SME hiring :Culture Fit more than Qualifications, Skills &Experience
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009Author : Achyut Menon
Hiring for SME’s is significantly different from hiring for larger organizations!
Large companies can attract the best people. Or at least those who work with big companies, or alumni of premier institutes, even outbidding those working with their competition. In my experience of hiring for SMEs, I have often found it doesn’t make too much sense to adopt the same hiring process!
Here are a few pointers one can debate on:
Maintenance role vs. Developmental role:
It is very essential to be practical about the stage of the market we are in. What is the life stage of the company? Is it a growing market? Stagnant? Or even dwindling? Are we in an industry where the technological obsolescence is high? Competitive services and products are barraging us? Accordingly the temperament of the person we need to hire must be different.
A ‘developmental ‘person is one who can design systems in place. Work under uncertain conditions, with inadequate resources and handle ambiguity.
A ‘maintenance’ person is one who can adhere to systems, put things in order, be systematic.
Imagine putting a square peg in a round hole??
Loyalty vs Capability
SME have a very small bandwidth of hiring. Hence the margin of error has to be ‘close to zero’!!
A person who needs a job- is more likely to stretch and perform to retain his place-than the ‘polished and sauve’ talker who can perhaps walk into just any other job in the town!!
Hiring ‘inside out’ or looking for complementary skills
Typically, we already have a team in place-hired at different points of time for different reasons. While we are focused on attracting the best, it is prudent to retain those already aboard!
With the exception of folks in the “R&D” department, almost all the roles need persons with excellent ‘people skills’-or those who can collaborate with others. Since we cannot change (drastically) the attitude of the existing employees, it is very essential to see if the ‘new hire’ can get along with the existing team. So, spending time to understand the ‘attitude’, and to get the right personalities onboard is more critical–
That way the incremental time to impart knowledge and skills would soon become insignificant compared to the rewards of the collaborative effort!
Happy hunting!!
About Achyut Menon
Achyut Menon is Founder, CEO of Options Executive Search Pvt Ltd, specialising in hiring “returning Indians’ for senior management positions in India.