If you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there

Since we promote people based on their performance, why don't we hire them the same way?

Note to the reader: Let me be perfectly clear - I think the use of skills-infested job descriptions prevents companies from hiring the best people possible. Worse, they prevent good people with the so-called "wrong" mix of skills and experiences from getting the jobs they deserve. So if you're doing the hiring or the one being hired, this story will give you some ideas on how to break free from the misguided and confining reliance on traditional job descriptions.

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I was driving up First Street in San Jose the other day and drove past the building of a client from long ago. This was when I was a full-time recruiter and the client was a fast-growing Internet hardware company riding in Cisco's wake. While Cisco is still around, the client and the recruiter are long gone, but the story is as relevant today as it was 15 years ago.

I was introduced to the president through the Chairman, whom I had worked with previously. He believed that our process of creating performance-based job descriptions might be useful for helping the company clarify the role of the new V.P. Marketing. The President was none too happy upon my arrival and within a few minutes was letting me have it with both barrels:

What do you know about Internet hardware?

How many VP Marketing positions have you placed in our industry?

Do you even know what you're doing here?

Then I asked him to tell me a little about the job. This launched another barrage of expletives, and as best as I can remember, said something similar to the following:

I need a BSEE from a top university. In fact, the person should have an MSEE, too. In addition, the person should have at least 5-10 years in the industry plus an MBA from a top school like Stanford, Cal or Harvard, but not from UCLA (ouch, this hurt, since I got mine there in the John Wooden days.)

He ranted on like this for at least another 10 minutes, although it seemed like an hour, describing more "must haves." Then he threw me another missile. Can you find someone just like this, and how many times have you found people in our industry just like this?" Of course, the answer was no and none, but before answering he burst in again with "I don't even understand why John wanted me to meet with you."

Then I calmly suggested that what he was describing was the description of a person, not the description of a job. This drew a momentary pause and with the temporary opening I asked, what's the most important thing the person you're hiring for this position needs to do in order for you and the Board to unanimously agree you've hired a great person? He hesitated at first, and repeated the list of requirements, but I pushed him again with the same question, suggesting he put the person description in the parking lot and first define on-the-job success.

The president hesitated again, and after a few minutes said something like, "well now that's a really good question." And then said,

The person in this role needs to put together a dynamic three-year product roadmap addressing all product opportunities we have in significant detail. As part of this the person must understand our industry trends, especially what Cisco is doing, and put us in a position to stop playing catch-up. We have about 80 engineers and we want to tap into their expertise, so this product map needs to address what we can develop most efficiently without a heavy investment in new people and new technologies unless absolutely necessary. A rough plan needs to be presented to the Board within 4-6 months.

He then described a few more typical VP Marketing performance objectives to add to the list.

I then asked, if I could find someone who could do this extremely well if they've done something reasonably similar in the past, would you at least talk to the person, even though they didn't have all of the skills and background just described? The President looked at me as if I just landed from another planet, and calmly said, Of course, that's what I just said.

The moral of this tale: focus on what people need to do, not what they need to have. That's how you convert a job into a career. Even better: you'll see and hire more great people!

Epilogue: we placed about six executives with this firm over the next two years until the Internet bubble exploded. Each search started by defining success as described and what the person needed to do. Not surprisingly, if you can prove the person has accomplished something comparable, you’ll discover that the person has the exact level of skills and experiences needed to be successful.

If you're a person being interviewed for a job ask everyone you meet the same question: what does the person in this role need to actually do and accomplish in order to be considered successful?

Recruiters should ask the same question before starting every search.

And if you're the hiring manager, you must know the answer before the question is even asked, at least if you want to hire someone who is actually competent and motivated to do what you need done.

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Lou Adler is the Amazon best-selling author of Hire With Your Head (Wiley, 2007) and the award-winning Nightingale-Conant audio program, Talent Rules! His new book, The Essential Guide for Hiring and Getting Hired, will be published in January 2013.