a donkey can look like a thoroughbred for two interviews.”

After you get into the fourth, fifth, and sixth interviews, people start to show you who they are. Additionally, you, as a company, also begin to show your true self to the interviewee after more interviews.

On the other hand, once you’ve hired someone, it’s important you protect your culture, which means completing the difficult task of occasionally firing someone who isn’t a good fit for culture. They’re usually the person who is doing just enough to get their work done, but something’s still off. That’s usually a cultural problem. Firing is never easy, and it shouldn’t get easier. We’re human, and these people problems can be uncomfortable. But your culture is that important, and someone who isn’t a culture fit will inevitably drag your company down. Firing them quickly (even though the process might take time, and you should give them some time to improve) is, in the long run, the kindest thing for them and the best thing for you.

The level of employee doesn’t matter. The size of the company doesn’t matter either. If you’re serious about culture, you’ll protect it at all costs.

As Henry Cloud writes in his book Necessary Endings, “Your business and your life will change when you really, really get it that some people are not going to change, no matter what you do, and that still others have a vested interest in being disruptive.” When toxicity strikes, you need to be ready to have the hard conversations about ending things with an employee to protect your culture.

Henry Cloud uses the word toxic. It sounds like a strong word, but when someone isn’t fully part of the DNA of a culture, that person is an intruder to the company. Anything foreign in the human body that attacks cells is called cancer. While I hate to call anyone a cancer, if someone doesn’t fit and you’re working hard to protect your culture, that person is a cancer. Trying to be nice to people by keeping them around, whether it’s because you like them or perhaps because their numbers are so high, will only spread that cancer through the company. It’ll kill the culture. That act of “kindness” isn’t fair to the company or the culture. Frankly, it’s also not fair to the individual who needs to be let go.
 
When you’re an entrepreneur like me, you love to go fast, and you’re always looking ahead to the next new thing. I call it shiny object syndrome. If you are recruiting and working in sales, you’re naturally going to want to talk a person into coming to join your team. But the truth is, you need to slow down and take time. Make sure the person you’re looking at is the person you’re going to get. Strive to hire the right person the first time, every time. This might mean you have to do a lot of interviews before you make a decision. Is it worth it?

Ask yourself the question next - do you like to fire people? No one does—at least no normal person. You can avoid firing people by doing a better job of hiring. Take your time and hire slowly.

Author Bio

William Vanderbloemen is an entrepreneur, pastor, speaker, author, and CEO and Founder of Vanderbloemen Search Group. He is a regular contributor to several major publications including Forbes where he covers topics about having a strong faith and building a business, Fortune, and Outreach magazine. He has also been published through Fast Company, Entrepreneur, and Inc. Culture Wins is William’s third book following NEXT: Pastoral Succession That Works (2014) and SEARCH: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook (2016).