Josh TolanHiring is never easy. One wrong move and your company can end up with a bad hire that costs you thousands of dollars. In times of rapid growth, the chance of making the wrong choice grows exponentially.
Instead of hiring one new employee, you need to be able to hire dozens or even hundreds of them in a short period of time. And if you make mistakes, it can halt growth completely.
The first thing to understand is hiring for company growth is not the same as normal hiring. You can’t expect the same hiring tactics to work at scale. It’s important to recognize what traps hiring managers tend to fall into during rapid growth hiring so you can avoid them.
Here are three mistakes you can’t afford make when you’re hiring en masse:
1. Prolonging the hiring process
It’s always important to keep the hiring process moving along. However, when you’re hiring for rapid growth, you really need to pick up the pace. If you can’t fill new positions, the extra work falls to your current employees. And that can have a negative impact on morale.
To stay on track with the company expansion, you need to find, vet, and hire new employees as soon as possible. This means eliminating any steps of the interview process that are outdated.
For instance, phone interviews. Many companies use these as a way to initially screen candidates — especially when looking for cultural fit. But simple math shows that phone interviews don’t work on a larger scale.
Think about how long it takes you to schedule a phone interview. Even though email, it might take a day or two for you and the candidate to decide on a time. Then there’s the time it takes to actually conduct the phone interview. That’s a lot of time to spend on an initial candidate screening.
A better option is using one-way video interviews. With these screens, there’s no need for scheduling. Candidates record short responses to your questions whenever is convenient for them.
Once submitted, you and your team can easily review their answers. You can decide if an individual should move on to the next round in a matter of minutes. When hiring during company growth, this saves a lot of precious time.
Bonus tip – If you decide to stick with phone interviews, look into an interview scheduling tool that can help you automate the scheduling process.
2. Hiring only for current roles
As a company grows and expands, so do the roles of employees. You can hire someone tomorrow and in six months, need them to take on completely different responsibilities. If you don’t take this into consideration early on, you’ll end up right back in the mass hiring cycle.
Instead of hiring people for a rigid role, look for individuals with a wide range of potential. For instance, you might not need a marketing manager at the moment. But if you hire a sales rep with marketing experience, it will be easy for them to take on those responsibilities when the time comes.
Sit down with the leaders of the organization and draw out a plan for company growth and hiring. Set tentative dates for when you’ll need new types of roles filled. Then, decide how those responsibilities overlap or if an employee can grow into them. This will help you identify what you’ll need in the future so you can find it in your current talent pool.
3. Forgetting about culture
When we talk about company growth, we often focus on customer acquisitions and hitting sales goals. This leaves something very important by the wayside: company culture. When this happens, the culture can turn toxic right under leaders’ noses.
Keep culture at the forefront of your mind during rapid hiring. This ensures that new employees represent the right values.
During the interview process, ask about what drew the candidate to your company. Find out why they are excited about working for the growing organization. Do they believe in the mission? Can they see themselves developing a future with the company? Knowing the answers to these questions will ensure that as your workforce increases, everyone will still contribute to your thriving culture.
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Want more tips for hiring during company growth? Check out our webinar with Lever on hiring for growth.
