Hire Slow: The Best Strategy to Finding the Right Team

You've heard the phrase before. "Hire slow, fire fast" has been a theory of business debate for years. While some say it's total BS, others are advocates for the HR best practices it puts into place for their company.

Over the last few years, I've made many hires to expand my team. Some were made extraordinarly fast, while others were, at times, too slow for my liking. Who has made the cut over the course of our business growth? At my agency, the tortoise beats the hare.

Even if you desperately need someone LAST MONTH to fill a position that your company depends on, and trust me, I've been in the situation many times...you still need to slow your roll when it comes to bringing on new employees. Here's why.

• Some résumés look better as résumés only. When candidates can't speak to their experience, you've got a big red flag on your hands. It's true, some people are magicians when it comes to beefing up their CV, so if you don't take the time to properly comb through a sea of potential hires in first round interviews instead of hiring based off of a piece of paper alone, you're bound to end up with someone on your staff who claimed 10 years of experience in management when realistically it was more like 2 or 3.
• The key point here - take the time to conduct proper, well-thought out interviews. Ask questions that your candidates won't expect. Read through samples of their work. Have honest conversations with their references. Get to know the person you're hiring, not just the projects they've completed and positions they've held notated on their work experience.

This article was originally published for Inc. Magazine, read the full post here.