Entrepreneurs: Branson on Hiring
by Miki Saxon
When hiring ask yourself what’s more important?
Who they are or what they know?
Education or experience?
In my eyes, personality always wins over book smarts. Company knowledge and job-specific skills can be learned, but you can’t train a personality.
Expert qualifications or skilled generalist?
Time and time again I’ve seen people with a background of broad-ranging employment and skills hired for a job where they don’t necessarily tick the specialist criteria boxes, but become incredibly successful by offering a new level of understanding to the role.
Do you hire what you know or what you don’t.
Spanx’s CEO Sara Blakely once said to me: “The smartest thing I ever did in the early days was to hire my weaknesses.” I couldn’t agree more. I can attribute a lot of my success in business to hiring people who had the skills I lacked.
Is their passion/purpose focused on your vision or to learn enough to focus on their own?
Purpose is no longer a buzzword. It’s a must-have. Passion and purpose will keep people focused on the job at hand, and ultimately separate the successful from the unsuccessful.
Do you grab available talent or hold out for the right person?
While it may seem like a desperate rush to get somebody through the door to help carry the load, it is worth being patient to find the right person, rather than unbalancing the team.
So the next time you find yourself salivating over a programmer who can crush Ruby, but thinks he is a god, think like Richard Branson, before doing “whatever it takes” to hire him.
Flickr image credit: Get Everwise
