A Good Man -- Or Woman -- Is Hard to Find

The Monster Blog: A Hard-to-Find Part (or Person) Is Worth a Lot

Businesses find that hiring people who posses special skills or who have special talents makes the business more profitable.  It also allows the business to turn out superior products, which pleases its customers, which, in turn, increases business.  Those who possess superior skills find themselves the happy position of being sought after and in a strong negotiating position when they find a job they like.

As many of you know, I am a school administrator.  Many people who know me are confounded that, instead working a 10–month schedule like teachers, I work 12 months.  They seem to forget that summer is, at times, more hectic than during the school year.  The physical plant has to be cleaned from top to bottom.  Carpets have to be steam-cleaned.  The acquisition of books takes place in the summer.  For those schools that are growing, the installation of mobile classrooms must be directed when the district decides it cannot afford to build a new wing onto the building.  Staff development is planned.  We administrators also attend professional development opportunities to increase our value as well.  Summer school is taught over the summer.  Our school even has an after-school day care for parents that operates 12 months of the year.

The most important job that occurs during the summer however, is that of hiring new teachers.  No job has a more profound impact on the success of a school.  It is even more so as we are presently in the midst of a teacher shortage in North Carolina (US).  Our state is not producing enough education graduates to fill all positions that are available and we are constantly looking for creative ways to fill the positions that are begging for quality employees.

Administrators begin the summer by seeking only the best employees for their schools.  Unfortunately, as summer wears on and positions remain unfilled, administrators begin lowering their standards and begin considering mediocre teachers.  If the summer is winding down, even unqualified people are considered in order to get a “warm body” into the classroom for the first day.  This also happens in business when managers feel pressured to fill positions when the best applicants have not been found.  Some managers have made that costly mistake when they, knowingly, hire someone they know will become a “project”, which is a less than superior hire that the manager knows he/she will have to train before they will perform at an acceptable level.

It’s my position that one should never hire a mediocre employee.  It’s a long-standing rule of thumb that it is easier to hire the best than to hire someone less than acceptable and train them.  There are several reasons this is true:

• The best are ready to hit the ground running.  They turn out a quality performance immediately.
• They have already established a strong track record; you know what you are getting.  There are no ugly surprises.  Performance by someone who is mediocre may begin well but then diminish over time.
• Those who perform at a high level usually love what they do.  That is why they are so good.
• No training means everyone concentrates on his/her job, not on training the new person.
• One does not have to clean up after someone who is already good.  We all know that we make mistakes while learning.

NOTE:  Keep in mind that some training is always necessary with a new hire, but should be focused on getting the new hire acquainted with the company and its policies and procedures.  Training in job basics does not, however, bode well.

In educational administration terms, it is better to begin the year with a substitute in the room until you find someone good rather than hiring a bad teacher.  Unfortunately, this was a lesson that I learned the hard way.  I was the new administrator in a school in a very affluent community and was advised that the parents there expected a full boat on the first day of school, meaning they expected all positions to be hired.  The pressure to hire was strong and I hired someone that I thought I could coax along.  It was a long year, as this employee required a disproportionate part of my professional day for him to maintain a barely acceptable performance level.  I know that this is not always true and that one can develop outstanding employees.  I’ve done it and was amazed at how quickly they took to the task of getting better fast.  However, I’ve found this to be the exception rather than the rule.

Look for the best potential employees.  They are out there.  When you find them, they are worth a premium, as stated in The Monster Blog:

Those people who possess unusual, customized skills can find themselves in awfully good positions. People are willing to pay a premium for someone who can do something right then and there when nobody else can. There’s an awful lot of negotiating leverage in being the only person available to do a job.