Hiring friends and family – what could go wrong?
Corporate recruiting can feel bloated, overly formal, and time-consuming. No small business owner has the bandwidth (or desire) to run 5 rounds of interviews plus a skills test.
On the flip side, here are some of the more informal hiring practices I’ve heard from small business owners:
“I was pressured into hiring my cousin because he really needed the job.”
“I hired a close friend, and we worked well together, so naturally I hired another friend next time we needed someone.”
“I didn’t have time to look at a bunch of random resumes, and I knew my sister’s friend was looking for a job.”
Unsurprisingly, none of these situations ended well. Have you ever kept someone on the team for way too long because you didn’t want to deal with the fallout from letting them go?
A Shortcut to the Wrong Place
Hiring someone you know feels easier and safer than going through a recruitment process. It’s faster. You get to skip the whole “figure out what we need, and how to find it” step. And you might feel good giving someone an opportunity they might not otherwise get.
But when you skip the objective recruitment process, you short-circuit the work that goes into making a smart hiring decision.
And when you hire a friend or family member who isn’t the best fit for the role that’s open, you’ll end up paying for it in all sorts of ways:
You pay their salary, plus related taxes and benefits, for inconsistent results.
You pay for extra training time, where someone else might pick up the role faster.
You pay for any costly mistakes they make along the way (like lost clients or damaged relationships).
In the long term, you pay for low morale, decreased retention, and less available time and attention to develop the rest of your team.
You pay the opportunity cost of not hiring someone who could deliver real results.
Then they leave or get fired, and you pay to hire all over again.
Commit to the Search
Even when you have someone from your personal network that you think might be a great fit, it’s still worth going through the search process. Yes, even when you’re busy. (Especially when you’re busy, if it means you can find someone who will get up to speed faster!)
Follow this pre-hire checklist:
Identify the right skills and characteristics for this role, for your company. The more clarity you can get about what outcomes this new hire will be responsible for and how they’ll integrate with your culture, the easier the search becomes.
Make sure you have internal alignment. Is everyone one the same page?
Take the time to write a job description. What are the 3-5 buckets of tasks this person will be responsible for, and how will you measure their success?
Treat your job ad like a marketing document – attract your ideal candidate using the same tools you use to find your best clients.
Use smart interview questions to measure how all your candidates measure up.
If you still have doubts about who to hire, keep looking.
Companies that take the time to do the pre-hire work go on to hire their first-choice candidate 24% more often than the ones that don’t. In other words, the more clarity you get on who you are as a company and who you want to hire, the better the chances you’ll get the people you really want.
This Week’s Takeaway
Hiring well isn’t about who you know and what they can offer. It’s about what your business needs next. Your team is one of the biggest investments you’ll make in your business life; getting it right matters.
If you know you need to hire, but you’re not sure exactly what steps to follow or how to find the time, GrowthCLUB is a perfect forum to create your recruiting plan. You’ll even get input and ideas from other local business owners (and me!).
Hope to see you in Mississauga on June 20.
Build a Business That Works For You
(Not Just Because of You)
If you’re tired of running in circles, overwhelmed by all the things you “should” be doing, or if you’re just ready to bring more focus and purpose into your business – GrowthCLUB is the place for you!
Join me in Mississauga to create your own personal roadmap for success.
Early Bird pricing ends this week!
Radical Candor: By Kim Scott
If you’re in a leadership role, or even just trying to be a better teammate, Radical Candor offers a straightforward, experience-based approach to navigating the tough parts of management. It’s important to be honest at work without burning bridges, and this book is all about caring personally while challenging directly.
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