Is a Hire the Right Answer?

The default assumption

When someone leaves or workload rises, the reflex is to replace or add. It is worth pausing, because a hire is a long commitment with substantial cost — recruitment, salary, on-costs, management time, and the productivity drag while someone learns.

Questions worth asking:

• Is the work still needed? A departure is one of the few natural opportunities to examine whether the role's activities still serve a purpose.
• Could it be redistributed in a way that develops existing people?
• Could the work be reduced, automated or stopped?
• Is the role the same? The job that was right five years ago may not be the job needed now, and replacing like-for-like preserves a design nobody has examined.
• Is permanent employment the right form? Fixed-term, part-time, contract, agency and outsourcing each suit different circumstances.
• Is this the right level? Organisations routinely re-advertise at the departing person's grade without asking whether the work justifies it.

Defining the role

A job description should state the purpose of the role, the main accountabilities, the reporting relationships, and the scope — budget, people, decisions. Written as outcomes rather than as a list of activities, it remains useful as the work changes.

The person specification is where most recruitment problems originate. It should distinguish:

• Essential — genuinely required on day one to do the job.
• Desirable — helpful, and learnable.

Two disciplines make it work. Every requirement must be justifiable and assessable: if you cannot say how you will test it, it does not belong. And requirements must be genuinely necessary rather than conventional — a degree requirement on a role that does not need one, or "five years' experience" where three would do, excludes capable candidates for no reason and narrows the field before you start.

Requirements and discrimination

A requirement that disadvantages a group protected by law must be objectively justifiable as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Common problem areas: unnecessary physical requirements; length-of-experience requirements that disadvantage younger candidates or those returning from a career break; inflexible working patterns; and qualification requirements not genuinely needed for the work.

Defining success

Before advertising, write down what this person will have achieved after a year. This clarifies the requirements, gives candidates something meaningful to discuss, and provides the basis for the probation review. A role defined only by activities produces a hire assessed only by effort.