By Mike Gruley
What would you say if I told you that I wanted to hire someone for my company who lacked drive, vision and purpose? What if I told you that my dream applicant was somebody just working for the weekends? Counting the days until his next paycheck? Counting the years until his retirement in Florida with a La-Z-Boy, the ESPN Channel, and nowhere to be?
My guess is that you’d politely point me to the nearest psychiatrist and recommend I ask for a head examination. Whether you’re hiring for the bottom rung or the C-Suite, most organizations recognize that they will benefit significantly from hiring someone with a passion for their job and for the business. When employees share a vision for the company and feel as if they’re part of something bigger, they’ll go the extra mile to achieve excellence. This just won’t happen when you have a team of people pushing their pencils around until the clock strikes 5:00 and they’ve achieved the bare minimum.
Seems like common sense, right? However, the truth is that many job postings miss the mark on easy ways to attract the right people and weed out the wrong ones. Creating effective job postings is much easier for companies who use the Entrepreneurial Operating System™, for reasons that I’ll explain below, but non-EOS® companies can benefit equally from these three foolproof ways to recruit people who share your values and vision.
- Begin at the Beginning. The recruitment process begins even before the initial application for an open position. From the first moment a potential applicant reads your job post or ad, they should be able to clearly understand not only the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, but how they contribute to your company’s greater vision, focus, and core values. Whether you’re at a job fair or placing a newspaper ad, there is no better time to establish who you are than at the very first moment of contact. You’re trying to attract the right people to the company before you’ve even exchanged a word with them: Don’t wait until the interview.
- Less is More. Keep your messaging simple. What’s your vision? What are your values? What’s your company culture like? You can do this in five words. Companies using EOS will go through the process of articulating their core values (“We value family, we value problem-solving, we value quiet honesty,” etc. etc.) and the very top of a new job posting is a great place to use them. A potential applicant should be able to see who you are and what you believe within ten seconds.
- Present a Purposeful Vision. Then, where do you want to go? Even if you’re hiring someone to sharpen pencils, that pencil-sharpener’s job description needs to convey a clear sense of how the position will contribute to the greater purpose, cause, or passion of the company. Taking the time to explain this will help applicants feel as if they’re dealing with people who’ve put in the time and effort to clarify a purposeful vision, and that resonates. Many companies don’t do this. Often, it’s because they haven’t even figured out their own vision yet! This is where EOS comes in to help you create the language of consistency and forward motion. When someone finishes reading your job post, you want them to think, “I’m going to be part of something greater than my individual job, I’ll be doing it with people who feel the same way I do, and my individual talents will help us all to get there.” Even if you aren’t paying the most or providing the coolest perks, people will move mountains to be part of something greater.
Here’s the added benefit of all this investment into writing a really good job description: Stating your core values and future vision upfront will weed out anybody who isn’t on board with who you are. It’s like automatic vetting that requires no labor from you. At the end of the day, there are few things that are more expensive than hiring someone who isn’t the right fit (*doesn’t mean that they are not a great/cool/funny person, just that they are not the right fit for you). It’s expensive, there’s liability, and all parties involved will go through a lot of pain. By painting a clear picture of your company and how you operate from the very beginning, you’ll save yourself (and future applicants!) plenty of stress and heartache.
If you’d like to touch base about your own experiences with recruiting the right people, reach out any time. I am always happy to share with you how EOS can make your recruitment process easier and more effective.