Out of the Box

Finding the Right People

By Menachem Lubinsky on June 29 2007

It is a question that I hear frequently: “How do I hire the right people?” In my case, the query relates to marketing, but it could very well apply to other areas of business as well.

David and Sam, two partners in a business distributing dinnerware to hotels, caterers and the like, decided to hire a marketing director to develop new business and to coordinate their existing marketing activities, which largely included two major mailings a year and exhibiting at two trade shows. While business was generally good, they had little growth over the past three years. They expected this new hire to generate his own leads and to work on a salary plus commission.

They began their efforts by advertising in one of the city’s major newspapers and posting the job on-line. The result was a pile of 115 resumes. Neither David nor Sam seemed prepared for the response and even worse could not find the time to go through the resumes for about 2-3 weeks. By the time Sam took the time, it took him a full day on a Sunday, ending up with about 15 “that sounded interesting.” When he called the first group of 5, he found that two “were no longer interested.” Both had found other opportunities. In the end, Sam interviewed 7 candidates and only one seemed to be a possibility but he was not prepared to pay the salary and commissions that the candidate demanded.

The partners next reached out to an executive search firm that was recommended by a friend “who had a good experience with them.” They were shocked at the fees, including a substantial amount that the firm wanted up front. And so it went for many months, and eight months later the job still went unfilled. Here and there they received a good lead from a friend or a business associate, but none of those leads panned out either.

It was about then that Sam decided to change course. Instead of looking for the experienced sales veteran, he would search for a young person with some experience in sales and marketing. He would offer a full salary and a commission incentive package. He recalled that a few of the people he originally interviewed fit that description, but he dismissed them out of hand as being too young and too inexperienced. Now he was prepared to take a chance on “potential,” as he called it. It turned out that a friend in the industry knew a good candidate who fit that description and after some deliberation the two partners finally had their marketing person.

Now almost a year later, the “new hire” was running their booth at a large trade show, redesigned their direct mail program, helped the company launch many new designs and was developing relationships with many new potential customers.

There are several lessons here, some obvious and others not so clear. First, when going the classified advertising route, someone has to take charge of the screening and interview process in a timely fashion, lest the entire effort turn out to be a waste. Second, it is important to have realistic expectations. A seasoned and well traveled marketing person will not work on a small salary and commissions. They simply can command much more in today’s market.

A third lesson was that the two stopped micro-managing the marketing function and empowered their person to be innovative and creative, albeit within their budgetary guidelines. Many people respond well to this brand of management.

Finding the right marketing person can be a daunting task. Some companies tend to look over their shoulder at other companies and eventually find their person by plucking a good person from another company. Is it ethical? Usually, the person they hire was looking to move to another opportunity anyway and it might as well be them.

Often people like David and Sam turn over the screening and recruitment process to either a responsible junior person in their company or to an outside consultant. The latter has the advantage of being removed from the day to day operations of the company, might be able to be more objective in the screening and recruitment process, and should devote the time that the partners could not.

Perhaps the most important aspect of hiring is to come up with a job description that is realistic, doable, and has built-in evaluation criteria. I have seen job descriptions that are totally out of sync with the real job or have expectations that are well beyond the realm of possibility. When I asked one businessman with a lengthy and rather complicated job description whether he really expected his potential candidate to do all that, he answered that “he would be happy with half.” Really? So why not set realistic goals and expectations from the beginning. Setting up an employee for failure is one way to waste a lot of time and money.

A better way to proceed is to take a more gradual approach, outlining some initial goals and then verbally discussing with the candidate the possibilities for advancement and growth. Giving the employee an initial benchmark that is doable will only serve as an encouragement to move to the next level.

The bottom line is that there is no magical formula for finding the “right” people. It requires a combination of networking, advertising, designating a person to do the screening and interviewing, and having that sixth sense of a person that would simply fit into your company. Good luck!

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.