When You Hire the Right Person for the Wrong Position - NYTimes ...

The interview process had been exhaustive, and my co-founder and I were pleased. We had put an expert in pay-per-click-advertising through a series of tests, and he emerged on the other side of the process having demonstrated his deep proficiency in this customer-acquisition channel. After checking multiple references and having an additional meeting to ensure that he fit our culture, we hired our new expert in direct marketing.

One year later, we let him go.

In my last several posts, I have talked about recruiting, interviewing, ?onboarding? and the process that we go through to make sure we hire the right person for the job. But what if it turns out that the job is not a good fit with the company?

This skilled marketer, who had gone through our rigorous interview process, didn?t suddenly lose the ability to do pay-per-click-advertising. In fact, he had performed admirably over the year he spent at H.Bloom. He redesigned our Web site to track direct marketing efforts. He set up relationships with key vendors and agencies that would execute the strategy that he developed. He was adept at quantitative analysis and built monthly marketing programs that were set up to provide a great return for the marketing expenditures.

We discovered, however, that our customers weren?t persuaded by this particular advertising medium. In fact, there were other sales and marketing channels that were performing much better than pay-per-click. We measure performance by comparing the cost to acquire a customer with the lifetime value of that customer. Then, we compare the cost-to-value ratio of one marketing channel with another. Because we have been lucky, since starting the company in April 2010, to garner a lot of positive press about what we are doing, we have receive a healthy flow of leads. Moreover, we hired a team of account executives to sell directly to corporate customers. These executives were quite productive and as a result, we now work with about 600 corporate customers around the country. These customers provide a double benefit: they sign up for a weekly subscription, and because their employees walk past our living art every day, many of them become personal customers.

Pay-per-click did not perform as well. We attribute this to the limited number of words you can use in this medium to convey your value proposition. When we have the chance to describe it fully ? in a press article or an in-person sales meeting ? the value of our offering is clear. With pay-per-click, however, it was evident that we had hired a great square peg to fit into what we had now determined was a round hole. This was entirely our fault.

It?s awful to part with employees, particularly when they are good people who are good at their jobs. But if it turns out that you don?t need a particular position, the only thing you can do is to make a change to make room for the people and the positions you really do need.

I think this is inevitable with fast-growing companies. I?d love to be able to rattle off the three to five things that you can do to avoid this mistake, but I don?t think it is possible. The reality is that at a fast-growing company, things change, and you have to make decisions with imperfect information. Sometimes, you will make a decision to hire for a role that seems extremely important, only to find out later that it is not.

The one thing that we?ve done to try to avoid this in the future is to test new initiatives first, either with existing employees or with an external agency that can be hired temporarily. In this direct-marketing example, it is clear in retrospect that we could have used an agency to test our hypothesis that pay-per-click advertising would be an effective marketing channel for us. Had it proved successful, we could have then hired a full-time person. Had it not worked, we could have ended the contract with the agency with no negative consequences.

Unfortunately, we didn?t test. Once I recognized the mistake, I realized that I had to make the tough decision to make a change and then work hard to help the employee find a new role at another company. Through the process, I focused on being kind but direct and as helpful as possible.

Here?s what I did:

1) Assessed whether there was another position within H.Bloom that was a good fit for his skills.

2) Once we determined that there wasn?t another suitable role, I introduced him to other entrepreneurs and investors who might have a need for a talented marketer.

3) Acted as a reference when other companies were putting him through the interview process. I was forthright: ?He?s a great guy and extremely talented in pay-per-click advertising. However, that marketing strategy doesn?t work for our particular business.?

4) Gave my feedback on opportunities as he evaluated them.

Ultimately, this person landed in a better place for him. He?s continuing his stellar career in direct marketing, and we?ve moved on to hire employees who are more appropriate for our business.

Have you ever hired a great person for a position that you ultimately didn?t need? How did you handle the situation and what did you learn?

Bryan Burkhart is a founder of H.Bloom. You can follow him on Twitter.

Source: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/when-you-hire-the-right-person-for-the-wrong-position/

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