How to Hire Entrepreneurial Employees
April 07, 2008
By Stuart Taylor
As executives and managers of marketing organizations, you may increasingly be asking yourself how to find committed entrepreneurial employees in the current marketplace—those who can take the initiative to develop creative solutions to solve problems and capitalize on opportunities.
Well, it's not easy. As many HR managers likely would agree, many of today's graduates and young professionals seem more interested in what a prospective employer can do for them than in what they can offer the company.
Compounding the problem is the fact that today's candidates are better prepared for interviews than previous generations even though many still lack the ability to think quickly on their feet. They have been coached by professionals to recite practiced answers to the most often-asked questions.
Of the Right Mind
Given such obstacles, business owners would be well advised to focus their efforts on hiring the right person, not filling an open position. This may sound somewhat obvious, but it is a point of distinction that employers often miss. Many employers get caught up in the minutiae of job descriptions, interview techniques, salary negotiations and the like. It is important to think beyond the requirements for a specific job opening and focus on finding someone who will help improve your overall organization.
For example, in the marketing analytics industry, the most common job postings are for data analysts. The term "analyst," however, has different connotations for different people. To some, it is a statistician. To others, it is a programmer. Everyone at a company should be an analyst, no matter what their job function, title or level. It is a mindset—a way of thinking as individuals and as an organization—that constantly challenges the way you go about your business.
Yes, a candidate's technical and marketing skills are important, especially when evaluating someone for specialized positions. However, do not be so fixated on these skills as to overlook a candidate’s intellectual savvy. Most technical and marketing skills typically are developed and refined through experience. The ability to see more than one way of solving a problem is much harder to instill.
Mental Stamina
Today's workplace is mentally taxing, and many younger prospects lack the mental toughness necessary to concentrate throughout the day, every day. Few business problems have a one-size-fits-all solution across all customers or products, which is why it is important to find people who can think creatively to find practical solutions to problems as they arise.
One way of qualifying job candidates is to present them with sample problems that require solutions other than the obvious. Test for people's mental agility to overcome common obstacles faced in the business world such as limited resources, cost constraints, etc. They are the prospects who can be employed in different ways, increasing their value to the company.
No More Teachers, No More Books
When searching for new graduates, identify schools that give students real-world business experience. Using the data analytics field again as an example, the University of Alabama does a good job of exposing its graduate students to commonly used industry software and genuine industry data, giving students a breadth of practical and theoretical learning linked to marketing solutions.
Students at the university gain hands-on experience using SAS software to collect, manage, process and analyze data from large, inherently complex data sets—just as they would do working for an analytics company. The valuable skills students develop from having to overcome the challenges of organizing data from disparate sources prepare them for dealing with the hurdles that await them in the workplace.
Success comes when you find an individual who not only has the requisite knowledge or experience, but who also approaches each task with a critical eye, constantly asking whether we are achieving the company’s, client’s or customer's goals and wishes in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Stuart Taylor is president and chief executive officer of Analytic Innovations LLC, a leading provider of data-driven marketing solutions and consulting services, and managing partner of The Taylor Group, a private equity firm. Mr. Taylor can be reached at stuart@analyticinnovations.com, or 773-867-8060.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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