The Consolation Hire

Things that require discipline. Daily exercise, completing a degree or credential, preparing for an exam, overcoming the temptation to eat a bowl of ice cream. Waiting for the right candidate to come along rather than settling for the wrong one.

The board of directors meeting was going along well enough when we reached an agenda item called Personnel. I offered an update on our search for an operations leader, explaining to the board that we had been aggressively recruiting but after several months had still not landed on the right candidate. As I continued, one of our more outspoken board members interrupted my update. “I’m tired of talking about this.”

While his candor caught me off guard it was hard to disagree that the search had drug on too long and we were losing valuable time in not filling the position. Other members nodded their heads in agreement and chimed in with like sentiments. The message to me as their CEO was clear, get this position filled before our next meeting.

Over the next 30 days the search firm turned up several more candidates and though I conducted interview after interview they still hadn’t identified a candidate that I thought had the right skills, abilities, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to fill the role. The clock was ticking toward our next board meeting and I didn’t have the right person.

What should I have done? I should have contacted each board member in advance of the meeting, explained to them that despite our efforts we still hadn’t landed on the right person for the role, took the hit for not meeting their expectation and explained that avoiding the consequences of making the wrong hire was far more important than filling the position immediately.

What did I actually do? I picked the best candidate of the group I had interviewed, even though I had strong doubts about their ability to excel in the position, made an offer that was accepted and reported to our board that we had our person. The high point of that decision was the board meeting where I shared the news. Things went downhill from there. I eventually had to replace the person I had hired with the right candidate but only after losing precious time trying to help the first candidate succeed in a role I doubted they could perform in the first place.

Regrettably, that’s not the only time I settled for a substandard candidate for an open position for a lack of impressive candidates. It never ended well, but I think I have finally learned my lesson. Never, ever compromise and hire a person unless you’re confident they will succeed in the role. There are several reasons.

First, as suggested, filling a position with the wrong candidate is costly. It’s costly because we run the risk of paying a person who doesn’t add value to our organization. It’s costly because we lose time. We can never recoup the months or years that pass while an individual struggles in their role and we end up starting over. It’s costly because we miss out on the improvements that could have been made and the value that could have been added during the time we lost.

Second, it’s not fair to our high-performing team members to be burdened by an underperforming teammate. Not only do we as the business leader recognize the underperformance, so too does the rest of the team.  

Third, we lose credibility with our team if we are perceived to have compromised our standards in letting an underperformer onto the team.

Fourth, it’s really not fair to the candidate we compromised on. Putting someone in a position for which they are not qualified is setting them up for failure. That’s unethical.

Rather than settling, find ways to be even more aggressive in recruiting.  Consider promoting your open positions on social media, asking your team members to recommend their friends and family members, hiring an outside recruiter and reaching out to your entire professional network with an email marketing the position and getting more creative with flextime, schedules and remote work. Today’s interviews are sales presentations. Are you convincing the candidate that yours is a great place to work? Do you show them a PowerPoint or video explaining your company and its culture to set your organization apart from others the candidate is considering? Even consider paying more than your perception of market compensation for the right candidate before settling for the wrong one.

I learned the hard way to never, ever settle for the wrong team member.  Always, always have the discipline to wait for the right candidate and have a strategy to aggressively seek them out.