Before You Hire: Know What You Need
Hiring Strategy | Organizational Design | Workforce Planning | Small Business Growth
When someone leaves your organization, or your team simply has more work than it can handle, the natural response is often: “We need to hire someone.”
But do you?
Before hiring someone new or opening the vacated position, it is important to evaluate what and how the work is getting done and what needs to get done in the future. Exposing a workload problem, an inefficient process, unclear responsibilities, a skills gap, or an organizational structure will help you define what your business actually needs.
Hiring is an investment. Before you spend time recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and training someone, take the time to understand the problem you're actually trying to solve.
The best hiring decisions don't start with a job posting.
They start by defining the work.
Your Problem Might Not Be a People Problem
When work isn't getting done, adding another person can feel like the obvious solution.
Sometimes it is.
But first, ask why the work isn't getting done.
Is there simply too much work for the current team?
Are employees spending time on tasks that no longer provide value?
Are responsibilities unclear or duplicated across multiple positions?
Is a broken or inefficient process creating unnecessary work?
Does the team have enough capacity but lack a specific skill or expertise?
Or has the business grown while the organizational structure stayed the same?
These are very different problems and they require very different solutions.
Hiring another employee without understanding the root cause can add payroll without solving the underlying issue.
Before opening a position, step back and look at the work itself.
Don't Automatically Replace the Person Who Left
When an employee leaves, many organizations immediately pull up the old job description and begin recruiting for a replacement. But a vacancy creates an opportunity to ask an important question:
If we were designing this position for our business today, would it look the same?
Businesses evolve. Business priorities shift. Technology changes. Processes improve. Teams develop new capabilities. Customers’ needs change.
A position created three or five years ago may not be the position your organization needs today.
Before replacing someone, consider:
What responsibilities did this employee actually own?
Which of those responsibilities still need to be done?
Has any of the work become outdated, automated, or unnecessary?
Could some responsibilities logically move to another position?
Are there responsibilities elsewhere in the organization that need to be shifted to this team or role?
What skills does the business/ team need now that it didn't need before?
You may still determine that you need to hire. But instead of replacing the person who left, you're intentionally hiring for the work your business needs next.
That's a very different recruiting strategy.
Start With the Work, Not the Job Title
Job titles can create false clarity.
You may think you need an Operations Manager, Marketing Coordinator, HR Generalist, or Administrative Assistant because that's what you've always called the role.
Instead, start with a blank page.
Ask: What work needs to be accomplished for our business/ team to succeed?
Identify the responsibilities first. Then consider how those responsibilities should be grouped and who should own them. This approach can reveal opportunities you might otherwise miss.
You may discover that you don't need a full-time employee. You may need a part-time employee, contractor, fractional expert, temporary resource, or technology solution. You may realize you need someone with a completely different skill set than the person who previously held the role.
Or you may discover that you do need a full-time employee and now you have much greater clarity about exactly who you're looking for.
Define Success Before You Go to Market
Once you've determined that hiring is the right solution, don't immediately start searching for candidates. First, define success.
Ask yourself:
What should this person accomplish in their first 90 days?
What should they own six months from now?
How will this position contribute to the team's goals?
How will their work support the goals of the business?
What outcomes will tell us we made the right hire?
When expectations are clear before recruiting begins, they can guide the entire hiring process.
Your job description is stronger.
Your evaluation of potential employees is meaningful and focused on skills.
Your interview questions have a purpose.
Separate the Skills You Need From the Skills You'd Like
Once the work is defined, determine what someone actually needs to know or be able to do to meet expectations.
Separate your requirements into three categories:
Must Have: Skills or experience someone genuinely needs to perform the role.
Can Learn: Skills that could reasonably be taught after hiring.
Nice to Have: Experience or capabilities that would add value but aren't essential for success.
When every qualification becomes a "must have," businesses can unintentionally eliminate strong candidates. When requirements are too broad, they may attract candidates who look qualified on paper but aren't equipped to do the work that matters most.
Clarity helps you focus on the skills that will actually make someone successful.
Recruiting Should Be the Result of a Strategy
A strong recruiting strategy starts long before the first candidate applies.
At Trail Works Consulting, we partner with business owners and leaders to determine what work needs to be done, how roles should be structured, what skills are needed, and what type of talent will best support the organization's goals.
Because our goal isn't simply to help you fill an open position.
It's to help you make a hiring decision you feel confident about. One that strengthens your team and supports where your business is going.
Before you ask, “Who should we hire?”
Start by asking: “What do we actually need?”
That's where better hiring begins.
Build Strong. Scale Smart.
