Encountering challenges on your first day of your role?

Have you just recently started work and swarmed with deadlines and challenges. You start to question about what have you really got yourself into and start to have many self-doubts in yourself before convincing you are a wrong hire.

Personally, you tell yourself you should have never applied for this job or feel you are underqualified for this role. Every day, you drag yourself to work although you feel uncomfortable and seem to have lost your purpose.

It is then time to think of the following:

THERE WAS SOMEONE WHO BELIEVED IN YOU

Your hiring manager. Your hiring manager saw something you could bring to the team and was convinced you are the right fit for the job, in comparison to others. Unless you have conducted resume fraud, or fluffed your past working experience – then your hiring manager is usually right.

The entire hiring process takes a while, which includes candidate screening, multiple interviews before finally deciding on you. It is important that you should not be expected to perform the moment you step into office. Everyone requires some time to adjust to the unfamiliar environment and responsibilities.

Your hiring manager may have hired you not because of your skill set, but because of your willingness to learn and saw the potential in you.

CHANGE YOUR MINDSET

When you feel like this is not the right fit for you, you are merely focusing on the negative. You start thinking of the quick exit – which is the easiest path, but it is not the sustainable path. Your negativity will overwhelm your thoughts when you should really be considering on how to overcome these obstacles and how should you be able to start performing.

Remember that being uncomfortable will only push you to acquire new skills and develop new competencies – something which only people with progress will have.

Hiring the right person is key for start-ups – But how do you ensure that?

Being a start-up, your usage of resources is fundamental. You always think that the person whom you hire should and most importantly be able to contribute to the success and sustainability of your company. With this mindset, you set out in a search of looking for anyone with the skill set you are looking for.

The right people do not just come along with the right skill set, but also with other factors. You want to hire someone who will help establish the long-term success of your company.

These are other methods you could use to ensure you are hiring the right person for the start up.

Look within

That’s right! You should look within your current new hires. Being part of the team, and understanding the cultural fit – you should consider providing an incentive for your team to recommend someone else to join the team. The person they have recommended should have understood the team culture and the limitations of the company well, for them to provide some recommendation.

This is more important if you are looking to bring someone more senior into the company. Evaluate your current new hires and assess if they are suitable to have been promoted, and allowed to acquire that role.

You can also approach your customers for some recommendations, as they are the proper people who understand your deliverable.

Internship Program

Engage academic institutions to provide you interns. These interns would not just only bring about their academic knowledge and skills, but also about awareness of you as an employer. During their internship, you can assess their interest and skill set.

If there is a perfect fit, then you will be able to have a well-rounded new hire who does not require training.

Target competition

These group of people already have the skillset and knowledge required for the role. Getting your competitor’s employees is the best group to acquire with minimally training cost. However, they might be passive candidates – and if you are worried about face, you can always engage recruitment agencies like us to activate your search for you.

The right time to hire.

The government in Singapore is always encouraging young entrepreneurs to establish a business on their own. With more of such entrepreneurs around, the chances of establishing a successful company is higher and this would also mean a reduction in unemployment rates.

It is all good for the society, but it is a stressful situation for the entrepreneurs themselves.  It is always a stressful situation and as entrepreneurs, we have to make calculated risk and proceed with caution. We are not just looking at fixed cost, such as salary and benefits – but many sources of overhead as well such as training and development costs. This is based on the assumption that the employee is performing as the figures will only get worse if the employee is not performing – where all the training and development cost dedicated to the employee not just become a sunk cost, but businesses have to think of severance pay (and sometimes litigation), but also the time and effort dedicated to finding a replacement. Time always means money.

What is the required skillset?

What is the position you need to fill, depends on the skillset of the founders, as well as the industry of the new business. These are the questions you have to ask yourself:

• Are you lacking in a skillset
• Is the lack of skillset preventing the business from going further
• Must the skillset be hired or should it just be outsourced

With all these information, you have to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each. Services that are outsourced do not need to be managed – in comparison to bringing an employee onboard. Apart from the main difference in the budget, services that are outsourced are guaranteed results, whereas the results of the employee you bring in might vary. You will also think about the knowledge set whereby do the market have sufficient knowledge of the product or industry you are dealing in, and how confidential is your knowledge? The more confidential it is, the more you will want to do it by yourself. If the vendors have more expertise, knowledge and experience, you should consider outsourcing the service to them. Of course, at this time, you should also be thinking the frequency whereby this service is required. One such consideration would be the number of times you have to rebrand your company’s logo and website.

Who is the right candidate to bring onboard?

If you have decided to hire, the next step would be to think of who should you hire. These are some of the following questions you can think of

• Have the incumbent worked in smaller companies before?
• How aligned are the goals to the company with the incumbent?
• Is the candidate an individual contribution, or someone who requires hand-holding

Based on our experiences, companies prefer credentials – be it experience, or educational qualifications. However, companies should always be evaluating on the staying power of such candidates as well as on whether the incumbent will be a good fit with the company’s culture. Employees who have been used to working in big companies could have been used to a structured environment, with dedicated routine tasks whereas in a small organization setting – incumbents could likely be told to assist in practically anything and everything.

However, we have come across candidates who prefer a less bureaucratic environment because it would also mean less politics. With lesser competition, it could mean room for career progression.  We are also surprised when some candidates share that they would like to take up on the role because they are able to learn more.

Conclusion

Ultimately – You have to do your own self-assessment of the candidate. One of the ways you could use your assessment is by getting your existing employees who are well versed with your culture to recommend someone else into the company. Those who are doing the recommendation will be assessing the suitability of the new entrant as well. Or you could widen your pool of potential candidates with us, and we could do the assessment for you – with a fee of course.

Of course, we would prefer the latter.