As entrepreneurs and executives, we have innumerable professional resources available to help us identify and entice the perfect candidates to work at our companies. We have social and professional networking platforms, paid job boards, headhunters, and everything in between.
However, even with all these tools we’re leveraging on a daily basis, there is still a valuable hiring resource out there that is all too often forgotten: our customers. With all the time businesses spend selling to customers, there is rarely enough time spent considering what the customers might have to offer back. Giving customers the opportunity to contribute their two cents to the hiring process can have everyone come out on top in the buyer-seller relationship.
Finding the right talent for a position is a challenge all managers are bound to face many times over the course of their careers, and one that requires all the help they can get. It’s not just a matter of finding someone with the right technical skills; you need to consider their personality, work ethic, ambition, and all the other qualities that aren’t explicitly outlined within an applicant’s resume. Even if you find that person who is a fit for your company and the position, he or she may not want it.
Given these difficulties with identifying the right candidate for a role, it’s crucial for anyone in a hiring position to have a crystal clear picture of exactly what she needs from a candidate before getting too far along in the interview process. As the ones who will be directly impacted by the team you choose, customers need to make it to the top of the list of people who are advising your choices, especially in these three key areas:
Hiring the customer’s team
Let’s say you’re trying to hire a new account executive to work on a given customer’s team. Why not ask the customer rep with whom the team member would be dealing about her preferred qualities? Maybe they know they need to work with people who have backgrounds in certain subspecialties. Or they develop more productive working relationships with people who are comfortable with certain software. When you’re trying to find that one perfect person to fill a specific role, the more information you have about what that role might entail, the better. You’ll save both yourself and the candidate a lot of time by giving them the chance to tell you they have no experience in a specific skillset during the interview, rather than a month into the job.
Developing your product
If you get in the habit of asking customers for their feedback, you may be surprised at what kind of patterns you’ll find. Do all your customers want one specific development in your technology? Consider hiring someone with a specialty in that field. Do they all hate your latest product update because it’s not user-friendly? Bring someone to the team who has a user experience background. Plenty of companies offer customer surveys or do annual check-ins, but take the time to reach out for one-on-one conversations and sincerely solicit customer opinions; they will thank you.
Expanding your network
As you spend more time in a given industry, your network in that industry increases exponentially. The same is true for your customers. Next time you have a job opening, if you don’t have a specific candidate in mind, ask some trusted customers if they have someone they might recommend. If you already have a few people on your short list, ask those customers if they’ve ever crossed paths with these individuals in the past. Is there someone they think would be a better fit than the rest? What advice can they offer based on their unique perspectives? Embrace your customers’ networks as you would your own and rely on them accordingly.
There are some caveats to this strategy, as is often the case, but it all goes back to common sense. Don’t bother customers for advice if you don’t have a strong rapport with them in the first place. Don’t turn to customers with poor business practices to ask for their executive expertise. However, as long as you’re taking these issues into consideration before choosing your valued advisors, you’ll soon wonder how you ever made these decisions without customer input to guide you.