Innovation in recruiting is asking a different question

The common question in recruiting is usually, “How many (or what kind of) job openings do we need to fill?” This type of question is wholly insufficient and absent of meaning as it relates to hiring the right person.

Admittedly, you must have some idea of the volume and scope around your hiring needs, but hopefully you would agree that you want to hire good people who can do the job right, rather than simply filling the jobs you have open. But sometimes we get stuck asking the same question over and over – with often the same results.

A different approach, gleaned from a recent marketing conference presentation by Stephen Shapiro, author of Best Practices are Stupid, challenges innovators to reframe the questions to find a different answer.

The idea is that in some cases, we all may be guilty of focusing on the right question – or at least a question that perhaps we think we already know the answer to (or have been conditioned to answer in a certain way) rather than looking at the problem differently.

So, instead of asking:

• What type of person do we want to hire?

• Where is our company going and who will get us there?

• Why are we hiring for this position?

Deeper questions:

• What problems are we trying to solve with our company/product/service?

• Why do customers to business with us?

• Are we really recruiting or just filling jobs?