Starting a Professional Services Firm: The Hiring Profile
In the professions, clients are not really served by firms but by the individuals in those firms. While many companies say, “our most valuable assets are our people,” professional services firms are the ultimate embodiment of the phrase. People are likely the only asset.
Creating a deliberate hiring profile is the best way to ensure that your people reflect the desired culture and values of the organization.
It is easier to use your values as a guide to hiring than to alter employee behavior after they join the firm. Alignment to the firm’s values is the first and most important screen. The type of people that you tend to hire, especially at startup, will define the firm.
Here’s more on how to balance technical vs. interpersonal skills, and four ideal traits that I look for in new hires.
Technical vs. Interpersonal Skills
One of the key challenges in recruiting is the need to balance technical and interpersonal skills. Given the highly personalized nature of professional work, we need people with more than just the skills to do the job – we need people with the ability to connect with clients and colleagues on a personal level. We call it the “pizza” test (would you want to go have pizza with this person after a 14-hour workday?) Hiring for technical skills alone – without ensuring that the individual is a fit for the firm and its clients – is a mistake.
In addition to skills assessments and personality evaluations, we have regular debates about the need to balance hiring between highly developed skills and raw talent. I am always the cheerleader for talent. You can teach skills, but you cannot teach talent. Too often, we take the easy route rather than thinking long-term about an employee’s value over a career. Hiring young, ambitious, professional ‘athletes’ and providing them with the opportunity to develop skills is a winning strategy.
Four Ideal Traits
I offer the hiring profile that I have used successfully for over twenty years as an example for you to consider when creating your own. Your hiring profile should be a reflection of you and is part of the blueprint of the firm you want to build. Your hiring profile starts with identifying people that share the values of the firm, possess the interpersonal skills to connect with clients and colleagues, and are truly talented, not just skilled.
Then, I look for four things: work ethic, intellectual horsepower, a state school attitude about life, and interesting quirks.
Work Ethic: The best people I have ever hired grew up in small towns or were raised on farms where work is life and life is work. The easiest way to screen for work ethic is to ask the candidate about their job in high school. I consider it disqualifying if someone didn’t work in high school or college. I have never met a successful professional that did not have an incredible work ethic.
Intellectual Horsepower: Of course, it also takes brains to be a professional and the more the better. Our work is challenging, the environment is always changing, and each new client presents a unique set of circumstances. This requires the ability to figure things out. I realize that there are many different types of intelligence, but I am talking about the old-fashioned kind of smarts here.
State School Attitude: We have had tremendous success in hiring top talent that attended second-tier state universities. Maybe it’s the little chip on their shoulder, but I think it is the prevailing attitude about life that differentiates these folks. We want serious people that take their work seriously without taking themselves too seriously. State school students (especially those that worked their way through) know how to get along and get things done.
Interesting Quirks: Lastly, we believe that interesting people are more fun to work with. In my previous firm we called them “characters with character.” We looked for people that had weird hobbies, strange interests, and quirky personalities. People stayed with the firm because they could be themselves and we celebrated the things that made them different. We work long, long hours. Who wants to do that with boring people?
In professional services, the people that you hire ARE the product. Be deliberate about the type of people that you bring into the organization. Think hard about your hiring profile and stick to it. This is how you can turn vision into reality.
