A colleague’s motto is: “Hire tough, manage easy.” The sentiment means that if you apply rigor and patience in hiring, you’re more likely to hire someone who needs less supervision over time.
Hiring tough means doing due diligence in the vetting process, including thorough reference checks both on and off their resume. It requires utilizing behavior- and scenario-based interview questions, rather than those that can be answered without examples. Most importantly, it requires making the difficult decision to fail a search when the right candidate did not emerge.
It’s so, so easy to settle for someone who would be “okay,” especially when the position is vacant and the workload is piling up. But if you don’t have time to do the search right, how will you find time to provide the intense supervision and course corrections the new hire will need to compensate for gaps?
There is no perfect candidate, and I’m not suggesting that you hold out for one. But the more thorough you are in the hiring process, the less of a supervision toll it will require for the new hire to meet your performance expectations. Invest the time up front, or invest it later.
