The general theme of our interactions throughout the entire conference when speaking with hiring managers and business operators was centered around how to find good talent.
While 95% of the companies at ISTE were interacting with their customer base (and the hustle was real!), our goal at The Renaissance Network was to get a consensus on the barriers that are stopping businesses from getting to the next level. The Education industry is filled with some of the smartest and most strategically-skilled individuals and even these experts understood that finding great people has been difficult despite their efforts.
I want to address and simplify the options of tactically finding great people. If the goal is to grow your company and we know that finding great people for your team is a critical component in this equation, what options do we have? Let’s simplistically reverse engineer this. You can:
- Deploy your own resources, time, money, brain-power, etc. to hunt, source, vet, qualify, sell, negotiate, and close the best people.
- Tap into your own network of former colleagues and friends who match the position profile and vet, qualify, sell, negotiate, and close.
- Engage with a professional search group.
Each of these options has their pros and cons. The main components to acting on any of these options can be boiled down to: Speed (time of the hire) and Accuracy (quality of the candidates). Speed is predicated on when the candidate will make an impact on your team. Accuracy is predicated on your own internal qualifying process and the volume of candidates your business can produce during a search project.
If finding quality candidates is difficult, as expressed by a vast number of companies at ISTE, auditing option 1 in your business’s hiring structure against your speed vs. accuracy goals can be a great first step. Reverse engineer your goal and see if your internal process is matching your standards. The answer might be yes. But, if you’re among the majority of the conversations I had, an audit might be worth your while.
Like anything in life, if you want to see some real change, you have to give it real thought and then execute. The same principle applies when breaking your “growth barrier” and getting the best talent on your team.
