Are you a COO? Guess what? The old adage of, ‘hire for attitude, train for skill’ doesn’t work anymore.
As COO, we still sometimes fail to understand that a good attitude can’t overcome a lack of skills, and when you’re growing at 100% revenue growth a year, you need the people that will get the job done right away.
What should you do?
The COO Alliance is a place where COOs of high-growth companies come together to learn from each other, and one of the things they learn is how to attract those who have proven skills and a personality to match.
Brad and Geoff Smart wrote an awesome book called Topgrading. It’s one of the best systems for interviewing candidates and determining why you should bring someone into your organization. Topgrading recommends ‘leaning out’ two years into the future with every prospective candidate and determining if they have what it takes to achieve what you hired them to do at the end of those two years. Once you’ve started this ‘scorecard’ for the role, construct your job description around the milestones your candidate needs to have achieved after two years.
Another thing that you need to do is make sure that you have a tight job description. This is paramount, because only then can you interview against it to make sure that candidates have what it takes.
If you swear, swear in the interview – if they candidate is not a fit for the real you, working together will be hard. And remember that trust is #1. If you do not trust this person, they are not the right person for the job, no matter what their job history and accomplishments are.
This topic, and many more, have been covered in past COO Alliance events! Come a join your tribe – test drive our next COO Alliance event. Click here to apply!
There is also a lot of grea information about hiring in Double Double so be sure to grab a copy.
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