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We have all heard the business mantra “Hire slowly, fire fast,” but this is not always the right answer or even possible. If a key member of your team with unique skills in a specific area has handed in their notice, there is not a lot of time to find a replacement unless their No. 2 can cover that role well in the interim – in which case, you could just promote them into that role and not need to hire anyone new at all. 

When I became CEO of one company, much of the executive team retired immediately along with the former CEO. I needed to fill several roles fast. Loyal to the executive search firm that had introduced me to the company when I got my position, I gave them the mandate to find us replacements.

Unfortunately for me, this firm believed that finding three candidates per position was enough and I should just pick the person I thought best. This is generally a big mistake, I have learned. Now, I would ask that firm for a hundred resumes for me to glance over, I would mark the 20 that looked interesting to me and then ask that firm to set up calls between me and those 20 people. From that, I myself would pick five candidates for my executives to interview.

Then, from their feedback plus mine, I would make an offer to the best one. That is indeed a lot of work, but having the right person in position is much more important than being forced into a best-of-only-three situation, especially when you did not pick those three. 

Fortunately, for one executive role, we found a good candidate. They were strong in many areas but not strong with computations. Culturally, they fit our collaborative, caring, yet driven culture well. The first couple of times they came to me with bonus amounts for the office employees, there were mistakes in the math, and I was irritated. The answer, I realized, was simply to require all the analytics they presented to go through the head of data analytics or the CFO, depending on whether it was operational or financial, before coming to me.

The CFO and DA head were both strong in analysis, and so errors could be corrected before I even saw the work. You can compensate for some lack of skills as long as a positive attitude is there and a willingness to work with others. You cannot force mathematics on those not skilled in that area, nor should you ever try, just back them up through others. As Marcus Buckingham said in his famous Gallup Survey of 40,000 managers, “Play to the strengths of the people you have and plug their gaps with others.”

I have only ever had one person leave me that I did not want to leave, and that was my executive assistant. When we hired her, we had paid her a bit more than she had been earning, and she accepted. She had a positive attitude, seemed happy, and I thought all was well. Suddenly, she was asking me if she could take certain odd hours as her lunch hour and then came in on her day off, telling me she was leaving because she had an offer of more money elsewhere. I wished she had told me that her pay was an issue, but many people will not do this, they will just leave. It turns out that her job before us had been a big reduction in her salary already since the previous employer had been downsizing. We did not know any of this, but the learning is to make sure you are paying someone well, commensurate with the position and not just more than their last place.

When hiring, I have six or seven members of my executive team interview every new executive candidate. Then everyone, including me, is required to fill in a review of each candidate and give them a number in terms of their choices, first being their first choice and so on. We sit in a room and discuss the candidates. We might even start with the question, “Did you also pick this one as first?” if someone thought one candidate was the obvious choice.

Since everyone had filled in their review form in advance, we knew answers could not be changed for the sake of avoiding disagreement. Several times, the candidate to whom we made an offer was not my first choice. My team would bring up issues such as, “They may have been nice to you, Janet, but they were very rude to me, telling me they didn’t see why they had to meet anyone except the CEO and CFO”; or “They asked me what you would do if they said they needed to add 15 people to the department immediately.” The latter was a red flag as we hired carefully and based on specific skills we needed to add or to balance out a heavy workload in a too-small team. No one was allowed to build personal empires.

However, I am not sure I would hire in this way today. Looking back, I see that sometimes we had great candidates who my executive team did not pick because they would have challenged them in their role. For example, hiring an executive for a specific role when previously they had carried out many different roles in other companies and could equally have managed a role that a current executive had perfectly well.

Each option has pros and cons. Hire someone your team loves and you will get a lot of collaboration, but you may get a less capable person for the role whom your executives think they can railroad and believe poses no threat to them in their position. You may get a weaker result than if you hire someone really strong who could cover multiple executive roles, who is proactive bordering on pushy because they want to get things done. Or the collaborative elements may create stronger results, mitigating the lack of useful conflict and drive. You will never know for sure. As with most things, it’s a balance, and sometimes the best choice may be the team’s No. 1 and sometimes, if different, it may be yours. You just have to make the best choice you can at the time with the information you have.

Sometimes the hiring decision is not even yours to make. When I was at a financial services company, every single new hire had to pass a mathematics test. My boss told me I was getting a new hire on my team.

“He did not pass the maths test, by the way, but his father-in-law is a really important guy at a huge bank,” said my boss. So much for everyone following the rules. Of course, this happens all the time and luckily this chap was a very nice and smart person who did a great job in his role – which perhaps shows that forcing all potential employees to take a difficult math test is fairly stupid.

Another time, another company, and I again was told I was getting a new person on my team who I had never met. “You must handle them with kid gloves,” said my manager, “because their dad is a senator and probably going to stand for president, so we want him to like us.”

Again luckily, this guy was also smart, competent, and willing to work hard, so it turned out fine. It must be nice to have friends and relations in high places who can get you great jobs, not something I have every experienced personally, unfortunately.

