What’s a quality hire these days?
One of my colleagues brought up the concept of quality of hire in our team meeting the other day. We were discussing which recruiting KPIs to focus on and how do we ensure we’re moving the needle when it comes to hiring. I squirmed a bit because that’s a tough metric to measure yet one of the most valuable to track. My immediate response was to track turnover rate as a way to evaluate this. My colleague pushed back and said is there another way to measure this earlier on in the recruiting process, rather than waiting a year to see who sticks around. It got me thinking about what a quality hire means these days…
Could previous experience, companies, and education be good indicators? Some will argue yes. I say — they can be good indicators, but this does not define the quality of the hire. Then, what does it come down to? What differentiates a quality hire from the rest?
To me, quality of hire means what value is this person bringing to the company. And fundamentally, it comes down to hiring for potential.
I am a prime example of someone who didn’t go to an Ivy League school or start my career in tech. I worked for a small company that sold medical alert systems. I was fortunate to wear many different hats there, but I knew I wanted to ultimately be at a saas company. Oh, the dream of working in the heart of San Francisco. So I started to shop around.
Interview after interview, I was getting rejected left and right — hearing “you’re too green” a bit too often. It was probably just another way to say I lacked previous tech experience, didn’t work for a brand name company, or didn’t go to a top 10 school.
Well one chilly summer day, I was sitting at Panera waiting for the train to come after wrapping up an interview with Intercom for a recruiting coordinator position. I was heading back to the South Bay because I was living with my parents at that time (thanks parents for allowing me back home post college!). I was about to take a bite into my sandwich when I got a call from the recruiter. “Here comes another no,” I told myself.
I was wrong. They extended an offer, and I was utterly shocked. What?! Are you sure… me?! Images of me working in San Francisco and going to Giants games were all rushing through my mind.
Intercom took a chance on me. They gave me a foot in the door.
After the shock started to wear off, I asked why they gave me the offer. They said my potential and hunger to learn was evident. And that fired me up.
I rolled my sleeves up ready to get my hands dirty, supported by my manager(s), and climbed my way up the ladder, wanting to prove to all the companies that rejected me that I deserved to be here. That’s the differentiating factor — the drive to succeed, the hunger to grow, the willingness to learn.
When I received an InMail from Ronan (co-founder and CEO of Inscribe) asking if I was interested to lead their people function, I was shocked — me?! You want me? And here I am again, fired up to grow and push myself because I’m grateful for my managers to take a chance on me.
When it comes to hiring, I will always challenge hiring managers to focus on potential. Sure, map out what the baseline skills are, but really think about what this person can bring to the table and where you can lean in to coach and develop. The gems of a company are those that have high potential even though their performance is not quite there yet. They are the diamonds in the rough that just need to be polished to become a star. Those are the folks you want to invest in and hire.
That’s quality of hire.
