Hiring and Management for the Agile Company

The process of hiring new people can be a daunting task even for the most experienced hiring manager. Often people in an organization can be stuck in a certain way of doing things, which can lead to stagnant productivity and, at times, lackluster performance by poorly chosen candidates. When you’re working in an agile environment, which requires quick adaptation to new information and market forces, it becomes imperative that you adopt a certain mindset when it comes to how you recruit and the process that comes with it.

In this article, I'll discuss what to look for in agile working candidates, the hiring model you need to adopt, what comes into a successful interview, and what your organization will need to adapt when working towards agile talent management.

Hiring Agile People

The first thing you’ll need to examine when working to develop your hiring practices to match an agile working environment is to find the right candidates that best suit the culture, you’re in.

This might seem like an obvious statement for most managers, but there is often an overt focus on experience as a main indicator of candidate potential. Although experience plays a strong factor in a search for a best-fitting recruit, an aspect that gets overlooked time and time again is the candidate’s cultural match to the role.

Going Beyond Likeability

Caution should be taken when talking about “personality” over cultural fit in this case, as often managers misconstrue this with the idea that they need to “like” the person they hire. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Focusing on the candidates that seem to be the best fitting match based on their personality will keep you hiring the same type of person that already populates your organization.

Agile companies require a level of adaptability, innovation, and creative problem-solving that can only be enabled by a diverse working force. Through a multitude of perspectives, companies can begin developing solutions that might not have been so apparent at the start.

But if the manager keeps hiring people they like, you risk creating a homogenous culture that doesn’t have enough different perspectives that allow for an agile environment to thrive.

That’s why instead of hiring based on sole experience or likeability, it’s important to consider whether they fit the particular persona for the culture your developing.  

Critical Business Skills and Personas

Think of the particular skills you might be looking for when it comes to a role. Experience can bring a lot to the table in terms of what a particular candidate might be capable of, but it can also bring different negative baggage. Experienced candidates can bring bad habits, preconceived notions, and fixed mindsets. These can jeopardize the culture you are establishing.

Moreover, much of the expertise required by a particular role can be taught with enough time, training, and additional certification. So, as a hiring manager, you’ll want to instead focus on non-trainable skills such as the candidate’s character, integrity, overall intelligence, and even their social personality.  Whatever you pick here will be foundational for the culture being established.

Tie into this a candidate’s critical power skills, which consist of their ability to determine value, systems thinking, critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and overall emotional intelligence.

Without these perceived “soft skills”, you risk hiring a candidates that will not fit your core culture, which results in companies incurring massive costs of recruiting, training and certifying people over and over.

Role Personas

Look at developing a persona for the role to understand what kind of individual you need for the position. It’s important to avoid your urge to hire someone who you seem to gravitate towards. While there is a natural bias to connect with people who might seem like you, it can instill a dangerous habit of not hiring for the role but for personal preference.

Crafting personas can help you create a better guide for both you and the candidate to which you relate the role. Start by giving the persona a particular name and a sketch of their rough profile, including the ultimate goal of the persona. For example, A “Barbara” is someone that uses software comfortably and has the goal of meeting SLAs and KPIs, and eventual dreal business results like profitability.

Personas can also be built by developing a specific background for them, as well as including a matrix of who, how, what, and why this person will work and interact with your company.

Build Your Hiring Model and Interview Process

In hiring try following the “Rule of Three”. Through this strategy, establish a team of three people that can interview three different potential candidates. Next, you’ll want to have each of these people interviewed separately by each team member. Ensure that the feedback as well is done in an independent setting to avoid any group interference.

Your interview process should be kept structured in a way that promotes these different strategies. Put the interviewee at ease as they are likely well-equipped in the “art” of interviewing and you want to get them out of “interview mode”. Take this time to really understand what makes each candidate tick and ask questions that dive into their working styles.

Agile Talent Through Agile HR

Collaboration is a key component of the agile mindset, and organizations should strive to create an open atmosphere where recruiting teams can work together effectively. This means that communication between recruiters and hiring managers must be seamless, with all parties involved being aware of their roles in the recruitment process. It also involves fostering an environment where ideas are shared freely and everyone feels comfortable enough to contribute. By establishing a collaborative culture, companies can gain insight into what candidates need or want from their roles before making any decisions about who they hire.

Embracing change is essential for any organization looking to stay competitive in today's market. Agile recruitment takes this concept one step further by creating an atmosphere of continual improvement; rather than simply reacting to changes as they occur, agile recruiters seek out new ways to improve the candidate experience and make better hiring decisions more quickly.

Organizations should also focus on continuous improvement throughout the recruitment process; this includes activities such as regularly reviewing existing selection methods, evaluating job postings for consistency across different sources, and exploring how feedback from applicants can be used in future processes. Taking these steps will help ensure that recruiters are able to consistently source high-quality talent without sacrificing speed or efficiency during the recruiting cycle.

Final Thoughts on Agile Organization and Recruitment

Having this agile hiring outlook is a powerful strategy that can transform the way companies recruit new talent. It focuses on creating an open and collaborative environment in which recruiting teams can react quickly to changing demands, enabling them to make more informed decisions about who they hire. By embracing an agile mindset, organizations can gain a competitive edge by improving the quality of their hires while reducing time-to-hire. This approach helps ensure that organizations attract top talent and remain competitive in today's ever-changing business landscape.