Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Over the years I have consistently been amazed at a particular organizational dynamic that emerges within nonprofits, and how that dynamic drives–and in some cases determines–hiring decisions.  That dynamic is urgency.  “Let’s get someone to fill the position asap!”  Just get a body in there.  Interestingly, urgency in these situations often breeds passivity.  Far too often leaders and managers are on autopilot in the way they think about hiring.  Write up a job ad, post it on the website and a few other places and let’s see who applies.  In most cases, a new hire should be here in 2-3 months if we get a decent stack of resumes’.  What?!!

How about trying this way instead:  Jim Collins’ (author of Good to Great) principle of “First who, then what.”  Collins points out that the CEOs of top companies will hire quality people even at times when they don’t have an already carved out spot for them.  These leaders discovered long ago that their success rises and falls on the quality of their people, NOT an organizational chart that results from the latest and greatest strategic plan.  Obviously organizations must post positions that need to be filled, but when they do, why not be proactive in hiring process?  Don’t just sit back and “see who comes our way,” get on the phone, email, and start working the networks to find out who can be persuaded to consider the position. 

Having done a bit of hiring myself, and having conducted job searches both ways, I much prefer the latter strategy.  The quality of the applicant pool is higher, and they are better workers from the word “go.”  Our organization is experiencing this right now.  We just hired two new student life staff members, and although I had little to do in actually finding them, there is no question that we found them as a result of team members being proactive in the search process.  We got the right two folks for sure.