Hire with an Eye for Potential, not Experience

Aug 2011 Joe Plocharczyk, Pine Lake Solutions

I spent some time with a client in the Digital Advertising Technology world in NYC recently and had a conversation that was centered around the topic of Innovation, in particular, Disrupting the current way they do things currently to figure out how to do it better.

“Disruption is when you change the known to the unknown,” said my client. “You have to learn how to reboot! Seek an opportunity to redefine yourself at any point.”

This is very relevant to where the marketplace is today. Right now, we’re in the midst of a technology revolution, specifically on how we communicate and stay connected. There are more products emerging that take advantage of a global infrastructure that’s projected to increase from $500 Billion (’08) to $950 Billion (’13).

So if you’re a hiring manager, you have a particular need to find talent that will deliver on a current project that needs to be completed. The question is: when you hire, do you look at people that have done it before or people that have the potential to do it better?

One thing my client warned in his conversation with my team was to not bring on people who have tackled a similar problem in the past but to seek out people who haven’t faced that problem before. Find fresh talent that look at things differently, the issue with finding people who have done it before is that they know what “can’t” be done and therefore limit themselves to what “can”.
When you’re looking to bring on talent, be open minded that it might be a better idea to hire someone that sees your opportunity as a step in the right direction as opposed to a lateral move. It’s a dangerous way to go about hiring, because eventually everyone’s looking for a step in the right direction and you might be replacing your “no ramp up time needed” candidate shortly after hiring them.

Hire with an eye for potential and not just experience. You’ll have a team that will surpass your expectations because you don’t establish limits to them.