Before You Post the Job

When a business feels slammed, the instinct is almost always the same: hire someone. More hands should mean more capacity. Sometimes that's exactly right. Other times the new hire ends up absorbing a mess instead of fixing one.

The question worth asking first

Before writing a job description, it's worth checking a few things:

1. Is this role actually needed, or is the pressure coming from somewhere else?

2. Could this workload be solved with a clearer process or a piece of technology instead of a person?

3. Is the role being defined too broadly, stacking three jobs onto one title because that felt efficient at the time?

4. Can success in this role actually be described in measurable terms?

When the honest answer to any of these is uncertain, a new hire is likely to land on top of an existing problem rather than resolve it. Sometimes the busy feeling traces back to a handoff that's never been defined, or a workflow nobody's written down. Adding a person to that situation just gives the confusion one more participant.

Defining the role before the job description

Once a role is genuinely needed, the temptation is to open a job board and start listing responsibilities.

A tighter path starts earlier:

1. Define the outcome: what specific result does this role need to produce, stated as something measurable? "Reduce job turnaround by 20%" is an outcome. "Help with operations" is not.

2. Break that outcome into the actual tasks and duties the person will handle day to day.

3. Decide what someone needs to already have versus what can be trained. Ability and personality traits are hard to change. Knowledge and specific skills usually aren't.

4. Set the incentives so they point at the same outcome. Paying for speed while asking for quality creates exactly the tension you'd expect.

Hiring the person, once the role is real

With the role defined, hiring becomes a filtering exercise, not a single decision made on instinct during an hour-long interview. A structured pass through candidates typically includes:

1. Sourcing that matches the role. Referrals tend to be the highest-quality and fastest-converting channel. Job boards bring volume but need heavier filtering.

2. A quick screen to remove clear mismatches early, before investing real time in anyone.

3. A skills or scenario-based assessment that tests whether someone can actually do the job, not just describe it well.

4. A scorecard that compares every candidate against the same criteria, instead of relying on which conversation felt best.

What this actually protects

A bad hire costs more than a salary. There's ramp time, the work that still isn't getting done while they ramp, and the cost of eventually recognizing the role or the person wasn't right. Getting clear on the outcome first is what decides whether a new hire adds real capacity or just adds one more person trying to figure things out.

If you're not sure whether your next hire is solving a real gap or just responding to how busy things feel, that's exactly what the Growth Diagnostic is designed to uncover.