👩🏻💼 Hire fast, Fire slow
On the topic of Leadership, why it might be time to rethink our attitude to hiring
I remember sitting in a room full of aspiring tech professionals, listening to a London Business School alum tell the story of the company. He is a founder of a successful tech company, and having little experience in this tech world at the time, we listened diligently, took notes, and tried to sound smart when asking questions. This was the first time I heard the words of advice “hire slow, fire fast.” It struck me as a mentality that assumes the worst of people! And sitting in a room with some really bright and driven people, that just felt inaccurate.
I understand where this mentality comes from - a small company can be derailed by misplaced employees, and the cost to the founders and their investors can be high. I get it. And if you hire someone who is “wrong” for the role, then you have to let them go (uncomfortable) and search again (time waste and money waste).
Having sat on both sides of the hiring table, I can say that the ultimate responsibility for the hire is on the company, and more specifically, on me as a leader.
Here is why: If I hire someone, and they are “not working out” and leave (voluntarily or otherwise) within 3-6 months, typically one, or more, of three things is true:
I didn’t know what I want
I didn’t know how to test for what I want
I misrepresented what the role entails (unknowingly or otherwise)
Let’s unpack this:
don’t know what I want: before I even begin to think to hire, I must know what I want done. Then I need to have fundamental understanding of what certain functions actually do, beyond the semantics and my assumptions. Do I need a generalist marketer, a brand marketer, a product marketer, or a performance marketer? Do I need a full cycle AE, or an SDR? It happens uncomfortably often that companies with live roles have no clue (I know, I have spoken to a ton of those unfortunately) what they want. And this manifests in either a laundry list of “skills” and “requirements”, which are the full spectrum of junior to senior responsibility, or they say some words but they don’t know what these words mean. Either way, we’d end up in trouble.
don’t know how to test for what I want: this becomes more obvious the more the senior position it is. I am very diligent about the way I test for skills because the test needs to be representative of the level of the role. Too often I have seen cookie cutter junior position testing, sprinkled on top with some extras, for senior hires. Testing Finance or Commercial C-levels by having them create a P&L from scratch? Or a financial model? Or a detailed data analysis interview? I will call it out: that’s lazy. If I did this, a prospective candidate would know I have no clue what the role entails, and that I am covering all bases to cover my … self. When the executive role doesn’t require for anything to be made from scratch, the executive would be working across all of these resources, and has to triangulate what is important and why, having them do things from scratch won’t tell you much about those capabilities. What is more accurate and predictive of success, if giving them a bunch of info and seeing how they digest and how they make decisions.
misrepresent the role: I am always honest about the level of strategic vs operational work, exposure to senior leadership, career progress etc. Imagine a candidate reads a Director or VP level title, and then ensues a barrage of analyst level responsibilities. Or the responsibilities sound right but once they start the “things that need to be done before they do their real work” are akin to a junior role. Or they are promised visibility and yet are excluded from the MBR. Don’t be the company that says “it is a start up.. 🤷🏾.” The last thing you want is to hire someone with great capacity to operate in uncertainty and bring critical thinking to the table, and then shove them into a box. It is demotivational and, I find, disrespectful.
I don’t think people walk into a new role and say, “Hey, let me screw it up and leave in a few months.” I have not seen a candidates grossly misrepresent what they can do in an interview. They might overstate their contribution in a project, but that should be fleshed out in a couple of targeted questions (see, it is on me to ask the questions!). Even if they assume they can do something better than they can, they are usually willing and capable of learning. If they have the right attitude, with decent mentorship and coaching, people might surprise you how good they can be. Sometimes seeing what “good looks like” is enough to push them to new boundaries.
When I was working in marketing in Paris, I had to choose between two candidates for a junior strategy role. One had great educational background, and already some work experience. This person knew what the job is about, and was happy to do the 9-5pm diligently. The second person also had great educational background, but no direct experience in the field. This person was curious, open to learn, and questioned little things we did that we took for granted. I hired one of them, and this person stayed with the company for 7+ years, progressing nicely through the ranks. Who do you think I hired?
Assuming good intentions, maybe it is best to flip the “Hire slow, Fire fast” mantra on its head. Maybe if we flipped it and hired fast, but fired slowly, hiring will be easier and cheaper; we get to see how people work in action, in the now, with this team; and can discover talents we weren’t looking for or knew we appreciated. And the candidate will get to see what is actually needed in a role, push themselves to new frontiers, and grow the company and themselves faster.
Hire fast, Fire slow. Here is what it means (and it is a rolling definition which I want to continue to evolve):
Hire fast:
there is no “perfect” candidate. Embrace it and give people a chance. Even if they didn’t do that exact job before, they actually might be able to do the job in due time.
if it is a right candidate, you will know fairly fast. Hire for attitude, work ethic, and team work - but remember people are in a different stage of their life and these manifest differently.
respect the candidate’s time and test for what they will be doing (especially for senior hires). Don’t say something will take 1h when we all know it takes 4h. 😉
save your time and limit the cycle to a few weeks max.
Fire slow:
respect your team member - get to know them, what motivates them, how they want to progress, what they want to learn and perfect.
grow them from Day 1 - commit to growth from the beginning and think of it as a long term journey through the company.
if they are really not working out, attempt to understand why (are there any personal reasons?); then you could move them to a different role.
you have a responsibility towards your team member - if they are not working out even after you tried the above, let them go with grace and dignity.
Genuine mistakes happen. Both parties should be allowed test and learn - about the work, the company, and each other. But in Hire Fast, Fire Slow, the learning goes both ways, respects the specific company, team, and problem, and it is respectful of both parties.
At the end of the day, even if you end up parting ways, if you Hire Fast and Fire Slow, you will have learned about what you actually need in a specific role, you might create an ally for a later stage, and your employer brand with gain a few extra stars. ⭐️