Several years ago, I helped a small manufacturing company outside of Toledo, Ohio hire a new sales director and one candidate stood out from the other nine.
He spent most of his career with a bigger company, managed a sizeable team, and worked with large accounts. He had the kind of resume that made it easy to feel good about him.
There was another candidate we liked too. He wasn’t as polished, but he spent most of his career in small companies where he had to build things himself because there was no system.
The final decision was to go with the first guy because he looked and sounded the part.
A few months after hiring him, things weren’t going as expected.
There was nothing obviously wrong with him. He was smart, experienced, and knew the business. But as we talked through what was happening, something became clear that we hadn’t paid enough attention to during the hiring process.
At his previous company, he had walked into a mature sales operation. The brand was known, the systems were already there, marketing generated leads, and there were people around him to support the work.
This company was nothing like that.
They needed someone who could walk into a much smaller business, figure out what was missing, create a process, and build much of the sales operation as he went.
We thought we were hiring someone who could run the sales department, but what we really needed was someone who could fix a broken sales system.
That distinction stuck with me because I think it explains a lot of hiring mistakes that are otherwise hard to understand.
We tend to look at someone’s past success and assume we’re looking at the person. But we’re also looking at the company they succeeded inside.
Michael Gerber has written for years about how different businesses evolve as they grow. A small company that is still figuring things out is simply not the same place as a mature company with established systems and clear ways of doing things.
The people who thrive in those environments aren’t always the same either.
Someone can be terrific at running a system that already works and struggle when asked to build one from scratch. Another person may love creating order out of chaos but lose interest once everything becomes predictable.
Neither person is better. The question is which one fits the business you actually have today and the one you are becoming.
That sounds simple, but it’s easy to miss when you’re sitting across from an impressive candidate with an amazing track record.
The big company on the resume catches your eye. So does the title, the size of the team they managed, or the revenue number they were responsible for. Before long, you start imagining what all that experience could do for your business.
Marissa Mayer is a good example of this. Yahoo made a similar mistake when it hired her from Google to lead a turnaround they desperately needed, but her success had come from helping build and grow Google, not turning around a struggling company. Yahoo needed a different kind of leader for a very different kind of job.
What we don’t always ask is what was around that person when they produced those results.
How much was already built for them? How strong was the team? Where did the leads come from? What systems were already in place, and what did they personally have to create?
Those questions can completely change the way you see a candidate.
Looking back at the sales guy in Toledo, I don’t think they hired a bad person. I think they hired someone who was successful in an environment that looked nothing like the one they put him into.
And that’s a mistake I think a lot of us make.
We go looking for the best candidate when we should first ask, “What kind of person succeeds in a business like ours and at the stage we’re in right now?”
Because the one who looks best on paper isn’t always the one you need.
And the funny thing is, this could have been avoided if they had first created a job scorecard.
A job scorecard forces you to get clear about first-year accountabilities, the kind of environment they’ll walk into, and what success looks like.
If you’re not sure what a job scorecard is or how to build one for your next hire, just DM me. I’ll point you to a good one.
Keep playing the long game!
When you start a business, nobody hands you a manual. That’s why I write The Long Game.
Each week, I share stories, insights, and observations from the lessons I’ve learned—and the ones I’m still learning—about building a business, hiring the right people and creating a culture people want to be part of.
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