Don’t Post That Job Listing Before Taking These Five Steps

Author: Marlo Lyons

In the rush to fill positions, many hiring managers often overlook critical steps when scaling their teams. Without conducting a thorough team assessment before creating job descriptions, they risk ending up with skill gaps. Rather than simply adding headcount, it’s essential to take a more strategic approach, understanding which additional skill sets and capabilities will truly add value to the team and organization—both now and in the future.

Here’s how to conduct a comprehensive assessment before creating that job description.

Step 1: Strategically align goals

Begin by aligning your team’s goals with organizational objectives. While this may seem obvious, it helps you anticipate evolving skill requirements, ensuring that you hire talent that not only meets current demands but also fuels future agility and growth.

For example, imagine your company is moving toward data-driven marketing but isn’t quite there yet. That strategic direction will likely require employees to have skills like data analysis and strategic thinking, as well as technical proficiency in digital marketing platforms, social media analytics, and marketing automation tools. Therefore, a marketing leader will want to seek candidates who can demonstrate deep technical skills as well as marketing skills.

Communicate transparently with candidates about future skill needs to ensure that they won’t feel underutilized if all their skills can’t be leveraged immediately upon hire.

Outcome: Prevents skills mismatches and will ensure the organization is prepared for evolving demands.

Who should be involved: Your leadership team (or entire team if you have a small team), cross-­functional stakeholders, and your manager.

Rough time frame: One to two weeks.

Step 2: Conduct talent planning

Conduct a thorough talent assessment to identify both your whole team’s and individual members’ existing skills and potential gaps.

Individual skills inventories and tools—for example, the 9Box performance assessment, 360-degree assessments, individual development plans, and talent ­performance reviews—can help you evaluate each team member’s hard and soft skills. This can provide deep insight into which skills and capabilities are missing on your team. Without these insights, you may default to repurposing positions held by long-term employees who lack the skill sets needed for the future but have historical knowledge critical for business continuity.

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) can help you identify where your team has excelled and where it has faced challenges while working on previous projects, cross-functional engagements, or organizational changes. Ask cross-functional stakeholders to weigh in on your assessment to ensure that a new hire will fill team gaps in alignment with stakeholders’ needs.

Outcome: Ensures your team is skilled and well-equipped to meet current and future challenges, enhancing overall business continuity.

Who should be involved: Your HR partner, your leadership team, and your manager.

Rough time frame: One to two weeks. This can be done concurrently with Step 1.

Step 3: Evaluate team structure

Analyzing the current team structure will help you determine how well it supports your strategic goals and whether existing roles and responsibilities are aligned with the team’s objectives. Identify any structural issues that could be addressed by new hires or internal adjustments.

For example, if all of your team managers are considered inexperienced at people leadership, you’ll want to hire someone with deep management expertise who can help mentor the novice managers. If your team has work spread across numerous people, thus hampering decision-making, perhaps work needs to be consolidated under one leader, and you may need to hire someone to manage areas that won’t be consolidated.

Outcome: Enhances team effectiveness and engagement with an explanation of what hole the new hire will fill.

Who should be involved: Your HR partner and your manager. If you have a large organization, include your leadership team as well.

Rough time frame: Depending on the depth of the organization and its complexity, this could take one month or longer.

Step 4: Identify team cultural nuances

While subject matter expertise, diversity of thought, and technical skills are crucial, ensuring that a candidate can integrate well into the current team will help maintain a harmonious work environment and prevent conflict. Assess your team’s unique dynamic to identify which types of personalities have blended into the team well and which have struggled to fit in or be successful. Looking for candidates who can complement the existing team will ensure smooth onboarding and enhance the team’s productivity. For example, if your team values close collaboration, a candidate who prefers to work completely independently might create friction that detracts from the work goals.

Outcome: Ensures new hires will seamlessly integrate into team dynamics, leading to smoother onboarding, enhanced collaboration, and increased overall team productivity.

Who should be involved: Your HR partner, your leadership team, and your manager.

Rough time frame: One week.

Step 5: Understand team members’ aspirations

This is an overlooked yet critical step before putting together a job description. Employees are more engaged and productive when their aspirations and interests are considered alongside organizational needs. By ­understanding current team members’ values and career interests, leaders can avoid courting new hires with overlapping goals or career interests.

For example, if a leader already has three team members who aspire to manage people, hiring another person with similar ambitions may lead to frustration for them, as they may see themselves as behind the three other tenured team members in line for management opportunities. Conversely, if a seasoned people leader is hired, the three tenured employees may feel they have no room for advancement.

Outcome: Ensures talent development and prevents hiring overlapping skills, thereby reducing potential competition or conflict within the team.

Who should be involved: Your HR partner, your manager, your leadership team for large teams, and for teams over 200 people, consider including the data analytics team to develop a detailed survey.

Rough time frame: This depends on team size—for a small team (up to 10 members), this process may take one to two weeks. For larger teams, it could extend to three to four weeks to hold individual meetings, conduct follow-ups as necessary, and complete analysis of the data.

By embracing a strategic and holistic approach to talent assessment before hiring new employees, companies will be able to uncover additional avenues for growth, optimize team dynamics, and ensure that they bring on board individuals whose capabilities align with the organization’s future needs. Ultimately, this proactive approach not only bolsters team effectiveness but also ­fortifies the organization’s resilience by future-proofing its workforce against evolving challenges and opportunities.

Marlo Lyons is a career, executive, and team coach, as well as the award-winning author of Wanted—A New Career: The Definitive Playbook for Transitioning to a New Career or Finding Your Dream Job. You can reach her at marlolyonscoaching.com.