But even if the well-connected person brought in is not smart or nice or collaborative, you have to accept it when it is not your decision but that of those with power over you; and every manager has – and should recognize they have – power over all their direct reports and anyone below them in the corporate pyramid. Recognize it and work every day to ensure it does not stop your team telling you what they really think and see at the company.

Once, we were in need of a new exec in one functional area, and the board made the decision, telling me it was hard to find qualified candidates. This candidate had been described as “abrasive” by many of his former managers. He had very short tenure many other places, constantly changing jobs in less than a year, and when I spoke with him, he was loud and somewhat aggressive. I knew he would be a disaster but I had no choice. I trod carefully around him. He was loud and somewhat aggressive. I did not react when he yelled at me or was hypercritical but it did not end well for him after I left and there was no longer anyone acting as intermediary and peacemaker.

When hiring, there are many companies that offer psychological and skills-based testing to help you understand your candidates in more detail than from a simple interview. Once, when I was interviewing for a CEO position, the private equity firm owning the company insisted all candidates go through a 10-hour one-on-one interview process, run by a third-party firm. During this process, the interviewer asked me a ton of illegal personal questions about my upbringing, my parents, and my childhood.

I then had to go through every single place I had worked describing how I got the role, rating numerically my performance, giving the names of my managers, and explaining why I left. Many candidates either refused to go through this process or walked out. I like a challenge so I hung in there, answering each question carefully. It cost the PE firm a colossal $10,000 per candidate. It was also a colossal waste of time. The head-hunter told me that from this test, they had determined I had all the right characteristics of a great CEO.

The PE fund ended up not giving me the job because I had not worked in that specific industry before, exhibiting the kind of narrow-mindedness that is typical in recruiting. When I interview, I simply ask candidates how they would solve a real problem I was trying to solve where I would need their help and I can determine from their answer if they would be a great addition to the team or not. I would not put a candidate through a miserable draining interrogation to see their reaction. Actually, I think I’d rather hire someone courageous enough to walk out in the middle. They would likely make better decisions at work, focus on being efficient, and be more effective.

One time, I was interviewing for a new head of HR. I had just written my annual speech to deliver to all employees. I read it out to the candidate and asked for his feedback.

“It’s great, really wonderful,” he said nervously.

“No, no,” I explained. “I hire people who can stand up to me and give their true opinions and see that honesty is rewarded not flattery.”

He hesitated and then told me two or three ways I could improve my speech. His ideas were excellent. We hired him.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask for references beyond the ones given. Sometimes, I ask folks for the names of their direct manager at their last job. Sometimes the job before last as no one knows they are seeking to leave the current position. “May I give them a call?” I ask. I know that sometimes candidates can have had bad experiences elsewhere so if the answer is negative but with a good explanation, that does not rule the candidate out, it just adds more insight as to their character or the challenges they have overcome. 

One consulting firm where I worked, did group interviews. Not the kind where the candidate is interviewed by a panel, but rather a group of five MBAs sat in a room together and we had to solve a case study (a problem an imaginary company was facing, delivered to us as a white paper). We were being observed by the employees as we debated. No one stood up to take the lead, so I did, facilitating a conversations, using the white board, and ensuring everyone got a chance to speak. I was hired.

“I wonder what you would have done if someone else had taken the lead,” the vice-president said afterwards. “I mean you had to do something with that group of pussycats.” 

“I guess we will never know,” I replied.

When I had been working a few years at a well-known consulting firm, I met up with a classmate at our business school reunion. He had worked there before business school.

“Oh yeah, Janet,” they asked me about you when they were interviewing you, he said casually. “I told them if you can get past the intimidation, she’s great.” Now I wish I had asked exactly what he meant. Was I intimidating because I was smart? Funny? A smart, funny woman?” I guess I’ll never know.

In financial services, we cannot hire people who have bad credit ratings. For example, if we are lending people money and expecting to be paid back, we can hardly hire someone who has taken out a loan but did not pay it back. That would be hypocritical. So we always ask candidates to tell us if they have had any past financial or credit problems. We had to rescind an offer to one executive when his credit report came back showing an unpaid mortgage and foreclosure on his home. He explained the difficult situation in which he had found himself that precluded him from making payments. We were not unsympathetic but pointed out that it was not the poor credit rating per se that made him unhireable for us but rather that he had lied to us about it during the process.

So, when hiring give yourself a lot of choices. It’s a big decision and even if you hire too fast, you may regret it later. If you believe you have to hire fast for a specific role, pick for personality fit and attitude above a complete set of skills as you can teach many capabilities and fill in the gaps elsewhere. Don’t be afraid to tell an executive search firm they failed to find someone that you are comfortable with and they need to give more options.

And once you have made the hiring decision, make them feel welcome – with an appropriate salary, great incentive plan, regular communication as they transition out of their previous employer, gifts in advance (even if small) and a first-day celebration so they feel they have arrived at their new home.

Janet Lewis Matricciani is a two-time CEO who has worked all over the world and is multilingual, now sharing her business lessons publicly. She can be reached at [email protected]