How to Craft Your Hiring Philosophy

If you want to grow your ClimateTech company, we encourage you to take a step back and look at the big picture. Rather than starting with a role and job description, you should incorporate hiring into your organization's long-term strategy.

We see all too often that start-ups will take an impromptu approach to their hiring and view it on a job-to-job basis rather than on a long-term scale. Instead, we recommend hiring managers take a tactical approach to hiring and view it as an ongoing initiative rather than waiting for the new position to open up.

InfoQ reports that turnover in 2023 is expected to be 50% to 75% higher than ever.

Being intentional, as opposed to reactive, with your hiring will allow you to cultivate and foster the best hires who bring the most long-term value to your organization.

A study from SHRM estimated the average cost of employee onboarding is around $4,100 per new hire. When taken lightly, this adds up and leaves a heavy burden on a growing company.

Further, according to What Fix

• The average training cost per employee is $1,296, based on ATD Research’s State of the Industry report in 2018.

• A 100-person organization with an average employee salary of $50,000 is likely to have turnover and replacement costs between $660,000 to $2.6 million per year.

• For midrange positions, the cost to replace an employee is around 20% of their annual salary. However, when replacing people in executive positions, costs may reach up to 213% of their average salary.

• A typical mid-level manager needs 6.2 months to become fully productive.

Enterprise Alumni adds that the average cost to hire a new employee is $4,683!

All of this evidence points to the fact that long-term thinking will help you craft a hiring philosophy that will not only grow your team but will ensure that you have a powerhouse of an organization set up for success for the years to come.

With that, here are our top 3 tips for crafting your hiring philosophy for long-term success:

1. Hire for the team

It’s critical to ensure that your new hires will mesh well with the other members of the team. While hiring for hard skills is important, hiring based on soft skills and culture alignment is arguably more essential. Someone can be a master of their craft but still won’t bring optimal results if they don’t align with the existing team members.

This logic reigns especially true in the climate space. Mission alignment is critical to the work that we all do, and it’s essential to ensure that your candidates echo that passion.

The perfect mission-driven talent is out there; it’s the hiring manager’s responsibility to vet this passion before bringing them onto the team. InfoQ recently released a report outlining an opportunity for hiring managers to increase retention by connecting employees’ passions to the hiring experience. This same study showed that 31% of people who quit their jobs said they did so due to a lack of meaningful work.

2. Hire for aptitude

Secondly, and most importantly, you should hire for growth-focused roles. Rather than having strict experience requirements, you should vet the candidates based on their passion, work ethic, and desire to grow alongside the company. People who want to prove themselves and acquire new skills will serve as the best long-term hires.

Expecting your new hire to have the experience and all the skills will not only draw out your hiring process, but will hurt you in the long run. Overwhelmingly, people leave their jobs because they feel stagnant in their careers, and there are minimal opportunities for them to be challenged and make an impact. You can combat this by hiring ambitious individuals who can upskill and grow into the position alongside the company.

Overall, the tried and true hiring strategy is to hire someone passionate about your mission who has 60-70% of what you need right now, but you’re confident they can grow into the role. Hiring a person who meets these criteria will benefit the company in the interim and the long term while keeping them fulfilled for years to come.

For example, if you’re looking to hire a Full Stack Engineer but meet a passionate Front End Engineer who has some Back End foundation and demonstrates a desire to learn, they would likely still be a strong hire. Their aptitude and passion will bring a broader skillset to the company while simultaneously allowing them to explore new avenues and learn. This person will be incentivized to stay because they see a direct career trajectory at your company. In addition, this hire will optimize your hiring and prevent you from having to hire two separate people to fulfill the requirements of one role.

3. Recruiting has to be at the forefront of your business decisions.

Let’s take that same Full Stack Engineer example from above. This hiring strategy was deeply intentional and thought out. Had the hiring manager been a stickler about strictly hiring an experienced Full-Stack Engineer, they would have limited themselves to that specialized hire and would have likely had to replace them in the near future and/or hire someone in the future who was more versatile.

Recruiting at your company needs to be a strategy and not a reaction. If you hire to plug the hole of a job opening, you will not be set up for the organization's future. On the other hand, a concrete plan will allow for movement and flexibility among teams and growth, both critical elements to retention.

We encourage companies to find success in the unexpected by being prepared — yet flexible — with a hiring strategy that is outlined before the demand for a job pops up.

Prioritizing these three steps in your hiring philosophy will not only grow your team, but it will save you money and optimize your efficiency for years to come! Of course, there are exceptions to these guidelines, and there are many caveats depending on the role and the stage of the company.

Are you looking to grow your mission-driven team but feel overwhelmed by the countless hiring considerations? The Climate People team has placed over 90 people into climate roles and would love to help you craft your hiring strategy for long-term success!