Hiring Roulette – When Building Your Dream Team Goes Wrong

“Nici, we’re in serious trouble. Can you help?”

Nine months ago, I get a call from Dan, someone I’d crossed paths with at a conference a couple of years before. After the usual niceties and catch up, he shared the fact that they had serious challenges with hiring.??

I braced myself and asked what’s going on. He tells me, “We need to hire 20 people, but no matter how fast we bring them in, it’s like we’re stuck in a revolving door!”

We talked for a good hour, and I could feel his frustration. The problem wasn’t that they couldn’t find people; they were hiring non-stop. The issue was that as quickly as people were joining, both new hires and long-standing team members were heading straight back out. It was chaos.?

Dan’s company had been doing well – really well. They’d gone from being a small start-up to a 70-person business practically overnight. Sounds like a nice problem to have, doesn’t it? Well, not quite.

Like many fast-growing start-ups, they’d been so focused on driving sales and then delivering against contracts that they forgot one crucial thing: how to actually hire and keep good people.

There was no real hiring process in place, so recruitment was based on luck and whichever manager had the most experience. Onboarding? Pretty much “Here’s your desk, good luck.” And as for helping new hires settle in with the existing team – well, that wasn’t happening either.

The outcome was predictable:

1.??? New hires were leaving quicker than they arrived.

2.??? The original team were getting fed up with the constant churn of new faces.

3.??? It was like playing hiring roulette, hoping someone might be the right fit.

4.??? The company culture? Non-existent – just a bunch of people with their heads down fighting fires.

5.??? And let’s not forget the sheer amount of money being wasted on this never-ending hiring treadmill.

Dan and his team had fallen into the classic trap of thinking that hiring fast meant hiring smart. Spoiler: it doesn’t.

Look, rapid growth is fantastic – it’s what every business dreams of – but if you don’t manage it properly, it’ll come back to bite you.?

So, what’s the lesson here? Don’t make the same mistake as Dan. If you’re scaling up, take a moment and make sure you:

• Figure out exactly what you need people to do (it’s not rocket science).
• Don’t treat interviews like a speed dating session.
• Put some thought into your onboarding process – it should be more than “Here’s the kettle.”
• Check in with your new starters and your old hands regularly.
• Show people they’ve got a future with you, beyond just the first day.?

The bottom line: your team is the key to your success. Treat hiring like an afterthought, and you might as well be throwing money out the window.

As for Dan? We got stuck in, rolled up our sleeves, and started sorting things out. There were no quick fixes, but after 6 months with them, they’re on the right path. And now, when someone asks about their company culture, they can actually give a decent answer.

Remember: don’t let your moment of success turn into a meltdown. Invest in your people from day one, or it might just be their last day.