Four Things To Consider When Hiring From an Established Competitor

TeamBuilder Search, a professional staffing, team building and recruiting agency, delivers tips, advice and guidance in digital marketing careers, digital transformation careers and emerging tech careers.

As an emerging company, it can be tempting to hire someone from a mature, established competitor or to recruit someone with a big title from a big company. However, recruits from mature, slow moving, well-established enterprises often do not survive at faster, more agile, more adaptable emerging technology companies. As a recruiting firm, we consistently observe this failure. It is not that this type of hiring decision always fails, it just fails very often. So tread very carefully when going down this road.

If you follow our blog, you may be familiar with our Four P’s of Cultural Fit. (If not, then please sign up for our updates!) In this post, let’s gaze through the lens of the Four P’s, and let’s examine what it looks like to hire someone from a mature company and place them into an emerging technology business. These are four biggies that you must determine before hiring someone in this situation.

1. Pace
   Established companies with mature management infrastructure usually do not move as agile or as fast as emerging companies. Also, in large organizations, significant support functions enable executives to be productive without getting bogged down in the day to day minutia. Conversely, in emerging companies, executives typically do not enjoy the same level of support. They often have to “support” themselves, figuring out how to get the minutia done on their own. When you are hiring from an established competitor or large organization, you must determine if the candidate can move at an urgent pace, with minimal support, and if he/she can install that pace into his/her organization.

2. Process of decision making
   Established organizations are often task focused. They have a fairly clear roadmap of how they will get from point “A” to point “B,” and they need employees who can maintain the status quo regarding implementation of standardized processes. Emerging companies need people who are outcome focused and people who can innovate and improvise in achieving those outcomes. These team members are not just flying the plane, they are building the plane while they are flying it! If you do hire from an established company, determine if the candidate can build, innovate, and improvise while moving the company forward.

3. Philosophy of decision making
   Established companies have somewhat of a luxury in being able to hold on to idealism. Emerging companies don’t really have that luxury. They must be pragmatic and adaptable. There’s an old saying that when the map and the landscape disagree, then go with the landscape. Emerging companies need people who can adapt when the map isn’t working—they read the actual landscape of things and continue to forge ahead. These are leaders who make battlefield decisions, learn adeptly, and push forward toward the desired outcomes. An agile company simply must be led by agile people. So again, when hiring from an established company, clearly determine if the candidate can lead their teams in an adaptable, agile, and pragmatic manner.

4. Play
   Team bonding—by this we mean team members connecting on a relational level—is more important in emerging teams than in established organizations. Team bonding is the building block for team building. Fast-moving agile teams have a heightened need for trust, respect, and healthy collaboration. When you’re making battlefield decisions, the team has to be firmly rooted in these qualities. On the flip side, established companies can get away with a lack of team bonding—they can afford to create a more “assembly line” approach to business. Therefore, when hiring from an established company you should determine if team bonding and team building are demonstrated core values of the candidate you are considering.

Here’s a quick summary. If you are hiring from an established/mature company, look for evidence that your candidate:

• Can move fast with minimal support and install that pace into their team
• Improvise and innovate while moving the company forward
• Is an adaptable, agile and pragmatic decision maker
• Values the relational aspects of team building

If you would like to go deeper in understanding The Four P’s, or would like help on your next key hire, please call or email us!

 

Mark Whitman is the founder and CEO of TeamBuilder Search, a dynamic recruiting firm that specializes in digital marketing, digital transformation, and emerging technology. He is an energetic and fearless adventurer who loves working with other innovative, entrepreneurial-minded professionals. He also happens to be a Sport Jujitsu national champion who literally broke his face in competing for the gold medal in the world championship. To discuss your toughest hiring challenges with Mark, contact him here.

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn.