Making The Next Right Hire

This is the Unbreakable Business newsletter - created just for COOs and Operations Teams who want to build a company that won’t fall apart.

This is an important issue - I’ll be passing along the best strategy I’ve ever seen to make sure that you’re hiring the right person for the right role in your business. Period, full stop, the best I’ve ever seen.

Today, we’ll cover:

• The best book I’ve ever read on hiring

• Why re-using job descriptions is a horrible idea

• How to use your TEAM to help you figure out who to hire next

Let’s get after it!!

📖 The Best Book On Hiring, Period.

It’s called Hiring On Purpose by Max Hansen, founder of Y Scouts.

And if you hire people, you should buy it and read it cover to cover.

Max’s company is one of the best executive search firms in the game. He’s spoken at our SaaS Boardroom mastermind - what he shares in his book has helped shape the way that I hire people.

The strategy that I’m going to talk about in this newsletter comes from his book. We implemented it and it’s been such a game-changer for our talent process that I had to share it.

But you should really get it from him 😉 so hit the link and snag a copy. I promise it’s that good.

📣 Let’s Talk About Job Descriptions

Let’s close our eyes and imagine a scenario for a minute 💭

You’ve been working with an awesome project manager in your company for the past couple of years, and he just gave his two weeks’ notice. Damn.

A flurry of tasks suddenly appear based on this one, single email.

Time to create a transition document. Write up an offboarding plan. Examine all upcoming deadlines and reassign or renegotiate as needed.

Oh yeah…and post a new job for a project manager.

It’s been two years…but a project manager is still a project manager, right? How much could it have changed?

So you go grab the dusty job description that you used last time, change the date and maybe a word or two, and get to posting.

Mission Accomplished 😬 

👎️ Not So Fast, Slick…

If you feel seen right now after that story, it’s cool. Look, I’ve done it before. You’ve probably done it before, too.

We just grab the same job description, assume nothing has changed, and get after it.

But when you actually stop and think about it…isn’t that a little crazy to just grab the same job description and assume nothing has changed?

Would you REALLY say to the market and to the world that nothing has changed in your business in the past two years? That there’s been NO growth in the way that you manage projects and you need a carbon copy of who that person was two years ago?

That there’s no opportunity to do better?

Max taught me a better way…

🫵 It’s Not Just About You

Most of the time, job descriptions are written by someone on the people team or the person making the hire. Makes sense, right?

But the new hire isn’t going to be on an island alone with you. They will have peers…other people depending on them…maybe even direct reports of their own.

Their point of view MATTERS. I promise they’re going to see around a corner you haven’t considered. The only way to have a 360° view is to include the future hire’s team.

Why is this important? Glad you asked:

Every hire is a chance to increase the talent density of your company.

Don’t miss the chance to hire the best possible person for the TEAM. When you empower your team to participate in important decisions like this, the end result will benefit the company infinitely better than if you take it on alone.

Does this feel like work? GOOD. Because making the wrong hire is incredibly expensive.

It wastes time. It sets you back by months (in the best case scenario)…or years (in the worst case).

The things worth doing are worth doing right, so don’t be lazy and re-use a job description without thinking it through.

If you’re thinking, “okay, got it. I’ll update the job description and send it to the team for feedback…” 

I’m here to tell you there’s another level to this game ⬇️

✍️ How Do You Do This Right?

The tool that Max recommends is called a Role Vision Survey.

It’s exactly what it sounds like - a survey that helps you gather and assess feedback from the people on your team who will be affected by the hire.

Ideally, it gets completed by 3 to 6 people - supervisors, peers, and reports - and it should be completed individually.

Max says “Avoid groupthink at all costs” - which is honestly great advice in general, not just for this survey 😂

“But Matt…I already know what skills I need for this position…”

Here’s the thing: the Role Vision Survey doesn’t focus on skills.

Instead, it focuses on critical outcomes for the role:

• What do we need to achieve?

• How will we measure when we’ve achieved it?

• How long do we think it should take?

• How would we prove that a candidate can achieve it based on their prior experience?

You can then take what you learn from all of these inputs and use them to craft a job description that is future-focused, and pointing towards outcomes instead of skills.

When you do that, not only will your team feel a sense of ownership over who you hire, but you’ll much more likely to hire the right person in the first place.

Here’s an example Role Vision Survey that you can snag:

I can tell you from personal experience that using a role vision survey will help you find blind spots you didn’t even know you had. It’s an incredible tool to make sure that you’re making the RIGHT next hire…not just the next warm body in the chair with yesterday’s skill set.

So if you’re hiring people…grab this process and install it in your business. Today.

Oh yeah…and in case I didn’t say it enough, buy Max’s book if you really want to level up your game.

✌️ MV

📽️ This Week On The SaaS Academy Pod

JP and I had a great conversation about the role of trust in an organization, how we’re leaning into having our ideas challenged, and a fun leadership principle we call A.P.I. (it’s not what you think):