Show Notes:

Don’t compromise. “How you do anything is how you do everything. And you cannot compromise, I could talk about this forever, but it’s really why our hiring process was even designed to filter bad fits out. And if you are making compromises on the front end, it will never get better. They are giving you their very best self through the application process, trying to prove themselves, trying to get that actual position, but if you’re already compromising then you know what’s gonna happen down the line. If you’re a small firm, you need A-player help; you don’t need B or C-player help. You need a right hand. You need somebody to help you scale and also look for potential growth within that person.”

A-Players are worth the wait. “Holding out long enough to get the right person is worth it in the end. And if you already have a few people on your team, if they’re the right ones, they actually want to endure the pain of less help just to be able to get the right person in the door. I can’t tell you how many times in our early days when our core people were like “No, no, no, I’ll take it. I’m gonna handle 20 more clients until we get this extra person in,” when they thought about the time, the money, and the resources. You’re training, you’re onboarding this person – or maybe you’re not and that’s why you’re losing them – but, you’re doing that over and over again and if you had just waited, during that time you could have actually gotten the right person.”

Be a leader worth following. “This is what I think I hear most out of any firm owner is they can’t find good people and that they just don’t exist anymore. They’re out there. There are seven billion people in this world and someone knows how to do what you need done and they’re fantastic at it. You have to look inward first. Are you even a firm or firm owner that is worth working for? You’re not just differentiating yourself from the firm owner down the road; you’re comparing yourself to every other company out there. You’re comparing yourself to the Ritz, to Amazon, to Starbucks, everything. Like, why would this person actually want to work for you? Are you enticing enough with that? Do you have the culture? Do you have the accolades? Do you do community service? Is your brand even out there? If your job description looks like every other job description, you’re going to get every other applicant.”

“Hell yes” or “Hell no.” “A lot of times when I think about executive or leadership positions, you have to think about your runway and if you have time to build this position and spend the time to actually groom this person to get them there, or do you simply need to buy the position and it’s a ready-made, batteries-included person? If they’re not a ‘hell yeah’, then they’re a ‘hell no.’ If you have any reservations about the person they’re not the one. So when it goes back to their skillset or anything, wherever your reservation is, if it’s not like, ‘Oh my God, I cannot imagine my firm without this person,’ then that’s not the person that you have to hire.”

RESOURCES & REFERENCES

The 5-Step Process to Successful Law Firm Hiring
Ritz-Carlton
Starbucks
Amazon
Facebook
LinkedIn