I have recently been working with 2 clients whereby the recruitment of a senior person didn’t work out as planned. In both cases the person was not a culture fit for the business, however were in key roles.
Both candidates had been working in large corporate environments, they really didn’t fit into a mid sized business. This resulted in both candidates being let go, which created a lot of stress for the owners, the candidates, and the staff left in the business.
It is important when recruiting into a business to build a “person profile” before looking at job descriptions, advertising, talking to people. You can do this with online tools, however the most effective way is to sit and plan who the person will be interacting with, what kind of personality works with the business, are they able to be flexible and work in unstructured changing environments, are they still interested in being hands on.
Once the planning has been done, then a job description can be created and the advertising can be written to reflect the person profile. Taking extra time at the start to think about who you need in a business will reduce angst down the track when they don’t meet expectations and are let go. In both cases and all recruitment that I conduct, I work with the business owners on the person profile before any action is taken to find a person.