Anyone who runs a business knows that getting the right talent and the right team are the biggest factors that go into your future success. Getting the best hires make all the difference between operating at the peak of your company’s capacities and just doing okay. But unfortunately, almost everyone underestimates the time, energy and complexity needed to stay on top of the War for Talent out there. This means that a lot of companies either miss out entirely on great potential hires, or aren’t able to compete properly when they do catch them. Well: we’re committed to helping you get the right hires and at the right time. Here are some principles and takeaways we’ve come to believe in over the years

Hire for Capability, Train for Talent

A lot of companies mistake the ability to do one thing well with the ability to be a great employee or all-around rock star team member. But the fact of the matter is that usually, before getting to your company and learning your style, approach, and the inner workings of your company, most people won’t know that much about how to be really amazing inside your work culture. Work to identify people who have some excellent core competencies, but who are superior at learning and growing with your team. You’ll get stronger talent than you expected, and often from unexpected places. That’s why Kazi relies on our unique expectations scan, which can help identify these kinds of skills in a latent phase

Remember that Recruitment is just another numbers game

At the end of the day, all the techniques in the world won’t change the fact that hiring is, really, a numbers game. And in order to meet the right people, you will sometimes have to go through a lot of other people to get there. What’s important about this is to make sure you approach it with the right attitude, and not to get discouraged, distracted or dispirited.

Even companies like Google or Apple still have to look through dozens of candidates for any one post to find the right person. Also important is to make sure you define your objectives well enough that you can recognize the right candidate when he or she comes across your desk, even amid all the hundreds of other applicants.

Don’t be afraid to offer high compensation

Rockstar employees know their worth. They’ve often come from lots of other high-powered jobs, and know what the market offers. If you’re going to commit yourself to hiring the best talent, be prepared to shell out for it. This is a combination of setting high benchmarks on your job listings to attract the right people in the first place, and also being willing to contend with people who are often very good negotiators.

But remember, sometimes what’s most interesting or valuable to a particular candidate won’t just be more money, but could be more flexibility, or some other perks. Understanding their personality is key.

Remember your internal talent pool

The most reliable pool of talent you have is the one that already works for your company!. When you’re small, it can sometimes seem like you want to grow the company with outside people, to increase your headcount if your workload is increasing. But your existing team already knows each other and works together. You’ve already gone through talent and personality assessments with them – maybe with the Kazi questionnaire – and they have experience with your culture, your work, your clients! That’s a lot of stuff that you will have to get other employees up to speed on. Sometimes, of course, it’s not possible, especially if you need a special skill set, but it’s usually worth looking into promoting from within! Save time, save money, keep the team together.

Understand the deliverables for the position really well

Good talent knows the right questions to ask in a job interview. In fact, for the top candidates, it’s as much them interviewing you as you interviewing them. You’ll need to have really sharp answers to questions about the expectations, deliverables, and work products expected to come out of the position you’re talking about. How much work? How quickly? Delivered how? When you’re starting a small company, and working with a startup mindset, it can be common to just think about “winging it” a lot. And maybe that works, or was necessary, when it was only two or three of you. But you’re hiring with the big boys now, and you need to understand and communicate your job expectations properly if you want to compete.

Staying on top in the War for Talent is a complex and ongoing process. And at Kazi, we know you can’t manage it alone. That’s why we are here to help you navigate this quickly-changing Human Resources environment. If you have an existing HR challenge, or just want to hear about how Kazi can improve your hiring and retention processes, drop us a line today, and we’ll be happy to talk about it with you!