One of the typical mistakes that many companies do when trying to hire someone is that they describe a job that the person will need to perform. They are trying to find a person yet they are describing a job. This is a big disconnect that can lead to a variety of issues.
You are hiring people, which is why when looking for people and advertising for positions, you should be describing people. When thinking about job openings at your company, you need to think about what kind of person would be successful at the job. Then you want to create a profile of this person and go find him or her.
No matter what business you are in, your business is about people. In the business world, there is an artificial division of businesses into B2B, businesses selling to businesses, and B2C, businesses selling to consumers.
This division is artificial because there is no such thing as B2B, business to business. Businesses do not buy anything. They do not buy equipment, supplies or training. No matter how big the company, it is always a person or several people that are making a buying decision.
It works in the same way with hiring. You are not hiring a position. You are hiring a person. The position is secondary.
Many people associate hiring an arduous interviewing process and painful time wasting. You will only have pain when you are trying to guess. If you know who you are looking for, there should be no pain because your job is to simply see if the candidate matches the profile of the person that will be successful at the job.
You should view hiring as an opportunity. Always think about people and look for people. For example, you may think that you need a new employee for a position, but in reality, you have other options, too. You can eliminate the position. You can go in a different direction and expand the responsibilities of one of your existing employees. There is always a variety of options when you keep an open mind. And that is why you don’t describe jobs, describe people.